The Harry Potter cash cow continues no matter how ridiculous its author gets

The juggernaut of Harry Potter really can’t be stopped, even as J.K. Rowling descends further and further into an obsession with the rhetoric of trans-exclusionary radical feminism. The latest stop on the gravy train is a new set of audiobooks from Audible (a subsidiary of Amazon) and Pottermore Publishing (the audio and ebook publisher of the HP series). Setting apart from the beloved Stephen Fry and Jim Dale narrations, these will be full-cast audio productions with more than 100 actors, per Variety.

According to a statement from the company’s CEO, “millions upon millions of Audible listeners” have been “devouring Harry Potter at an astonishing rate,” which explains why they’d want to offer what’s being called a “reinvigorated listening experience.” The new audiobooks will provide “immersive audio entertainment through high-quality sound design in Dolby Atmos, stunning scoring, a full range of character voices and real-world sound capture,” per Variety.

“We are delighted to be collaborating with Audible on what will be a groundbreaking audio edition of the beloved Harry Potter stories,” Neil Blair, chairman of Pottermore Publishing, said in his own statement. “J.K. Rowling’s storytelling lends itself perfectly to the application of new audiobook technologies, and we’re certain this sophisticated, immersive audio experience will not only add a new listening dimension for existing fans but will introduce a whole new generation of listeners to the wizarding world.”

Harry Potter is obviously popular enough to eclipse the anti-transgender bigotry of its author, but one wonders if her behavior will ever cross a line that becomes a liability to these megacorporations that remain in the Wizarding World biz. Far from distancing itself from Rowling’s controversial views, Warner Bros. Discovery has ingratiated itself further into her good graces. David Zaslav apparently met up with her personally and has reportedly kept her involved in building the writers’ room for the upcoming Harry Potter television series.

Meanwhile, Rowling is constantly posting about trans issues on Twitter/X, to the point where it’s more than a little weird. Even setting aside the bigotry inherent in Rowling’s views, it’s an unhealthy amount of time to spend on any one issue, especially when you could be spending that time luxuriating in your castle or, like, writing another book.

To demonstrate how far down the rabbit hole we are at this point, last month Rowling blundered into denying aspects of the Holocaust. When one user posted that Nazis had burnt books on trans healthcare, Rowling responded, suggesting that the fact was a “fever dream.” Of course, there is research and literature to prove that Berlin’s Institute for Sexual Science (founded by Magnus Hirschfield, an advocate for transgender and homosexual people) was targeted, and that trans people were also specifically persecuted. Rowling was forced to issue a statement denying her Holocaust denial, though she didn’t exactly retract her previous statements: “I’m familiar with such activists’ assertions that transgender people have been uniquely persecuted and oppressed throughout history, but claims that trans people were ‘the first targets’ of the Nazis–a claim I refuted on X, and which led to these accusations–and that I ‘uphold [Nazi] ideology around gender’ is a new low,” she wrote on her website.

It’s not exactly a surprise that companies would still be willing to put profit over the risk of working with someone who could at this point be fairly described as an ideological extremist. Nor is it a surprise that it is this particular type of bigotry that studio heads are willing to turn a blind eye to—trans people are a relatively small but vulnerable population whose rights and protections are being eroded in the political sphere. Nevertheless, based on the volume and vehemence of Rowling’s postings on the subject, it seems we must be approaching the moment in which her behavior can no longer be ignored. Until then, companies like Amazon and Warner Bros. Discovery will continue to capitalize while the cash is still rolling in.