Robbie Coltrane did not need to stand up for J.K. Rowling. Sorry, Hagrid.
If we’re going to ask anyone about J.K. Rowling’s remarks, it should be members of the trans community. Not Robbie Coltrane, who played Hagrid in the series.
Robbie Coltrane may have brought Hagrid to life in the Harry Potter series but he’s also no expert on what is or isn’t offensive to the trans community. When Rowling was progressively letting herself get worse and worse on Twitter, Coltrane decided to talk the Radio Times about the author.
His claim? That people are just “hang around waiting to be offended”. Not only is this wrong but it also dismisses the fact that Rowling’s words are extremely hurtful to an entire community of people.
And sure, people will now claim that Robbie Coltrane is part of this idea of “cancel culture” but no one is cancelling Coltrane, he’s just no the person who should be speaking on this issue. As far as the public is concerned, he’s a cisgender man. So his ideas on whether or not what Rowling said is harmful or just people being “outraged” to be outraged is not any of his concern, to be quite frank.
Coltrane went on to say that he didn’t what she said offensive and that we wouldn’t have won the war as a Twitter generation?
"“I don’t think what she said was offensive really. I don’t know why but there’s a whole Twitter generation of people who hang around waiting to be offended. They wouldn’t have won the war, would they?”"
Honestly, Coltrane should not have made a comment. It’s that simple. This wasn’t his burden, no one was pestering him to make it and if they asked, he could have said “no comment” or, as he does later in the interview, say he doesn’t want to talk about it. Instead, he made a statement and now fans are going to point out that this isn’t his place.
Next. You cannot protect J.K. Rowling anymore. She’s making it impossible. dark