Considering that my video review is almost an hour long, obviously it inspired a whole host of grouchy thoughts on my end. Mainly that the film’s beautiful cinematography and the way that the magical creatures first brought to our attention in Rowling’s 2001 magizoological textbook are brought to life on the big screen don’t make up for barely unbroken whiteness, Rowling’s misuse of Native cultures in and out of the film, and what reads to me as a really shitty narrative about abuse survivors.
I fell out of love with the Harry Potter series pretty early on. I liked the idea of the franchise and owned all of the books at one time or another, but with every new tidbit that Rowling revealed about her characters and the world that they lived in, I found myself increasingly disenchanted. This is all thanks to Rowling’s constant need to express regret for everything except how lacking her works were in diversity and her new material which contains things like confirming/canonizing her “lycanthropy as a stand-in for AIDS/HIV” stance or the way she views Native cultures as a monolith while misrepresenting and misusing Native peoples and cultures.
I watched Fantastic Beasts specifically because I wanted to check the film out and provide an honest opinion of it. I did go into it expecting to hate two specific things (the lack of diversity and Johnny Depp) but I was surprised at all the other things that made me annoyed or uncomfortable throughout watching it.
Note: If you’re unfamiliar with the critical slant I tend to take when watching films, understand that this isn’t going to be a review where I say super goopy things about the film. I think I say one and a half nice things about it and they’re not very nice at that. So be prepared for a rather caustic look at the thing you probably love!
One year at Christmas Ginny is opening presents and she opens the one from her mom. It is a much too large crimson sweater with a G on it. She holds it in her hands out in front of her. Her brothers walk in wishing her a merry Christmas all wearing theirs. George’s midriff is showing.
Whenever
I see people quoting/referencing/parodying My
Immortal it’s always one of the same four or five lines. You know the ones.
The
iconic opening paragraph, “Hi my name is
Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way and I have long ebony black hair… (et
cetera).”
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU
DOING YOU MOTHERFUKERS!”
“I MAY BE A HOGWARTS
STUDENT… BUT I AM ALSO A SATANIST!”
“Then he put his thingie
into my you-know-what and we did it for the first time.”
“And Loopin was
masticating to it!”
As
great as those are, I’d like to throw a spotlight on what I think are some
of the underappreciated parts of this classic work of fanfiction.
Ebony puts blood on her Count Chocula cereal instead of milk.
Enoby is canonically a weeaboo and speaks to her friends in Fangirl Japanese.
Harry’s scar is now a pentagram instead of a lightning bolt, so either he found
some sort of spell to alter the appearance of the scar or he actually took the time to carve a
pentagram into his forehead.
There is an OC named either Tom Riddle or Tom Rid who works at a “punkgoff” store
in Hogsmeade and has absolutely nothing to do with Voldemort, he just happens
to have the exact same name.
Tara somehow got Fred and George mixed up with Crabbe and Goyle.
The reason Snape doesn’t like Harry in this fic is because Snape is Christian
and Harry is a Satanist.
Marty McFly literally appears out of nowhere to help Enoby travel through “tim”
with his “tim machine.”
Chapter 11 ends with Hagrid singing along to “a gothic version of a song by 50
Cent.”
Voldemort inexplicably speaks in Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe.
Voldemort wears high heels.
Draco has a flying black Mercedes-Benz and a black MCR broom.
Snape has a Dork Mark on his penis.
Speaking of penises, Draco is apparently “hung like a stallone.” I guess Tara
is a Rambo fan?
The Hedwig/Voldemort sex scene, wherein Hedwig is a male human instead of a
female owl, for some reason.
Dumbledore flies around on his broomstick while holding a loaf of rye bread. At
least, that’s what I think Tara meant by “Sudenly
a gothic old man flu in on his broomstick. He had lung black hair and a looong
black bread.”
Oh yeah, and Dumbledore is an Avril Lavigne fanboy, because of course he is.
James Potter’s “goff” nickname is Samoro, because Tara erroneously believes
this to be the masculine form of the name Samara.
Draco’s singing voice is described as “a
cross between Gerard, Joel, Chester, Pierre and Marilyn Manson.”
Tara’s brief feud with her editor Raven, as chronicled in the author’s notes, may or may not have had something to do with Raven borrowing Tara’s sweater
and not giving it back. IDK, it’s unclear.
Voldemort smokes a “gothic blak Nightmare b4 Christmas cigar.”
McGonagall has the best insults, like “horny simpletons” and “mediocre dunces” and probably some others I’m forgetting.
Dobby only appears once in the entire fic and literally all he does is watch
Snape and Lupin have sex, and then run away crying.
Sirius is referred to as Harry’s dogfather, and not gonna lie, even if it was a typo I
think that is a genuinely clever pun.
The Hogwarts janitor may or may not be Chuck Norris.
Tara accurately predicted how Harry would defeat Voldemort in Deathly Hallows. No, really. “nd den hairy wil have 2 kommit suicide so
voldimort will die koz he will rilly be a horcrox!!!!!111”
This line: “Snap stated loafing
meanly. He took out a kamera anvilly.”
And this one: “‘Crosio!’ I shited pointing my wound.
Snoop scremed and started running around da room screming.”
“Azerbaijan”
“Hoes of Wax”
“Tom Bombodil”
“Cornelio Fuck”
“Professor Slutborn”
“Preacher McGongol”
“Lumpkin”
“TaEbory”
“The Bark Lord”
“Vadermort”
This is truly the classic of our generation. I want students to explicate this for AP tests.
Draco Malfoy personally made the Potter stinks buttons and nobody could fix them to say Harry was cool and shit, if they tried it would only make the insults worse
You wouldn’t know Draco Malfoy was always right behind Hermione in grades
You wouldn’t know Draco was seriously the most animated person at school and acted out everything.
You wouldn’t know Draco got deeply offended when people didn’t laugh at his jokes
You wouldn’t now Draco created the Weasley is our King song, tune and all. (Probably in the shower or something because he’s such a weenie)
You wouldn’t know Draco and Ron got into a fist fight in their first year
You wouldn’t know about the huge knock down drag out between Draco, Harry and the rest of the Slytherin and Gryffindor quidditch team in their fifth year. (Harry and Draco just fucking tackle each other rand start whooping each others asses and it’s amazing.)
You would miss out on basically everything Draco says and does. He’s a walking gold mind and It’s upsetting the movies didn’t devote a few seconds for any of his shit (Azkaban did an okay job)
You wouldn’t know about the Weasley is our king buttons he made in fifth year either
You wouldn’t know Draco didn’t actually try and fight a Hippogriff
he was just petting him and offhandedly said that he was ugly. He didn’t sprint over to him, he actually did all the bowing and what not.
If you didn’t read the books you wouldn’t know that Draco is the most annoyingly smart and artistic little shit you’ve ever heard of.
18 year old Regulus Black willingly drinks a torture potion and dies alone in a cave so that some day, someone will be able to defeat Voldemort.
Horace Slughorn (albeit reluctantly) shows Harry a part of his past he’s kept hidden for years, even from himself, which is a key part of defeating Voldemort.
Narcissa Malfoy looks Voldemort, a man who is not only notoriously evil but also has the ability to READ MINDS, right in the eye and lies to him for the chance to save her son.
Andromeda Tonks’ entire family is killed at the hand of her own sister and some other death eaters and she still finds the strength to go on and be a guardian to her orphaned grandchild.
But Severus Friendzone Snape, that’s the “brave Slytherin” Harry chooses to name his kid after. Ok, sure.
my biggest pet peeve is when people write lupin as the wet blanket mom friend prefect type, like…did you read prisoner of azkaban tho??
literally shoots chewing gum up peeves’ nose 20 seconds into his first lesson ever
passive-aggressively puts snape’s boggart in drag after snape insults neville in front of his class
and THEN, gives zero fucks about snape’s increasing rage as word gets around that HE DID THAT
speaking of gives zero fucks: gives zero fucks about trelawney’s attempts to crystal gaze for him
somehow miraculously bullshits his and harry’s way out of repercussions after snape catches harry with the map and has every right to put harry in detention for the rest of his life (AND he keeps composure while his teenage self is savagely badmouthing snape right in front of him, no less)
is prepared to straight up murder his former best friend in cold blood in front of 3 of his students and totally would have done it if not for harry’s intervention
gives harry the map back because, fuck it, he’s not a teacher anymore, give em hell, kid
like i get the whole tea/sweaters/laid-back-professor aesthetic, but remus lupin is a magnificently flawed and sometimes straight up terrifying character…he’s so much more than fandom’s portrayal of him as this mild-mannered, careful person, and i think that part of the reason he’s so interesting to me is that he seems just like that at first, but you have all this dark shit lurking just beneath the surface. one of my favorite moments in the entire series is when he goes into that extremely scary place and he’s about to murder peter, because you know that each DADA professor so far has had some dark secret, and even beyond the werewolf reveal, remus’ payoff is SO good. he’s such a good character honestly
ok so what if Harry and Neville got into like this passive-aggressive lie-off regarding what a truly great man Severus Snape was like they got drunk and Harry was like ‘Snape though’ and Neville was like ‘I know right’ and Harry was like ‘what a… what a fantastic bastard. What a guy.’ and Neville was like ‘we should fuckin’ get him like, like… let’s have a funeral. A huge fucking fuck-off sized funeral with like, lilies, and, a marble coffin, and a big statue, an’ crying women, an’ all that shit’ and Harry got whiskey up his nose laughing so hard and he falls off his stool and just wheezes ‘lillies’
and then during the funeral Neville and Harry like spend the whole time trying to give a better eulogy like they keep getting back up after each other are done to try and have another go at it but then they get schooled by Hermione being like ‘for fuck’s sake boys this is how it’s done’ and she goes up to the podium and just bursts into wild banshee hysterics and throws herself across the glistening marble casket, sobbing ‘oh, it should have been me, would to god that it were me, you stallion of a professor’ and all the reporters tear up a little and then go home to pen really fervid biopics on this bleakly noble and tragically overlooked hero of the revolution
anyway like eighteen years later Harry names his kid after Severus and sends an owl off to Neville like ‘your move, mate’ and Nevill pauses in the middle of polishing the giant marble statue of Snape tenderly cuddling an armfull of adoring woodland creatures that dominates like 2/3 of his office to cuss a lot and pour himself another drink
i just love the idea that hermione granger had enough of a good reputation by third year that she was granted the power of legal time travel despite being 13/14 and had once deliberately set one of her teachers on fire?
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