Even JK Rowling can’t win in this race for progressive approval
What’s a virtue signalling writer to do? JK Rowling incurred the wrath of some gay activists recently when she stated that the fictional wizard Dumbledore had, as a young man, had a “passionate” attraction to some other fictional wizard called Grindelwald. Having wasted two hours of my life watching Fantastic Beasts a few years ago, I have no intention of going to see the latest mediocre Potter franchise spin-off, but the row sparked my interest.
The beef with Ms Rowling’s comments, it seems, is that it isn’t acceptable for a writer to tick the diversity box with an after-the-fact, offhand comment. If they want to be applauded for including diversity in their fiction – avoiding the dreaded label of being “too straight and white” – they must write in a character’s experience of being gay. Ms Rowling was chastised along similar lines when, after a black actress was cast as Hermione in a stage work, she commented that Hermione could just as well be read as black in the books.
Writers can’t win in this race for progressive approval. If Ms Rowling had written Hermione as black or Dumbledore as gay, she would soon have been condemned for failing to “check her privilege” or engaging in “cultural appropriation”. Instead, she wrote a story in which most of the characters were white, well-spoken, middle class types, like herself. This now leaves her open to the criticism that her novels are insufficiently diverse.
“Make UK comment on Article 50 extension,” said the email. “Make the UK do what?” I thought. It turned out the email was from “Make UK”, the lobby group known as the Engineering Employers’ Federation until its recent rebrand. It is at least clear from its absurd new name that the factory owners at “Make UK” are easily duped by suave branding experts. There is almost no sentence in which the name doesn’t just sound deeply confusing. “Make UK champions UK manufacturing,” for example, which I read as: “Make UK champions!” I just hope they didn’t hand over too much cash for this tosh.
It isn’t acceptable for a writer to tick the diversity box with an offhand comment