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Harry Potter and the Vibe Shift
I actually was thinking about giving this topic a rest - it makes me feel like I'm being radicalized in slow motion - but...just when I thought I was out...some room for optimism: NY Times: In Defense of J.K. Rowling
To give a brief rundown of the situation:
NYTimes employees in conjunction with GLAAD released a letter putting pressure on the NYTimes for reporting in a "biased" fashion on trans issues recently and how it's being used by states to pass bills against gender medicine.
The NYT...actually shows some spine and refuses to bend, saying: “...But at the same time, we recognize that GLAAD’s advocacy mission and The Times’s journalistic mission are different.". Who would have thought that we'd get to the point where a basic recognition of the different role of activists and journalists would be noteworthy?
Apparently the NYT also posted an internal memo warning NYT staffers against public working with an activist organization against their own company stating that they: "will not tolerate, participation by Times journalists in protests organized by advocacy groups or attacks on colleagues on social media and other public forums."
Then, we see what the bruhaha was likely about and what the open letter was trying to preempt: we get the above op-ed yesterday, basically defending JKR against the criticism she faced - ahead of the release of The Witch Trials of JKR by Megan Phelps-Roper, an escapee from the Westboro Baptist Church.
In essence: the same strategy we've seen from wreckers and ideologues time after time played out, but the Times did the bare minimum and acted like adults. At a certain point - just as with wreckers like Felicia Somnez at WaPo - I suppose it simply became too much for too little gain. The constant fitna was fine when it was in service of popular causes with little cost, but now seems to be in service of a cause that is dragging many people down. So why not put out the op-ed, while also keeping the workers in line?
Said article's content?
...
Nothing here is new to anyone who spent any time checking on the actual words of JKR and her defenders. But it is interesting to see the NYT posting about it and fighting the pushback, especially as it follows the incredible failure of the Hogwarts: Legacy boycott and Sturgeon's fall from power*
The backlash can no longer be written off as the cultural peculiarity of "TERF Island" - a desperate rhetorical ploy used by activists to distract the blind. It's not just a European thing. It's everywhere.
My personal take was that transactivism was just the next, inevitable step in the march to atomization in liberalism. And it probably still is. But there may be bridges too far, even for liberals. I hope.
A good note to leave the trans issue on for at least a while and reset my brain before I become some sort of schizo, hyper-reactionary monarchist or something. Maybe go play a few new games...
* It's been a great month for her, after years of shit, I have to say.
Similar here, I figured that the high water mark before the tide receded would be somewhere in the vicinity of HAAS Fat Activism and the push for acceptance of "Otherkin." I hoped dearly that it would be be WELL before we hit the "MAP is a valid and acceptable sexuality" movement.
My suspicion is that the very visible entrance of Trans women into female sports leagues combined with the push for gender reassignment of prepubescent children is what snapped normies into a posture of resistance.
Note that I don't think the resistance is particularly well organized or even coherent, but with NYT taking the position that "it is in fact acceptable to consider the implications of these policies and one is not required to accept activist claims at face value" at least there's some room to breathe for those who actually WANT there to be a discussion on the matter.
But the left has no option to just retreat on this point, and as we've seen even the most milquetoast of defiance is treated as a nigh-existential threat, so generally I just find myself wondering which angle of attack they will implement next.
It feels very weird, though, to be on TheMotte talking about a culture war issue where the right is seemingly the one with momentum and the left is now on defense. Only took the combined might of the most popular author on the planet, the largest newspaper on the planet, and some of the more popular GOP governors and pundits.
The Cathedral as a whole appears to be proceeding with it's general plans quite unhindered, mind.
The fat activists have been pretty successful. The fact that "fat shaming" is regarded as something that shouldn't be done is really quite remarkable.
Fat activism has been spectacularly unsuccessful. Obese people are as hated as ever, women and girls with normal-range bodies are still hating themselves and riddled with insecurity. More people are overweight, but that's basically unrelated.
They've managed to get "plus size models" onto Magazine Covers, so that's at least a norm or two cracked open.
Likewise, look at the very existence of Lizzo and Rebel Wilson as celebrities.
It's fair to say they've had superficial successes, even if it isn't going to "take" with the rest of the population.
Wait and see how they react to the recent development of seemingly effective weight loss drugs, though.
I will not stand for this erasure of Ella Aretha Ma Rainey and this absolute fuckin' banger. I don't really know who Rebel Wilson is so I won't comment, but Lizzo makes fun music, fat acceptance for her isn't any stranger than Aretha or Ella.
Are there any obese male singers that have any real prominence now, other than Rick Ross?
I'll grant that Meat Loaf was a sex symbol in his day.
Speaking of Meat Loaf, if you broaden your scope to film actors as well as singers, you also have Jack Black, for instance.
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I'd say DJ Khaled isn't exactly svelte. Luke Combs is a fatass, when he's in music videos with his wife it is disgusting to imagine them together. Historically we have Biggie, biz markie, Cedric the entertainer, big pun, a dozen great Tenors, fats domino, fats waller. Toby Keith's waistline varied throughout his career, as did the mustachiod half of Brooks and Dunn, I don't remember which is which.
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