AIBU to think objections to Snape casting are mostly racist?

I have to say after seeing the second trailer he doesn't seem to have the correct level of sneering towards Harry that is required. He is also to attractive to play Snape. I think it would be difficult for anyone coming after Alan Rickman. My daughter is a massive Harry Potter fan with Ron being her favourite and she loves Rupert Grint. So the new Ron better be good 😂

I can’t understand the angst over casting choices in a fantasy show

I think whenever a book is adapted for tv or film, there are a lot of fans who get cross with any deviation from the book.
Eg I read a lot of discussion, both on social media but also articles, around what race Emily Brontë intended Heathcliff to be, and therefore was Jacob Elordi an appropriate casting choice. I think I listened to an hour long discussion on radio 4 that looked at where Brontë lived, what her references would be, the language used in the book, and then talked about did it matter anyway if book heathcliff was black and Elordi is not.

Even non-classic/not widely loved books get it - some people who really enjoyed The Girl on the Train were annoyed the film moved it to America.

My point is you always get people who want adaptations to stick to the book. Maybe they shouldn’t care so much, but they do.

The objections to Snape will obviously involve some elements of racism, because that’s the world we live in (not that I’m saying it’s acceptable, just that I think it’s silly to suggest racism isn’t involved at all). But it will also involve book “purists”, and also people who just loved Alan Rickman and therefore wouldn’t like anyone else.

Scrooge isn't white in the text of the original story. He was in the illustrations but then most people by default were depicted as white back in those days.

And I am 100% against black actors playing a real life person who was white - like Anne Boleyn was played by a black actress on a BBC show. It's ludicrous IMO.

Do you object when a fat person is played by a thin actor, or vice versa? Anne Boleyn probably had terrible teeth as dentristry wasn't really a thing back then, so do you obect that there aren't a few missing and the rest yellow when you see an actress smile? What about Henry? Do you care what colour hair the actor has compared to in real life? Or does that not matter as they are acting? Why is it only a different colour you find ludicrous?

I doubt your daughter is the target age anymore, so her opinion is pretty irrelevant. This is a series predominantly aimed at children, who wouldn't have been alive when the films were made.

I think it all looks crap tbh but Snape being black is not even on the list. From what I know the books were wildly lacking in diverse main characters, we're out of the era of pretending everyone is white.

I'm sick of remake after remake more than anything.

It's the fact that it makes Harry, his friends and his family all look like massive racists. Not only the bullying Snape received at school, but Harry and his friends all near enough immediately take against him. If Harry was black too, it would be fine. Basically any other character in the universe from from Dumbledore to Voldemort could be black, and it would be fine. Snape is pretty much the only character who is really hard to make black without turning the story into Harry Potter (The Massive Racist) and his Massively Racist Friends and Family. But hey, I'm sure it's pure coincidence that despite there being a vast number of major roles, and a vast number of extremely talented black actors, Snape just happens to be the only major role where the best candidate was black. It's absolutely definitely not just to get people talking.

Great actor, wrong part

Of course he was white, its an English story writen in 1843 when there were virtually zero other races in this country.

This. It distracts from the storyline.

Totally agree. Snl did a funny bit on this.

Aside from everything people have said about MWPP bullying Snape, there’s also the fact that, when someone is trying to steal the Stone, Harry now decides that it must be the black guy. 😬

Paapa Essiedu doesn’t even look like a black version of Snape as described in the books – no greasy hair, hooked nose, any of it. He’s a good-looking man, and I think it’s important to Snape’s character that Snape is unattractive. There were other characters who could have been black without adding unfortunate implications – McGonagall, some of the other professors, maybe Oliver Wood. Snape being black changes the context of his relationship to other characters in a way that JKR didn’t intend.

Besides, the original selling point of this series was that it was supposed to be more accurate to the books than the movies were.

How do you know how old her daughter is? As it happens, my daughter thinks the same thing and she’s eleven.

i think if a great actor portrays the character convincingly and makes it their own it can work regardless of wether the actor fits the text description or historical detail. I didnt think black Anne Boleyn or Helen of Troy worked but i could see Idris Elba persuading me in the role of James Bond. I dont think it racist to say the looks of the actor don't work for me as a a particular character.

I did actually see a comedian who made some good points about this. It sorr of makes Harry seem a bit racist when he :doesn't like Snape but doesn't know why"

It also makes Harry's dads bullying of Snape seem a bit darker.

The problem is Alan Rickman was so perfect in the role that no-one else will ever be right.

but in 1991 (when the first series is set) 95% of the UK WERE white!
If it was set today you'd have a point, but if anything the only people "pretending" are all the adaptations retrospectively black-washing hundreds of years of history, from HP to all recent Jane Austen adaptations.

If you want to make a tv show more representative/celebratory of the UK today that's one thing, even a good thing, but what it's not is true to either the original source material or the time period.

I think the point is that rarely are any of these changes necessary.

If you are going to the effort of adapting a book, to me it seems obvious to try and keep it as close to the source material as possible, otherwise why not just create a new idea rather than doing an adaptation?

The advantage of an adaptation is that you have a built in audience of people who liked the first version, changing too much of its component parts risks what made it popular in the first place and thus annoys the very people you were relying on to get your idea made!

Rickman was great, but he was too old for the role. That's why Paapa Essiedu seems too young, but he's actually MUCH closer to the age Snape would have been at that point in the story.

However Essiedu doesn't look anything else like the descriptions in the books, and the casting just seems like courting controversy unnecessarily. Fortunately he's a brilliant actor and will probably have some of the best scenes, as did Rickman.

It’s a very common trend for fans of mega franchises like HP to go nuts over casting decisions of fictional characters that they didn’t imagine. See the casting of the recent Black Panther as an example. Lots of African Americans fuming that they picked a Black British actor yet they accept British men being Spiderman and an Australian playing Thor.
The live action Disney films also get an unfair spotlight eg Ariel in the Little Mermaid played by a black actress.
It makes me wonder how long until Disney decides to make casting a fan vote (semi serious)

I am absolutely with you on that!

He could have been Lupin, Sirius, even Malfoy and it would have worked. The white hair could have been changed to raven black or they could have done a striking wig.

The problem is the bullying and othering of Snape. I don’t know how it is going to be done without bringing race to the forefront. Maybe that is the intention.

I also worry that will be part of Hermione’s story. The mudblood allegory is a substitute for a direct lesson on racism. It’s a science fiction style way of bringing characters to a complicated subject in a palatable manner. They don’t have to be hit over the head with a story about racism, they get a story about something remarkably similar and learn along the way. If you make the unsaid, said, some people won’t get as much value from the story because they will resist the more overt message.

Agree with this. Snape is Alan Rickman. He was a fantastic actor and no one can replace him at the moment. Maybe in many years to come, but not now.