Harry Potter and "Racism"

OK, before I get into this I realize a lot of this is old news and was mostly back in 2013 but I had to share my views on this because most of what I recently came by was by "pro-black" or "black pride" people who spend all their time on Youtube, Tmblr, Facebook, etc. and keep screaming "racism" about the fact that from Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince on the role of Lavender Brown was changed from a black actresses to a white actress. There is no discussion among these types of people about whether this is due to other reasons besides racism, it has to be due to racism. So what I decided to do was pose an actually reasoned view of why this role change possibly happened, especially considering other scenes from Harry Potter.

The Role of Lavender Brown
Let's start off by examining the role of Lavender Brown before Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince and look at what kind of role it was. Prior to the 6th movie, Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince, the role of Lavender Brown was a non-speaking, nondescript role that was little more than a background character that happened to have a name. This means that the role at best, prior to the 6th movie, was not seen as an important role to the story being told.

With this being the case, and given the fact that Lavender Brown's race in the books is never really specified, the decided to use black actresses for the role. And even this role was given to two separate "actors" because the role of Lavender Brown in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was played by a different female character than the one in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets the actress was Kathleen Cauley and in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban the actress was Jennifer Smith. However, neither role was a speaking role though Smith did have more screen time than Cauley in her role.

It should also be noted that Lavender Brown makes no appearance in the next two films Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire or Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

The Actresses
Now, let's have a look at the actresses themselves. Kathleen Cauley was the first Lavender brown, and this seems to be the only acting role that she has ever done. She has no IDMB profile, I cannot find anything about her with regards to what she's doing now and she doesn't seem to have any other acting roles. As for Jennifer Smith, she actually does have an IMDB profile but the only credit she has it the 2004 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban role in her filmography. So it is likely neither of these "actresses" appeared in more than these roles, and have not gone on to do more roles in other movies. It also seems unlikely that either of them would have re-auditioned for the role of Lavender Brown since they both had the role before there would have been no need.

The Directors
Another issue with the Harry Potter films is the fact that the directors of the film were so many, of the eight films there were 4 directors. The first two films(Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone, Chamber of Secrets) were directed by Christ Columbus who was slated to direct all of the movies, but decided after the second that he didn't want to direct the rest and became a producer instead. Alfonso Cauron would be tapped to direct the 3rd film(Prisoner of Azkaban) with Mike Newell signing on to direct the 4th one(Goblet of Fire) but refusing to direct any further films. David Yates would become the final director of the last 4 Films(Order of the Phoenix, Hal-blood Prince, Deathly Hallows Pt. 1, Deathly Hallows Pt. 2), becoming the only director besides Columbus to direct more than one film.

Now, it is entirely possible that given the fact that the directors who hired Kathleen Cauley(Chris Columbus) and Jennifer Smith(Alfonso Cauron) didn't go on to direct the subsequent films and given the fact that Lavender brown made no appearances in the 4th(Goblet of Fire) or 5th(Order of the Phoenix) movies and that by the time of the Half-blood Prince there was a fourth and final director it is entirely possible that the previous actresses were not really considered since their roles were so small and they were now on their 4th director and not sure he would stay for all of the films to come. It's entirely possible that by the time the last director was hired the role of Lavender Brown wasn't even thought to have existed in the previous films, the roles being so small.

Other Mixed Race Relationships
Here's something that rarely even gets discussed. The cry of "Hollywood is racist" completely ignores the other relationships in the movies that were interracial. There's the relationship between Fred or George Weasley(I forget which twin) and Angelina Johnson in the Goblet of Fire, Weasley was "white" and Johnson black. There are also the relationships between Ron and Harry and the Patil twins(the Indian girls) from that same film. There's Harry and Cho Chang as well as the possible relationship between Harry and the black woman that works at the cafe he was at in the beginning of the Half-blood Prince. There is also Ginny Weasley and Dean Thomas who have a relationship in the beginning of the Half-blood Prince. These are but a few of the ones I actually remember myself, and there are likely to be others I haven't even noticed.

Conclusion
When you consider all aspects of the films being made and the content of the films, one could come to a very different conclusion. Given the fact that the movie series had so many different directors, the fact that for the first 5 films the role of Lavender Brown was either non-speaking or non-existant, the fact that the franchise actually had other interracial relationships of which some were "white" and black couples, it seems rather dishonest to claim the movies were "racist" because of the actress role changing race. It's more likely, when all factors are considered, that the role change was simply a by product of later directors not realizing that Lavender Brown was originally cast as a black character and just choosing who they thought was best for the role.

Claiming the Harry Potter movies are racist because of this change in casting, despite all of the other evidence that the movies had no issues with mixed race couples, seems a bit far fetched to me. And contrary to what so many PC promoters will tell you, there is no such thing as "unintentional racism" because for racism to exist it must revolve around a belief in racial supremacy or superiority. And branding a simple over site as "racism" seems to me to be rather dishonest at best.

(Expect more blog posts on the Harry Potter Movies, including the politics of Harry Potter.)