Casting a black man to play a character who infamously decides to be a wizzard nazi and terrorises children cause his white crush from school didn’t love him is such a bad decision….. I hope this series never sees the light of day and all actors involved get protection from the amount of harrasment
6 months ago | 783
can we please turn this into another live action Powerpuff Girls situation and have this show cancelled before it ever airs?!?
6 months ago | 193
Trying to cast HP as more diverse REALLY highlights how it was never meant to be but, with (3/4 of the) students and some of the teachers etc, it can be done. Not with the fucking death-eathers from the famously racist old-money house though. Good lord. I mean what are they going to do with the storyline where Snape teaches Draco how to be a better Hitler Youth?
6 months ago (edited) | 176
As someone who has to put up with interview with the vampire’s fandom, this choice if very annoying. There we have a race bent character, very well written, whose experiences are explicitly affected by growing up as a black queer man during Jim Crow and the fandom still is unable to see louis (and claudia, too) as humans. I know harry potter won’t be better. I know they will go to the color blind route, which will be weird when we get a bunch of white teenagers bulling (probably) the only black character of his generation. And it will be weird because half of the fandom already presents snape as a weird predator, how will that play with him being black while lily is this pure red haired white woman?
6 months ago | 435
Casting a black actor as a villainous, scary character who only gets a lukewarm redemption postmortem is, generously, a stupid move but I’m more apt to believe it is just racist. It doesn’t surprise me, honestly, but man I wish they would have thought about their actors wellbeing even a tiny bit because people are either going to hate the change and attack any BIPOC actor cast in a “white” role or, in Essiedu’s case, see a black man be angry and mean and take that and run with it. I doubt Essiebu will be treated well and that’s why I don’t think it was smart or progressive to cast him in this role. (Edit for clarity)
6 months ago (edited) | 252
It's just wild to me the staying power of this series. If the stars would have aligned for say, Tamora Pierce, would we have a Protector of the Small or Alanna series to look forward to? It's a little infuriating that of all the children's fantasy series in the world, Harry Potter is the one with all the power of capitalism behind it.
6 months ago | 215
I still think it's unlikely that the adaptation is gonna make it out of preproduction tbh. To paraphrase Den of Geeks, we know how shaky it's going because their first big casting announcement was an American actor, something Rowling was deadset against when the original films were being made, because none of the big names in the UK want anything to do with it (wish I could say it was for allyship reasons, but a lot of it is probably more cynical than that).
6 months ago | 122
I don’t trust these racebent character castings anymore because the way the actors of color who take on these roles get absolutely chewed up & spat out by a racist “fan” base with no protections from the production team is deplorable.
6 months ago | 209
Even with properties known for diversity like Percy Jackson there was massive backlash to casting Annabeth as black even though it totally works with her backstroy
6 months ago | 198
If they'd wanted to, McGonagall was literally right there, and would have been the superior choice. ALL people on the death eater side need to be white, it needs to be that on the nose, because obviously, even the casting team involved here didn't get the analogue.
6 months ago (edited) | 44
I haven’t been paying attention to news about this series so idk how accurate the age casting will be, but whenever i know a child actor will be taking the brunt of the audience’s racism, my anxiety on their behalf makes me nauseous. It doesn’t even have to be race bent. Rue was black in the Hunger Games books and they still went after her for being black in the movies. Rick Riordan - the AUTHOR - CHOSE Leah to play Annabeth and they’re still racist. Given the harry potter audience is majority bigots now, I genuinely fear for the kid playing Hermione. Even if JK tries to defend the kid, she won’t know how because she’s racist, doesn’t realize it/refuses to acknowledge it, and therefore cannot correct herself. I hope this kid has a fantastic support system going into this because she will need it.
6 months ago | 131
the best take I've seen on this is from tumblr: 'finally, harry suspecting him of being up to something with no proof for 7 books and then becoming a wizard cop makes sense.'
6 months ago | 22
Sick and tired of racebent characters for the sake of generating the same discourses time and time again. In this case, you’re right it’s 100% a distraction. I wish we could collectively leave HP and JKR in the past. And I’m tired of being force fed the same stories over and over again. So many creatives come up with amazing stories everyday but I guess banking on nostalgia is a safe bet.
6 months ago | 37
Severus Snape was a “villain” for 6.75 books, and only got a bit of redemption near the end of the last book with a sprinkling of possible character complexity in book 5. I wish the actor well, but there’s going to a lot of backlash over this choice for a variety of reasons. I’m not going to watch the show and refuse to support any more of her projects. My Harry Potter fix will continue to be satiated by fanfiction.
6 months ago | 37
I’m so tired of this, TBH. I was waiting to see which character they would make a POC and wherever it would be correcting a wrong made in the original adaptation (making lavender brown white once she is paired with Ron for example) or just stunt casting of a beloved character to make us tired, racists mad, and potterheads cry about book accuracy. Snape is the worst character they could have made POC, too, he is a legit creep. I can’t imagine a reason this was done other than to cause controversy. Like how many actors and actresses have been just publicly torn to shreds with zero support from the company over casting like this? It doesn’t come off as wanting a twist on an existing character to make a story different, it comes off extremely cynically.
6 months ago (edited) | 28
The idea of casting black man to Snape is a terrible idea. Him being racist towards Lilly. Abuses children mainly Harry. He is complex sure. I don't think it's a good idea at all
6 months ago | 53
Thanks for the reminder that the HP fandom itself hasn't historically had a good reaction towards characters like Blaise Zabini or Angelina Johnson. Former HP fans who stand up against JK live out the line about it taking more bravery to stand up to their friends than their enemies (paraphrased) than current ones. I feel sorry for the child actors who will take the brunt of online criticism.
6 months ago | 28
Well said. I’m not going to fuck with this series either way, but all of your criticisms of the source material and the fandom is accurate, and also your accurate criticisms of the fandom apply to most fandoms, unfortunately.
6 months ago | 60
I just realised it's kinda hypocritical/weird for me to worry about the racebent skin colour of a character when it's a series I will be boycotting due to how the author of the source material thinks my significant other really is a mentally ill man in a dress. I wish Papaa Essiedu well and I hope he won't get showered with hate. I didn't know about him, never seen any of his works. He looks quite striking. I hope people will at least base their opinion on his acting being convincing or not, instead of moaning about him not being Adam Driver.
6 months ago (edited) | 25
I'm genuinely curious what casting process lead to this ill-adviced decision. Did they put up colorblind casting announcement? Did they specifically approach actors of color for this role? No matter how good Essiedu's audition was, I can't imagine the casting director/producers picking him for any non-cynical reasons. And it's hard to not get impression that he's also at least a little bit cynical to willfully take on a role of an incel former Nazi who bullies children. No amount of other actors of color in the series will balance out the shit optics of Black Snape, either.
6 months ago | 10
Princess Weekes
Multiple things are aggravating about the news that Paapa Essiedu will most likely be playing Severus Snape in the upcoming HBO adaptation/remake of the Harry Potter book series. Deadline reports: “[Essiedu] is closing his deal to portray Professor Severus Snape, I hear. They are poised to join John Lithgow, who, as Deadline reported exclusively, will be playing Professor Albus Dumbledore.”
I talked about this in a more extended video essay on my Patreon because I’ve been trying to avoid discussing Harry Potter publicly in a way that could be mistaken for promotion. Plus, I know many of my trans friends (including Jesse Gender) encourage moving away from talking about the subject matter.
However, with this series moving closer and closer towards being a reality and Essiedu’s casting signally a cynical and capitalistic exploitation of yet another actor of color in a “racebent” role, I felt like I needed to speak a bit on it publically.
The Harry Potter fandom has never been a truly “safe space” for Black and non-white fans of the series who were critical of the way race (both real and fantastical) was written in the series. I remember the response to Blaise Zabini being confirmed to be Black. I remember how the fandom treated Angelina Johnson for marrying George Weasley. I remember how fancasts would completely ignore that their children would be biracial and just make their children white and ginger. I watched how Cho Chang and Dean Thomas were treated as disposable minority love interests. And I certainly remember the backlash towards casting Noma Dumezweni as Hermione in The Cursed Child.
I’m already having a massive headache at everyone crying over Adam Driver not being Snape. Adam Driver will not be in a potentially massive seven-season-long franchise, guys. He likes to make weird shit.
Intersecting with this already racist priming is the backlash we have seen to any diversity in casting that has been ongoing for almost a decade. “Forced Diversity.” “Woke.” “DEI.” All of that has been the rallying cry of those who choose to blame marginalized communities and not capitalist companies trying to make money on why so many of these choices are made. They paint them as inherently bad and ignore any examination or discussion with Black and other marginalized communities about their concerns. Instead these stories become the target of hyper racist backlash, we try and support this projects and if they are, in fact, poorly written—the well of discussion is clogged by the excess of bullshit.
Make no mistake: casting this series as more diverse is a ploy.
A ploy to distract people from JKR’s transphobia. To shield the company from criticism of not investing in something new. To make every criticism about Rowling’s politics now the problem of these actors. If these actors get questioned (even mildly) about why they willingly joined this project, it will be called harassment. They will do more to protect themselves than to protect the people who will become the face of this revival.
I pray for the mental fortitude of the biracial Black girl cast to play Hermione Granger.
But as someone who has been a pop culture critic and entertainment journalist in some form or another for a long time, I am also just distressed about how shallow discussions of race and Harry Potter will continue to be when so many of the voices that should be talking about it will not because they will likely (like myself) not support this series.
In that sense, HBO/WB is playing a game of chicken with those who said we won’t support JKR versus those who still fully love and support Harry Potter with their wallet, and those who just don’t care. They are banking on apathy and transphobia to win, and they don’t care who gets caught in the crossfire.
Sigh.
Constant Vigilance, I guess.
deadline.com/2025/03/harry-potter-series-mcgonnaga…
6 months ago | [YT] | 4,495