Here’s why #RIPJKRowling is trending on Twitter. Rather than being a real hashtag movement reflecting the Harry Potter author’s death, the latest social media outrage linked to Rowling is in response to her controversial belief system. On the back of the fourth season of British crime show Strike, which is based on Rowling’s Cormoran Strike novels, airing, the first reviews of the latest chapter in that book series have arrived online to huge controversy.
Rowling has caused major controversy over the years since the Harry Potter books were released, not least for her refusal to stop tinkering with the lore of the Wizarding World. More pertinently, Rowling’s increasingly outspoken views on trans rights – which she has doubled down on repeatedly in the face of major criticism – have earned her major outrage from the LGBTQ+ community. And the latest round of protest against Rowling on social media is thanks to the release of the latest Cormoran Strike: Troubled Blood.
In response to the first reviews of Troubled Blood hitting the Internet, the major issue for those opposed to Rowling’s stance on trans rights is the plot of the latest novel. The Telegraph review revealed that the novel sees the central detective on the hunt of a serial killing cis man who dresses as a woman to murder people.
The Telegraph review notes that it would appear that Rowling’s big message for Troubled Blood is “Never trust a man in a dress.” In light of her outspoken stance – and refusal to stop using her considerable platform to spread hate – that message seems to suggest that Rowling is using her novels as another platform to push an agenda. The Twitter hashtag denouncing Rowling for her anti-trans views and announcing her death has risen as a direct response to the news of the novel’s content. It may have co-opted a deeply distasteful social media trend culture, but the protest – at least for those using the hashtag – justifies the means. The plot, at least from the outside, feels like a continuation of her rhetoric and a new means for her to advance her thinking through a popular vehicle with a guaranteed audience. It also calls into question the debate on separating the art from the artist, because it is impossible in cases like this.
The Telegraph review also seemingly pre-empted the response on social media: “The meat of the book is the investigation into a cold case: the disappearance of GP Margot Bamborough in 1974, thought to have been a victim of Dennis Creed, a transvestite serial killer. One wonders what critics of Rowling’s stance on trans issues will make of a book whose moral seems to be: never trust a man in a dress.” And this isn’t the first time that the Cormoran Strike series has picked up criticism linked to Rowling’s views: her use of Robert Galbraith as a pseudonym is loaded in itself, given that it seems to be a reference to the infamous proponent of conversion therapy Robert Galbraith Heath. Clearly, that much cannot have been an accident. Whether this has any sort of impact on sales of the Cormoran Strike series or on Harry Potter remains to be seen.
