The producers of the new Harry Potter series want the wizards to be played by transgender and nonbinary actors. But the woke project can still be derailed by J. K. Rowling, who hasn’t given them permission to use her characters.
“We aim to reflect the diversity of the fan base in its beloved characters, introducing people of color, queer storylines, and characters of differing faiths,” TikTok video producer Megan Mckelli, who is the project’s mastermind of the series planned to be filmed in the US this summer, said, as quoted by The Daily Mail.
The casting notes for the upcoming production, seen by The Daily Mail, insisted that the role of Harry Potter’s mother, Lily Evans, should go to a “gender-nonconforming, nonbinary, trans female.”
In addition, the actor playing the father of Harry’s father, James Potter, shouldn’t be white, according to the producers. “Asian, black, African descent, ethnically ambiguous, multiracial, Indigenous peoples, Latino, Hispanic, Middle Eastern, South Asian, Indian, Southeast Asian or Pacific Islander” ethnicity would be required to land the role.
The main heroes from the books and subsequent movie adaptation – Harry Potter and Hermione Granger – reportedly aren’t featured as main characters in the script, written by Mckelli and his team.
But another character beloved by Potterheads – Sirius Black, who had been originally played by Gary Oldman, is in the series, with non-white actors of any gender invited to audition for the part.
However, the future of the project remains uncertain as Rowling isn’t believed to have allowed the producers to use the characters that she created.
The author of the Harry Potter books herself declined to comment when the paper addressed her on the issue.
The web series could be seen as a direct challenge to Rowling. The creator of the Harry Potter universe has been under fire from the woke mob after speaking out against gender-neutral language and certain elements of trans activism. Among other things, she suggested that trans women and biological women weren’t the same, arguing that “if sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased.”
Her views saw the writer branded “transphobic” and TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) online – labels she denies. Rowling faced death threats and had been doxxed by trans rights activists, who published her address on Twitter.
Stars of the Harry Potter film series, including Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, also publicly distanced themselves from the author and criticized her ideas, while there were also some actors who supported Rowling. She was also sidelined for the recent Harry Potter reunion special, only appearing in ‘Return to Hogwarts’ in the form of archive footage.