The Biggest Problem With JK Rowling Isn’t JK Rowling
I had to look twice to make sure I saw it right. Propped up against the Salt Lake City sprawl, on the side of I-15, there is an electronic billboard proclaiming “I [heart] JK Rowling.”
My first instinct was to flip off the sign — I grew up in New Jersey, after all — and my girlfriend joined me from her spot in the passenger seat. But, mostly, I was just baffled. Why here? For years religious conservatives railed against Harry Potter and tried to force book bans for their persistent fear of insidious paganism, and here, in the very religiously conservative Utah, there’s a sign supporting her. Not that it’s a surprise in 2020, but bigotry really does seem to bring people together.
Honestly, I wish I could just forget that Rowling exists. I’ve been to a Harry Potter-themed bar crawl and seen the movies (the books were not my cup of tea), and I’d be perfectly happy for her to take her millions and millions of dollars and just leave everyone else alone. But Rowling has been doubling, tripling, quadrupling down on her transphobia this year, while her supporters decrying “cancel culture” despite the fact that her latest bit of literary rubbish immediately hit the bestseller list and she undoubtedly keeps raking in royalties and licensing beyond this writer’s wildest dreams.
