Fair play to Draco Malfoy. (Now there are five words I never thought I’d write.) Tom Felton, who played Harry Potter’s platinum-blond nemesis in the films, has done what so many of his young co-stars have failed to do: he has defended the woman to whom he owes his career.
Tom Felton, who played Harry Potter’s platinum-blond nemesis in the films, has done what so many of his young co-stars have failed to do
Ever since JK Rowling dared to say that biological sex exists, the cast of the Potter flicks have routinely been called upon by trans activists and showbiz journalists to throw a match at the ‘transphobic’ witch. The one who played Harry, the one who played Hermione and the one who played Ron have all obliged at one point or another.
Harry, aka Daniel Radcliffe, went as far as to say his stand against Rowling was ‘really important’. He ‘felt very, very much as though I needed to say something’, he told IndieWire in 2022. ‘I’ve met so many queer and trans kids and young people who had a huge amount of identification with Potter… I wanted them to know that not everybody in the franchise felt that way.’
Felt what way, Dan? That gender-confused kids shouldn’t be whacked on experimental drugs and sterilised? That the word ‘woman’ shouldn’t be erased from the English language? That rapists shouldn’t be put in women’s prisons? Because, contrary to the hate-monger caricature, that’s literally all that Rowling has ever said on the trans issue. Future generations will struggle to understand how these perfectly humane, liberal views ever became unsayable.
Anyway, Draco is having none of it. Felton, who is about to reprise the role of Malfoy on Broadway, spoke up in support of Rowling at the Tony Awards on Sunday. He told Variety that he is ‘not really attuned’ to Rowling’s many controversies, before adding:
‘I have not seen anything bring the world together more than Potter. She’s responsible for that, so I’m incredibly grateful.’ (He said something similar to the Times in 2022, when Harry and Co were getting their digs in.)
Gratitude. How rare that’s been from the Potter kids over the years, as the woman who made them famous has had her name dragged through the mud. All because she opposes a reactionary, eccentric ideology that wants to rip up women’s sex-based rights and tell troubled, often gay, youngsters that they were actually ‘born in the wrong body’ and require surgical correction.
For this, they turned her into Voldemort. She Who Must Not Be Named. Quite literally. At the height of the anti-Rowling witch-hunt, studios even began quietly removing her name from the trailers for Potterverse films that she herself had written and produced.
Here’s hoping Felton’s gracious words are another sign that the spell of gender ideology is finally breaking.
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