Does Watching Harry Potter Make You A Bad Person? Critics Want You To Think So

By Jennifer Asencio
| Published 1 minute ago

HBO’s new Harry Potter show has received mixed reception since the trailer was released. Some people are really looking forward to Warner Brothers’ re-imaging of the property, while others have criticized it on a variety of grounds, such as HBO’s announcement that they can’t keep up with a season-per-year schedule and that fans might have to wait longer between seasons. However, not everyone is criticizing the show on its own merits or lack thereof.

In an article on The Verge titled “There is No Ethical Consumption of HBO’s Harry Potter Series,” writer Charles Pulliam-Moore makes the claim that the show being successful will encourage JK Rowling to write more Harry Potter material, thus putting more money in her pocket. This, he says, is objectionable because Rowling is “attacking transgender people via the legal system.” Therefore, “there’s no way to watch this show without supporting Rowling’s bigotry.”

Is JK Rowling Actually A Bigot?

Evidence of Rowling’s “bigotry” surrounds her defense of women in vulnerable spaces, such as crisis centers, changing rooms, and sports competitions. She has been heavily critical of the inclusion of boxer Imane Khelif in the 2024 Olympics under the women’s category because Khelif claims to suffer from a condition that saw him misidentified as a girl when he was born. She supported businesswoman Maya Forstater when Forstater sued a former employer for not renewing her contract because of her personal beliefs, which is a violation of the UK’s Equality Act. Transgender activists were immediately outraged and have been trying to cancel Rowling ever since.

After trying to explain that science and biology aren’t as simple as they are to validate the arguments against Rowling, Pulliam-Moore then discusses her advocacy in favor of women and girls. Rowling doesn’t subscribe to the slogan that “trans women are women,” and advocates for private spaces for people of the female sex; while she is accused of discriminating against all trans people, she does include trans men, who are of the female sex but present as male, in her advocacy. Her advocacy centers on biology rather than identity, which has been labeled “transphobic” by people who believe that identity takes priority.

An Existential Threat To Activists

However, to Pulliam-Moore, not including trans women among the female sex is “transphobic” and thus bigoted. He makes this clear when he argues against the UK Supreme Court’s ruling in 2025 that the legal definition of “woman” was based on biology and not identity, an effort that Rowling helped fund through donations and her own women’s advocacy organization. Pulliam-Moore found this ruling “problematic” and condemns Rowling for supporting it.

Pulliam-Moore admits Rowling could have engaged in her advocacy with or without the show. However, Rowling’s continued popularity and thus continued income are an existential threat to trans activists, who truly believe identity supersedes physical biology.

Reviewers Are Already Choosing Sides

Pulliam-Moore suggests that not only should nobody watch Harry Potter, but anyone who does is a bigot, or knowingly supporting bigotry. This is meant to poison the well against the upcoming series, a tactic we’ve seen “reviewers” take over again when they don’t agree with the political or cultural stances of some creators. Critics took this same tactic with Scream 7, they did it with The Pendragon Cycle, and now they are pre-emptively trying to do it to the HBO show. In all these cases, it has nothing to do with the merit of the work, but behind-the-scenes drama in which “reviewers” have clearly taken sides.

There are plenty of other reasons to be skeptical of HBO’s new Harry Potter show, but the angle The Verge chose was to warn potential viewers that watching the show categorizes them as bigots. Nobody who thinks like Charlie wants to be called a bigot, so this is expected to be an effective argument against watching the show.

Fan Blaming Is Losing Its Efficacy

However, this tactic has been tried before. Collectives of fans, cast, crew, and critics of various productions have blamed bigotry on the failure of a lot of shows and movies recently, including The Acolyte, Starfleet Academy, Buffy: New Sunnydale, and The Bride. It didn’t help.

As the strategy of fan blaming grows in popularity, it’s becoming weaker as an argument. The ouster of figures like Kathleen Kennedy from Lucasfilm and Alex Kurtzman (we hope) from Star Trek seems to indicate this. In the case of Harry Potter, The Verge’s attacks will have as much effect as the efforts to boycott the video game Hogwarts Legacy, which went on to become a best-seller.