Vancouver Parks’ Harry Potter freak out and how the media covers ‘controversial’ events

By now it’s established that there are certain topics about which Canadian media can be endlessly prissy, morally judgmental, truth-averse and obnoxiously puritanical. In a couple of weeks, when Harry Potter: A Forbidden Forest Experience opens in Vancouver’s Stanley Park, media treatment of the event indicates we can expect another full blast of all the above. Family-friendly, the production has attracted more than two million visitors in France, the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Singapore. The reviews indicate it is considered very much worth the price of admission, which in Vancouver is at least $43 per adult and $38 per child (family bundles available). As near as I can tell, lots of magical lighting, fog, and spooky, interactive experiences are involved. Kind of like downtown Vancouver if you ask me, but if I was in that great city, I’d be taking the grandkids—and maybe the kids too. After all, it was their generation that first embraced the wonder of the Harry Potter books, then films, produced by the imaginative mind and refined pen of author J.K. Rowling. There is nothing controversial about the event itself. No one asks if you have a personal relationship with Jesus. No rainbow flags are burned, MAGA hats are not sold as souvenirs, and no one is carrying signs declaring that trans women are men and not really women. The event—near as I can tell—is just about Harry Potter-style fun, fantasy, and magic. But there’s a good chance you would know nothing about the actual experience and why so many parents and grandparents around the world have taken their children and grandchildren to it. All you would know from Canadian media outlets is that Harry Potter: A Forbidden Forest Experience is “controversial.” Just ask the CBC, which first reported “Why Vancouver’s decision to host a Harry Potter attraction quickly became controversial” in early September. Or Global News, which reported on the “backlash” against the decision by the Vancouver Parks board to host the event. Or CTV News, which caught the wave of growing criticism by those within—and supporters of—the more radical branches of the trans community. The problem, you see, is that while the event itself is run by Warner Bros Discovery Global Experiences in league with Fever, Thinkwell, and Unify Productions, some of the profits will wind up further enriching Harry Potter’s creator. And Rowling, a proud feminist, has been prominent in pushing back against the trans community’s insistence that trans women are actually women. That miniscule segment of the population has certainly established itself as a force, steamrolling those who would stand in the way of its social engineering objectives for years. It has, however, failed to silence Rowling, whose view was recently affirmed by the U.K.’s Supreme Court. The end result of its opposition to the Harry Potter event was that the Vancouver Parks board was forced to apologize and then, with a touch of Bolshevik flair, “disavow” Rowling. She, in return, unloaded X-posts noting that she was unaware of ever having been “avowed” by the board in the first place but would somehow summon the courage to carry on, rejecting the allegation of her opponents that her views are transphobic. Still, chillingly, the parks board vowed that this will “never happen again.” Missing in media coverage were the voices of those who find repulsive the idea that Vancouverites should be denied the right to choose for themselves what events they find morally acceptable. Nor were comments solicited from parents, grandparents, or others who are looking forward to enjoying what by all accounts is a pleasant experience. Turning this “controversy” into a discussion solely between the embattled board and the “Qmunity” entirely dismissed the views of what was once known as the “community” which the board is expected to serve. The end result is that, going forward, the population at large will not have a voice regarding what events may be hosted in Vancouver’s parks. Instead, any group with an objection to views freely expressed by any of the stakeholders in an event staged in Vancouver has been, for all intents and purposes, granted a veto. If journalism’s role, as is alleged by so many within its ranks, is to “defend democracy,” the impact of decisions such as this one should surely be a matter worthy of being drawn into the debate. But there is no evidence I can find that such an avenue of inquiry was even considered, let alone pursued. Nor does anyone appear to have checked or reported on the public’s response. I did, though, and at the time of writing the production’s first four days were closing in on sold out. Not only is the show going on, but a lot of Vancouver families appear to not give a flying fig about whether or not Rowling’s views are transphobic or entirely reasonable. Journalists in this country need to decide, at some point, whether they intend to include the views of the broader public in their reporting. Should they choose not to, as they have done so far in this case, the gulf between the news consuming public and legacy, subsidized media will only continue to grow. Because journalism should at least be as much about the defence of personal freedom as it is the suppression of it.