You don’t like the fact thew new Hermione is black? Then you are a “racist”, according to J.K Rowling.
The author behind Harry Potter, JK Rowling, has described people who criticized the casting of a black actress as Hermione in the new Harry Potter play as “a bunch of racists”.
The Harry Potter creator told the Observer that she had “a great deal of difficulty with” fans’ belief that the character “must be a white woman.”
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child begins previewing at London’s Palace Theatre on Tuesday. The two-part production, written by Jack Thorne, is expected to be one of the year’s biggest theatrical shows.
JK Rowling said her “experience of social media” had led to her to expect “idiots were going to idiot.”
“But what can you say? That’s the way the world is,” she continued, adding she had “decided not to get too agitated” about the reaction online. Instead, she said she had decided to “simply state quite firmly that Hermione can be a black woman with my absolute blessing and enthusiasm.”
In the same article, director John Tiffany is quoted as saying he was “shocked [that] people couldn’t visualise a non-white person as the hero of a story”.
When Dumezweni was announced to play Hermione last year, the author said Hermione’s ethnicity was “never specified” and that she “loved” having the character played by a non-white actress.
The two-part Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the eighth story in the franchise and the first official story to be presented on stage. The play centers around Harry Potter as a husband and father of three school-age children, with a job working for the Ministry of Magic. “I hope we get there without any major spoilers, purely because people will have an amazing experience if they don’t know what’s coming.”
Via The Observer
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