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Yeah I mean I think its ridiculous to say that cancel culture can't affect billionaires or that it even hasn't affected Rowling. In the sense that, once a person is already rich, only them spending/giving away their own money can stop them from being rich, cancel culture obviously runs into a limit of potential reach. But in basically every domain except money, cancel culture clearly has power even over the wealthy. Rowling's influence over the groups of people she would like to have influence over is clearly less than it would be if she had not taken an anti-trans stance. Perhaps she has more influence over different some smaller, different groups of people. But I bet she would like to express her beliefs and not be 'cancelled,' too.
JK Rowling has ideological allies, because the stance she has taken is one of the main and most divisive culture war issues of our time. She has fallen back to these ideological allies. People who care about the culture war and aren't on her side have cancelled her among themselves -- everyone else, AKA people who either care about the culture war and take her side, or, the significant majority of people, those who do not care about the culture war, have not cancelled her among themselves. Kanye has no ideological allies, because he is taking a culture war stance from two centuries ago, of which one side has already emerged victorious. How much someone will or won't be cancelled and to what extent that cancellation will effect them really isn't anything more complicated of a function than 'how deep does this culture war issue that I deciding to participate in penetrate the public consciousness, and how much of an ideological share of the public who cares is occupied specifically by the side am I taking?'
Kanye's pronouncements on Jews are derived from the currently-prevalent American-Black mythologies, such as those of the Nation of Islam. Kanye does have ideological allies, but they have very little pull among the current PMC.
Yeah, I mean, obviously he has some ideological allies. What I meant is that, right now the CW split on trans issues is almost 50/50 at best, depending on region. Trans people/issues are not popular in many societies. Whereas Kanye's beliefs are touted by are only a tiny proportion of the discourse, widely regarded as crazy extremists. Yes, I'm sure Kanye isn't cancelled among adherents of the Nation of Islam or other anti-semites. That isn't exactly saying much though.
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I think the point i am trying to make is that there is a sharp difference between how someone of Rowling's stature is compared to less affluent celebrities. For example, take Louis CK. His life was permanently altered in a profound way. His agents dropped him, his show got cancelled and he was essentially blacklisted from his career for many years. I understand that the criticisms between them are distinct in a large way but neither of them did anything illegal. Rowling is above any type of that retaliation. Since she holds so much power by her ownership of such a popular property, she still holds ultimate power over thousands of jobs and in some instances, entire careers. If she decided to withdraw her trademark from select industries, she could do far more damage financially to publishers, move studios and amusement parks than they could ever dream to do to her. CK was rejected by many of his closest friends and business partners, but i doubt Rowling has had any real push-back from anyone in her day to day business dealings, because those around her simply cannot afford to do so.
I'm not sure how useful 'neither did anything illegal' is as a way to assert that what they did was or wasn't of similar magnitude. The difference that I am claiming exists between their misdeeds, and thus their levels of cancellation, still holds as a difference between these two examples: Louie CK's misdeeds have no 'supporters' in the culture war. There is no one out there who thinks people should be going around and randomly starting to masturbate in front of women who haven't consented to such a thing. Furthermore the question of whether or not its wrong to sexually assault people is a question with much greater cultural penetration, (especially penetration as a percent of the group of people who would otherwise be buying Louie CK's product). I would venture a guess to say that greater than 95 percent of people who would otherwise be interested in buying a ticket to one of his comedy shows would be turned off by the idea that the guy doing the performance was a sex weirdo who had non-consensually masturbated in front of multiple women.
On the other hand, again as stated, aside from having plenty of ideological allies, JK Rowling's issue just doesn't penetrate that much. People into harry potter are actually for the most part young children, who are too young to care about the discourse, and whose purchasing decisions are made by their parents, who are either too old to care, on JK Rowling's side, care more about satisfying their kid's interest in harry potter than their own interest in not supporting the Rowling estate, etc. Of the twitter-millenial-harry-potter-fan demographic who actually is most likely to care, not all of them do, some of them care but support the anti-trans position in the culture war, some that do care and support pro-trans but can pretend its warner bros that's getting all the profits and not rowling and that level of cognitive dissonance is enough for them, etc.
I think the careful wording of her tactics really does affect the level of retaliation she receives. The fact that she repeatedly maintains she has no hate for trans people etc. is important. That much seems obvious to me. If she started explicitly saying she actively hates trans people, I think its obvious that she would grow to a level of radioactivity at least somewhat more like the other listed examples, Kanye/Louie CK etc. Obviously you're right and that she wields a certain type of power that would insulate her somewhat, but I think overall you're understating the way in which the level of her cancellation is actually at least correlated with actual differences in her tactics, flavor of rhetoric, the specific CW issue she's chosen, etc.
Oh, man...I'm hesitant to dive on this particular grenade, but I think it's really apropos to the larger discussion that's happening here. This is simply a gross mischaracterization. By all accounts, he consistently sought verbal consent, and took "no" for an answer. There's still many good reasons to call this unethical (the power differential, it's likely they didn't take the request seriously or felt pressured in other ways, etc.), but what took place isn't what you're describing -- it's like the talking point that "Woody Allen married his daughter." (And, likewise, his actions can be viewed as extraordinarily unethical, but -- that specific accusation does not reflect the reality of what he did.)
I would say that this is exactly what happened to Rowling -- she has clearly and repeatedly stated her position, and I imagine that if you talked to the average person-on-the-street (that is, if they had any awareness of this at all), they would attribute positions to her that aren't in the same universe. None of it's new, but I do find it dispiriting.
However much this might be the case, you're making a point more about how mis-percieved their actions are, more-so than about how poorly received (the common perception of) those actions are in absolute terms, compared to each other.
Maybe both of them are misunderstood generally. The truth is, though, that even some of the worst interpretations of Rowlings 'misdeeds' are not considered as heinous as some of the best interpretations of Louis CK's. If we're talking about 'Why is Rowling not as cancelled as Louis CK?' my point is only that the difference in this perception is indeed a factor.
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