John Lithgow Says He Was Surprised by Backlash Over Joining ‘Harry Potter’ Series
John Lithgow Says He Was Surprised by Backlash Over Joining ‘Harry Potter’ Series
I love John Lithgow as an actor but his reasoning here is horse shit.
First of all, the article's justification for Roald Dahl being an anti-Semite is his family apologizing for his anti-Semitic statements 30 years after he died. Meaning that money from any of Dahl's work would go to Dahl's estate / family, the people who apologized for his anti-Semitism, not the man who is claimed to be anti-Semitic.
Secondly, the play that he was in wasn't even written by Roald Dahl and didn't benefit his estate, it was in fact, a play written by a Jewish playwright about Roald Dahl.
Thirdly, that play was written explicitly to address his anti-semitism. It would be like acting in a play about JK Rowling's anti-trans crusade that in no way financially benefits her, this is clearly not the same thing.
And finally, on top of all that, from everything I can find, the accusation of Roald Dahl being anti-Semitic originally surfaced because of anti-Israel statements that he made in a book review after Israel's invasion of Lebanon. There was one follow up interview where he made some comments that do seem, quite frankly mildly anti-Jewish, but again, this is in the context of a 67 year old world war 2 vet expressing his anger about Israel turning from victims into aggressors. And that was it.
He didn't campaign against Jews, he didn't get any anti-Jewish laws passed, he didn't spread anti-Jewish hysteria, and it was never something he dedicated any actual time to writing about.
The situation between appearing in that Dahl play and appearing in Harry Potter is not remotely comparable.
really? you're shocked that people would get upset you decided to work with a right wing bigot who advocates the genocide of trans people?
Keeping Rowling in as an exec producer (paid role) is hella bold. HBO clearly don't let external factors stop them from hiring a talented personnel, which is admirable, but a LOT of people will be mad about this. If ratings matter to them financially, they might regret this decision. Hell, Hogwarts Legacy got a lot of angry folk rejecting its existence (looking at you, r/GirlGamers) despite Rowling getting no royalties from it (Warner Bros. paid her upfront so boycotting only hurt the amazing devs) and the devs writing in a transwoman as a supporting character. If people can lynch the game, people will definitely lynch the series.
The game wasn't lynched though, it sold phenomenally well despite the commentary. There aren't enough people paying attention to her statements to be in a position to make a conscious choice about her one way or the other. Most people just see harry potter and go "cool, new harry potter thing, I liked that as a kid/like it now, let's give it a shot". If it does get brought up in conversation I still find people are surprised when I say I don't buy or participate in harry potter stuff because they genuinely don't know, or think its massively overblown (coverage of her statements, not necessarily the content of them). We're in a corner of a tiny pocket of the internet, even on Reddit.
TLDR This will make HBO tonnes of money from people who don't care or don't know about Rowling's obsession with trans people, just like every other HP side project.
You have no idea the amount of queers I know that still participate in harry potter bullshit because "it was their childhood" and "she's already rich so what's it matter?"
MFs hide behind their nostalgia and pretend they're still fucking children while paying money to someone advocating for their fucking genocide.
But if you boycott the game then wb and others know it's not a sound investment and will not pay jk money in the first place.
Warner Bros. paid her upfront so boycotting only hurt the amazing devs
Eh, I can see both sides of it. On the one hand, you're right, buying & playing the game doesn't directly give Rowling any money.
But on the other hand, the game being successful increases the value of her brand, and means she can charge more for it next time.
It’s so weird. When the series was announced i was certain the studio was trying to modernize and edit the potter series, to veer it away from JKR and her controversies, so that the series could survive without the creator’s bullshit.
Instead they hired her as a producer, which means they’re just doubling down, not to mention it’s pointless to remake a series with the same people in charge. That would be like a LOTR remake made by Peter Jackson
people playing the game would still be supporting ROWLING, as she still got paid from the whole venture, she probably knew she would get flak thats why she was paid in advance. its like someone rationalizing bill crosby by only watching his show for his comedy and not for what hes done, someone was discussing this on thier yt channel a while back, and then one of the other people said it still supporting his rapey behaviour in a way.
Rich famous person who lives in a tiny bubble with other rich famous people doesn't know what the poors are feeling these days. More breaking news at 10!
I'm willing to bet this isn't so much a rich person bubble as a lack of social media. I wouldn't know anything about Rowling being a terf if I didn't hear about it on reddit and Lemmy.
Yeah that's true too. I first heard about and keep hearing about it on there.
Nobody probably complained as much about him playing Dahl because he’s dead and any influence he might have had is gone with him. Rowling is still very much alive and using her influence to further flame transphobia.
And, as the article notes, Dahl's estate apologised for his antisemitism. JK has not.
After reading this I'm starting to think Jonathan Lithgow might be a wee bit senile.
Might as well end your career by burning any good will you've developed with the rest of it.
What's wrong with him being in a new Harry Potter? Are wizards being cancelled now? I'm just glad they're making new entries cause the play left things very ambiguous. Good use of the time turner though