Duncan Lay: Can JK Rowling’s new movie silence critics?
WITH just a month to go before Fantastic Beasts 2: The Crimes Of Grindelwald hits cinemas, it seems author JK Rowling is going to have to cast a powerful spell if the movie is to “Expelliarmus” its critics, Duncan Lay writes.
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WITH just a month to go before Fantastic Beasts 2: The Crimes Of Grindelwald hits cinemas, it seems author JK Rowling is going to have to cast a powerful spell if the movie is to “Expelliarmus” its critics.
First there is the controversy over Johnny Depp being cast as the evil wizard Grindelwald after allegations he physically and emotionally abused ex-wife Amber Heard.
Depp gave an interview to Entertainment Weekly defending himself and said that he had Rowling’s full support.
He will be in court next month during The Sun newspaper for defamation over these allegations.
Assuming that is settled (and as long as he doesn’t try to smuggle small dogs into all the countries he will visit for the promotional tour) this one will probably blow over.
Then there’s the Nagini controversy. For those who missed it, a trailer for the film revealed that Korean actor Claudia Kim will play Nagini, a woman cursed to become a snake. And not just any snake, but a snake that kills for Voldemort in the Harry Potter series, that is the pet of that evil wizard and gets its head cut off by Neville Longbottom.
Where to start with this one!
The Harry Potter series has been attacked in the past for not having enough diversity. But Twitter fired up over Nagini.
Author Ellen Oh was furious that this made “Nagini an Asian woman who later on is the pet of a white man. That shit is racist”.
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After Rowling was accused of trying to win “woke” points for making Nagini Asian, Rowling tweeted back that the character was based on an Indonesian legend called the Naga.
Then Twitter went crazy again, with Indian users pointing out it is actually an Indian legend — and saying that Koreans are nothing like Indians or Indonesians.
Guess that shows trying to retroactively write in more diversity never really works.
The crazy thing is, of course, that this whole film series is new. Rowling doesn’t have to change Harry Potter to fit, she can just write completely new characters that are more diverse.
By trying to rewrite the Potter series to show it was actually far more diverse than it first appeared, she is simultaneously annoying fans and infuriating the Leftist warriors that won’t be happy until it’s become Harriet Potter And Racist Patriarchal System.
That’s even before we get into how gay Dumbledore is going to be in the movie.
According to Rowling (but not in the Harry Potter books) Dumbledore was not only gay but in love with Grindelwald.
Director David Yates firstly said Dumbledore’s sexuality won’t be “explicitly” explored. Then he came out and said it will be made “clear”. Both he and actor Jude Law, who plays Dumbledore, have said this is only film two in a planned five-film series, so there’s plenty of time to explore their sexuality.
Not sure what that means. Surely the final movie isn’t going to be a Brokeback Mountain-style piece set in the grounds of Hogwarts?
But will young viewers realise? Or care that Dumbledore is gay?
Australian author Hazel Edwards has saved lives with her story F2M: The Boy Within, which was the first young adult fiction co-written with a trans author, Ryan Kennedy.
“Writing to trend is shortsighted,’ she said.
“Contriving politically correct ingredients or issues in a story makes it clunky and preachy.
‘Writing gender or racial propaganda doesn’t last. readers need to care about what happens to the characters and be involved in the story. Gender or colour is secondary.
“But it’s reassuring for a child to be able to say: That sounds like my world’.”
So will Rowling be able to navigate a treacherous path between annoying the Left and the Right? Or will the movie end up in more trouble than a Golden Snitch in a bag full of Bludgers?
Guess we’ll know in a month.