Art, Sedition and Justice 

Edward Abbey once said that there are two chief functions of an artist: art, and sedition. As the guy who invented the term "monkey-wrenching," he had a very specific idea about what that meant. Right now, artists are rightfully up in arms over issues of women's rights to choose and LGBTQ+ folks' right to exist, as both are things under direct assault by conservative legislators nationwide.

Our state legislature recently overrode Gov. Spencer Cox's veto of HB11, the legislation specifically targeting trans kids, bullying them out of playing high school sports. It's dangerous and deadly, and I would hope they face stiff consequences for passing such an unnecessarily cruel law. For the most part, regular folks and artists work tirelessly to fight back against this tide of bigotry.

Recently, the Disney corporation—forced by its employees, legions of artists and storytellers among them—was moved to act against Florida's "Don't Say Gay" bill, showing the corrupt Florida political machine there that their desperate pandering to conservative authoritarians will have consequences. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his regime will be the oblique subject of every artist's next iteration of The Handmaid's Tale or The Hunger Games, because it truly is the future conservatives want. Artists and storytellers will continue sounding the alarm.

Unfortunately, there are some artists who choose violence despite knowing better. J.K. Rowling might be chief among them. She's a bigoted TERF (trans exclusionary radical feminist) who spreads all manner of anti-trans propaganda. Her persistence in denying the truth of trans people and vilifying them for existing is astonishing.

Rowling has stained her reputation, even though her work is important and meaningful to so many. Her books—problematic as they can be in places—showed a generation how to stand up for itself and distrust authority. Little did she realize that she would be teaching a generation of kids to resist her own hateful politics. I've talked to so many fans who are pained by her choices and still have some nostalgic connection to the Wizarding World. With Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, many I know are planning on theater-hopping to see it—buying a ticket for a different movie and then sneaking into the film. Others simply plan to pirate it. In both cases, it's to keep money from flowing into Rowling's TERFy claws.

For those who choose political violence against women and trans folks, I can only hope a reckoning comes. For all the Rowlings and Rep. Kera Birkelands and Sen. Curtis Brambles, I hope they will see the error of their ways and the quantifiable pain and damage they cause. I hope more artists rise up to meet the challenge to create even more seditious works of art that inspire further generations to resist against this blatant bigotry, because it's only going to get worse. Thanks to gerrymandering—even here in Utah, where we should easily have a not-Republican congressperson—it's going to be an uphill battle for a long time. It will look a lot like a Rebellion fighting against an Empire.

Thankfully, these stories teach us to fight and persist to make the world better.

There are people who will undoubtedly die by suicide in the wake of these hateful pieces of legislation, when all they needed was to feel seen, heard and accepted. Artists can do their part on that front with better representation that more accurately reflects the world around them. Thanks to the pushback against the "Don't Say Gay" bill, Pixar lobbied to put its same-sex kiss back into the forthcoming Lightyear film. Lucasfilm has begun incorporating queer and trans characters into the Star Wars canon through the books; hopefully TV and movies will follow.

Abortions happen and queer folks exist. Conservatives seem to want to all of these things to be swept under the rug and forgotten—that is, until they need access to an abortion, or want to fetishize folks they demonize. No legislation will change that. The art and stories flowing forth from the artists of today should be reminding them on a daily basis that these things are normal and deserving of legal protection.

I hope the companies, artists and people of Utah find ways to push back against the Utah legislature like Disney has. Where are all of these allegedly progressive companies of the Silicon Slopes? Is the NBA really going to have their All-Star Game here next year?

Hopefully, art will change some minds. "Freedom begins between the ears," Abbey once said. Maybe these stories will finally give these folks a genuine kind of freedom, not just the buzzword they claim to be in favor of. If not, maybe that's where Abbey's ideas of sedition come in: to bring their medieval lunacy and backward, hateful actions to a reckoning.