News: HBO’s Harry Potter Trailer Dropped – Has J.K. Rowling Shot Herself in the Foot?

A little bit ago, it was announced that Harry Potter was getting a reboot on HBO with a whole new cast. From the outset, people were worried but hopeful about this reboot. After all, Harry Potter is one of the most famous fandoms in history, was one of the defining points of a generation, and the movies, with J.K. Rowling working on them, were as accurate as possible to the books. Thus, a T.V. adaptation has a lot riding on it to live up to its predecessors.

However, when it was announced that the actor playing Snape would be Paapa Essiedu, the fandom’s concerns about DEI casting and race swapping were unfortunately realized. And now that the trailer has dropped, giving us our first look at black Snape, it’s becoming one of the most memed trailers out there.

Now, I’m not a huge Harry Potter fan. I enjoyed the movies and I read the books in elementary school, lost interest around book 6, and sadly haven’t read them since. However, while I think that this show still is going to be better than the Percy Jackson Disney+ adaptation where no one even tried to make the characters look accurate to the books, I can agree that black Snape does pose problems for the show.

The main issue with this casting besides the obvious differences in how he’s described in the books, is that in our hypervigilant world where we’re constantly looking out for any bit of racism, the bullying of Snape by Harry’s father, as well as Harry’s suspicion of him, may come off as racist to many people. As fans of the Harry Potter series are pointing out, this type of thing accidentally incorporates themes that are unnecessary to the larger story. Rather than James’ bullying coming off as misguided childhood antics, it may be viewed as totally racist, making his character irredeemable in the eyes of many.

Additionally, while I have no doubt that Essiedu may be a good actor, this casting was unnecessary when we consider diversity. As with the Percy Jackson T.V. adaptation, the world of Harry Potter is already diverse without race swapping characters. Just as Annabeth didn’t need to be race swapped to be black (something that also raised questions about that character in the context of the books), Snape didn’t need to be black for there to be inclusion.

On top of that is the fact that this type of race-swapping helps no one. While Essiedu may be a good actor and may do a good job of portraying Snape, I think because of how much focus there is on his race and how much the culture has shifted away from merit-based casting, it’s going to take away from his overall performance. People will be more focused on the race-swap than how he depicts the character, especially if the show’s PR team uses it to bolster media coverage of the show (i.e. Rings of Power calling the fans “patently evil” for wondering why Middle Earth there’s a black elf.) It adds another challenge for him on top of the fact that he’s stepping into the shoes once filled by Alan Rickman, who did an amazing job portraying that character.

Until next time,

M.J.