I quickly grasped my phone when I got a message from my friend telling me that the final trailer of “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” was out. Being a diehard fan of the series, I stopped everything I was doing and watched the trailer.
As I watched it for at least the third time, I noticed a quick scene with the character Nagini. I confess that only after looking at multiple fandom sites of her character, I finally learned that she is a snake who was the right hand partner to Voldemort in the Harry Potter series. Nagini used to be a Maledictus who had the ability to change into both snake and human form until a bloodline curse trapped her in snake form.
I immediately felt super excited to learn about Nagini’s backstory in the film. However, I did not anticipate the amount of controversy the character would cause. People raged with tweets, implying that the character itself is racist. Many began to tweet hate comments towards author J.K. Rowling, accusing her of changing the character to an Asian woman.
Nagini’s character is played by South Korean actress Claudia Kim, and is seen to be property or a servant of some sort to Voldemort, who is a white man. I understand how fans would think that casting an Asian woman as a seemingly submissive character is degrading, but I feel that for someone to make that assumption defeats the whole purpose of the character. In fact, J.K Rowling has defended her casting decision, stating that Nagini is Naga, a snake-like creature from Indonesian mythology.
When first seeing and learning about her, I did not look at her for her race. Instead, I saw Nagini as a strong, villainous character with a mysterious past.
It upsets me to see that fans are bringing up that point, for they are merely seeing Claudia Kim for her race rather than the talented actress that she is. Regardless, she was presumably cast solely for her acting abilities, not because casting directors wanted to degrade her for her ethnicity.
Personally, I love that the movie is bringing diversity by giving a woman of color an interesting main role with such a different dynamic. This shows that Hollywood itself is breaking the barrier of stereotypes with casting more Asian women. We should be taking steps forward in the entertainment industry, but people who are writing these tweets with unsupported accusations are trying to take steps back in history.
Being a biracial woman of color myself, I too always hope that a film or TV show will portray me and my culture correctly whenever I see actors that look like me. Even when I have been disappointed or happy with how my culture is represented through characters, I still try to keep an open mind and heart.
I am not telling you to agree with me, but all I ask is for people to give this role a chance. As the saying goes, don’t judge a book by its cover. Instead, judge the character Nagini’s portrayal with your own eyes by watching the film first.
TCHS School Newspaper