Last week, Emma Watson faced backlash for her clunky comments about having love for J.K. Rowling despite disagreeing with her deeply offensive repeated comments about transgender women.
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Emma was heavily criticized for referring to Rowling’s anti-trans views as her “opinion” during a wide-ranging interview on the On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast, and she was also accused of trying to play both sides despite the hurt that Rowling’s actions have caused.
To get you up to speed, Rowling wrote the Harry Potter book series that catapulted Emma to global fame when she was cast as one of the leading roles in the movie adaptations at age 10. Since 2020, Rowling has become a hugely divisive public figure due to her commitment to speaking on and funding anti-trans causes in the UK, including her support of a case that made it to the Supreme Court and successfully argued that trans women should not be legally considered women.
Emma has publicly expressed her support for trans people in the past, and while she did not explicitly reference Rowling when doing so, the author appeared to take offense to Emma’s stance and said she wouldn’t “forgive” the actor for her comments.
During Emma’s recent podcast appearance, she was asked about what Rowling had said about her, and Emma replied: “I really don’t believe that by having had that experience and holding the love and support and views that I have, means that I can’t and don’t treasure Jo and the person that I had personal experiences with.”
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“I think it’s my deepest wish that I hope people who don’t agree with my opinion will love me, and I hope I can keep loving people who I don’t necessarily share the same opinion with,” she went on. “I guess where I’ve landed is it’s not so much what we say or what we believe, but very often how we say it that’s really important.”
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“I just see this world right now where we seem to be giving permission for this throwing out of people, or that people are disposable. I will always think that’s wrong,” Emma continued. “I believe that no one is disposable, and everyone, as far as possible, whatever the conversation is, should and can be treated with, at the very least, dignity and respect.”
“As a young woman, for her to have written that character and created that world, given me an opportunity which, to be honest, barely exists in the history of English literature — there’s just no world in which I could ever cancel her out or cancel that out,” she concluded. “I just don’t know what else to do other than hold these two seemingly incompatible things together at the same time… My job feels like it’s to hold all of it.”
But Emma was seemingly left with egg on her face when Rowling responded to the actor’s comments over the weekend — and she wasn’t quite as gracious toward the actor. Taking to her X account, Rowling shared a parody video from the satirist Intel Lady that mocked what Emma had said. Quote-tweeting the video, she added: “I’m here for ALL the spoofs.”
X @Intel_Lady / Via x.com
And earlier today, Rowling offered a lengthier comment on the situation with Emma, tweeting: “Emma Watson and her co-stars have every right to embrace gender identity ideology. Such beliefs are legally protected, and I wouldn’t want to see any of them threatened with loss of work, or violence, or death, because of them.”
“Emma and Dan [Radcliffe] in particular have both made it clear over the last few years that they think our former professional association gives them a particular right – nay, obligation – to critique me and my views in public. Years after they finished acting in Potter, they continue to assume the role of de facto spokespeople for the world I created,” she went on.
Rowling then claimed that Emma once had someone pass on a handwritten note to her that read: “I’m so sorry for what you’re going through” when she was receiving backlash, alleging: “Emma had just publicly poured more petrol on the flames, yet thought a one line expression of concern from her would reassure me of her fundamental sympathy and kindness.”
X @JK_Rowling / GB News / Via x.com
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“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,” Rowling’s tweet goes on. “The greatest irony here is that, had Emma not decided in her most recent interview to declare that she loves and treasures me – a change of tack I suspect she’s adopted because she’s noticed full-throated condemnation of me is no longer quite as fashionable as it was – I might never have been this honest.”
“Adults can’t expect to cosy up to an activist movement that regularly calls for a friend’s assassination, then assert their right to the former friend’s love, as though the friend was in fact their mother,” Rowling concluded. “Emma is rightly free to disagree with me and indeed to discuss her feelings about me in public – but I have the same right, and I’ve finally decided to exercise it.”
And how Rowling has doubled down on her stance on Emma despite Emma’s attempt to be civil has not gone unnoticed by other social media users, with the whole situation undeniably being an A+ example of the “paradox of tolerance.”
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This philosophical concept argues that a society that is tolerant of intolerant people risks allowing intolerance to take over and become the dominant value. The paradox was first brought to prominence by philosopher Karl Popper in his 1945 book The Open Society and Its Enemies, where he argued that a truly tolerant society has to hold on to the right to deny tolerance to those who are intolerant, as intolerant people will never extend the same grace back.
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He concluded that if intolerant ideologies are shown tolerance, they could end up eroding our core values and result in oppression.
And this sentiment has arguably underscored all of the ongoing discourse on social media, with one popular tweet reading: “Emma Watson tried to give grace to a bigot, and the bigot in question just laughs in her face. Are you starting to see why ‘we can respect people even with their hateful viewpoints’ doesn’t work? They don’t give anyone else grace, so why should YOU give THEM grace?”
Another viral tweet that has been liked more than 61,000 times adds: “That’s the problem with respectability politics as liberals are trying to please all sides and the bigots still don’t like them. There is no need to show respect to bigots or people who hate you. Grow a spine and take a stand against oppression. It isn’t hard to do that.”
While somebody else added: “I bet Emma feels like a real chump now. All that handwringing over loving jkr despite her politics or whatever only for jkr to repost videos mocking her.”
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Emma has not responded to Rowling’s latest comments — let me know your thoughts down below!More on this
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