SEATTLE, WASHINGTON: The Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP), a prominent museum in Seattle, has decided to remove any references to JK Rowling in the ‘Harry Potter’ exhibits in their gallery over the author’s controversial gender-critical views. The Exhibits Projects Manager of the museum, Chris Moore, penned down a long blog on the museum’s website elaborating on the purpose of airbrushing any mention of Rowling from the artifacts.
Moore, who uses he/they pronouns wrote in the blog post that “the Curators decided to remove any of her [Rowling] artifacts from this gallery to reduce her impact,” adding, “It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s what we were able to do in the short-term while determining long-term practices.” Moore, however, also spoke about their future plans, including “planning on continuing to add context to creators and content through our blog and possibly in-gallery QR codes.”
Referring to the Rowling, Moore said, “We learned that You-Know-Who was a problem, which is why you’ll see the artifacts without any mention or image of the author.” Thus, while MoPOP is making a careful omission of the original author’s name, they still love the actors. Moore continued, “After all, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint are all incredibly vocal allies. Should we forget their work now that the original author is terrible? I’m not even talking about “separating art from artist” but giving credit where it’s due.”
Who is Chris Moore?
Chris Moore has been the Exhibitions Project Manager since June 2022. While assumed this position just a year ago, he has been associated with MoPOP for more than eight years. Starting with the role of a Security Officer in October 2014, he served as a Shop Assistant, Exhibits Production Assistant and Exhibits Projects Coordinator before taking up the role of Exhibits Projects Manager. In that role, Moore has to work with his “department and also with the full organization to plan, design, build, and install new exhibitions for the museum. Some of the tasks involved include timeline, budgets, contracts, and internal, external, and interdepartmental communication,” per his LinkedIn profile. Moore also did some other jobs before being associated with the MoPOP like working with a tattooist and piercer and becoming a mountmaker.
Moore has a bachelor's degree in business from Western Governors University. From the same university, Moore also pursued an MBA. In the blog for MoPOP, he referred to himself as transgender and revealed that he uses both “he/they” pronouns. He is “a board member for the Seattle Trans and Nonbinary Choral Ensemble.”
‘She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’
In the blog post, Moore started the post with, “We would love to go with the internet’s theory that these books were actually written without an author, but this certain person is a bit too vocal with her super hateful and divisive views to be ignored. Yes, we’re talking about J.K. Rowling," continuing with, “And no, we don’t like that we’re giving her more publicity, so that’s the last you’ll see of her name in this post. We’ll just stick with You-Know-Who because they’re close enough in character.”
Moore continued to explain the museum’s aversion towards her by writing, “Her transphobic viewpoints are front and center these days, but we can’t forget all the other ways that she’s problematic: the support of antisemitic creators, the racial stereotypes that she used while creating characters, the incredibly white wizarding world, the fat shaming, the lack of LGBTQIA+ representation, the super-chill outlook on the bigotry and othering of those that don’t fit into the standard wizarding world, and so much more.”
In an interview with The Telegraph, a spokesperson for MoPOP said, “MoPOP is proud to support our employees and unequivocally stands behind non-binary and transgender communities. In an increasingly divided world, pop culture can unite, inspire and spark important conversations.”
“Education and creative expression are at the heart of our mission and in our commitment to diversity, equality, inclusion and accessibility, we strive to uplift those who are excluded from mainstream pop culture conversation, by amplifying voices and stories not always seen on museum walls,” the spokesperson concluded.
