That MCU stuff sounds rough, I’m sorry!! I’d be frustrated by that too.
It does make me wonder if Fantastic Beasts puts us in a really interesting and kind of unique position. We pretty much know that this is going to be a fandom. There are a lot of fannish people who are invested in it, and a new generation of HP fans who might find a way in through that story. But we don’t have any fanon yet. No headcanons. We haven’t yet picked the characters who will appear a lot in fic, or what their connotations will be.
So, we get to be intentional about it. We potentially get to pick. To act collectively to make the poc characters important – probably more important than the creators of canon will. So maybe we should do that? Maybe that’s a place for optimism? I agree that the idea of trying to change pre-existing fandom is daunting and lonely. But a new fandom with new characters? Maybe that’s a place for intervention?
(And I’m not generally one for optimism! But finding this possibility exciting.)
Though, after that parenthetical, I’m going to be a tiny little bit optimistic again. I’m also not shocked that JKR didn’t do better, and I’ve seen the same pattern you’re talking about in white allies. But I don’t think it has to be that why. It often is, yes. But I don’t yet feel resigned about it yet. (Or at least, I don’t today. Ask again tomorrow, the answer changes.) Instead of being blasé, white allies can recognize that the energy we don’t have to use coping with the experience of racism can be used to try to articulate anti-racist ideas and stand up for anti-racist principles and action and hold other white people to higher standards. You can’t give up your white privilege, but you can choose how to use it. Maybe that’s optimistic, but I do it, and I see people around me do it, and any sort of change relies on a lot more people doing it, and doing it with humility, but it’s not impossible. So, yeah, it doesn’t surprise me that JKR didn’t do better, but I am heartened that people (like Maggie Stiefvater, if that post is anything to go by) are trying to do better, and trying to hold JKR to a high standard, and that there’s enough movement there for them to have cast a black Hermione at all.
Speaking of casting….the Weasley-Granger children!! I hadn’t thought about that. That’s a scary thought. Sharing your fear. Really hope they don’t make their kids all white.
Re: canon – I think people really disagree – in a lowkey non-contentious way, but still – about what is and isn’t canon. For me, the movies aren’t canon. Nothing but the text of the seven books (up to but not including the epilogue) is canon. When I’m writing fic, that’s the canon I go to. If I need to fill in another detail, I might go to extended canon (Pottermore, the movies, the reference books) but I’d just as happily and easily go to fanon. I don’t think, from talking to other fic writers, that I’m the only one who operates that way, if only because the extended universe type stuff is too damn hard to keep track of, especially when it keeps changing. So that’s part of where we may be seeing the difference between canon and fanon differently, in having different conceptions of what counts as canon. So I totally agree that Cursed Child isn’t a fanwork, but I don’t think it’s canon, either – that’s part of why I love the comic book metaphor so much. Or, I’m thinking of something like the Star Wars extended universe, where, like, Mara Jade is real, but she isn’t canon. Black Hermione is real, but she isn’t canon. Though then, I do think we end up back in the same place, where multiple things can be canon at the same time. And I’m still happy about black Hermione, but also still worried (as with the Granger-Weasley children, such a good point) that they won’t take the meaning and significance of that seriously.
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It does make me wonder if Fantastic Beasts puts us in a really interesting and kind of unique position. We pretty much know that this is going to be a fandom. There are a lot of fannish people who are invested in it, and a new generation of HP fans who might find a way in through that story. But we don’t have any fanon yet. No headcanons. We haven’t yet picked the characters who will appear a lot in fic, or what their connotations will be.
So, we get to be intentional about it. We potentially get to pick. To act collectively to make the poc characters important – probably more important than the creators of canon will. So maybe we should do that? Maybe that’s a place for optimism? I agree that the idea of trying to change pre-existing fandom is daunting and lonely. But a new fandom with new characters? Maybe that’s a place for intervention?
(And I’m not generally one for optimism! But finding this possibility exciting.)
Though, after that parenthetical, I’m going to be a tiny little bit optimistic again. I’m also not shocked that JKR didn’t do better, and I’ve seen the same pattern you’re talking about in white allies. But I don’t think it has to be that why. It often is, yes. But I don’t yet feel resigned about it yet. (Or at least, I don’t today. Ask again tomorrow, the answer changes.) Instead of being blasé, white allies can recognize that the energy we don’t have to use coping with the experience of racism can be used to try to articulate anti-racist ideas and stand up for anti-racist principles and action and hold other white people to higher standards. You can’t give up your white privilege, but you can choose how to use it. Maybe that’s optimistic, but I do it, and I see people around me do it, and any sort of change relies on a lot more people doing it, and doing it with humility, but it’s not impossible. So, yeah, it doesn’t surprise me that JKR didn’t do better, but I am heartened that people (like Maggie Stiefvater, if that post is anything to go by) are trying to do better, and trying to hold JKR to a high standard, and that there’s enough movement there for them to have cast a black Hermione at all.
Speaking of casting….the Weasley-Granger children!! I hadn’t thought about that. That’s a scary thought. Sharing your fear. Really hope they don’t make their kids all white.
Re: canon – I think people really disagree – in a lowkey non-contentious way, but still – about what is and isn’t canon. For me, the movies aren’t canon. Nothing but the text of the seven books (up to but not including the epilogue) is canon. When I’m writing fic, that’s the canon I go to. If I need to fill in another detail, I might go to extended canon (Pottermore, the movies, the reference books) but I’d just as happily and easily go to fanon. I don’t think, from talking to other fic writers, that I’m the only one who operates that way, if only because the extended universe type stuff is too damn hard to keep track of, especially when it keeps changing. So that’s part of where we may be seeing the difference between canon and fanon differently, in having different conceptions of what counts as canon. So I totally agree that Cursed Child isn’t a fanwork, but I don’t think it’s canon, either – that’s part of why I love the comic book metaphor so much. Or, I’m thinking of something like the Star Wars extended universe, where, like, Mara Jade is real, but she isn’t canon. Black Hermione is real, but she isn’t canon. Though then, I do think we end up back in the same place, where multiple things can be canon at the same time. And I’m still happy about black Hermione, but also still worried (as with the Granger-Weasley children, such a good point) that they won’t take the meaning and significance of that seriously.