J. K. Rowling and Joss Whedon: a eulogy of sorts
From time to time I meet those who seem to have been exempt from childhood obsessions. No fictional universe to have inhabited, no hero to surrogate parent them until they could discover codependent relationships as a young adult. I’m cautious of these people - they reek of happy families. I prefer the obsessives, twice-dwellers, fluent in fantasy, clinging to other worlds like bats. My childhood obsessions were Harry Potter and Buffy Summers. They may seem typical, cash cows churning out plastic and special editions and screaming teenagers, but considering them through a lens of profit, and not of narrative, I consider blasphemous. Their symmetry is strong. They are both told in seven parts, both Shakespearean in scale and execution, both young heroes with spine-crushing burdens, exploring death and morality and love and responsibility. Both of these worlds ran a parallel race of zealous passion for me as I grew up, gay and Catholic and surrounded by addicts, pleading with a cruel god that a Hagrid or a Watcher would arrive on my doorstep and explain to me exactly why life was so hard. Perhaps I was special like my heroes. Buffy, not chained to a marketplace full of children, was given darker spaces to grow in. Unlike Harry, she got to have hate sex and self-loathing and survived violence of all kinds. She was also female and hilarious - so she just about took the obsession cake. But both of these worlds were my wonderland, and their creators were my surrogate parents.
That’s where the dream of the child meets its waking point. J. K. Rowling. Joss Whedon. The monarchs of my maturity. The fall of Joanne is, of course, bludgeoned like a Bludger to a bore at this point, and splashed in red all over the walls of the internet. For a long time, I was Petrified on those walls, like Filch’s cat, praying the transphobia was all the work of an imposter with the real Joanne locked inside a bottomless chest like Moody. Or perhaps the transphobia was some kind of late-career Abramovićian-in-complexity performance art that’s grand finale would somehow reverse all of the damage done, like when I stumbled upon a fake article about Katie Hopkins being a satirist in disguise all along. Of course, eventually I had a good Mandrake Restorative Draught, and came to adjust to the cruel adult world where one of my monarchs had violently and inadvertently self-abdicated. I wept, honestly. You may trivialise her fall, or predicted something wrong was afoot long ago, but to me it was a deeply confusing and hurtful betrayal. Luckily, I still had Joss - queue a Buffy binge! Plenty of genius left to soak myself in, plenty of guilt-free tears still to cry, 144 episodes of exceptional wordplay and emotional wonder to anoint myself with.
Toxic. Cruel. Hostile. These are the words stitched into the shroud now being draped over Joss Whedon’s crippled reputation. The Buffy cast have just opened up about their traumatic experiences on set, as a direct result of Joss’ behaviour.
My truth. #IStandWithRayFisher pic.twitter.com/eNjYcJ6zwP
— charisma carpenter (@AllCharisma) February 10, 2021
Empathy does not equal a pardon, or mitigation. When someone has shaped your conscience and your worldview and then proceeds to commit crimes against said conscience, there is a strong internal wrestling match between truth and loyalty. It is not easy to abandon the hand that has fed not only entertainment, but years of escape, safety, and wisdom. Joss’ behaviour is far easier for me to begin to understand than Joanne’s, and not just because he’s a predictable white male. The last time I wrapped on a film shoot, I left seething to myself about how the NHS could stop complaining and how film directing was in fact the most stressful job in the world (I’ve since returned to sanity, clapped on my front step loudly and hand-painted a rainbow for my sins). I have felt the rage of the film set (maybe not quite a seven-season epic, but you try making a short film during COVID-19!) and endured the trials of my own testosterone poisoning. I have launched some terrible, nuclear words from my twisted launch pad of a tongue. And still, I can’t see myself bluntly responding to an actress telling me of her pregnancy with the words “are you going to keep it?”. And if I do, please do cancel me!
Joanne is a different case. Joss likely forgot about or figured he’d get away with years of creating a toxic environment for the women - and presumably men - on his set. Joanne is raising what many of us consider to be transgressions like a baton of truth and light, convinced she is doing noble work. We’ve had longer to understand her position, as well as a 4000 word essay explaining it. I’ve felt horror upon learning of her traumatic sexual assault, a horror I’ve felt for so many women in my life. But the loyal child within me has not been able to dissuade me that she has typed out the noose in her own gruesome internet lynching.
J.K. Rowling
by Stuart Pearson Wright
oil on board construction with coloured pencil on paper, 2005
I’m not so much interested in the question: can art be separated from the artist? I find that question useless and unanswerable. There can be no universal law on whether you can still listen to The Smiths or watch House of Cards. Each person has the right to make their own decision on whether they can distance themselves comfortably enough from the creator to enjoy the work they still undeniably love. I will be reading Harry Potter and rewatching Buffy until the cows come home, and then I will be reading to and watching with the cows. I’m not writing to reconcile my position with the works, but rather to understand my new relationship with the creators themselves.
Their work operates on a scale of complexity and beauty that deserves its place in history. They created modern day testaments, timeless allegories, feminist icons, heroes that love and hurt and sacrifice themselves in the image of Christ. But their heroes are stronger than them. Every genius has their darkness - a deep black pool to swim in, gathering wit and wisdom and truth to bring back to the surface and spill onto paper. This darkness is romanticised time and time again. But clearly, it is dangerous. Joss lusted for his co-stars, and destroyed his wife’s confidence repeatedly across years of marriage. Joanne, despite completely believing in her cause, is contributing to a climate of hatred, bigotry and at its frighteningly frequent worst - murder. The dark yin to the genius’ yang is very real and in this case, very ugly. It would be neat and platitudinous to conclude that the artist crafts an icon to hide behind - that they are flawed and human and inferior to their creations - that the genius is only human after all. But that would do them another disservice. Harry and Buffy are human, convincingly human. They are broken, they are terrified, they wrestle with their own darkness. It’s just that Harry and Buffy won the battle, while Jo and Joss seem to have lost.
So, my position? Thank you and fuck you both! You cruel, genius cunts! Like every good child, I will do as you say, and not as you do. I will listen to your wisdom, even if you won’t. And if I obsess a little less, forgive me, I am growing up and the real world needs some of that love you used to write about.
