Petty guardian bollox about the new Harry Potter series...

I bumbled off to other threads and got distracted (did you know a dumbledore is a type of beetle also known as a cockchafer? now you do!) but I agree with the points raised here. The "JK Rowling is a racist and the Harry Potter books are bad writing, actually" takes appeared overnight when she was declared a heinous transphobe. It was incredibly transparent.

JKR has a good track record of standing up for Jewish people in real life. She refused to participate in a cultural boycott against Israel in 2015, tweeted her disgust at the abuse Jewish schoolchildren in London received after Oct 7th, and called for the return of the hostages, condemning the actions of Hamas as "despicable" and "wholly unjustifiable". I'm comfortable saying she's not an antisemite.

On the flip side, I can pretty much guarantee the TRAs who jumped on this attempt to smear JKR have had a much more troubling social media presence, post Oct 7th.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14664239/jk-rowling-open-letter-trans-rights-action.html

Star of JK Rowling's new 'anti-woke' HBO Harry Potter show turns on her in pro-trans open letter signed by A-listers who have starred in her movies

oh yeah, didn't think of it that way, good point! Just regulus then!

My initial thought was that anyone (like Adam Driver for example who was the fancast) looking like a 'traditional' Snape would struggle to separate their performance from Alan Rickman's (someone on another thread put it brilliantly as a 'Temu Alan Rickman') so having the character look completely different at least separates that and gives PE a chance for his performance to be assessed on his own merits.

You’ve put it better than I did late - also the backlash that Paapa has had in the media has been sustained and horrible. It’s not just the bigger picture of how the casting might relate to the success of the show, but the toll it might take on him personally. Anyone’s confidence would take a battering, especially with such a blatant and unfair element of racism at play. He’s taken all of that on - so must believe it is worth it for his career and he can deliver. I’m rooting for him and hope he is well supported by WB.

Also a lot of ageist abuse and faux concern for John Lithgow, assuming he’s too old and stupid to know he’s signed up to something made by a bigot, etc - think there was a daft opinion piece in Metro wasn’t there.

Same with Sirius - having a black Sirius Black is a bit too on the nose and again would have a knock on effect on the casting for regulus, bellatrix, narcissa, andromeda, tonks and even draco, as they are all supposed to be related.

Not necessarily. I’m white, I have mixed race cousins - it would just mean that Sirius would have had a black mother.

I mean, the films are by Warner Bros. Literally founded by Jewish brothers.

The star on the floor of Australia House, which was used as the filming location for Gringotts, represents the six states of Australia, and it doesn't even fucking look anything like the Star of David.

It's funny how nobody noticed all this supposed antisemitism in the Harry Potter books for over 20 years until JK Rowling said that men aren't women, isn't it?

Weird how the producer of the films who had the idea to make them in the first place and whose Jewish grandparents fled Nazi Germany before the Holocaust never noticed either.

omg the argument about the goblins drives me nuts 'they are portrayed as greedy and obsessed with money so they must a jewish allegory,' OR BECAUSE THAT IS THE TRADITIONAL REPRESENTATION OF GOBLINS IN HUNDREDS OF YEARS OF FOLKLORE.
It's like complaining that a vampire was depicted as lusting for blood ffs.

One of the other arguments was that there was apparently a star on the floor of gringotts in one of the films = a star of david = further jewish allegory.
Again no reference to any star in the books and do people really believe that JKR was involved to such an extent that she was doing set design, ffs? They obviously didn't actually need that crew of thousands, they should have just got her doing make up and special effects while she was at it if they honestly believed she is was that omnipotent and involved in every tiny minutiae of the production, in-between writing the last few books, her charity work, bringing up her kids, press, slowly getting peaked etc....

the problem is you can't really have James as a POC if Harry is white
Same with Sirius - having a black Sirius Black is a bit too on the nose and again would have a knock on effect on the casting for regulus, bellatrix, narcissa, andromeda, tonks and even draco, as they are all supposed to be related.
Lupin could be a possibility as it would work well with his 'othering' but would it be a bit too much?
The only issue with Pettigrew would be if there were too many of the death eaters of non-white origin.

It also seems a bit off to not cast people who could be the best fit for large roles from series 3 onwards solely due to who you'd have to cast as their younger versions for a 30 second scene in series 5 - which you might not ever get to if it gets cancelled before then. They might be better off just cutting that scene, tbh.

I don't care strongly either way. My initial thought was that anyone (like Adam Driver for example who was the fancast) looking like a 'traditional' Snape would struggle to separate their performance from Alan Rickman's (someone on another thread put it brilliantly as a 'Temu Alan Rickman') so having the character look completely different at least separates that and gives PE a chance for his performance to be assessed on his own merits. OTOH the whole sell for this series was it was supposed to be far more faithful to the books, and drastically changing characters' appearances doesn't seem to be living up to that.

I just hope they don't cast just to appeal to a 'woke' audience, because the people who feel strongest about that are going to be boycotting it due to their hate for JKR anyway.

I did laugh when I saw a post from a TRA on reddit or somewhere saying smugly how the series was bound to fail due to so many people boycotting it after the SC ruling to stick it to JKR - yeah that didn't work with Hogwarts, a Legacy, or any of the HP books which are still, after more than 20 years on the top of the best sellers charts, or the CS series, or the theme parks (universal have literally opened another HP one this month), or the Watford studio tour....

They don't seem to understand that, to counter the fairly small amount of people who feel strongly enough about JKR to boycott anything related to her, there are others who want to show their support of her so will watch/read/buy her stuff even if they aren't interested....and that both of these groups are dwarfed by the majority of people who don't really care either way, and if they like something they'll watch/read/buy/visit it, and if they don't they won't.

Hagrid's umbrella maybe

I just think no, an actor getting cast in an adaptation of an existing and well known property isn't just about how good at acting they are. They should resemble the character enough physically that the audience can accept their slipping into that role. People complained and mocked when Tom Cruise played Jack Reacher because he's not tall or physically imposing enough.

A character from a book or comic has been created and a description provided. There are loads of talented actors, just find one that fits the bill.

Mackenzie Crook is a good actor and would fit right into the Harry Potter world, but you wouldn't cast him as Hagrid, would you, no matter how good his acting.

Haven’t read the whole thread yet but yes I am trusting the process with this one. This will be a prestige show and Paapa Essiedu must have chosen as the right man for the job with good reason. The online racism has been sickening and eye opening to me - I look forward to him proving the doubters very wrong. The people screaming ‘Adam Driver’ seem to be wanting nothing more than an Alan Rickman tribute act.

I’m glad someone posted this. See also the Lord of the Rings shows and Dr Who. They have between them lost hundreds of millions of dollars and destroyed their own IP by alienating fans who would otherwise pay to watch their shows. Ratings don’t lie. ,

That would make the racists absolutely lose it!

😅

The Guardian are so pathetic on this issue. They must be letting the children at the copy desk again. One article had the correction that the ruling on the Equality Act was made by ‘Scottish judges’ rather than the Supreme Court. THEY HAVEN’T A NOTION. They just resort to snide digs and articles about slogan t shirts. News flash: relying on slogans got you into this mess.

Have you actually read how the goblins are described in the books?

Do you mean the portrayal of the goblins in the book or the film?

Anyone that thinks the star wars and star trek reboots are successful really shouldn't be commenting on the state of any franchises.

I'll be honest and say it bothers me a little when the characters don't look like what I pictured iny head for the past twenty-five years. When this happens I feel like I have no idea who these people are anymore. It makes it hard for me to be invested in what happens to them.

But I also think that a remake is a lost opportunity in the first place. The HP world is huge. We already have a book series and a movie series telling Harry's story, do we really need a tv series retelling again the same story ? I'd have loved to see an original series set in a different place or time, and then they could have hired as diverse a cast as they wanted without this being an issue. I believe part of Hogwarts Legacy's success was precisely due to this - they brought something new to the HP world.

I don't mind a Black (or any other ethnicity) actor having a major role in a HP series, I do mind the HP world I know being changed and retconned beyond recognition.

I think the idea of a 7 or 8 TV series of Harry Potter could be an outstanding success because they will be able to show all the missing details from the books. It also could work with millennials showing their kids the series. Great family viewing. It also will have the yearly anticipation from families like the books and films did.

The books, the games the theme parks are all still HUGE. So the audience is there worldwide. Especially important is that HP is popular in China unlike Star Wars or Marvel.

It might not work. However it is definitely a more solid plan than other franchises.

One potential issue is the early series from shorter books will have to create new scenes to fill space. That could if done badly derail the plot or feel of the series. Luckily they will have JKR on hand to advise.

also - to be clear, there are some MAD mental gymnastics needed to say that the goblins don't feed into anti-semitic stereotypes....

agreed - but i was coming from a viewpoint that anyone with a massive budget from a huge studio behind them wasn't of the "i dont see colour" school of thought, because that would get absolutely hammered right out of the gate, lol!
If they haven't already thought through the racial tensions in the storytelling of this then they deserve any backlash they get

You have more faith than I do 😂 I agree this is probably part of a director's vision. I just think the "these characters don't see colour!" idea has the potential to clash with an audience that very much does see colour.

It would have to be handled with incredible deftness, and even then, people might just see what they choose to see, as they so often do. Just look at how many people will swear blind that the Harry Potter goblins are JK Rowling being anti-semitic against Jewish people. It's been shot down a thousand times but the misconception just goes around and around, because people want to believe it, and people want to spread it.

This is going to be a big commercial series, and while it's nice to imagine the audience will be intelligent and clued in to the wider context . .
they may not be. Sometimes it's better to write for the audience you have, not the one you wish you had.

I don't think Dumbledore being gay was a post books retcon. If you're an adult and you read between the lines of the Grindelwald and Dumbledore story in book seven, it's obvious it wasn't just a friendship. There's a piece Rita Skeeter, the gossipy tabloid journalist, writes about it that alludes to this and makes some innuendo. Rowling also apparently got the screenwriter for the films to remove a reference to Dumbledore having a crush on a girl in his youth.

It was a different time. She couldn't have been as open about Dumbledore's sexuality in the books as people can be today. Even if she could, I'm not sure it would have felt natural for Harry and Dumbledore to talk about the situation so openly. Harry was a seventeen year old student, and Dumbledore spent most of his life struggling with those memories. It makes sense for a man who is over a hundred years old to talk around the issue. I think Rowling catches unfair flack for that.

Black Hermione is a source of fan debate, but I personally don't mind the idea. It makes some scenes a little too on the nose for my taste, but it doesn't clash with what really matters about the character. I think Chanel ambassador Emma Watson was a bigger departure for the character! I'm more invested in getting the awkward, flawed Hermione of the books, personally, than I am in her skin colour. But I respect that others feel differently. Like I say, just my opinion on that one.

The bathroom thing sounds terrible and has been a source of internet merriment for years. I think there was some context that debunked that, but alas, I can't remember what it was 😂