JK Rowling’s Recent Award Win Cancelled Due To Controversy
JK Rowling won't be taking this award home.
This article is more than 2 years old
Once upon a time, JK Rowling’s name was enough to trigger a nostalgic trip down the magical lanes of Hogwarts. But since 2019, the celebrated author has been an active recipient of severe backlash for her controversial opinions on transgender people which have been perceived as transphobic by many. Apparently this ongoing controversy has been the reason for a reputed outlet to pull down its “Person of the Year” polls when it became obvious that Rowling was steadily inching towards winning the award.
U.K. publication The Guardian recently ran an open poll for its readers, asking them to register their “Person of the Year.” The poll was in response to Time magazine’s recent announcement that Elon Musk will be their “2021 person of the year” for his influence “for good or ill” as a “clown, genius, edgelord, visionary, industrialist, showman.” Citing that it is a critically panned choice, the outlet then asked its readers to share their own picks and reasons for picking them. A form was provided at the end for readers to put in their choices. People majorly nominated JK Rowling as “Person of the Year” and it soon became apparent what the end result would be.
But suddenly, the outlet pulled down the survey while deactivating the form provided for submissions. The Guardian has not provided any explanation for this sudden decision and doesn’t seem too eager to post the result of the polls either. While the outlet may have some other reason for the abrupt cancellation of the polls, Twitter has been having a field day with supporters of JK Rowling calling out the publication and congratulating the author on winning Guardian’s Person of the Year Award. Check out some of the tweets below:
While The Guardian may or may not have closed the polls because JK Rowling was being picked the most, the author is indeed facing exclusion for her controversial views. It was recently highlighted by The Hollywood Reporter that even though Rowling is the producer and co-screen-writer of Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, the film’s official trailer featured her name at the very end and in very tiny letters.
This was a far cry from how JK Rowling’s name cropped up in trailers of the previous films, whether it was 2016’s Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them or 2018’s The Crimes of Grindelwald wherein her name was flashed in big letters halfway through the trailers. Apparently, Warner Bros. is choosing to keep the author from future projects under the Wizarding World franchise, including the upcoming Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts, the recently announced anniversary special on HBO Max.
The retrospective will include (via The Hollywood Reporter) Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Ralph Fiennes, Tom Felton, James Phelps, Jason Isaacs, Helena Bonham Carter, Robbie Coltrane, Gary Oldman, Imelda Staunton, Oliver Phelps, Mark Williams, Bonnie Wright, Alfred Enoch, Matthew Lewis, Evanna Lynch, and Ian Hart. Chris Columbus, the director of the first two films Harry Potter films will be joining them as well while JK Rowling’s presence will only be marked via archival footage and reportedly via segments filmed in 2019, long before the author got embroiled in controversies.
