In addition to the above comments, consider the Unfortunate Implications if Lavender had been black* - Ron and Ginny BOTH dated a black person, only to ditch them for white characters (Harry and Hermione)? And the context of Ron and Lavender’s relationship - Ron only dated her to make Hermione jealous, and everyone, including Ron, thought she was a bit of a twit. Neither of those puts inter-racial relationships in a very good light, do they?
(Not originally my argument…though I can’t remember where I first ran into it. Perhaps TV Tropes.)
I laugh at the idea that the credit of a random extra can be taken as positive identification of the character.
Actually, I seem to remember it was Angelina Johnson who was black. In the fourth movie, she is one of the 7th year students who put their names in the Goblet of Fire - there are other kids cheering and shouting “Go, Angelina!” as she approaches the Goblet. I think Fred takes her to the Yule Ball, not Alicia.
Yes, Fred took Angelina (who is identified as black in GoF) to the Yule Ball. Non-canon, but apparently she later ended up marrying George.
I’m trying to find a physical description of Lavendar in the books but no luck yet. To me it’s more important that they are consistent with the books than with previous random extras who weren’t even called by name, anyway.
No, IMO you’re very much on point (not that I’m British, but I have spent a deal of time there). British racists aren’t geared to Africans, or black people specifically more than any other race. And as a matter of fact, I think a person referenced as “a black person” in the UK is more likely to be Jamaican or southern Indian than African. Not having seen the actress in question I can’t comment on her specific ethnicity.
(But anyone else in this thread who feels moved to call an actress in a British film by a British author, set in Britain “African-American”, can you please give yourself one of these -> :smack:)
It would be, but only because the couple are more likely to be of different religions and the Indian girl’s family are more likely to speak a different language at home.
Yes, Guin you are thinking of Angelina Johnson, not Alicia Spinnet. Angelina is identified as black more than once, I’m fairly certain.
This is all completely correct. Race simply is not a big deal in the Potter universe. As has already been pointed out there are a fair amount of interracial couples and it was never made a big deal out of, not even by any of the kid’s archrivals(Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Parkinson, etc.). There’s 3 with Cho quoted above, Ginny dates Dean Thomas throughout most of Half Blood Prince, and though it’s not expanded on, there was a hint of a Luna/Dean pairing towards the end of Book 7.
So I can’t get behind the OP’s rant. They needed to cast the role of Lavender in this film because she plays a much larger role than in the previous books. Whichever extra they had labeled as Lavender Brown was not necessarily right or able or willing to play the role. I really think this was a matter of getting the right actress for the part and not of changing her from black to white because she dates Ron. I think that’s a ridiculous claim. Now, if the character of Lavender was described as being black in the books, and they cast a white actress, that’d be different. But she’s not described as being one or the other, so they have a little leeway there.
Of course, if studios cared at all, that would happen. And unnecessary changes to adaptations of books with lots of fans wouldn’t be made, and basic physics, history and narrative logic would be respected, and details would be paid some sort of attention.
But if that doesn’t happen in any other movie or series of movies, why would you consider the HP series an exception?
This is ridiculous. It’s not a racial conspiracy. Nobody doing the movie knows who the Lavender girl is. Probably even the writer or the girl playing the damn part have forgotten by now. Grow up, people.
If my original post is being perceived as a “rant” about a “conspiracy,” I expressed myself poorly. Let me try again.
If nobody had ever been cast as Lavender, the producers probably would have defaulted to hiring a Caucasian performer. Since there was a previous Lavender who happened to be black (though I agree she was basically an extra), I thought it would have been cool for the producers to say, “Well, we already depicted her as black, so what the hell, let’s follow though with that now that it’s a bigger part-- after all, it doesn’t matter.”
Since both Rowling and the filmmakers do appear to be at pains to depict Hogwarts as both diverse and free of skin-color prejudice, I thought they might follow through in this way, and I thought it would be sort of a cool thing to do. So I was disappointed when they didn’t, and initiated a conversation to that effect.
For the record, I don’t think the Harry Potter films are racist. I did use the term “racist” to describe the tendency to assume that any person whose race is unspecified must be white. This was probably too strong on my part, and was begging to be misinterpreted. I accuse the filmmakers only of failure to seize an opportunity to inject further diversity into the films.
Jo Rowling is always consulted on obscure things like “What does this character look like?” where it matters. Sometimes they do go off in another direction, after some discussion, but usually they try to adhere to her image of the characters (and locations, and props, and everything else) as close as they can.
I suspect, therefore, that even though an anonymous extra has been presumed to unofficially be Lavender, the truth of the matter is the current actress is closer to the image Jo Rowling had of her.
I’ve only seen the first two films and read all of the books and somehow I “knew” that Lavendar Brown was black. I’m pretty sure it’s mentioned in one of the books.
Nope, don’t think it is. The closest we get to a description of Lavendar is:
…Which kinda indicates that either Ron’s hands are very dark for such a pasty ginger-haired bloke, or Lavendar’s are kinda pale.
And yet, y’know what? All through the books I always thought she was black too. For some reason, the name Lavendar Brown gives me the impression of a pretty girl with light purple clothing, straight black hair, and dark skin. Dumb, but there you go.
Total guess: even if the earlier extra credited as Lavendar was black, maybe they cast a white actress this time around because they didn’t want another not-very-sympathetic, soon-to-be-ditched love interest to be non-white?
It’s funny how people can have different first impressions…I always swore in my head Lavendar was the long blond hair, blue eyes, perfect figure type. Basic nightmare for Hermione, in other words. But evidentally the books don’t say either way.
Maybe I was unconsciously influenced by Marta’sdrawings.
Not exactly. IMDB lists the role as “Lavender Brown”, so it’s not like this is fans assigning the label to the girl, the movie did it.
Still, it is a bit of a wash. I mean, I can totally see how a casting director charged with filling in extras for the classroom scenes would identify the roles by names from the book, even if the part is essentially backdrop (i.e. extra). But when the role becomes more serious to the story (as in the character is actually identified), then it becomes important enough to ask Rowling what the actress should be like.
What would be interesting to me is if that character is ever referred to or about in the dialogue of the other movies. That would be more telling of whether the character was really Lavender Brown, or just a random student.
Because the HP books are so popular that losing the readers’ goodwill might actually cost the producers money.
Harry Potter movies are different from other book-based films in that the books’ readers actually comprise a significant portion of the moviegoing public. It simply wouldn’t pay to alienate that many people. I can’t think of any other books like that.
I agree that movies often butcher the book, but in this case it makes more sense for them to be faithful.
