In the first 5 Harry Potter movies, the Gryffindor girl in Harry’s year named Lavender Brown was played (when she appeared, which was rarely) by an African-American (or African-British) girl.
Now that they’re making Harry Potter and the The Half-Blood Prince, in which Lavender briefly dates Ron Weazly, they’ve dredged up a white girl to play Lavender.
I noticed that Lavender was black in the earlier movies, and was quite looking forward to an interracial romance being presented as so unremarkable as, well, as not to be remarked upon. (Lavender’s ethnicity is not specified in the books.) But now that she’s going to date Ron, it seems like the producers decided, “ZOMG, we can’t have a main character making out with a… a… a NEGRESS!”
This decision strikes me as both cowardly and slightly racist, especially since when Harry and Ron took the (East Indian) Patil twins to the Yule Ball in Goblet of Fire it wasn’t seen as worthy of comment. Like interracial dating is ok as long as neither of the partners is, God forbid, African.
Am I crazy (aside from not inconsiderable craziness of being a 40-something man obsessed with Harry Potter), or is this sort of lame?
Apparently she had a non-speaking role in the previous films, and as you said, the books didn’t bother to describe her ethnicity. Assuming I noticed the change at all, I’d probably be more disappointed that the actress changed (like with Kitty Pride in the X-men movies) than thinking it was racist.
What, especially because there was another example of interracial dating that went without comment? That’s ridiculous.
IIRC, Ginny Weasley dates Dean Thomas in Half-Blood Prince, and he’s been played by a black actor in all the films. Unless they dump that plot all together in the new film (which would be a shame), you’ve got your unremarkable interracial relationship right there.
To me, the taking of the Patil twins to the Yule Ball is not the same as a dating relationship. We know, especially if we’ve read the book–but I think it’s fairly clear in the movie as well, that Harry and Ron dwaddle over asking girls out until they are desparate. They aren’t interested in the Patil twins romantically, there is no hint of flirtiness or kissing, it’s not a romantic relationship.
Lavendar and Ron is a romantic relationship, kissing is appropriate and probably inevitable.
I don’t know that it’s neccessary or desirable to make Lavendar white if she hadn’t been before, but I don’t think that doing so means that Black-White relationships are especially icky, when you look at the tone of the relationship involved.
Now, could one argue that many people are more comfortable with Indian-White or Asian/white relationships than Black/White ones? Yes, one probably could. But I’m not sure that that is a reasonable conclusion to draw based on the information we have about this situation.
So… the idea that the producers of half-blood prince didn’t even realize that the Lavander character had appeared previously when they casted her because… well, because what sort of grownup would, hasn’t occurred to any of you?
I just checked IMDB, and I can’t see where Lavendar Brown was in any of the other HP movies. And if the credits included one labelled “slightly creepy boy,” it stands to reason that the actress would be credited if she were identified.
If you could cite where she was played by a Black girl before, then we can talk about the ramifications of changing her color.
Yeaaaaah… only not really. Most producers of anything couldn’t care less about the story, and will barely remember the name of the characters or who the cast and crew were after a couple of years.
That’s likely what happened (or she was a glorified extra, or she grew too much during puberty), but if this is the case – that they changed a character’s race when she went from a miniscule character to a larger role – I’m with the OP. If they couldn’t find another competent black actress to fill the role, they weren’t looking very hard.
One of the Weasely dated Alicia Spinnet, a fellow Gryffindor quidditch player – who was African-American. Hmmm…
I believe there were quite a few interracial couples. What about Cho Chang? She dates, let’s see, Cedric Diggory, Harry, and Michael Corner.
In Harry Potter, ethnicity isn’t seen as important as blood purity based on wizardry – whether you’re a muggle, Muggle-born, or from a Wizarding family, pure-blood, “mixed blood”, etc.
If you actually READ the books, race, as we see it, barely rates a mention, except when it comes to physical description.
(Besides, did they even state who was WHO in the earlier movies?)
I would have to second this. Which film referenced Lavender and in which is she played by a black actress? I have no recollection of this being in any of the films.
Some googling indicates that Lavender was played by Jennifer Smith in Prisoner of Azkaban, but I can’t find a picture. I’m reasonably certain that she appears in the boggart scene. Anybody care to check?
Edit: I’m willing to bet that the OP is thinking of either Alicia or Angelina.
Er… I don’t believe she was American. Therefore it’s perfectly acceptable to say she was black, or perhaps even of Jamaican extraction, if that happens to be the case.
Ok, now that we’ve determined that I don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, this doesn’t particularly bother me. I had always thought that Lavender was blonde.
It’d be different if they changed the race of a character like Alicia or Dean, or paired up Ginny with Seamus instead of Dean.
Also, I think a lot of people are overlooking the fact that an interracial relationship of that nature may not be a very big deal in Britain. I have no idea, but I’d guess a white guy dating an Indian girl would be a smidge more significant across the pond.
I’ll wait patiently for someone to tell me I’m way off base.
While I agree that the producers probably could give a shit personally, they know plenty of fans obsess about crap like this to a degree that even I find alarming. I’d bet the farm that someone is paid to notice stuff like this. They knew they were pulling a slight switcheroo.
I didn’t really realize that the black Lavender’s* part was so small in the earlier films-- I just found her picture on the interweb and figured other fans were paying more attention to the films than I did.
*Sorry about my possible misspellings of characters’ names-- I haven’t read the books, I’ve listened to audio recordings of them. Which is how all this started-- I was looking for what used to be called “books on tape,” and Harry Potter was by far the easiest thing to find online.
