Posted on 06/06/2016 6:30:19 PM PDT by ghosthost
But it was the casting of Olivier Award-winning black actress Noma Dumezweni as grown-up bookworm Hermione Granger that caught most media outlets’ attention; in the films, Granger is played by white actress Emma Watson.
“I had a bunch of racists telling me that because Hermione ‘turned white’ — that is, lost color from her face after a shock — that she must be a white woman, which I have a great deal of difficulty with,” Rowling told the Observer in a recent interview. “But I decided not to get too agitated about it and simply state quite firmly that Hermione can be a black woman with my absolute blessing and enthusiasm.”
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
And in a movie set in old England barring Othello, that’s fine.
And never do you see a good, competent, intelligent white father. He can be caring and good and bumbling. He can be good but dumb. He can be intelligent and competent and evil. But never all good qualities.
Why not make her a man? Why not an ocelot? This is just idiotic, in-your-face-I-can-do-what-I-want nonsense from a woman with more money than God in the name of “look-how-liberal-I-am-I’m-better-than-you. If she had BEEN black in the MOVIE, I would have absolutely no problem with this. Why the hell try to cast sage actors that resemble the grown up movie actors? Why not make Ginny a blond woman? Harry with perfect eyesight and a Mohawk? IT’S BECAUSE THAT’S WHO THEY WERE IN THE BILLION DOLLAR SERIES OF EIGHT MOVIES.
This is like Conan Doyle killing Sherlock, or Douglas Adams at the end of the fifth Hitchhikers book, or those LibIdiots remaking Ghostbusters, for which I recently Facebook Ranted. If your poncy “reimagining” makes it impossible for the fans WHO MADE YOU RICH to FORGET IT’s a show...you are betraying them and your craft.
That text to make the point, because it is the same reason THIS bugs me:
CAMERA FADES IN ON LATE NIGHT SHOTS OF NYC. VOICE OF DAN AKROYD: “Oh, yeah, sure. When the Big Rift closed, back in 1989, the PKE level in in the city went to ZERO. Stone cold dead. Those spooks that blew out of containment, and all the slime, sucked right back into the Otherworld. We did the talk shows. Egon went back to teaching, I went back to the bookstore. We figured we’d never be needed again.”
(FADE HEARTBEAT IN AND UNDER.)
“But this? Something is waking up. Something old, older than time. We aren’t ‘running around in the streets’ kinda guys anymore.”
(TIGHT SHOT OF AN OLD OAK DESK IN A FIRESTATION, COVERED WITH OLD NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS FROM THE 80’s. WITH A WEIGHTY CLANK, A PROTON PACK LANDS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OLD NEWSPAPERS. HEARTBEAT LOUDER AND FASTER.)
“That’s where you guys come in.”
If you are old enough to remember New Coke, the “new” Ghostbusters appears to be a nice, big, tall glass of it: mass produced commercial product, put together by ad execs and Big Business and fed to you because You Need To Buy This, no matter what you think.
The “willing suspension of disbelief” is a gossamer thin thing. The thing that made Star Wars is that the story and the depiction of the universe it is in was so…immersive…that you forget you are watching a movie. Further, the story was so new, so different from anything that went before that you were mesmerized by the movie. You WERE in a time long ago, in a galaxy far away.
The ONLY thing I can think of when I see the trailers for the “new” Ghostbusters is NOT “Wow, women aren’t funny” (which is what all critics of the film will be dismissed and attacked with.) The ONLY think I can think of is “This is a movie, intentionally replacing something I love, and every second I see of it, I am reminded that no matter how spectacular the effects are…I am watching a movie.” For me, it is like watching a remake of Casablanca, but with Jim Carry and Madonna. It is like a tiny imp has been put on my shoulder, and is charged with flicking my ear every few seconds and repeating “Movie. Movie. Movie.”
If they had made it four women who were the NEW Ghostbusters…if the exact same characters, and plot, and effects were actually set in the same universe, with a nod of baton-passing from the remaining Old Guys, I could get behind this. That would place it in a fictional package where I could forget it was a remade movie, and immerse in it. But it’s like I ordered pizza in a pizza restaurant and they brought me a waffle…and then insisted on calling it pizza and looked at me like they expected me to pretend too. And then called me bad names for expecting pizza.
The trailers look slickly produced. The effects are amazing. I really laughed at the idiots in the crowd being terrorized by ghosts, who stood there and took selfies with them. I also chuckled at the few recognizable lines that connected with the old movie (the one they are busy ignoring existed.) And with every clever slightly-reworked line…I am again reminded that this pizza is really a waffle. I LIKE waffles. And pizza. But they aren’t the same thing, and being told they are leaves me missing the taste of both.
So yes, women can be funny. But that’s not the problem. A lot of people expected their favorite pizza, enhanced by cheese in the crust. It looks like we got really nice waffles, with New Coke on the side. And when we complain to the management, we are just being dismissed as troublemakers, rather than the people who can just stay home and watch the DVD of the original. And eat pizza, which is what we wanted to buy in the first place.If you are old enough to remember New Coke, the “new” Ghostbusters appears to be a nice, big, tall glass of it: mass produced commercial product, put together by ad execs and Big Business and fed to you because You Need To Buy This, no matter what you think.
The “willing suspension of disbelief” is a gossamer thin thing. The thing that made Star Wars is that the story and the depiction of the universe it is in was so…immersive…that you forget you are watching a movie. Further, the story was so new, so different from anything that went before that you were mesmerized by the movie. You WERE in a time long ago, in a galaxy far away.
The ONLY thing I can think of when I see the trailers for the “new” Ghostbusters is NOT “Wow, women aren’t funny” (which is what all critics of the film will be dismissed and attacked with.) The ONLY think I can think of is “This is a movie, intentionally replacing something I love, and every second I see of it, I am reminded that no matter how spectacular the effects are…I am watching a movie.” For me, it is like watching a remake of Casablanca, but with Jim Carry and Madonna. It is like a tiny imp has been put on my shoulder, and is charged with flicking my ear every few seconds and repeating “Movie. Movie. Movie.”
If they had made it four women who were the NEW Ghostbusters…if the exact same characters, and plot, and effects were actually set in the same universe, with a nod of baton-passing from the remaining Old Guys, I could get behind this. That would place it in a fictional package where I could forget it was a remade movie, and immerse in it. But it’s like I ordered pizza in a pizza restaurant and they brought me a waffle…and then insisted on calling it pizza and looked at me like they expected me to pretend too. And then called me bad names for expecting pizza.
The trailers look slickly produced. The effects are amazing. I really laughed at the idiots in the crowd being terrorized by ghosts, who stood there and took selfies with them. I also chuckled at the few recognizable lines that connected with the old movie (the one they are busy ignoring existed.) And with every clever slightly-reworked line…I am again reminded that this pizza is really a waffle. I LIKE waffles. And pizza. But they aren’t the same thing, and being told they are leaves me missing the taste of both.
So yes, women can be funny. But that’s not the problem. A lot of people expected their favorite pizza, enhanced by cheese in the crust. It looks like we got really nice waffles, with New Coke on the side. And when we complain to the management, we are just being dismissed as troublemakers, rather than the people who can just stay home and watch the DVD of the original. And eat pizza, which is what we wanted to buy in the first place.
Or adventures of the Indian girls who attended the English school of magic. They were in the movies, too.
Retconning classic characters offends fans, and it doesn’t mollify politically correct crowds because it is never enough until all fiction is their message fiction.
So don’t give them an inch ... a rewritten phrase.
Since she approved Emma Watson for Hermione in the movies she should stick with that look.
I had the same problem with the storm troopers who did not look a bit Maori.
It is like making Haggard an Elf and sticking him in a suit.
Doesn't work.
Actually it was hinted at in "Shards of Honor" and out right confirmed in Barrayar. But when Vordarian tries to needle Cordelia about it saying that Aral was homosexual she counter punches with "Bi, but he is monogamous now."
I could maybe see Aral asking if he could bring a third party into their relationship. Cordelia is a Betan after all and they tend to be quite liberal but I could not see him cheating on Cordelia.
Internal consistency. I have dropped more series over that one fatal flaw.
Those filthy, half-muggle mudbloods!
In other words, this is Token...not Rowling?
In other words, this is Token...not Rowling?
Samwise! Frodo! Look out! There’s a homo behind you! Don’t drop the ring!
Dumbledore was never revealed as gay in the books. Rowling made the claim in interviews after the last book was on shelves. I suppose there were hints after she said that, but I don’t think anyone would have suspected it without her PC pandering.
Nonsense. Had Hermione not been white, that would have been mentioned somewhere in the books or films. It was never mentioned. Rowling consented to having a white actress play the character in the films. Those facts explains the mental image that Rowling's fans have of a white Hermione. It is precisely the image that Rowling intended. To suggest that Rowling's fans are racist for having the image is obscene.
However, an adult Hermione can certainly be black in the play. The Harry Potter works are not just fiction, they are fiction about magic. Magic can easily explain a skin color change. However, to retain continuity with previous works, the skin color change MUST be explained.
Why do leftists feel morally superior when they label non-racists as racists?
You’re right, and that just makes her current stance all the more obviously disingenuous and ridiculous.
Prisoner of Azkaban page 59
This is all Rowling's pandering to the PC crowd to make herself fell good about her self righteousness. First Dumbledore being gay and now Hermione. What's next, Harry is really Bruce Jenner in disguise?
Yes, I wondered when Rowling would announce that Harry was really Harriet, and that any Harry Potter fans who didn't figure it out were LGBT haters.
Quite correct. Hermione is a fictional character. The same with a James Bond of African heritage. It's not like taking a picture about Moses and showing him as a European....
exactly.
oh, look, i agree with you on the product itself. likely to be utter crap. i expect disney will do the same thing to the star wars franchises.
i just don’t think it ought to be that big a deal to us; this is what the commercialization/business end of “show” does in a routine manner.
why do you think blacks are suddenly interested in “hamilton”? because a minority is fronting it. heck, the company putting it on even got in some (very brief) trouble in the media for putting out an audition call saying that NO WHITES were welcome.
just mho FRiend.
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