On Tolkien and Rowling and Other Horrible People

Why do some people get canceled while others are given a pass?

Admit it: J.R.R. Tolkien was at least a little bit racist.

It’s not hard to look at his dwarves and see a caricature of the Jewish people. An entire race of people, the orcs, are described as being essentially abominations of nature: inherently evil, brutish, and not all that smart. Does this sound familiar? It should. It’s how Black people were often described throughout the history of Europe and North America (think about the Jim Crow South and how it was assumed that Black men constantly lusted after white women). Does anyone else find it odd that it was the people from “the East” (re: Asians) who allied themselves with Sauron while the “men of the West” (re: Europeans) were the heroic forces that stood against the oncoming darkness?

That doesn’t mean that his works aren’t brilliant, and that they shouldn’t be revered as classics (genre-defining or otherwise). Besides, we do see two racists (Legolas the elf and Gimli the dwarf) become friends and spend the rest of their lives together, and Galadriel famously reaches across the racial aisle and honors Gimli with a gift she denied even the greatest of her kind (three times over at that). But the racism is still there, and you don’t have to look that hard for it.

And let’s be honest: Tolkien, had he lived in our modern times with the same cultural background (strict, conservative Catholic) as he grew up with in his time, he probably would not have a very high opinion of LGBTQ+ people either. He would be anti-choice. His racism may be tempered with some modern sensibility, but he would no doubt have other prejudices. And he probably would be very vocal about them.

So why does Tolkien get a pass and J.K. Rowling doesn’t?

Before you read any further, know that I am not defending Rowling’s transphobia at all. Her views are abhorrent, and I make every effort to not support her with my dollars. That’s not hard to do since I’m not a huge Wizarding World fan, but I am a fan and I do like to visit that world and given that it has grown beyond its creator it is, thankfully, possible to enjoy the creation while censoring the creator. Second-hand shops, personal fan fiction, and Rowling’s own growing distance from her creation make it possible to enjoy the Wizarding World while still holding her views in contempt. If only somebody more tolerant would buy the lot from her so we’d no longer have to accept the fact that she is still allowed to grow in wealth and status while using her platform to spread hate and intolerance.

But Tolkien is (again, at least mildly) racist and, while he never openly expressed his opinion about trans people, would probably be transphobic as well. We know this because we know that he was a very conservative and traditional person. Trans people were not a topic of public discourse of his time the way they are today. That’s the only reason we don’t fully know his thoughts on the matter.

Yet Tolkien is revered and respected while Rowling (rightfully) has earned the ire of her own fandom.

Why is that?

Let’s look at another example: Ike Perlmutter. The former CEO of Marvel Comics is an outspoken conservative with known horrible social views. His most infamous publicly expressed grievance was likely stating that Don Cheadle could replace Terrence Howard in the Iron Man films because all Black people looked the same. Yet, Marvel fans—many (if not most) of them outspoken liberals—threw money at the Marvel Cinematic Universe films even when he was in charge. Why did we not band together and refuse to give this massive company our money until they ousted their horrible leader?

We can say that it was because he did not alone benefit from those impressive box office numbers. There are, after all, hundreds of people who collaborate to make a single film possible, and the MCU was an extensive, interconnected franchise. But the same could be said for the upcoming Harry Potter TV series, yet there are already calls to boycott since J.K. Rowling is involved.

There are many reasons why Rowling has earned her deserved ire. My question is why hasn’t other horrible people? Why do we still give Billy Corgan, lead vocalist and guitarist of the band Smashing Pumpkins, a platform when he’s an Obama birther and right-wing conspiracy theorist? Why do we still give Chris Pratt money when he’s been involved with a known homophobic church (he can deny it all he wants, but he has a public history with it) and showed disrespect to his ex-wife for not giving him a “healthy” child? Why do any of us continue to shop at Wal-Mart or Target, or have a Facebook account, or buy Apple products?

When the video game Hogwarts Legacy came out, I was discussing with a friend of mine why I was not going to buy it new. I was going to wait and buy it used, so that J.K. Rowling would not get any of my money (of course, my doing so relied on somebody else buying it new, so it’s not like she wouldn’t get any money, but let’s not complicate the discussion further). My friend shrugged and shared that, no matter what he spent his money on, somebody horrible was going to benefit from it, so he saw no need why Rowling benefitting was any different. I admit that he had a point. We live in a capitalist economy, so somebody who expresses views we hate is always going to profit from our hard-earned dollars. We may not know it, but it’s true.

We don’t know for certain that Tolkien would have hated trans people, because—as previously stated—they were not a topic of conversation in his time. We only see hints that he was racist; he never openly expressed any racist views. Ike Perlmutter is so far removed from the actual work that goes into making movies that he’s an afterthought at best when we pay our extortion rates for a movie ticket. Many celebrities rarely discuss their politic and social opinions, so there is limited (if any) evidence of their awfulness. Basically, there’s no evidence of wrongdoing, so there’s no crime.

And that is why we disdain J.K. Rowling. She actually volunteered her vile thoughts. What’s more, even when the public tried to educate her, giving her the benefit of the doubt that she was uninformed and thus unenlightened, she doubled down on them, standing her ground even when she was revealed to be on the wrong side of history.

But that answer is still not satisfactory to me. We know that Mark Zuckerberg openly supports Trump and many of his policies, yet we all still have Facebook accounts. How many people stuck to their (I refuse to call it X) Twitter accounts even once we knew that Elon Musk was pure evil?

You can argue that these institutions are simply too big to combat. Their place in our society is so deeply entrenched and so much a part of our daily life that it’s essentially impossible to ignore them. I think that’s a valid response: for all of Zuckerberg’s faults, my life would be far more difficult without Facebook. Plus, let’s revisit that argument that an entire community of people—many of them surely of sound mind and admirable spirit—work together to bring these products to us, so when we refuse to support them because of one person, we’re hurting the good people as well.

And that, I think, is what it ultimately boils down to: a combination of ignorance of a person’s truth, a desire for convenience and recreation in our lives, and the acknowledgment of those deserving of praise. It’s for these reasons that we can allow some people to be horrible while we hold others in contempt. The MCU films bring joy to our lives. Music allows us to forget our daily stresses. Fantasy literature is an escapist diversion as much as it is a vehicle for personal growth.

However, I’d like to revisit my friend’s argument. No matter where we spend our money, somebody awful is going to profit. So do what you can live with, stick to your principles where you can, and do what you must to survive this hellscape we call life.