Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

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incluvie

6 min readDec 2, 2018

Incluvie Rating: -2

I love the Harry Potter saga! But the latest Fantastic Beasts is causing mixed feelings. I know JK Rowling and Warner Brothers may have tried to include some diversity, but Fantastic Beasts is disappointing and exasperating for people of color. I applaud the initiative and attempt at inclusion, but am disappointed by how lazy and obtuse the execution is.

Series Overview

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, is the second film within the Fantastic Beasts saga, prequel to the Harry Potter saga, and tenth film within the Wizard World franchise. Directed by David Yates and written by J.K. Rowling, the film takes place in 1927 Paris and London. The Fantastic Beasts series explores the history of Dumbledore, Grindelwald, Lord Voldemort, as well as others within the wizarding world. The Fantastic Beasts series stem from the book by the same title, but is completely different than the book — as the book itself has no real story. The book — Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them — is a textbook of magical beasts within the Harry Potter wizarding world, “authored” by Newt Scamander — the protagonist of the Fantastic Beasts film series.

Diversity

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald had some controversy about its casting and portrayal of people of color. I hadn’t thoroughly read the reviews before watching the movie, as I wanted to go in with a fresh lens and perspective. I had, however, glanced at article headlines, and expected to be disappointed and / or infuriated by the movie. After watching the film, however, I had very mixed feelings. The film itself, if watched as a standalone movie, was actually pretty OK for diversity. I mean, the film didn’t star people of color as the lead protagonists, but it did star a couple people of color in more prominent supporting roles.

Prominent supporting roles played by people of color are Nagina by Claudia Kim, and Leta Lestrange by Zoë Kravitz.

I have to say that I loved seeing an Asian actress and a Black actress featured in the movie. I really gravitated towards those characters because I could identify with them. I’ll admit that whenever Claudia Kim was on camera, I was definitely more engaged and interested in the story. I’m so used to watching movies with a bunch of white people running around and talking a lot, that when the film featured a woman who, in a way represents me — I was definitely captivated. In this movie, she had a decent amount of depth, at least doing better than the low bar set by Hollywood of more than 0.8 seconds of camera time for an Asian person (as an exaggeration that’s actually not far from the truth). But honestly, I liked how the story allowed Nagini to express a range of emotions.

The irritation, and outrage, however, is apparent when viewing the people of color in the movie within the larger context of the Wizarding World saga. In this segment, I’ll focus on Nagini’s role.

Nagini, played by Korean actress Claudia Kim, is a woman who can transform at will into a large snake. She is a Maledictus, which means that she’s the carrier of a blood curse that will ultimately destine her to transform permanently into a beast. In the film, Nagini is a circus performer at Circus Arcanus, and is friends with Credence Barebone, the Obscurial from the first Fantastic Beats film.

In the context of just this movie by itself, the role of Nagini is perfectly fine. Even though she’s not the lead actress, I applaud the storyline featuring an Asian character with some spotlight time and depth.

Claudia Kim, herself, shared her excitement about her role in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.

“It will be so interesting to see another side of Nagini,” she told the entertainment news outlet. “You’ve only seen her as a Horcrux. In this, she’s a wonderful and vulnerable woman who wants to live. She wants to stay a human being and I think that’s a wonderful contrast to the character.”

Implications Within the Larger Context

The troublesome part of casting an Asian woman as Nagini lies in the implications of the role within the broader Harry Potter world and saga. The casting choice was not only tone deaf, but repulsive.

The one Asian woman in the movie plays the character who eventually becomes the evil pet snake and horcrux of the evil white man. The Asian woman literally becomes the white man’s pet and servant.

This is not only a case of the tired trope of Asians being villains, but also the trope that the Asian person is the sidekick and assistant to the “central” and “important” white people. In the future of the wizarding world, she doesn’t even have the luxury of being human. She is literally the white guy’s pet, available to do his bidding.

Teen author Ellen “We Will Keep Fighting” Oh, succinctly voices on Twitter:

✔@ElloEllenOh

I feel like this is the problem when white people want to diversify and don’t actually ask POC how to do so. They don’t make the connection between making Nagini an Asian woman who later on is the pet of a white man. So I’m going to say it right now. That shit is racist.

There’s not even a way this mess can be fixed. The outcome has already been written. The writers can’t change Nagini’s destiny to make her not the evil white guy’s pet (snake) and object (horcrux). She is literally sub-human to the white guy.

Possible Solutions

The only way this racist situation can be somewhat alleviated, is to give Nagini a prominent role in the next Fantastic Beasts movie. If the filmmakers can give her a solid storyline, then that would make things slightly less racially insensitive — given the current storyline disaster. One possible way to make the casting better for diversity is if the next movie features Nagini as a somewhat tragic but wholesome love interest of Lord Voldemort. This might be a stretch though, because Lord Voldemort is evil, and incapable of love. It’s also known that Bellatrix Lestrange has a thing for Lord Voldemort. I don’t know — I’m just trying to brainstorm ways in which I will not forever hate JK Rowling for being such an idiot and “arse” in terms of diversity. I love the Harry Potter world, and I’m trying to think of a way where I can forgive the franchise and just enjoy the series.