Without JK Rowling, I doubt any of us would have heard of Emma Watson. If Rowling and her franchise hadn’t been such a behemoth, it would be also tough to care about the confused views of a 30-something former child star.
Without JK Rowling, Emma Watson, who played Hermione Grainger in the Harry Potter film series, would not be worth an estimated $85 million (£63 million) or still be considered worth interviewing, even though she has not acted since 2019.
Without JK Rowling, I doubt Emma Watson’s anodyne speeches as a UN goodwill ambassador – in which she declared herself a feminist, but one who wants to smash the stereotypes of feminists being unattractive man-haters, and who wants to involve a billion men in “the movement” – would have received much publicity.
Without Emma Watson, however, JK Rowling’s life would have followed very much the trajectory it was ever going to follow. Not to mention, in recent years, maybe it would have been made slightly easier.
In a lengthy tweet on Sunday, JK Rowling robustly criticised, among many other things, Watson’s “I’m here for ALL the witches” speech at the 2022 Baftas, which was widely seen as a thinly veiled dig at Rowling for not supporting trans women. As Rowling notes, “Emma had just publicly poured more petrol on the flames” at a time when she feared for her family’s safety.
This is the same self-made author who created phenomenally successful worlds, became globally beloved the world over and then decided, when she saw women’s rights under threat through gender ideology, to lead the fight and put her money where her mouth is.
Everyone who has worked with Rowling and benefitted from her talent could have supported her or put up and shut up. But luvvies can be ignorant sheep.
Watson and her fellow Harry Potter actor, Daniel Radcliffe, both sheltered stars who speak out on matters beyond their intelligence, decided to turn on the woman who had made them.
Without digesting or comprehending a single sentence of Rowling’s deeply researched objections to the child mutilation of reassignment surgery, the harms of self-identification, the closing down of free speech or the dangers of housing vulnerable women with biological men, they decided not to think for themselves, but to follow the herd with their public pro-trans responses.
In 2020, the same year that Radcliffe posted that “transgender women are women”, Watson babbled the usual meaningless trash about “people are who they say they are”. Thus, she too betrayed her benefactor.
Rowling had known Watson and Radcliffe since they were 10 years old, and now her life was under threat. For the last few years, she has had to live with high levels of security because of endless death and rape threats to her family.
This is what happens if you say biology is real. And still, she persists.
Watson’s latest “apology” – in an interview on Jay Shetty’s On Purpose podcast, Watson said she still “loves” and “treasures” Rowling – isn’t an apology.
Credit: YouTube/Jay Shetty Podcast
It is neither fish nor fowl, with some psychobabble about holding space for Rowling in her heart. It is cognitive dissonance dissolved into meaningless platitudes. Watson’s expensive education clearly did not cover emotional intelligence.
Ironically, it was the hypocrisy of Watson’s backpeddling in that podcast interview that prompted Rowling’s articulate comeback at this over-privileged princess. And, ironically, it now makes Watson appear even more callous than before.
Rowling claims that, after the metaphorical petrol-pouring, Watson sent her a handwritten note saying, “I’m so sorry for what you’re going through”. As Rowling points out, Watson was on the side of those who wanted her assassination. A floral notelet is hardly going to cut it.
Watson could have also called Rowling. But that, I suppose, would have taken guts. Self-awareness. Maturity. To think that a brief handwritten letter, plus a soft-focus apology on a mental health podcast, could make up for the sins of the past shows Watson’s level of delusion.
“Like other people who’ve never experienced adult life uncushioned by wealth and fame, Emma has so little experience of real life she’s ignorant of how ignorant she is,” says Rowling. “She’ll never need a homeless shelter. She’s never going to be placed on a mixed sex public hospital ward. I’d be astounded if she’s been in a high street changing room since childhood.”
Rowling never forgets what it was like to be poor. Watson simply has no idea.
Since she uttered her latest gibberish, Watson has even been cancelled on the social media platform, BlueSky (a nicer, gentler one than X).
Watson quoted 18th-century statesman, Edmund Burke, in her 2014 UN speech. “All that is needed for the force of evil to triumph is for enough good men and women to do nothing.”
When it mattered, Watson not only did nothing, she made the situation worse.
Rowling did something. Something of immense significance. Watson’s new “both sides” approach disintegrates on contact with reality.
There really are two sides here, as Rowling once again demonstrates: one of kindness, imagination and principle, and one of faddishness, dogma and betrayal. One creates. One destroys. Watson stupidly chose the wrong one. Her spell is in tatters.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com ’
