Huzjak, Maša

In her now infamous tweet J.K. Rowling, the author of the globally beloved Harry Potter series, positioned herself firmly on the side of trans-exclusionary radical feminism. While her views on this and many other topics seem to be of no import when analyzing her past work, they are more than relevant to the fandom gathered around Rowling’s work. At first lauded for championing girl power and the fight against fascism, Rowling’s “wizarding world” has accumulated a fair amount of criticism from many marginalized groups over the years. While her literary messaging as well as her personal/political opinions have been scrutinised, the series itself has remained a seminal coming-of-age story for millions of readers. The question is: how do fans, especially teenage girls who are often targeted as ideal consumers, negotiate with content that lacks representation, but is nevertheless the object of their fandom? The answer is simple: they change it. Fanfiction is a growing body of texts usually written for public consumption, available online to any reader completely free of charge. Its origin texts vary from niche comics to world-famous franchises. What makes this type of writing so exciting is its apparent limitlessness. Since it is not profit-driven, fanfiction offers a voice to any author (in fact, most authors on major fanfiction websites are women and teenagers), demands an inclusive space and ultimately gives its fandom the tools to “improve” on the canon they have drawn from. I would like to further analyze the ways in which fanfiction authors – specifically those who write Harry Potter fanfiction – make their work inclusive and how the communities they create often represent the fandom better and more fully than the canonical author (and her tweets) ever could. 

Maša Huzjak is a PhD student at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb. She is a co-founder and co-editor of Krilo.info, a Croatian feminist website. Her interests include feminist theory, popular culture, affect theory and girls studies.

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