Is It Really Okay To Cast A Black Man As A Wizard Nazi?
The casting of Paapa Essiedu as Professor Snape shows the conflict in reusing IP
Warner Brothers has recently confirmed the casting of their upcoming Harry Potter readaptation. The most interesting choice is casting conventionally handsome black man, Paapa Essiedu, as canonically ugly white man, Severus Snape. And before you ask trifling questions like: “Why is there going to be yet another adaptation of the Harry Potter saga so soon after the last one?” I think it’s worth examining why this casting has rankled fans of the series and internet cranks alike.
Obviously, the internet is the internet. I notice that Essiedu has already had to limit the comments on his Instagram account… One of the reasons I dislike when studios cast against the racial aspects of canon, is that they know exactly how these types of castings are going to be received, yet allow their actors to take the full brunt of internet scorn. This is just not fair, especially when the actor lacks the resources to afford A-List level security. Hollywood appears to have learnt nothing from the Rachel Zegler/Snow White debacle.
But, Sayde, you may say… This is an imaginary fantasy world, surely the actors’ races can be anything as this is all just make believe? Yes, I see that point, and I do acknowledge that the fantasy genre has historically been very white. The publishing industry has made a lot of effort to rectify that in recent years, and I think that is a commendable and worthy move in the right direction. This wouldn’t be a problem if the new show wasn’t based on an existing and well-established canon, but it is…
There is more about this casting that makes no sense beyond internet or genre racism. Harry Potter is a clear and direct allegory for real-world xenophobia in particular, the evils of eugenics and notions of blood and race purity. J. K. Rowling herself has confirmed that the Death Eaters are effectively the wizarding world’s equivalent of the Nazi party’s SS. This is why Essiedu’s casting doesn’t sit right with me. He hasn’t just been cast against Snape’s canon appearance, he’s been cast against the canon subtext.
This is why so many modern remakes and adaptations fall flat. Hollywood only wants to gamble on existing intellectual property (IP), but they also want everything they make to reflect modern and fashionable ethical standards and values, like greater diversity in casting. Older IP reflects the ethical standards and values of the time it was made because all fiction reflects the ethical standards and values of its time. So they then have to bridge this awkward gap by casting against racial or gender canon.
This, of course, upsets internet racists, but in many cases, it also upsets die-hard fans as it changes the subtext and canon of the original work. Ultimately, this is why Essiedu’s casting feels contradictory to me in a way casting a black woman as Minerva McGonagall would not. What would be even better would be not remaking the Harry Potter books again at all. If Warner Brothers is short on cash, a new original story set in the Harry Potter Wizarding World would be infinitely more interesting.
Such a story would allow Warner Brothers to milk their IP, without undermining or having to rewrite the original canon. This is exactly what the creators of the Hogwart’s Legacy video game did, and it worked really well. The professors in this iteration of Hogwarts all meet modern diversity requirements and nobody even batted an eye because, as original characters, they don’t violate any existing canon, and the game, as a whole, stays true to the subtext and allegory of the original saga.
Undermining the original canon, subtext, and allegory of an older work of IP is always a losing formula. Hollywood’s unrelenting determination to do just that to seemingly all of its best franchises has contributed to its loss of prestige in recent years. But as for Paapa Essiedu, I hope the studio gives him the support he needs to withstand internet trolls now they’ve thrown him in at the deep end. In the meantime, my hope that Hollywood will learn from its mistakes continues to wane.