A more diverse line-up
People planning to make new Harry Potter film with frogs playing all the parts.
Film producers are planning a woke version of the Harry Potter movies in which the magical characters will be played by transgender and non-binary actors.
Or frogs. Whichever demands the least money.
In what will be seen by many as a challenge to J.K. Rowling, who was attacked for questioning the claim that trans women are identical to biological women, the filmmakers are seeking a more diverse line-up for the starring roles.
They are insisting that some of the characters for the new versions – to be aired as a ‘web series’ – cannot be played by white actors, including the starring role of James Potter, father of young wizard Harry.
Cannot be played by white actors, because Harry is…well, white.
According to casting notes, that role is only open to an actor who is ‘Asian, black, African descent, ethnically ambiguous, multiracial, Indigenous peoples, Latino, Hispanic, Middle Eastern, South Asian, Indian, Southeast Asian or Pacific Islander’. Producers have not specified who they want to play Lily Evans, Harry’s mother, but have said they want a ‘gender-nonconforming, non-binary, trans female’.
What does “non-binary, trans” mean? Seriously, what? They’re opposites, so what can it mean? Trans is claiming to be the other sex, non-binary is claiming to be neither sex, so you can’t be both, because it makes no sense.
All genders can audition for the part. The project’s creator, TikTok video producer Megan Mckelli, said: ‘We aim to reflect the diversity of the fanbase in its beloved characters, introducing people of colour, queer storylines, and characters of differing faiths.’
They all have to be equally dim-witted though. That’s a must. Nobody who isn’t would agree to audition.
They’re going to have copyright issues though. Rowling doesn’t just give the rights away. The whole thing is just a “Look at me” scheme – and here I am looking. I’m a patsy for the attention-starved.
So if Harry’s mother has to be played by a ‘gender-nonconforming, non-binary, trans female’, how does “she” and his father, you know, make a baby? I’ve heard of “suspension of disbelief” but… seriously!
They wan Harry’s mother to be played a “non-binary trans female”. Because they don’t really give a crap about biology, I suspect this means a male who claims to be a woman. Which then makes it impossible for Harry to be descended from his father and “mother”.
Sackbut — kind of like how Jesus was the one person in all of Palestine who couldn’t have been descended from David through the male line!
I thought that at first but I think they mean a woman who calls herself trans. “non-binary trans female” isn’t Correct for a man who claims to be a woman, so I think they mean a woman who claims to be a man. But then the question becomes why cast a woman who claims to be a man as a mother?
They must have a couple of beans inside their skulls where a brain should be.
I think you’re giving them too much credit. If there is even one bean in there, I’ll eat my hat. (And yes, in fact, I do have a hat…several…but I won’t eat the orange one. I need that for Halloween.)
Is there really much of a market for this? “I’m a huge Potterhead and what I really find appealing about Harry Potter is it having nothing to do with the books or movie franchise”
Given that the Harry Potter books are all about magic, I could potentially suspend disbelief enough to accept a biological male giving birth. That being said, this webseries still sounds like the sort of performatively woke shite I wouldn’t watch with somebody else’s eyeballs.
More likely they’ll choose women (who call themselves “non-binary” or whatever) for both father and mother, because then they can pay them less. No?
Dunno anything about film rights, but as you say, can they legally do this? Will they still call the main character “Harry Potter”? They could make a film about a school for wizards and call it Parry Hotter, I suppose.
Novelists have been known to sell their film rights and the resulting film has almost no resemblance to the film in setting, atmosphere, theme, plot etc except for the names of the characters.
One of the strengths of the Harry Potter films was a gang of talented British character actors playing the non children’s parts. I can’t see any serious actor wanting a part in this.
Actually, they have left an out for a white actor to play James Potter.
The ‘Indigenous peoples’ of the British Isles are…
TADA!
…White.
It’s like they believe that they’re delivering some sort of slap in the face to Rowling, whom they see as so Evil that their little recasting job will be a powerful blow against her Evil beliefs, and that she will recoil in dread from the Light of True Diversity.
Or something.
This is silly. If Megan Mckelli is *really* that bothered by Rowling’s opinions, she should make an original YA fantasy series reflecting McKelli’s pro-2SLGBTQQIA+ views (the YA market is positively groaning under the weight of books ham-fistedly pushing such messages) instead of trying to rip off Rowling’s creation.
I was first going to point out that I suspect that JKR holds a pretty tight copyright on al of this but then I realized something – copyright IS a continuum, PERIOD! Anyone who claims the rights to use IP as they please, is of course within their rights to do so and no one but a hater would question that. Sorry have to go stick my finger in a light socket to try and purge more of my awful BadThink.
Not to mention the fact that anyone who identifies as JK Rowling IS JK Rowling. I’m afraid you’ll have to make that two light sockets.
@14: But then these people would have to identify as an evil demonic witch, and I don’t think that they would want to do that, even to lay hold on the copyright.
You know, since the books are set in the modern UK, I wouldn’t have any particular issue with a racially diverse cast–the UK hasn’t been lily-white for a long, long time, and it’d be good if the movies reflected that, even if that means deviating from Rowling’s written descriptions. And some mixed-race couples produce white-passing children, especially if the father were, say, Hispanic or Middle-Eastern. So I see no reason not to mix things up a bit, on that front. “Representation” is a legit goal in racial studies, and it’s not like this is a historical work.
As far as the much sillier bits about Harry’s mom, I wonder if they’d do the accidental self-own of having her actually be a transwoman, who conceived Harry via a transgenderiam narcissum potion, and thereby admit that full-boat trans ideology only makes sense if you believe in magic wands.
There are racially diverse characters in Harry Potter. Harry’s first crush is Cho Ching, who, I believe, is meant to be Chinese. I know, not the most felicitous or informed choice of a name, but the point is that there are non-White characters even in the books. Yes, OK, they’re not the main characters.
Mind you, it doesn’t actually say anywhere that the main characters are White, either, as far as I recall.
@Mostly Cloudy
” If Megan Mckelli is *really* that bothered by Rowling’s opinions, she should make an original YA fantasy series reflecting McKelli’s pro-2SLGBTQQIA+ views (the YA market is positively groaning under the weight of books ham-fistedly pushing such messages) instead of trying to rip off Rowling’s creation.”
Ursula le Guin got sick of the male-centred sci-fi which in the year 3030 had women as vamps and housewives among the light-yeared technology, and did write gender-bending fiction, not to mention ecologically minded and racially diverse. Annoyance at the narrowness/blinkedness of a genre can inspire different approaches/takes – which is fine, of course. However this sounds like a soft reboot – same stories and characters, labelled with the new alphabet.