[ SECRET POST #4001 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4001 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 35 secrets from Secret Submission Post #573.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[morieris]

There are still people who thinks her diversity is anything but talk after when it matters?

[(Anonymous)]

TBF casting a black Hermione in Cursed Child was genuinely cool and good

that's the one thing, I would say

[morieris]

Very true!

[atalantapendrag]

She didn't do the casting, though, just spoke approvingly of it after the fact.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not familiar with the details but I assume she would have had input and awareness and a chance to comment on it before it was announced? Whether or not it was her idea first, it's still a decision that she was part of the process of, right?

[atalantapendrag]

I'm not sure how much input she had in casting for Cursed Child. I suspect if she'd objected to the casting they'd have accommodated her. But her "I never said Hermione wasn't black" comments never sat well with me. It felt very much like she wanted credit for writing a more diverse series than she had. I'd have had a lot more respect for her if she'd supported the casting without acting like it was her idea all along.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, how horrible of her, trying to get those brownie points. She should have said she like, hated the casting, because Hermione being black would ruin everything, or something.

[(Anonymous)]

But acting like that's totally a portrayal that'd been on her mind from the start when it definitely wasn't wasn't cool.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know if that's really what she did, but I guess I agree

DA

[(Anonymous)]

She didn't. She said that nothing she wrote said flat-out that Hermione was white, to try and shut up people who were complaining about the casting on the grounds that white Hermione was book canon. She was saying technically Hermione isn't stated as any race in the books, not that she totes always meant for her race to be open to interpretation because she's so OMG progressive.

[(Anonymous)]

Because you know what was going on in her mind?

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, that would've been pretty shitty. Good thing she didn't actually do that.

[(Anonymous)]

Like that wasn't done as a way to generate buzz around the franchise. Controversial casting is one of the oldest tricks in the book to get people talking about a project.

I will give Jo credit. She's smart when it comes to creating just enough controversy to keep herself and her brand in the public's mind.

[soldatsasha]

ikr?

Like, I love Harry Potter and I have a lot of respect for JKR as an author and businesswoman.

But gdi I am perpetually fucking salty that she's held up as some paragon of diversity and social awareness all because years after the book was published she said Dumbledore was gay, and a decade+ after the fact she said that Hermione might be black. There's literally no good excuse for the Dumbledore thing to not be stated in the books.

[(Anonymous)]

Like, I don't think she deserves any diversity brownie points for Dumbledore, but I'm kind of glad she didn't do anything overt with his sexuality in the text. She sucks at writing het romance and she can draw off direct experience for that. I shudder to think what she'd have done with Dumbledore.

[soldatsasha]

On one hand I agree with you. She's pretty bad at romance. On the other hand, most of the terrible het romance stuff happens in book 6 and 7, and both those have massive problems anyway even beyond the shitty romances. Harry and Cho's awful kiss in book 5 was great imo, as was Ginny's one-sided crush on Harry early in the series, so idk that the problem is so much that she can't write het romances but that 6+7 needed better edited/writing in general.

I think she could've made it more overt pretty easily. Literally all that needed to be added was Grindie and Dumbie holding hands, or even something as simple as "Harry realized the way they were looking at each other was the way Mr. and Mrs. Weasley always looked at each other" or something.

[(Anonymous)]

It was pretty obvious that he had a thing for this guy in some regard. I don't think it's that much of an asspull that he was gay all along.

[(Anonymous)]

I wouldn't describe it as an asspull but I also wouldn't assert that people should have been happy with the subtext.

[ayumidah]

Agreed. I had the sense that he might've been interested in Grindelwald while reading book 7, then JK came out and said it and I cheered because my senses weren't completely off haha.

[(Anonymous)]

I reared first 4 books thus far (never liked 4th much) and Dumbledore kept making very pg gay jokes all the time. Especially to McGonagall and she was displeased about it when they dropped Harry off in first few paragraphs. Also his lack of concern. I did not notice that as a teenager but did definitely notice the last part and it was a weird marketing spiel to make a shocking news out of it.

[(Anonymous)]

It was written in the 90's/mid-00's and people were already burning the books because "kids might become wiccans, oh no!" is kinda a good reason for subtext/late reveals during a more socially-acceptable time...

Also, point me to literally any popular thing from that time period with stellar amounts of diversity. The whole "can't have a cast made up of just white people" thing wasn't even a thing that most writers thought about, back then.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, what if her books had been banned? She'd have been in a really financially precarious situation... :(
She's the one who described her own books, back then when supposedly no-one had ever invented diversity, as a 'plea for tolerance', yet when it comes to actually taking any risks, she bottled it. So much for Gryffindor.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, racial diversity was definitely a thing in the 90s, especially in children's media. Other kinds of diversity, not so much, but every kids' show from Barney and Friends to Gargoyles had moved past the "cast made up of just white people thing" by then.

[soldatsasha]

The Deathly Hallows came out in 2007. Gay characters in media weren't a new thing in 2007 by any stretch of the imagination, including in YA media like the Harry Potter series. Also, people were already burning the books and banning them in conservative areas from minute one. Having a gay character wouldn't make that somehow worse.

And like an anon said, diversity in children's media was fucking HUGE during the 90s and early 00s. Seriously, point me to one fucking kid's show, movie, or book that didn't have a diverse cast besides goddamn Harry Potter.

[(Anonymous)]

years after the book was published she said Dumbledore was gay

A few months, but IMO that just makes your point stronger - she clearly had no problem stating it outright, why not in the books as well?