Harriet Potter? The name might sound familiar.
For my creative project, I decided to create a reimagination or recreation of a Harry Potter movie poster, except without Harry Potter. Instead, I've chosen to replace our iconic wizard played by Daniel Radcliffe with an Asian female version of him. I'll admit, I probably could have been more creative with the name, making a more traditionally "Asian" first/last name. However, since I was changing the character quite a bit, I wanted to try to maintain some resemblance to the original title, and thus, Harriet Potter was born.
Using an iPad drawing application, I recreated the movie poster for the first Harry Potter movie, except replaced Harry Potter with Harriet Potter. I transformed Harry Potter by adding long straight hair and tweaking the more "European" features to be more like that of typical Asians (generally softer features). I have to note, please excuse and do not judge my drawing skills (I'm not the most artistic person and it was quite a struggle) and I only had so much time on my hands. In addition, you'll most likely notice that the figures in the background have much less detail and this is because I wanted to keep the focus on Harriet Potter.
I created this figure because of the lack of Asian representation within Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling's problematic views are nothing new--with her transphobic tweets even being discussed in class. However, even though I had been reading these books throughout my childhood, it wasn't until much later that I realized an underlying issue with the books that seemed to escape most readers. While reading these books/watching the movies, as an Asian female, I could not really closely relate with any of the characters as nearly every one of the named characters is "white". Yet, the one blatantly Asian character, Cho Chang, takes on racist stereotypes. Firstly, she is designated as a Ravenclaw, known for intelligent students, following the stereotypes that Asians get good grades and are smart. Secondly, her very name bears an incredible resemblance to the phrase, "Ching Chong", used to mock East Asians' language. Lastly, Cho Chang seems to have very little to no character development or background within the series, only significantly dating one of the other characters and appearing in and out of the books.
My creative project aims to create a character that both young girls and Asians can relate to. Creating a figure that embodies the place and characteristics that Harry Potter has, including courage, strength, and love from fans, allows Asians to find a strong, inspirational character within the media and literature to look up to and identify with. Even now, minority representation in the media is lacking. Yet, it's so important for characteristic and cultural development that young children have figures of inspiration and someone they can relate to growing up, especially when it comes to appreciating one's culture and ethnicity. I chose to replicate a Harry Potter movie poster because I feel it visually catches peoples' eyes and really pushes Harriet Potter as the main character of the series.
Danbi, I love your poster, it turned out so well! I remember seeing Cho Chang for the first time when I watched the "Order of the Phoenix" and thinking how odd her name was. Out of all of the characters, her name was most blatantly "ethnic." Also, I looked up the Asian population in the UK out of curiosity, and it came out to be around 7%. I could be forgetting someone, but she's the only Asian female character in the entire series. Whoops, J.K. Rowling!
ReplyDeleteYour poster is so good! Your drawing is really nice and I think that your choice of the name Harriet fits well too. I totally agree with you about Cho Chang and her name. All of the characters of color are just background character with little to no character development. Based on J.K. Rowling's past comments I am not surprised that she chose to write her characters like this but I am disappointed. They should totally do a remake of Harry Potter but as Harriet Potter and use your poster!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that you adapted the Harry Potter poster to make it more inclusive. Cho Chang was obviously pretty terrible representation, but even the characters Parvati and Padma Patil were one-sided and insignificant characters whose only defining trait was who dated them. I think it's very important to have a character that stands alone and isn't completely defined by the white male characters she interacts with.
ReplyDeleteOk, first off, your artwork is amazing. It looks so good. Also, in Harry Potter almost all the non-white characters are just racist depictions of people from their respective races. Cho Chang is one of the most obvious examples. I feel like a series about an Asian female main character would be very entertaining and just as good as the original.
ReplyDeleteWow may I say that this is an amazing piece of art that you have created. I think the choice to alter an already existing poster meant for Harry Potter and using it for Harriet was a quite brilliant choice, showing that a strong Asian female character can fit the same role just as will if not more fittingly. Although you said that you didn't focus on the other characters because you wanted the most attention to be on Harriet, I personally believe that keeping all the characters the same would make the most sense so that the idea of Harriet is just as capable to go through the same environment.
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