‘Black Mirror’ and ‘Loki’ Directors Say They Rejected HBO’s ‘Harry Potter’ Due to J.K. Rowling’s Transphobia: ‘Absolutely F—ing Not’

https://variety.com/2026/tv/global/black-mirror-loki-directors-hbo-harry-potter-jk-rowling-1236834589/

594 points · 65 comments · view on lemmy.world

65 Comments

neuracnu@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 101 pts · 24d (7 replies)

I generally try not to use vernacular not of my generation, but...

based.

yakko@feddit.uk · 17 pts · 24d (5 replies)

Better than cromulent

Zorque@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 24d (3 replies)

Embiggen your horizons.

becausechemistry@piefed.social · 10 pts · 24d (2 replies)

It’s a perfectly cromulent word.

Whostosay@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 24d (1 reply)

I want to throw food at y'all

fartographer@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 24d

You seen grocery prices lately?! I want in on this!

Cromulent

prettybunnys@piefed.social · 4 pts · 24d

In this house we respect the laws of thermodynamics Simpsons

WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 24d

Verily.

BigMacHole@thelemmy.club · 91 pts · 24d (10 replies)

You're ALLOWED to say NO?

-The Actors in this NEW Harry Potter series!

CannonFodder@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 24d (9 replies)

To be fair, they're probably not already established, and they're starving for work.

VoteNixon2016@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 53 pts · 24d (3 replies)

Yeah, John Lithgow and Nick Frost were really hoping for that breakout role

The child actors get a pass for now, everyone else, I've lost absolutely any respect for

RustySharp@programming.dev · 18 pts · 24d (2 replies)

Sigh.. I liked Lithgow. He really shouldn't need this with what he's already got. Yet here we are :(

athairmor@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 24d (1 reply)

And, he’s a terrible choice for that character, anyway. Not that I’d ever watch it.

explodicle@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 23d

I would've thought that about him playing a serial killer too.

Zorque@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 24d (4 replies)

I've seen at least one article where the actor states they're doing it out of love for the series even though they actually do despise JKs views.

athatet@lemmy.zip · 20 pts · 24d

Idk. Maybe find a different series to fall in love with.

WitchKnight@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 22d

Fucking spineless ass take

redditStinksSuperBad@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 23d (1 reply)

Let's be real, if it came down to accepting 100s of thousands of dollars or sticking to your morals, everyone one in here would take the cash.

Tiresia@slrpnk.net · 3 pts · 23d

Accepting a couple hundred thousand dollars, sure, maybe. Let me know if someone's offering.

But actually work in the fascist propaganda machine for a couple years? I honestly think I couldn't. I would get burnout. I would go to online communities I enjoy and see people rightfully despise me and then have to go out of bed to kill trans people by proxy. I would probably off myself.

Maybe for millions I could drown myself in sycophants and drugs and sex and amazing experiences long enough to get the work done. And then the tabloids would eat me alive and I would have to struggle to dig my way out of that.

For it to be a good selfish decision I would need tens of millions. And then maybe I'll make my own propaganda machine, with blackjack and hookers. In fact, forget the blackjack and hookers, I would pay the British trans community to ratio Rowling on a professional basis.

Is that still selfish? Sure, I would take a couple million for myself. The British queer community would be my emotional support political radicals. It might end up doing more harm than good as people say the HP fandom is good again because I'm there and because the British queer community would be financially captured by my interests rather than anything grassroots or democratic.

cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone · 58 pts · 24d (21 replies)

also because it's a shit idea and rowling is a holocaust denying piece of nazi shit

Anarki_@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 33 pts · 24d (16 replies)

I'd like a source on this. Not because I doubt it but because I want to compile a list that I can show people who thinks her shittyness isn't so bad.

Edit: Fuck it, post proof of all the awful shit she's said. Let's make a hate thread.

cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone · 32 pts · 24d (11 replies)
Anarki_@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 10 pts · 24d (8 replies)

Appreciated. Keep it coming. I wish to learn.

melsaskca@lemmy.ca · -20 pts · 24d (7 replies)

Learning to hate is easy. Everyone is doing it. Being a peaceful person is very rare.

Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · 25 pts · 24d (1 reply)

Hating evil and being peaceful are not mutually exclusive.

Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 24d

Username checks out.

Anarki_@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 23 pts · 24d (1 reply)

Rowling does not deserve peace. She's broken the social contract.

Tiresia@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 23d

She's broken the agreement between the bourgeoisie and the state that the state will use violence to defend bourgeois privileges/rights in exchange for the bourgeoisie accepting certain obligations/civic duties?

Didn't that old thing get put out of its misery by Margaret Thatcher almost 50 years ago?

edible_funk@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 23d

This bitch gets trans kids killed. Fuck her and fuck you for pulling that shit.

Simon_Shitewood@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 24d

Loving people without hating the ones that hurt them is worthless.

WitchKnight@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 22d

Get a job

prettybunnys@piefed.social · 2 pts · 24d (1 reply)

It generally agrees with my views of Rowling, but is there anything beyond that single tweet to further flesh it out?

She could easily back out of that statement by saying “the fever dream” she’s referring to is the assertion she backs Nazi gender theories / policy instead of that they don’t do that.

I’m more apt to believe she’d deny it, but … skeptics and all.

Simon_Shitewood@lemmy.ml · 7 pts · 24d

When others provided her with sources, she responded by linking to an anti-trans account calling the first transgender woman to undergo gender reassignment surgery in Germany to a "troubled male.” The thread in question also denied that transgender people were targeted by the Holocaust.

Come on, it's literally in the text

AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml · 12 pts · 24d (2 replies)

Recently watched this really good video essay about the all the other things that are wrong with the Harry Potter books (e.g. fat shaming) and how it's informed by her neoliberal ideology.

Anarki_@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 6 pts · 24d

Saving this for later. Thank you!

UnrepententProcrastinator@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 24d

Shaun? Click the link... Shaun!

umbraroze@slrpnk.net · 6 pts · 24d

I don't know about Rowling specifically, but an unsurprising number of TERFs are real buddy buddies with far right groups, and this definitely includes people in Rowling's orbit.

Forgot the names, sorry, because this is one of the sad reality things you don't want to dwell too much on or you'll just get permanently sad. These people are miserable.

GalacticGrapefruit@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 24d (2 replies)

Oh fuck, I didn't know THAT was on her list of insane takes.

osanna@lemmy.vg · 16 pts · 24d (1 reply)

Pick a random insane take, and she probably believes it. She really is a rubbish person. I say this as someone who LOVED HP.

GalacticGrapefruit@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 24d

No, I get it. I used to cosplay with a troupe. We did literary events at elementary schools in character to encourage kids to read.

I was so proud of that, until I found out the truth.

starlinguk@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 24d

Why make up shit when she's done enough real stuff?

Sniatch@feddit.org · 57 pts · 24d

This came from this Insta post https://www.instagram.com/p/Db_Dr_wx7jn/

Sunshine@lemmy.ca · 35 pts · 24d

Down with terf JK Rowling trash!

OwOarchist@pawb.social · 33 pts · 24d (6 replies)

Should have accepted it, and then used only trans people for the entire cast. Not a single cisgender person on screen for the entire runtime.

dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net · 30 pts · 24d

Except JK Rowling is an executive producer on the show and would probably use her vast resources to destroy their lives and force HBO to reshoot with a new cast.

Zorque@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 24d

But don't tell anyone until it's released and is a huge success. Being sure to highlight all of JK's comments complimenting the cast.

SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 24d (1 reply)

Directors of a tv show usually don’t cast roles. That’s what the casting director and producers do. They were probably asked to direct a single episode.

OwOarchist@pawb.social · 1 pts · 23d

Hm, yeah. I guess I was thinking of it in a movie context, where the Director is basically the big boss and everybody on set answers to him (including the Casting Director). Still has to answer to the producers, but they're usually not hands-on, and if they disagree with what they're doing, their only leverage is the threat of firing him (but replacing a Director mid-production is a huge headache, so it's not often done).

But in a TV context, yeah, the Director is often only there for one episode, and it's the Show Runner who's usually the big boss, who controls the project as a whole, and who the Casting Director answers to. One episode's Director wouldn't be in charge of casting. Maybe they'd be able to do casting for a small role that only features in the one episode, but that's it.

Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 5 pts · 24d (1 reply)

jk rowling would probably raise hell and prevent the show/movie from being aired.

OwOarchist@pawb.social · 11 pts · 24d

Okay. You still get paid, and now the terf's whole project is getting cancelled. Win/win!

Snapz@lemmy.world · 26 pts · 24d

What a shitty way to end a great run, John Lithgow...

raspberry_confetti@lemmy.ml · 22 pts · 24d

As one should

PlayfulWitch@piefed.blahaj.zone · 21 pts · 24d (4 replies)

The reason? Rowling’s views on trans persons’ rights, which many have alleged are transphobic.
Is this variety being shit or are they scared that sex pest rowling will sue them? Why the fence sitting?

ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 19 pts · 24d

Is this variety being shit or are they scared that sex pest rowling will sue them?

Both of those things can be true

Cass@piefed.blahaj.zone · 12 pts · 24d

It's not even about her views anymore, it's her actions

Malyca@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 24d

She does sue everyone

TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 24d

I assume that question wasn't meant to be quoted?

dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net · 4 pts · 24d

The bare minimum but good for them I suppose.

Trampampoline@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 24d

"Yeah we did!" - own a small fib for clout

"no we didn't!" - risk ticking off the trans community FOREVER(it never washes off)

I know what I would've gone with.

OryxAndCake@slrpnk.net · 3 pts · 24d (4 replies)

It's probably just because I've got the brightness all the way down and a red light filter going, but that picture of Rowling looks to have a 5 o'clock shadow.

SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 6 pts · 24d (1 reply)

Eh, she's a bigot and a nazi-adjacent sympathizer, no need to attack her appearance or gender presentation. We can do better than that. Like she's an evil piece of shit billionaire who uses her power for evil, attacking normal individuals, spreading hate and intellectual and ethical negligence under the guise of helping women, is a hack of a writer who stole all of her work and then inserted noxious bigotry and awful stereotypes of all kinds, racist, sexist, xenophobic, antisemitic, homophobic, fatphobic, fascist, and abilist rhetoric into children's novels, used that to become a billionaire, and then turned her heart even darker and betrayed everybody.

OryxAndCake@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 24d

I wasn't attacking, just pointing out.

ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 24d (1 reply)

And an adam's apple.

OryxAndCake@slrpnk.net · 3 pts · 24d

Plenty of cis women have those too though.

QueenHawlSera@piefed.social · 2 pts · 17d

I would love it if JK Rowling had a change of heart, just a real coming to God moment, where she realizes that marginalizing people is wrong regardless of how badly she wanted to be her father's son.

Since that will never happen because she's a cold unfeeling creature incapable of empathy, I hope she drops dead.

Why can I enjoy Call of Cthulhu but not Harry Potter? HP Lovecraft isn't getting paid every time "Cthulhu" shows up in pop culture. Remember, you cannot separate art from the artist as long as the artist is still getting paid.