Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald has had a rocky ride to cinemas, at least from corners of the fan community. Given the Harry Potter franchise’s vaguely inclusive liberal credentials (hey, at least it’s anti-fascist), many were dismayed to see that the villainous Grindelwald would indeed be played by alleged wife-beater Johnny Depp. Though both creator J.K. Rowling and the studio faced a barrage of criticism over Depp continuing in the role, they stuck to their guns and, at least for a while, things seemed to have calmed down.
Then, after a trailer which confirmed the long-held fan theory that Claudia Kim’s character was indeed the human form of Nagini, it all kicked off again. The film suffered accusations of racism for making one of its few non-white cast members an evil snake woman, arguing that it struck the wrong chord for her to end up as the literal pet of an extremely pale wizard supremacist. Again, Rowling defended the casting and writing, though many fans said that her responses were lacking.
Faced with all this, Ezra Miller, who plays mysterious Oscurius Credence Barebone, seems to have become a bit frustrated. In an interview with Total Film, he said the following:
“Why don’t you wait until you see the film before you start talking shit on Twitter? Or wait to make up your own mind about something for once in your life. Do your own research. Make up your own mind. Follow your heart, and really, really investigate situations before you identify yourself and pick a side, and start throwing things at the opposition. Because that’s what’s totally screwing everything up right now. And it polarizes us. We’re all human, and there’s a lot of things we can agree on.”
Honestly, I have some sympathy for this position. Criticizing a film based on a trailer and what you imagine will be the case in the finished product is rarely a good move and – to be perfectly frank – there are more important things to get angry about right now than whether a snake-woman is racist or not in a Harry Potter spinoff movie. Still, comments like this are extremely unlikely to calm anyone down and I think it’ll just chuck more gas on the fire of an increasingly rancorous battle.
Whether or not any of this will affect the box office of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald remains to be seen, but we’ll find out soon enough, as the film apparates into cinemas on November 16th.
