Brilliant dissection. I love the English/Harry Potter character class breakdown.
I suspect that playing fast and loose with our cultural heritage and storytelling expectations began with the feminist movement, in the promotion of the weird conceit that a skinny little woman could be cast as a powerful brawler, superior in strength to a 6’ 200 lb man. Once our storytelling premises became outlandishly implausible, the wreckage of culture in the name of “equality” could continue apace.
When I saw “A Gentleman in Moscow,” a work of historical fiction based in the time of the Russian Revolution, I kept waiting to learn the fascinating story of how a black African became a Russian intellectual, even having a fully Russian name, with patronymic! In other words, his father was Russian. It was a distraction from the intended story— a counter-example of “Chekov’s gun,” a weighty story detail which, when introduced, induces the reader to anticipate that it will surely be of some later significance. In the case of “A Gentleman in Moscow,” the “gun” (the unexpected race of a character in a historical setting) is never fired.
It’s bad storytelling. And it’s being forced down our throats as a “moral corrective” because all of us white Western Civilization types, are, supposedly, racists. And of course you’d be a racist to object. As Celine points out, our historical culture has to be replaced with corrected understandings.
Comedians should have a field day extrapolating this premise. A remake of “Zulu” with a white guy among the warriors, in full tribal regalia, charging at British soldiers. Hilarious! The film crew says, “Wait. What’s that white bloke doing with the Africans?” “Irrelevant. Race-swapping is the thing.” “But— but how did he get there?” No, dears, that’s not the question you’re supposed to ask. Shut up and enjoy the movie.
Excellent writing! I made a similar point about the "dual posture" to which you refer in a conversation I had with a black American colleague. You've expressed it far more eloquently, though!
An articulation of what an increasing number of British feel, but who (like me) lack the erudition to set it out in such powerful and forensic detail as the exceptional Celina does here.
I recall a time when Britain was broadly homogeneous and helping ethnic minorities feel less excluded, less different was morally justified. But, this initially good impulse morphed into advertising agencies and TV show producers going out of their way to virtue signal they had got with the program and under a momentum of its own drove this process to excess. The road to hell really is paved with good intentions. Whether or not cultural institutions realise they are erasing a nation's history and identity, and whether that is now an actual intention - it is for the UN and EU perhaps - it is a subject that needs consideration and debate.
Re-engineering can be an emergent property of society rather than reflect an explicit blueprint. I suspect our current predicament is a mixture of both. That is, the untethering of a nation from its history begins as drift and is then utilised by globalism. Fully anchored societies like Hungary, Poland are redoubts against this. But then they have the advantage of not having succumbed to the cult of multi-culturalism.
Since the article considers the role of fantasy, I have one of my own, a feverish dream, in which Kathryn Viner, editor of The Guardian, one day suffering some particularly large hormonal imbalance perhaps, inadvertently publishes Celina as its lead article. MPs momentarily acquire an IQ higher than typically obtains these days and start having a genuine and exploratory debate, further reported by an intially bewildered main stream media but pushing the topic into fully articulated national consciousness and discussion. Meanwhile, the goverment rewrites its social cohesion paper and stops playing whack-a-mole with the problems of multiculturalism but seeks solutions that respect history.
A feverish dream indeed and one that probably requires a Harry Potter spell to bring about.
However, I think that there is one fundamental point that you've missed. The Supply side of "actors" provided by drama schools and Equity's policies
What we are seeing is the middle class 2020's equivalent of a 1980's working class phenomenon. Back then the phenomenon of black working class youth not wanting to do real jobs was manifested by expectations of careers in music, rap and DJ-ing in places like Brixton, Handsworth, etc.
40 years on, as perceived barriers have been broken down, the children of the black middle class do not want to be musicians and D.J. They want to go to drama schools and become actors instead. Which has created a surfeit of black actors. Economics tells us that increasing the supply of anything decreases its equilibrium price. All accompanied by Equity Marxist Intersectionalism.
The drama schools are the problem. They have Diversity Equality Schemes, but are refusing to apply them properly. Only looking at minority perception man takes and ignoring majority percentages.
This is a fair analysis of what is obviously an effort to destroy the identity and cultural foundation of Whites. You will not that I capitalize the reference to my people against the standards of the associated press which is a jewish institution. What you fail to acknowledge is that it is jewish hegemony in the West that is leading this erasure and destruction of our people.
The first step in resolving a problem is recognizing that you have one and this piece illustrates that we certainly have one although it doesn't go into much detail about the ramifications of our current cultural slaighter. Kids grow up hating our people and don't even want to know about their heritage because it only brings shame given what has been done to it.
The second step in resolving our problem is defining its source which us entirely absent in this piece. Look at who runs the media. Who would want to erase, pervert and destroy White culture and heritage? Think about it and look at who runs our media and government now.
You'll recall the obverse to the Adolescence casting, the TfL advert about harassment which dared to show a black teenager harassing a white girl - a decision which was widely criticised as racist and even led to the advert being banned. A helpful reminder of how "race-blind" casting never goes both ways.
If you want to set up a wizarding college with a modern racial component, they could have set the college up in New York or Detroit, or California. Then they could have a Black Snape type character being picked on by any other character they wanted.
Switching races of characters only makes the studios look stupid as shit.
The reason that race-swapping is obviously part of a larger plan, is the realization that there is a financial power structure entirely based on this kind of societal change. DEI was a part of it, as well as ESG.
ESG being a much larger driver, because it allowed various industries and institutions to continue pushing societal nonsense, without regard to funding or profits. Bank loans were based on a company or institution complying with various social justice-based criteria. Those industries normally would have failed under the weight of their bad decisions.
It’s obvious that nobody wants to watch a Harry Potter remake, or backstory show, that has race-swapped characters, because it doesn’t feel the same -- and will obviously annoy anyone who is familiar with the story -- not to mention keep new viewers from wanting to watch it, normally profits and viewership would be the entire point of producing it.
But having a large audience and making money is not the point. Rewriting history is the point.
Why did Budweiser pick a fake woman to be their spokes person? Not because it would sell beer -- that much was obvious -- it was done to destroy a traditionally American beer, not attract new customers.
Race-swapping is done to destroy myths and history so that people will be disinterested in it, and not look into it.
Race-swapping is a destructive mechanism employed by those who wish to reshape the past, so that the newer generations won’t be able to relate to the older generations. History is effectively altered, as newer generations learn a false history.
How is snapes the most complex and tragic in hp? Isn't it Black? Geeze hp fans need to get over their crush on the guy who bullies and tries to murder kids.
TL;DR: Don't just ask why X is black. Also ask why Z remains white.
Personally, I think that they race-swapped Snape in order to create the backlash on purpose so that, in the counter-backlash, no-one asked why the main trio is still all-white. (They made Hermione black in the non-canon Cursed Child stage play, so they could have cited that as precedence.
The HBO series is, ultimately, for the book's original readers, most of whom are white, and among those who had children, most of those will be white as well. Race-swapping even one of them would ruin the immersion for those parents and their children, and interrupt the nostalgia for those who only watched the films.
Furthermore, the casting of Piers Polkiss has gone under the radar. For non-book readers, he is Dudley's friend who is in most of the Dursley's scenes before Harry goes to Hogwarts. They have cast a white actor to play not only him, but also all 3 Dursleys.
Thus, season 1 will contain scenes where 2 white adults take 3 white children round the zoo. On a purely visual level, this will look like a family with 2 parents and 3 sons.
Furthermore, they have also cast 6 natural redheads to play Mrs Weasley and her 5 children. For whatever reason, the casting directors were not brave enough to re-imagine one or two of them as "adopted Weasleys".
Will there be any opinion pieces on why all the Witches and Wizards of Colour are ONLY at Hogwarts?
Brilliant dissection. I love the English/Harry Potter character class breakdown.
I suspect that playing fast and loose with our cultural heritage and storytelling expectations began with the feminist movement, in the promotion of the weird conceit that a skinny little woman could be cast as a powerful brawler, superior in strength to a 6’ 200 lb man. Once our storytelling premises became outlandishly implausible, the wreckage of culture in the name of “equality” could continue apace.
When I saw “A Gentleman in Moscow,” a work of historical fiction based in the time of the Russian Revolution, I kept waiting to learn the fascinating story of how a black African became a Russian intellectual, even having a fully Russian name, with patronymic! In other words, his father was Russian. It was a distraction from the intended story— a counter-example of “Chekov’s gun,” a weighty story detail which, when introduced, induces the reader to anticipate that it will surely be of some later significance. In the case of “A Gentleman in Moscow,” the “gun” (the unexpected race of a character in a historical setting) is never fired.
It’s bad storytelling. And it’s being forced down our throats as a “moral corrective” because all of us white Western Civilization types, are, supposedly, racists. And of course you’d be a racist to object. As Celine points out, our historical culture has to be replaced with corrected understandings.
Comedians should have a field day extrapolating this premise. A remake of “Zulu” with a white guy among the warriors, in full tribal regalia, charging at British soldiers. Hilarious! The film crew says, “Wait. What’s that white bloke doing with the Africans?” “Irrelevant. Race-swapping is the thing.” “But— but how did he get there?” No, dears, that’s not the question you’re supposed to ask. Shut up and enjoy the movie.
Superb.
One caveat:
There is absolutely No 'misunderstanding' as the baseline for your premise.
They understand perfectly.
They are revolutionaries, after all.
Excellent writing! I made a similar point about the "dual posture" to which you refer in a conversation I had with a black American colleague. You've expressed it far more eloquently, though!
An articulation of what an increasing number of British feel, but who (like me) lack the erudition to set it out in such powerful and forensic detail as the exceptional Celina does here.
I recall a time when Britain was broadly homogeneous and helping ethnic minorities feel less excluded, less different was morally justified. But, this initially good impulse morphed into advertising agencies and TV show producers going out of their way to virtue signal they had got with the program and under a momentum of its own drove this process to excess. The road to hell really is paved with good intentions. Whether or not cultural institutions realise they are erasing a nation's history and identity, and whether that is now an actual intention - it is for the UN and EU perhaps - it is a subject that needs consideration and debate.
Re-engineering can be an emergent property of society rather than reflect an explicit blueprint. I suspect our current predicament is a mixture of both. That is, the untethering of a nation from its history begins as drift and is then utilised by globalism. Fully anchored societies like Hungary, Poland are redoubts against this. But then they have the advantage of not having succumbed to the cult of multi-culturalism.
Since the article considers the role of fantasy, I have one of my own, a feverish dream, in which Kathryn Viner, editor of The Guardian, one day suffering some particularly large hormonal imbalance perhaps, inadvertently publishes Celina as its lead article. MPs momentarily acquire an IQ higher than typically obtains these days and start having a genuine and exploratory debate, further reported by an intially bewildered main stream media but pushing the topic into fully articulated national consciousness and discussion. Meanwhile, the goverment rewrites its social cohesion paper and stops playing whack-a-mole with the problems of multiculturalism but seeks solutions that respect history.
A feverish dream indeed and one that probably requires a Harry Potter spell to bring about.
My pre-order for Celina's book of essays remains.
You are articulating what everybody feels but nobody knows how to really say or explain without opening themselves up to all the gaslighting
Great piece.
However, I think that there is one fundamental point that you've missed. The Supply side of "actors" provided by drama schools and Equity's policies
What we are seeing is the middle class 2020's equivalent of a 1980's working class phenomenon. Back then the phenomenon of black working class youth not wanting to do real jobs was manifested by expectations of careers in music, rap and DJ-ing in places like Brixton, Handsworth, etc.
40 years on, as perceived barriers have been broken down, the children of the black middle class do not want to be musicians and D.J. They want to go to drama schools and become actors instead. Which has created a surfeit of black actors. Economics tells us that increasing the supply of anything decreases its equilibrium price. All accompanied by Equity Marxist Intersectionalism.
The drama schools are the problem. They have Diversity Equality Schemes, but are refusing to apply them properly. Only looking at minority perception man takes and ignoring majority percentages.
This is a fair analysis of what is obviously an effort to destroy the identity and cultural foundation of Whites. You will not that I capitalize the reference to my people against the standards of the associated press which is a jewish institution. What you fail to acknowledge is that it is jewish hegemony in the West that is leading this erasure and destruction of our people.
The first step in resolving a problem is recognizing that you have one and this piece illustrates that we certainly have one although it doesn't go into much detail about the ramifications of our current cultural slaighter. Kids grow up hating our people and don't even want to know about their heritage because it only brings shame given what has been done to it.
The second step in resolving our problem is defining its source which us entirely absent in this piece. Look at who runs the media. Who would want to erase, pervert and destroy White culture and heritage? Think about it and look at who runs our media and government now.
Sister? 🤍 You are nailing the most important subjects of Our time regarding race / ethnic identity and the history of what is happened to Our People.
Pour it on Teach! We-Who-Know are taking it in and we appreciate you immensely. 🙋🏻♂️✅ \O
Very good article, thanks, although I think we could more succinctly state that race-swapping is simply racist.
You'll recall the obverse to the Adolescence casting, the TfL advert about harassment which dared to show a black teenager harassing a white girl - a decision which was widely criticised as racist and even led to the advert being banned. A helpful reminder of how "race-blind" casting never goes both ways.
If you want to set up a wizarding college with a modern racial component, they could have set the college up in New York or Detroit, or California. Then they could have a Black Snape type character being picked on by any other character they wanted.
Switching races of characters only makes the studios look stupid as shit.
The reason that race-swapping is obviously part of a larger plan, is the realization that there is a financial power structure entirely based on this kind of societal change. DEI was a part of it, as well as ESG.
ESG being a much larger driver, because it allowed various industries and institutions to continue pushing societal nonsense, without regard to funding or profits. Bank loans were based on a company or institution complying with various social justice-based criteria. Those industries normally would have failed under the weight of their bad decisions.
https://ogre.substack.com/p/esg-scoring-what-you-need-to-know?r=astbc
It’s obvious that nobody wants to watch a Harry Potter remake, or backstory show, that has race-swapped characters, because it doesn’t feel the same -- and will obviously annoy anyone who is familiar with the story -- not to mention keep new viewers from wanting to watch it, normally profits and viewership would be the entire point of producing it.
But having a large audience and making money is not the point. Rewriting history is the point.
Why did Budweiser pick a fake woman to be their spokes person? Not because it would sell beer -- that much was obvious -- it was done to destroy a traditionally American beer, not attract new customers.
Race-swapping is done to destroy myths and history so that people will be disinterested in it, and not look into it.
Race-swapping is a destructive mechanism employed by those who wish to reshape the past, so that the newer generations won’t be able to relate to the older generations. History is effectively altered, as newer generations learn a false history.
Excellent dissertation. “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”
- George Orwell
Like casting a black actress to play Anne Boleyn?
Or a beautiful black Algerian as the classic Greek beauty from The Count Of Monte Cristo?
That one is even more on the nose, since placing a Greek actress in that roll would be admitting that non-Blacks can be sold into slavery as well.
Exactly 👍🏻
How is snapes the most complex and tragic in hp? Isn't it Black? Geeze hp fans need to get over their crush on the guy who bullies and tries to murder kids.
Cowardice disguised as virtue, the unconscious ethos of those who (fail to) give story to our myths these days.
Saved this to read later.
TL;DR: Don't just ask why X is black. Also ask why Z remains white.
Personally, I think that they race-swapped Snape in order to create the backlash on purpose so that, in the counter-backlash, no-one asked why the main trio is still all-white. (They made Hermione black in the non-canon Cursed Child stage play, so they could have cited that as precedence.
The HBO series is, ultimately, for the book's original readers, most of whom are white, and among those who had children, most of those will be white as well. Race-swapping even one of them would ruin the immersion for those parents and their children, and interrupt the nostalgia for those who only watched the films.
Furthermore, the casting of Piers Polkiss has gone under the radar. For non-book readers, he is Dudley's friend who is in most of the Dursley's scenes before Harry goes to Hogwarts. They have cast a white actor to play not only him, but also all 3 Dursleys.
Thus, season 1 will contain scenes where 2 white adults take 3 white children round the zoo. On a purely visual level, this will look like a family with 2 parents and 3 sons.
Furthermore, they have also cast 6 natural redheads to play Mrs Weasley and her 5 children. For whatever reason, the casting directors were not brave enough to re-imagine one or two of them as "adopted Weasleys".
Will there be any opinion pieces on why all the Witches and Wizards of Colour are ONLY at Hogwarts?