[HPforGrownups] Re: Diversity in Literature & Media (WAS book differences)

[elfundeb at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 40509

In a message dated 6/27/2002 11:21:44 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
cindysphynx at comcast.net writes:
> 
> Let's assume the absolute worst.  Let's assume that some U.S. 
> publicist type contacted his or her counterpart in the U.K. and 
> said, "You know, we would reach a broader audience here in the U.S. 
> if we made a character black.  How about Dean Thomas?"
> 
> If I understand your argument, Bernadette, it sounds like this would 
> be a bad thing.  Tokenism, reverse discrimination or some such.  Yet 
> you indicated that you already viewed the wizarding world as 
> racially diverse in your own mind.  So why would this change bother 
> you?  What I can't quite figure out is why it makes *any difference* 
> to someone who says she viewed the books as multi-racial in the 
> first instance?  If it were me and I already assumed that the 
> wizarding world were diverse, I would merely shrug at the change in 
> Dean Thomas' race (I say "change" assuming, of course, that he 
> wasn't always intended to be black).
> 
The reasons why the insertion of Dean Thomas into the sorting bothers me (and 
I can't see any reason for it except to emphasize student diversity at 
Hogwarts, because the British edition remains unchanged) are: (1) the point 
had already been effectively made, in my mind, by the earlier mention of Lee 
Jordan's dreadlocks, even though perhaps British readers might have been 
tipped off by his enthusiasm for the West Ham football team, and (2) more 
importantly, the insertion was botched to create the ridiculous statement 
that there were only three students left to be sorted followed by the sorting 
of four additional students.   This apparent error, which does not appear to 
have been corrected in subsequent editions (one of my copies was purchased 
fairly recently), contributed to my impression on first reading PS/SS (and I 
did notice it immediately) that it was a sloppily written book. Had the 
editorial error not been made, so that the text made reference to four 
students left to be sorted, the change might have gone largely unnoticed, in 
which case in all likelihood this discussion would not be taking place. Even 
if it had been noticed, had the change been made correctly I think I would 
have accepted the explanation that we would not have understood that West Ham 
was a heavily minority area and saved my annoyance for the title change and 
the heavy-handed insertion of Americanisms into the text.

Debbie
(only about 200 posts left to catch up on)


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