HBO Max just dropped the first full trailer for its new Harry Potter television series, and the fighting started almost immediately. The show has been controversial since the day it was announced. Plenty of longtime fans wondered why it even needs to exist, arguing that the original eight-film franchise already did the job well enough. It’s a fair argument to make.
The left's complaints mostly came down to “transphobia.” Ever since J.K. Rowling has become one of the most prominent public opponents of trans ideology, many on the left have been trying (and failing to cancel her and anything she’s associated with, even the beloved Harry Potter franchise.
There are complaints from the right as well.
The casting of a black actor to play Severus Snape set off the loudest backlash and for good reason. Snape is described repeatedly in the books as having pale white skin, and swapping his race injects an unnecessary racial undertone into some of the story's most important plot points. The series was pitched as a more book-accurate version of the story, and this casting made it clear that would not be the case. A nonwhite actress was also cast as Hermione Granger, though that one bothered me far less.
As someone who has read the books and watched all eight movies more times than I can count, the idea of an adaptation that is truer to the books was actually exciting. Now, the original Harry Potter movies did an impressive job adapting Rowling's novels. But any adaptation of books that size has to cut material to fit a runtime audiences will actually sit through. A television series can spread each book across a full season instead of squeezing it into a two-hour runtime. So, I was all in. Honestly, despite the woke race swapping, I’m still all in. It's been years since I read the books, and a lot of the subplots that never made it into the films have faded from memory. That's exactly why I'm looking forward to seeing them on screen for the first time in over a decade.
Of course, voices from the left and right have been quite loud on social media since the new trailer dropped. Conservatives are hating on the Snape race swap. Leftists are calling JK Rowling transphobic and virtue-signaling their refusal to support it. The Verge, for instance, ran a piece declaring that "there is no ethical consumption of HBO's Harry Potter series.”
Spare me.
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Yes, as a conservative, I take real objection to the blatantly woke, frankly racist race-swapping that went into this casting. I'm willing to look past it anyway, because I still love this story enough to want to experience it this way. Plenty of conservatives won't make that same trade, and I don't blame them for skipping it over the woke casting choices.
As for the leftists working themselves into a frenzy because Rowling's views on gender happen to match those of most ordinary people, that's their problem, not mine.
In the end, I'm watching this to be entertained. There will be moments that bother me, but I'm tuning in anyway. And knowing the Harry Potter brand is too big for the trans mob to cancel it is a bonus all its own.
