Andrew Garfield, the 42-year-old actor best known for wearing spandex in Sony’s Spider-Man franchise, has delivered what might be the most perfectly distilled example of modern liberal morality ever captured on audio. In an interview with Hits Radio, Garfield admitted that he recently watched the Harry Potter films for the first time, acknowledged that doing so “harms trans people,” compared J.K. Rowling to a dark wizard whose name cannot be spoken aloud — and then said he really liked the movies.

Bravo! Give this man an Oscar. Not for acting — for demonstrating that the entire leftist moral framework is just Catholic confession without the part where you actually stop sinning.

Let’s walk through this masterpiece. Garfield told his interviewer that he knows watching Harry Potter is “controversial” because it puts “money in the pocket of inhumane legislation right now through she that shall remain nameless.” That’s a grown man — a multimillionaire Hollywood actor — refusing to say a woman’s name out loud like she’s Lord Voldemort. The woman who wrote the books that made Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint into millionaires before they could legally drive is now “she that shall remain nameless.”

And what is this “inhumane legislation” that Spider-Twit is so tortured about? Rowling donated money to a legal campaign in the United Kingdom arguing that the word “woman” means a biological female. The case went all the way to the U.K. Supreme Court, where five justices — including two women — unanimously agreed. The “inhumane” act was defining the word “woman.” That’s it. That’s the whole crime.

But here’s the part that makes this so delicious. Garfield didn’t just watch the movies and keep his mouth shut about it. He watched them, enjoyed them, praised Daniel Radcliffe’s performance, called the films “really good,” said the themes were beautiful, argued we “can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater” — and still felt the need to perform an elaborate guilt ritual on the radio first.

You know what that’s called? It’s called wanting to eat the cheeseburger and then crying about the cow. (“I’m so sorry, Bessie. You were delicious.”)

Garfield isn’t even the funniest example from this week. Keira Knightley recently apologized for narrating the new Harry Potter audiobooks because — get this — she didn’t realize she was supposed to be boycotting them. Nobody sent her the memo! She kept the gig and the paycheck, naturally. (We’re sure that check really eased the pain of her moral failure.)

John Lithgow told the New York Times he “nearly quit” his role as Dumbledore in the upcoming HBO series over the Rowling controversy. Nearly! The man agonized all the way to the bank. More than 200 actors have signed on for the new show. Every single one of them took the money.

You know what none of these people did? Actually boycott anything. Not one of them. Zero. They all cashed the checks and then made sad faces for reporters.

Meanwhile, the trailer for the new Harry Potter TV series has racked up over 130 million views across social media. The 2023 *Hogwarts Legacy* video game was one of the best-selling titles of the year. The boycott is going spectacularly, folks.

A trans-owned bookshop in Leeds called the Bookish Type tried to fight back this week by inviting customers to vandalize Harry Potter novels in the store for 25 pence per page. Defacing children’s books to own the billionaire. That’ll show her! Rowling is probably weeping into her pile of money as we speak.

Rowling, for her part, doesn’t seem remotely bothered by any of this. She celebrated the U.K. Supreme Court ruling, applauded the International Olympic Committee’s decision to ban biological men from women’s Olympic events, and said the new HBO series is “going to be incredible.” When Emma Watson tried to extend an olive branch while still publicly distancing herself from Rowling’s views, the author responded by saying Watson “has so little experience of real life she’s ignorant of how ignorant she is.”

Ruthless. We have no choice but to stan, as the kids say. (Did we use that right? Probably not.)

Here’s the thing about J.K. Rowling that drives these Hollywood types absolutely insane — she doesn’t need them. She was a billionaire before any of them got cast. She’ll be a billionaire long after Spider-Twit moves on to doing car insurance commercials. Rowling says what she thinks, tells the mob to pound sand, and sleeps like a baby. Meanwhile, Andrew Garfield has to perform a hostage video every time he watches a movie about a kid with a broomstick.

We used to have a word for people who loudly proclaim moral standards they have no intention of following. Starts with an “H.” Rhymes with “hypocrites.” (Okay, it is hypocrites.)

Andrew Garfield doesn’t actually believe watching a children’s wizard movie harms trans people. If he did, he wouldn’t have watched it three times. He just needs you to know that he felt the appropriate amount of guilt while doing it — like a kid who eats all the cookies and then tells Mom he feels really, really bad about it while licking the crumbs off his fingers.

Enjoy the popcorn, Andrew. Your secret is safe with us. Rowling already has your money anyway.

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