With the Harry Potter: Return to Hogwarts fresh on wizards and muggles minds alike, folks on Twitter are breaking down all aspects of the films that stuck with them – including the batshit racist names author JK Rowling gave her non-English characters.
If you’ve been living under a troll lately, the cast of the Harry Potter film franchise – Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Tom Felton and more – reunited to commemorate twenty years since they warmed our hearts in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
You are viewing: Why Is Kingsley Shacklebolt A Bad Name
The spell-binding takeways? Watson revealed she once had feelings for Felton and was on the verge of quitting at one point, meanwhile Radcliffe shared that he had a crush of his own on co-star Helena Bonham Carter. Next to all the cute moments between the cast and nods to those we’ve lost or couldn’t attend, there was a lot to love about it.
Now fans on Twitter are looking back on the series and some of its more, uh, problematic aspects. Need we forget to mention Cho Chang – the only Asian character both in the entire school of Hogwarts and eight films who is also named after two surnames of different Asian communities? As YouTuber Freddie Wong pointed out on Twitter, “frankly, this was the first red flag we should’ve seen it”.
yo EVERY TIME I forget about how insane the name CHO CHANG is the internet REMINDS ME. Two popular last names from two DIFFERENT KINDS of Asians!? Frankly this was the first red flag we should’ve SEEN IT https://t.co/1NnoAwbB31
— Freddie Wong (@fwong) January 3, 2022
Chang’s name is honestly full-on microaggression by the TERF in the dungeon towards all Asian people. It’s also worth touching on here given the impact playing Chang had on actress Katie Leung.
Speaking on the Chinese Chippy Girl podcast, Leung said that she not only copped racist abuse from so-called fans when she was cast but was allegedly discouraged by publicists to talk about it.
“I remember them saying to me, ‘Oh, look, Katie, we haven’t seen these, these websites that people are talking about,” she said on the pod via The Independent UK.
“‘And, you know, if you get asked that, just say it’s not true, say it’s not happening.’ And I just nodded my head.
“I was like, ‘Okay, okay,’ even though I had seen it myself with my own eyes. I was like, ‘Okay, yeah, I’ll just say everything’s great.’”
Oh and while we’re here, let’s not forget the anti-semitic imagery of “beak-nosed greedy goblins that work in a bank”. Or the time Rowling retconned the lack of Jewish representation at Hogwarts and ended up being more racist when they told a fan there was a Jewish wizard in Ravenclaw named Anthony – wait for it – Goldstein.
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https://twitter.com/Lamiasdottir/status/1474464056824283136
Anthony Goldstein, the single Jewish wizard at Hogwarts. Ravenclaw, of course. Wizard lawyer in the making!!!!! pic.twitter.com/Fy2LsvzHqa
— Nadia Oxford (@nadiaoxford) January 3, 2022
Who could forget the sole Black character being named Kingsley… Shacklebolt? Or Seamus Finnigan, a character with a name that’s basically the Irish equivalent of John Smith? It truly baffles me that a series that means so much to so many people also has a criminally racist subtext.
Anyway, here are some of the other best reactions around the internet.
Absolutely batshit that they had one Irish character in Harry Potter and they just went with Seamus Finnegan. Like calling an American character Huckleberry McRib.
— Felipe Torres Medina 🪧 ON STRIKE 🚫✏️ (@felipetmedinaa) January 1, 2022
legitimately did not get that ‘cho chang’ was supposed to be asian, as an asian in an asian country reading these books, because not a single goddamn person i grew up with had anything close to that kind of name. https://t.co/cQmKLatsMY
— Indi Tan⚡ (@itsmrmask) January 2, 2022
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https://twitter.com/Lamiasdottir/status/1474464056824283136
https://twitter.com/skinnylatte/status/1477781998391357443
Lol Rowling fans and white Asian experts going in depth to explain ‘Cho Chang’ like ‘actually it’s a rare way to translate a southern Chinese…’
Nothing indicates Rowling didn’t put that much depth into it she probably just got talked out of calling her ‘Ching Chong’.
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— David Lo Pun-ch Nazis (@helpmeskeletor) January 3, 2022
They also called the one Asian character Cho Chang. We’re lucky Rowling didn’t write a Muslim wizard called Muhammad Allah.
— A Ed (@LysanderWrites) January 2, 2022
https://twitter.com/OpinionatedQue2/status/1477639817991233539
cho chang is trending cos ppl are all ‘yeah jkr is also a racist’.
like casual racism makes her unique amongst terfs or something.
— ֆʟօǟռɛ-ʟʏֆɮɛȶɦ (@SloaneFragment) January 2, 2022
Oh my god and the one explicitly Black character was SHACKLEBOLT. Between this and cho chang jk rowling is not seeing heaven https://t.co/8VLVlST2Fl
— critical space theory (she/they) (@imani_exe) January 2, 2022
Seeing the name Cho Chang as a kid dealt psychic damage for real https://t.co/oSVAq2CNfU
— TEE& (@thienpham_) January 2, 2022
https://twitter.com/BenMahtin/status/1477707150004826120
If you want to relive the Harry Potter: Return to Hogwarts for the fourteenth time today, you can catch it on Binge.
Source: https://t-tees.com
Category: WHY
