Over my years, I’ve watched with a rather jaundiced eye the many kids who have been blessed (or, if you like, cursed) with childhood celebrity. At the moment, I'm watching the back and forth between JK Rowling, Emma Watson, and Daniel Radcliffe over their public stances on transgender issues. I note with some disgust the press casting this as Rowling's "phobia". Sorry, I don't see it that way.
Oh, I'm quite sure some will stick me with the same labels they have Rowling. I will consider myself to be in excellent company. That said, I have some observations to make,
For openers, and as a parallel, I will draw your attention to Michael Jackson, whom I wrote about here at PJM back in 2009 and several times at BitsBlog. In one post, I make mention of his whack-job behavior:
Let’s be honest enough to say that after the string of hits in the 80’s and early 90’s, the guy could spend an entire CD making artificial fart noises and nothing else, and his fans would be buying the things, talking about how talented he was, and that he was breaking new artistic ground, rather than simply breaking wind.
I caution the reader not to mistake me, as so often happens with controversial topics. I'm by no means saying Jackson wasn't breathtakingly talented. That's not my point. In fact, that huge talent is part of the issue here. I'm simply pointing out the emperor's new clothes syndrome that such people tend to carry around with them. I remarked at the time that the kind of rabid fandom I described does not bode well for our culture.
I said in another post, "Talent can get you fame and fortune. Sadly, it can not buy either normalcy or happiness."
Additionally, I ran this item, written before Jackson died, at BitsBlog at the time of his passing:
Michael Jackson is one strange bugger, isn't he? He seems another in a long line of persons whose artistry in their craft is quite good, or at least was, (one does not, after all sell the numbers of albums he's sold and not have some talent at entertaining) and has since succumbed to their own excesses.
His difficulty in relating to people his own age probably stems from the emotional and physical abuse he suffered as a child, and the fact he grew up in the spotlight of fame. I see a damaged man who has not had the chance to develop to his full potential in an emotional sense. Jackson’s relationships with the mothers of his children – two by ex-wife Debbie Rowe and one conceived using a surrogate mother – further illustrate this. Rather than create a family environment, he’s taking these children away from their mothers almost from the moment they are born. That is a terrible thing to do to a child, which has a basic right to know its biological parents, unless one of them poses a threat. What kind of father does this? Not a healthy individual.
— Stephen McGinty in The Scottsman, June 2009
(The link no longer works. It's unsurprising that it has cycled off; it was, after all, posted nearly 16 years ago. Perhaps my habit of keeping every bit I've written starting in 2001 is a little unusual? Anyway…)
I responded at the time to McGinty:
That Jackson is a few white gloves short of a wardrobe is unarguable.
But Jackson hardly seems alone in having his own private (and eventually, very public) demons, in terms of today’s stars of stage, screen, and sound. Anyone watching VH1’s “Behind the Music” and CMT’s similar shows will tell you that (insert band or star name here) has gone through hell after becoming a star, apparently unable to handle stardom and the emotional stresses it brings. Fleetwood Mac, which is now announcing an album and, I hear, a touring schedule, is as good an example of this as any, though I’m certain most of my readers can make an entire list of their own favorite examples. Most of those examples didn’t survive.
Here’s the point I’m making: For whatever else might be said about Jackson’s screwball behavior, his habits, his views on society and on right and wrong, all of these things were molded in an environment which cannot, on just about any level, be considered normal. It is unrealistic, then, to expect normalcy from Jackson. In many ways, his childhood stardom deprived him of his childhood.
At the most basic level, most kids grow up looking up to someone. A mom, a father figure, and these days, if they're lucky, both. A child star such as Jackson grows up instead with the whole blinking world looking up to HIM. You can’t come out of that unaffected.
The odd behaviors Jackson became infamous for always seemed to pop up when he was about to release another album or make some major appearance, such as the tour he was gearing up for when he passed on. I would add that talk of that abnormality tends to create controversy, which in turn sells. It doesn't cast you in the best personal light, but it does get everyone talking about you, and that serves the purposes of those financially backing you.
Fast forward. I’ve been watching as Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe flamed JK Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter books from which their movie characters derived, over her stand on trans issues — I think unfairly. This has gone on for years, with little if any response from Rowling.
Finally, all that changed recently, as Rowling, who had been pushed over the International Enough Line, responded on X (which I link to at Ace of Spades HQ, where Ace takes no prisoners in his own comments.) Rowling wrote:
Emma Watson and her co-stars have every right to embrace gender identity ideology. Such beliefs are legally protected, and I wouldn't want to see any of them threatened with loss of work, or violence, or death, because of them.
I hasten to point out that Rowling herself was repeatedly subjected to such threats of loss of work, violence, and death.
However, Emma and Dan in particular have both made it clear over the last few years that they think our former professional association gives them a particular right - nay, obligation - to critique me and my views in public. Years after they finished acting in Potter, they continue to assume the role of de facto spokespeople for the world I created.
When you've known people since they were ten years old it's hard to shake a certain protectiveness. Until quite recently, I hadn't managed to throw off the memory of children who needed to be gently coaxed through their dialogue in a big scary film studio. For the past few years, I've repeatedly declined invitations from journalists to comment on Emma specifically, most notably on the Witch Trials of JK Rowling. Ironically, I told the producers that I didn't want her to be hounded as the result of anything I said.
She goes on with some details of that event that don’t really go to my point, but then the next paragraph goes to the heart of the matter:
Like other people who've never experienced adult life uncushioned by wealth and fame, Emma has so little experience of real life she's ignorant of how ignorant she is. She'll never need a homeless shelter. She's never going to be placed on a mixed sex public hospital ward. I'd be astounded if she's been in a high street changing room since childhood. Her 'public bathroom' is single occupancy and comes with a security man standing guard outside the door. Has she had to strip off in a newly mixed-sex changing room at a council swimming pool? Is she ever likely to need a state-run rape crisis centre that refuses to guarantee an all-female service? To find herself sharing a prison cell with a male rapist who's identified into the women's prison?
I wasn't a multimillionaire at fourteen. I lived in poverty while writing the book that made Emma famous. I therefore understand from my own life experience what the trashing of women's rights in which Emma has so enthusiastically participated means to women and girls without her privileges.
Thus, Rowling describes perfectly what is behind so much of what we see from many former child stars.
Based on her more recent public comments, I believe that in some small way, Watson has started to figure out just how far out of line she was, mostly on the strength of having lived life a bit further. True, her fame and her Fortune$ (not a typo) have shielded her from a lot of the heat directed at her, but it would also appear that at least some of the proverbial flamethrowers Rowling fans have been aiming her way have served to change her perspective somewhat.
Watson and Radcliffe are hardly alone in this, of course, and my purpose here is not to be critical of these two in particular. Rather, the old saying pops up: Proper problem solutions require proper problem identification.
I’m with McGinty on this one: Name your favorite star, and particularly, your favorite child star, and it can easily be said that the adjustment into adulthood has not been easy for them. Childhood stars who take on social commentary, such as Watson and Radcliffe have (which is, after all, where we started this piece), seem to be doing so because it is expected of those with star power, right down to the politically correct positions to take. Instead of being taught how to think for themselves, they were instead served the time-saving method of being told WHAT to think. These days, they're simply acting out what they were taught, trying desperately to keep themselves relevant enough to turn a continuing profit for their financial benefactors. Gotta keep the rich benefactors happy by making all the proper noises lest they lose their position.
They've never known anything other than the position of privilege they enjoy and speak from now. As has been pointed out to me in private conversation recently, the syndrome seems to affect people in direct relation to the amount of time they've been in the spotlight — which, to my mind, is the very definition of privilege. Still, most of them have never identified their situation as such. That is because, as Rowling points out, they’ve never had any real-world experience to judge the matters on which they speak, which, of course, doesn't stop them from opening up.
Watson, particularly, has, on these issues, and as a result of her childhood or the lack of it, often displayed all the tact and situational perceptiveness of a car bomb, just like many teenagers. God knows, I suffered from it myself at that age. Most kids do to some degree, regardless of their life starting points.
The difference is, most teens have people who aren’t afraid to offend their stardom in the effort to steer them right, and who are willing to take the time.
Recommended: Mark Felt and James Comey
In my view, Rowling should be commended for her patience for not having responded until now. I wonder if I would have had it in me to hold my tongue as long as she has, and if I had, once finally pushed into response, would I have been as genteel in my response?
At this stage, it is disheartening, albeit unsurprising, to see the leftist press react to this situation, continuing to cast Rowling in a negative light and using people like Watson to do so.
