Fury over Black Hermione Granger

[Umbran]

I guess what I dislike is the change. I wouldn't like it if in the next season of Game of Thrones Tyrion Lannister was portrayed by a six foot four person because the previous actor left the show for whatever reason. [Please don't call me prejudice against tall people because of this!] To me the change just wouldn't feel right, even if the new actor was amazingly skillful.

There's a major difference. Tyrion being small is formative, even central, to his character. Hermione being white isn't mentioned until the third book? That means her whiteness is hardly an important character trait, and is something we could change without altering what really makes her what she is.

If that's your position, never watch more than one version of a Shakespeare play, or take in more than one version of an Arthurian legend. These things change constantly, with each retelling.

 

[Homicidal_Squirrel]

To me, it would just hard to see the adult Hermione as black when I watched several movies in which she was white child. I don't know, maybe it isn't the most logical of opinions but if someone were to make a movie of me as a child and then as an adult it wouldn't feel right if one of them was acted out by a black actor and the other by a white actor because it wouldn't seem like the same person.

The difference is that you're a real person, and Hermione is a fictional character.

 

[Janx]

Rowling is a Brit, like Morrus. Maybe it's a common thing to them. We, as Americans, may not have that same reference... or at least not to the extent that some Brits might.

There are various shades of "black" in people. Some are darker than others. Some are very light skinned. Even so, I've seen some very dark black people that you could easily see the change in tone when scared and sick.

As I figured somebody with more experience would ammend my idea

For the dark skinned person that you've seen when they were sick/scared, would you have described them to me as "gone white with terror" or some such? Or more as "his usually midnight skin had gone several shades paler from fright"

I suppose its possible for an author to be ambiguous about skin tone when telling a story, if one is going to insist your story has diverse characters, shouldn't they put their words where their mouth is and say so in the book, not after the fact.


I don't think it really matters in the grand scheme of things. Just not my preference for handling it. If I write a novel intending to be diverse, half my characters will be women, and there will be a mix of races such that the main protagonists will not be all white or all male. 10% will be gay or transgender (assuming that's a close estimate of the actual distribution). And the book will indicate such, even if it's only in passing. A reader will know "hey, that character is like me." and not feel like it is Token the Black Friend.

Anything less is likely just trying to go back and claim the title. HP probably doesn't even pass the Bechdel test.

 

[Dog Moon]

Nope. definitely not intending to calling you a racist. I was inarticulately defending you, in fact.

I was pretty sure your reasoning was as you said.

Ah, I thought the first part might have been, but then the last line made me unsure. So good to know.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Usually, when the black folk among my kin or circle of friends- all Americans- refer to that kind of illness or fear-induced color change, we'd say "pale" instead of "white".

And again, JKR said that Hermione's race was not mentioned in the books. So if we're going to nitpick with anyone about that linguistic reference to "white" face, it has to be with the author.

 

[Dog Moon]

There's a major difference. Tyrion being small is formative, even central, to his character. Hermione being white isn't mentioned until the third book? That means her whiteness is hardly an important character trait, and is something we could change without altering what really makes her what she is.

Well, the thing is for me, I've never read any of the books. So to me her being white was brought up pretty much in movie 1 within about .2 seconds of seeing her. And maybe the race isn't central to her character, but the fact that her character through I forget how many movies was the same white actress through the entire series, her image in totalilty, including skin color, is how I identify Hermione as being Hermione.

And being white isn't an important trait of Batman and could easily be changed without altering what makes him who he is, but it IS one of his characteristics and one way we use to identify him just as the white Hermione is how we identify who she is.

I agree that Tyrion being small IS central to his character, but I was trying to use that as a sort of extreme example in order to demonstrate that my opinion is not based on the opinion that I dislike the change because I don't like black people and that I dislike the change for no other reason than it IS a change.

 

[Janx]

Usually, when the black folk among my kin or circle of friends- all Americans- refer to that kind of illness or fear-induced color change, we'd say "pale" instead of "white".

And again, JKR said that Hermione's race was not mentioned in the books. So if we're going to nitpick with anyone about that linguistic reference to "white" face, it has to be with the author.

Thanks for the info. Sounds like I was close enough to know that generally a black person wouldn't describe a skin tone shift as "white"


With Rowling, the issue is her retro-active comments seem to push social correctness buttons now, rather than when she wrote the books, approved the cover art with white characters and likely had a hand in approving casting considerations.

So Hermione is white because Rowling chose so in subtle ways with the production of the book covers and movies, and only now is she trying to back-pedal to cover her "openness"


In some ways, none of this matters to the play. If they have this new play using HP characters, and they've re-cast them with different races, so be it it. That's cool to see how Hermione plays out differently.

That's not related to my minor beef with Rowling's retro social agendizing of her material with little statements about so & so is this or that, to satisfy some diversity quota she failed to address in the original material.

I have no problem with any of those characters being any of those things. But it feels phony and contrived to be going back now and declaring all these things about the past books, just to score some diversity points.

 

[Morrus]

Thanks for the info. Sounds like I was close enough to know that generally a black person wouldn't describe a skin tone shift as "white"

A black person didn't. A white, English woman did. It's a perfectly cromulent phrase.

Maybe they need to edit the sentence for American audiences. Like they changed "philosopher" to "sorcerer". It's clearly confusing them!

 

[Ryujin]

A black person didn't. A white, English woman did. It's a perfectly cromulent phrase.

Maybe they need to edit the sentence for American audiences. Like they changed "philosopher" to "sorcerer". It's clearly confusing them!

Well a sorcerer is clearly evil. Like a witch. May we burn her?

 

[Janx]

A black person didn't. A white, English woman did. It's a perfectly cromulent phrase.

Maybe they need to edit the sentence for American audiences. Like they changed "philosopher" to "sorcerer". It's clearly confusing them!

those of us with a reasonable base of education know what a philosopher's stone is. The topic is even covered in basic chemistry classes as a historical component about alchemy. heck, Full Metal Alchemist didn't have to dumb it down. Don't confuse Hollyweirdisms for americanisms.


"Hermione's white face stuck out from behind the tree" most clearly tells me she was seen because she is pale and the night is dark and her head was sticking out from behind a tree.

It does little to imply fear in that sentence. Had she been black, it would have been the whites of her eyes and teeth that gave her away, the rest of her face blending in more readily into the darkness, regardless of how pale she was feeling.


Rowling forgot she wrote that little sentence, and made a declaration that Hermione is raceless in the book, when had she really envisioned a non-white girl and envisioned the scene in actuality, would have come to a different description.

It may be perfectly cromulent, but the glove does not fit. the probability that an author would describe a black character hiding behind a tree with their head sticking out as "white face" would be one of ignorance to the actual visuals of the scene.

Basically, go get a white and black friend, wait until night, and take some pictures of them hiding behind a tree with their head sticking out. Heck, film it. Then draw a gun on them, to get the blanched fear look.

Pretty sure you won't be using the word "white face" to describe the black friend (even without the gun, that's just dangerous), except to be contrary.