In this op-ed, cultural critic Ayan Artan makes an argument against the potential casting decision to racebend Severus Snape in the upcoming Harry Potter television reboot, using past toxic and racist fandom behavior as a cautionary tale.
Earlier this month, it was reported that renowned Black British actor Paapa Essiedu was nearing final talks to play Severus Snape in the HBO television reboot of Harry Potter. The reaction: instant, predictable backlash on the internet.
This time, however, the negative reaction didn’t just come from racist people — fandom has a rich history of racist backlash to casting that changes the race of beloved white (or perceived as white) characters — but also from Black and brown critics who immediately saw the troubling narrative aspects of making Snape a Black man.
Black faces, of course, are being erased at an alarming rate from our television screens. Every other week, it feels like a show that features us has been cancelled, with How to Die Alone, All-American: Homecoming, Unprisoned, and Swagger being some recent examples. There’s a trending post every other week about how Hollywood seems intent on rolling back its “diversity” promises. Meanwhile, in the U.S., corporations and government offices are (almost proudly) rolling back their inclusivity promises and diversity departments under the Trump administration.
It’s chaos, and we know where it leads: to further harassment of Black people, online and off, fictional and not.
In theory, getting to see one of our generation’s most interesting Black actors take on a role in a show that’s sure to garner the world’s attention is a good thing; it should be a point of celebration. But in reality, we know just how bleak things could get for Essiedu, should he be formally cast, because we’ve been here before.
We’ve watched, tentatively excited, as a Black actor gets placed in the center of an adaptation, poised to take on a character originally coded to be white. We’ve watched as they were thrown to the internet fandom wolves, digitally abused and harassed for their involvement in these projects by stans who refuse to associate a Black or brown face with their favorite characters.
The Harry Potter fandom already has a track record of abusing Black talent who take on parts originally imagined as white: During Noma Dumezweni’s two-year run as Hermione Granger in the West End and Broadway productions of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the actor saw a barrage of hate tweets and racist harassment directed at her in a now familiar pattern by stans. #Notmyhermione started trending, and Potterheads threw their toys out the pram simply because the part wasn’t being played by a white woman like it had been in the films.
There are countless examples of this kind of response to castings in fictional, often fantastical works: Ncuti Gatwa in Doctor Who, Leah Sava Jeffries in Percy Jackson and the Olympians. John Boyega and Kelly Marie Tran in Star Wars. Regé-Jean Page, Simone Ashley, Charithra Chandran and Victor Alli in Bridgerton.
Magic isn’t real, wizards and Stormtroopers do not exist, and Bridgerton's narrative handling of racism is intentionally anachronistic — and yet still, Black and brown and Asian people being a part of the fantasy is the most unbelievable part.
One of the first widespread racialized hate campaigns to gain media attention began in online fandom spaces and targeted a 13-year-old Amandla Stenberg, who starred in the first Hunger Games film as Rue (and who would later receive similar harassment for her role in The Acolyte). When her casting news broke, fans of the books came forward and made it known that they had no interest in feeling sympathy for a Black girl killed in the Games. “Call me racist but when I found out Rue was black her death wasn't as sad #ihatemyself,” one now-infamous tweet read.
It doesn’t matter if Rue is explicitly stated in the source material as having “dark brown skin”; even Hollywood’s colorist choice to cast a mixed-race actress to play the character was still too far for them. This idea that audiences cannot emotionally connect with non-white actors runs rampant in these racist harassment campaigns. In their mind, every character worth idealizing or feeling sympathy for is white because they, the viewers, are white — how can they self-insert into these stories and live vicariously through these people if they do not look like them?
If the death of a Black child in real life does not move them; why would it make them feel sympathy for an imagined child?
Leah Jeffries is one of a few Black actors whose team has come forward and actively defend her from the racist attacks; Rick Riordan — the author of the original series — took to the blog he uses to communicate with fans and outright condemn the racism his young cast were facing, explicitly stating that anyone who had a problem with this diverse cast should take it up with him personally.
Condemning racism is the bare minimum, but it is a noteworthy instance, because so often, even the bare minimum is not met. What truly makes this Snape casting difficult to stomach, though, isn’t just knowing how fans react when these characters are race bent. It’s knowing which character specifically Essiedu is setting out to play.
Severus Snape is a cruel, acerbic man whose treatment of his students — particularly Harry, for obvious reasons — borders on abuse. Reading the books, you spend entire novels despising the man and questioning his loyalties, deeming him unfit to be a teacher, just as Harry does. The Harry Potter series also deals with the idea of blood purity; Snape being the “half-blooded prince” is considered inferior to a pure-blooded wizard like Harry because of his Muggle heritage. It isn’t hard to see how J.K. Rowling’s world echoes the real life “racial hygiene” white supremacists are preoccupied with.
Placing a dark-skinned Black man within that context and expecting an already militant fanbase who are gagging for any reason to dislike him is merely fanning the flames of hateful fan behavior. Before Halle Bailey ever sang a note as Ariel, think pieces were being drafted by Disney adults to protest her being chosen for the role. Now, fans have a “reason” to hide their racist vitriol behind.
Take Amber in Invincible, for instance. Originally white in the comics, the writers decided to change her race and give audiences a woke, dark-skinned love interest for protagonist Mark. To say the fandom did not take to her would be underplaying the extensive anti-Amber online discourse present to this day. What made matters worse was the decision to treat her like so many other Black girl characters on television and make her a disposable love interest, preparin Mark to be a better partner for his eventual, fated white love.
The internet couldn’t handle an animated, Black, self-assured teenager — what makes anyone involved with the Harry Potter TV series think its fandom will be able to view a Black man bullying innocent white children with any level of nuance?
The choice to change a character’s race often exists as a shallow, tokenistic play at “representation” from studios that have no interest in funding work created by Black talent; making a character Black in a reboot is the easiest way to “update” outdated source material.
It’s what makes AMC’s Interview With the Vampire such a refreshing bit of television. It would have been so easy to cast Jacob Anderson and pretend that his race has no consequence on how his character Louis would be viewed, but instead, the show’s writers went out of their way to add to Anne Rice’s world. The end result is stunning: A vampire who tussles with his socially enforced inferiority complex, groomed and loved by a white vampire who both frees him and chains him to himself.
It’s obvious they did not simply write a story and cast a Black man in the hopes of splashing their adaptation with some color, using him like prop furniture. They tailored the role to him, making it clear that he — in his full self — was an integral part of the story.
The likelihood of this Harry Potter adaptation being that considerate of its Black and brown cast members is slim, especially if you take into account the regressive, marginalizing politics of J.K. Rowling herself. And from the actors’ point of view, choosing to associate yourself with the work of a woman who has campaigned fiercely for the exclusion of trans people from our society, who has spent that much time villainizing an already victimized minority, is an alarming choice for any artist to make.
Is Rowling, of all people, worth being called slurs for? Is the cost of “representation” worth it?
As things currently stand, the answer is no. I would choose the mental health and safety of our Black talent every time over the momentary exposure that taking on these kinds of roles can provide. Being called everything but your name for a production that will likely do nothing to protect you is not a fair trade to make — not in this cultural climate.
As things currently stand, Essideu would be joining a long list of Black actors who watched their personhoods reduced and cast aside by fans who quite simply do not see them as people. I pray that I’m proved wrong. I doubt I will be.
