Noma Dumezweni cast as Hermione in new Harry Potter stage play
92 replies, posted
If its a play that doesn't harm anyone or anything who gives a shit. make her a purple elephant for all i care.
but if people are using this to change the actual canon then they are stupid. i guess this means Hermione is canon transgender too because it never specified in the books that she was or wasn't. lets just ignore every book cover that jk had to approve that showed her as white and all the other refrences.
[url]http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/feminism/2015/12/course-hermione-granger-black-she-always-has-been[/url]
[QUOTE]Forget being surprised that Noma Dumezweni, who will play Granger in the forthcoming play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, is black – I still haven’t got over the fact that Emma Watson, who played Granger in the films, is white.
Granger – unlike Harry Potter himself, or Ron Weasley, his best friend and Granger’s love interest - is never given a skin colour in the books: she has brown eyes, frizzy hair and I, at least, always imagined her as black, partly because, when she wows her fellow pupils at the Yule Ball in Goblet of Fire, she straightens her hair, which was, almost without exception, how in my part of East London, everyone’s older sister prepared for a night out...
But I think my horror wasn’t because I’d paid closer attention to what the characters looked like than the casting director of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, although I undoubtedly had, or because I felt a black female character had been erased from the story.
I think it was far more egotistical than that. As a child, I had brown eyes, frizzy hair, an overbite large enough for smaller children to shelter under during periods of heavy rain, was brighter than most of my classmates and was often obnoxious with it. I thought Hermione was black because she was the character I most closely identified with – I didn’t identify with her because I thought she was black.
My suspicion is that while among most Harry Potter readers there are plenty of people who identify with Harry, some with Ron, others with Fred and/or George, most of the diehard fans see themselves as a Hermione-type (this is why, although Harry Potter fans might worry about the longterm stability of the Harry/Ginny marriage, it doesn’t arouse strong feelings in the manner that the question of whether Hermionie should settle down with Harry, Ron, Draco, Snape, or if she should just go it alone and become Minister for Magic, already).
So my instinct is that – while some of the caterwauling about political correctness gone mad, and tokenism is undoubtedly racist – some of the surprise is that same sense of an unexpected difference between the series’ fans, and the character they see as closest to them.[/QUOTE]
Honestly, if the creator is flat out saying they don't give a rats arse then you should not give a rats arse either.
People commenting in outrage about this have no idea what theatre is like. People do this all the time in theatre. Let's take Macbeth and throw it into modern-day New York! Let's have a rendition of a classic French play in the southern US! Let's take the American Revolution and turn it into a hip-hop musical! Throwing different settings and races and styles and interpretations into a play is no big deal. Unless a play deals with race relations somehow, the casting agents likely aren't even going to consider race and are going to choose based on talent and fit for the role. That's how theatre works.
[QUOTE=coyote93;49361186]Might aswell let a man play hermoine, cus, its all the same, right? Just as Long as they are god actors.[/QUOTE]
Considering crossdressing has been a part of theatre for years, if the director thought the actor could capture Hermoine convincingly then why not? Stick him in a wig or have him grow his hair out if that's what the director wants and the actor is comfortable with.
Wow, some of you guys would have aneurysm if you saw The Wiz Live.
[IMG]http://img2.timeinc.net/people/i/2015/news/151026/the-wiz-01-800.jpg[/IMG]
[QUOTE=Toro;49384813]Wow, some of you guys would have aneurysm if you saw The Wiz Live.
[IMG]http://img2.timeinc.net/people/i/2015/news/151026/the-wiz-01-800.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE]
Pretty sure the Wiz Live was an adaptation of the Diana Ross and Michael Jackson movie, which in itself was an adaptation of the Judy Garland movie which was an adaptation of the L. Frank Baum book
i dont think race is that relevant, even if the book continuously said she was white i don't think race has any impact on a story unless it's part of the plot (like race divides or something), not rly relevant to a story about magic
[QUOTE=Wii60;49383716]If its a play that doesn't harm anyone or anything who gives a shit. make her a purple elephant for all i care.
but if people are using this to change the actual canon then they are stupid. i guess this means Hermione is canon transgender too because it never specified in the books that she was or wasn't. lets just ignore every book cover that jk had to approve that showed her as white and all the other refrences.[/QUOTE]
Fucking hell mate, I absolutely forgot that the illustrations are integral to the Harry Potter story picture books.
[QUOTE=proboardslol;49370286]"I want the main character to be black not white"
"Alright that seems like a good idea!"
"I want the main character to be white, not black"
"Wtf u racist"[/QUOTE]
The difference in these two examples is the fact that literally almost everyone in theatre is indeed white as fuck. And so structurally, people who aren't white are less likely to be cast. Also, it's likely that if a main character is black in a play, the fact that he/she is black is a major part of the characters role. White people don't have to be labeled by their skin colour as they are seen as the norm, where as a black character is almost always written to be specifically black. I think something a lot of people miss on Facepunch while discussing racism and such is the fact that we still live in a society that structurally favors white people in most situations. Feel free to label me a raging social justice warrior if you like, however that won't make it less true.
This is awful, completely terrible.
Ron Weasley is a ginger, if they don't get the guy to at least wear a wig they're doing a terrible disservice to the source material. It's basically his defining feature.
Most of the people bitching about it aren't even going to go and see it anyway so, the biggest crime is Ron Weasley not being ginger!
[QUOTE=Mio Akiyama;49384842]Pretty sure the Wiz Live was an adaptation of the Diana Ross and Michael Jackson movie, which in itself was an adaptation of the Judy Garland movie which was an adaptation of the L. Frank Baum book[/QUOTE]
Actually, the original musical The Wiz came out before the movie adaptation, and The Wiz live is a for TV recording that had some changes to be more similar to the movie. (I have nothing else to contribute to the conversation, just a passing theater nerd)
"the most qualified person should get the job"
unless they're not white i guess lmao
[editline]25th December 2015[/editline]
be consistant at least ffs
It's funny how so many of the people of the "omg PC is going mad these damned sjws" crowd come across as just as crazy and obsessive over this shit as some of the people on the other side.
[QUOTE=SpartanXC9;49365852]This would be different if they made a black character white. Instead of "who cares" then it'd be "that's racist!"[/QUOTE]
It's almost as if there's a wider historical context to take into account.
Why isn't anyone mentioning that J. K. Rowling's drawing of the characters shows that [URL="http://holykaw.alltop.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/39423289-media_httpiimgurcombn_CJuHH.jpg"]Hermoine is clearly white[/URL]?
I'm completely fine with this casting, but for her to say that she never specified Hermoine's original race is a blatant lie.
[QUOTE=Pat4ever;49402382]Why isn't anyone mentioning that J. K. Rowling's drawing of the characters shows that [URL="http://holykaw.alltop.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/39423289-media_httpiimgurcombn_CJuHH.jpg"]Hermoine is clearly white[/URL]?
I'm completely fine with this casting, but for her to say that she never specified Hermoine's original race is a blatant lie.[/QUOTE]
I believe I've brought it up.
Honestly, I think the only reason that she's being vague is to avoid the inevitable shitstorm if she said that Hermione is white, and they they castted wrong.
[QUOTE=DuCT;49403129]I believe I've brought it up.
Honestly, I think the only reason that she's being vague is to avoid the inevitable shitstorm if she said that Hermione is white, and they they castted wrong.[/QUOTE]
Even if JK came out and said that Hermione was always meant to be white, they still haven't 'cast wrong'. Her race is irrelevant to the story.
Hermione's race was never a factor in any of the stories, the race of the actor casted doesn't really matter.
[QUOTE=Grandzeit;49361030]Even if Hermione -was- described as being white in the books, it's still a fucking play. All that matters is whether they're good actors or not.[/QUOTE]
To me honestly, if a character is depicted as a certain way, changing their appearance so drastically like this makes it almost impossible for me to get into the character in any way because no matter what it's gonna seem forced with the "ooh ah look how we don't see color of skin anymore so lets uproot characters physical features to show how progressive we are." And being that there was 8 successful movies and they are trying to show the characters as adults wouldn't it make since to at least be within the realm of same physical features?
[QUOTE=FlashMarsh;49384330][url]http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/feminism/2015/12/course-hermione-granger-black-she-always-has-been[/url][/QUOTE]
yeah that's all well and good
except in the books
[img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CWwNi1jWoAAKwfn.png:large[/img]
it's absolutely fantastic to have a diverse casting choice - but saying that this was always Rowling's intention is some sort of weird revisionism that, primarily, [B]isn't needed at all[/B]
nobody has to justify Hermione being black, she can just be, but writing shit about how she's always been black is p.dumb
[editline]29th December 2015[/editline]
her race is totally irrelevant, so bringing up with relation to the original text doesn't make any sense - in the same way that her being white in the original text is irrelevant to this casting choice
It's a fucking stage play, why is this even a big deal?
Like others said, J.K Rowling has brushed everything intentionally vague because even she can predict how much of a shitstorm people will be getting into. And I fully agree on her on how people can and will argue over something that doesn't really matter.
Disregarding the war over if Hermione was white or not and looking into the casting, it could be simply said as this.
If she's a good actor and was hired for it, good for her.
If there were any ulterior motives at play and it should've gone for anyone else it isn't her to blame but the stage & hiring people.
If you think that i'm being vaguely racist then flip Noma's colour to anything else, likewise if you think i'm being vaguely sexist than flip Noma to a man, I honestly could not give a shit about that.
I hope Malfoy doesn't call Hermione a mudblood at any point during the production.
[QUOTE=Omniary;49422871]I hope Malfoy doesn't call Hermione a mudblood at any point during the production.[/QUOTE]
If anything, having a black actress makes that all the more potent and explicit. A large part of Harry Potter is devoted to how (wizard-)racism is a bad thing, and Hermione, despite natural talent, still faces prejudice due to her (non-wizard) ancestry.
[QUOTE=Cloak Raider;49411360]yeah that's all well and good
except in the books
[img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CWwNi1jWoAAKwfn.png:large[/img]
it's absolutely fantastic to have a diverse casting choice - but saying that this was always Rowling's intention is some sort of weird revisionism that, primarily, [B]isn't needed at all[/B]
nobody has to justify Hermione being black, she can just be, but writing shit about how she's always been black is p.dumb
[editline]29th December 2015[/editline]
her race is totally irrelevant, so bringing up with relation to the original text doesn't make any sense - in the same way that her being white in the original text is irrelevant to this casting choice[/QUOTE]
While I agree it is irrelevant either way, it has already been addressed earlier in the thread that that line doesn't not specifically describe a white person but rather describes somebody who has lost color from their face due to shock, or dread. Why would any writer describe a characters skin color in such a way?
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