I'm kind of thinking of it like comics? Like, there are obviously multiple continuities in comics, and they're all canon and real and important facets of the same character. And things that happened in one universe get reimagined and changed over and over again - Oh, this is fab!! Finding this really really useful as a way to think of it. Thank you!!! Think I've had that kind of mental exercise going on, where it both is and is not canon, and this is a great way of understanding that.
Very, very fair, and I agree, that JKR's tweet is less "She was!" than "Well I never said she couldn't have been." Except I think implicitly she did say she couldn't have been. If you create a system where you don't mention the race of white characters, and then don't mention a character's race, explicitly or implicitly, then it's pretty reasonable for readers to assume, and for you to know they're going to assume, that said character is meant to be white. I mean, yes, JKR never wrote "Hermione Granger, a white girl with bushy hair and an armful of books," but I don't think that was intentional openness so much as treating whiteness as default.
Which, you know? Makes me extra annoyed at JKR. You don't get representation points if you don't do the work. You EXTRA don't get them if you're claiming them because of a loophole you created by treating whiteness as the default so completely that you could leave it entirely unstated.
I'd also bet that Dumezweni will be thinking about this as she develops the character - how could she not at least have an awareness of it, after all the kerfluffle? - but I'm less convinced that she'll be given room to express or enact those thoughts, vs being limited to what she can convey through action or expression. Which goes back to somethig you said - Representation has to be explicit to be meaningful. How explicit does it have to be? Is having a black actress play the role explicit enough to constitute good representation, or does the script need to address/indicate whether/how being a black witch is different from being a white witch? It's always felt to me like JKR is going for colorblindness in the wizarding world because it's just never talked about, but Hermione is Muggle-born and we pretty much know that she would've grown up with racism in one form or another. So if Hermione is played by a black actress, if Hermione is a black Muggle-born witch, especially if she's one who works in politics, but her race is never addressed, is that good representation?
And yeeeeaaahhhhhh, Fantastic Beasts. I was debating bringing that up and then this was already so long but....right? RIGHT? I share your cynicism and come the hell on. HARLEM. IN THE 1920S. AND EVERYONE MAJOR CHARACTER IS WHITE. Maybe it's not that surprising that I'm having trouble JKR as a defender of the importance of representation.
But for all of that...I'm still excited!! Another reason this wouldn't have been a good tumblr post, because I just don't have an over-arching bulletpoint-list-able feeling about this. I'm critical about a lot of it, and in the back of my head there's this running track of "Black Hermione!! Omg!! Amazing!! This is amazing!! I'm so excited!! Hermione is black!! Fuck yeah!!" Because...it's so exciting! And I think it's an important amazing choice! And I'm really excited!!! (and also hoping they'll film it, even if this is a lot of the reason why.)
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Very, very fair, and I agree, that JKR's tweet is less "She was!" than "Well I never said she couldn't have been." Except I think implicitly she did say she couldn't have been. If you create a system where you don't mention the race of white characters, and then don't mention a character's race, explicitly or implicitly, then it's pretty reasonable for readers to assume, and for you to know they're going to assume, that said character is meant to be white. I mean, yes, JKR never wrote "Hermione Granger, a white girl with bushy hair and an armful of books," but I don't think that was intentional openness so much as treating whiteness as default.
Which, you know? Makes me extra annoyed at JKR. You don't get representation points if you don't do the work. You EXTRA don't get them if you're claiming them because of a loophole you created by treating whiteness as the default so completely that you could leave it entirely unstated.
I'd also bet that Dumezweni will be thinking about this as she develops the character - how could she not at least have an awareness of it, after all the kerfluffle? - but I'm less convinced that she'll be given room to express or enact those thoughts, vs being limited to what she can convey through action or expression. Which goes back to somethig you said - Representation has to be explicit to be meaningful. How explicit does it have to be? Is having a black actress play the role explicit enough to constitute good representation, or does the script need to address/indicate whether/how being a black witch is different from being a white witch? It's always felt to me like JKR is going for colorblindness in the wizarding world because it's just never talked about, but Hermione is Muggle-born and we pretty much know that she would've grown up with racism in one form or another. So if Hermione is played by a black actress, if Hermione is a black Muggle-born witch, especially if she's one who works in politics, but her race is never addressed, is that good representation?
And yeeeeaaahhhhhh, Fantastic Beasts. I was debating bringing that up and then this was already so long but....right? RIGHT? I share your cynicism and come the hell on. HARLEM. IN THE 1920S. AND EVERYONE MAJOR CHARACTER IS WHITE. Maybe it's not that surprising that I'm having trouble JKR as a defender of the importance of representation.
But for all of that...I'm still excited!! Another reason this wouldn't have been a good tumblr post, because I just don't have an over-arching bulletpoint-list-able feeling about this. I'm critical about a lot of it, and in the back of my head there's this running track of "Black Hermione!! Omg!! Amazing!! This is amazing!! I'm so excited!! Hermione is black!! Fuck yeah!!" Because...it's so exciting! And I think it's an important amazing choice! And I'm really excited!!! (and also hoping they'll film it, even if this is a lot of the reason why.)