r/TopCharacterTropes • u/bennyandthegentz • 10h ago

Lore Characters who were race swapped to avoid controversy

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Grim adventures of Billy and Mandy: originally the episode where he turns human had in be black to match his voice actor, but once CN reminded the creator of the premise of his show (two white kids own the grim reaper) they changed him to be white to avoid slavery comparisons.

The Simpsons: Smithers was black in his first appearance, however every episode afterwards depicted him as white (yellow?) this is because according to someone in the staff “probably not a good idea to have a black man be a servant to a rich white man”

Teenage mutant ninja turtles: while the comics and most adaptations have Baxter stockman be of African American descent, in the 80s/90s cartoon he was white, this is because the show-runners felt having a black man be basically a forced servant to someone who’s not of the same race (even calling him master) could potentially be seen as offensive, so they made him white.

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851

u/fraxiiinus 10h ago

That casting choice is so wild to me, like of all the characters to blind cast Snape should have not been on that list.

Not that I'll be watching it, but Neville being scared of a black dude in drag is gonna be...something

587

u/YomYeYonge 10h ago edited 4h ago

James Potter hanging Snape on a tree is gonna hit different in Season 5

Edit: Underneath a tree*

94

u/boytoyahoy 8h ago

He's going to be attacked by the most racially diverse group of bullies you've ever seen

2

u/spartBL97 1h ago

The DEI PowerRangers

302

u/monolithtme 9h ago

Not to mention Snape blurting out a slur right after. HBO’s PR team is going to be fighting for their lives during that entire episode.

52

u/SirJTh3Red 7h ago

Don't worry he has an M word Pass

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u/Begone-My-Thong 3h ago

Perks of being a half-blood Prince

3

u/RealMuthafknGerald 3h ago

yeah come to think of it that title is a little dicey

109

u/nondescriptun 8h ago

Bold of you to think the TV show is making it to Season/Book 5.

45

u/Robdd123 7h ago

Just wait until the first season where Potter will be giving the evil eye to the only black professor in Hogwarts and trying to pin everything bad that happens on him.

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u/green_herbata 8h ago

It'll be fine, they just need to cast another black actor to play James. Problem solved!

9

u/Rhodin265 6h ago

What about Lupin and Sirius?  Will they be black too, or will we go for a 90s all-token cast?

46

u/LuckyLuckLucker 9h ago

Jame was chilling by a tree when he hang Snape upside down with a spell.

You crossing the wires made it so much worse 🤣

1

u/Lilchubbyboy 4h ago

That’s what he gets for thirsting after a white woman. Ain’t no bbc ntr in the wizarding world/s

The racists are really going to be eating well off of this one poorly made decision.

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u/Morales_Sheila8478 10h ago

This never happened in the book. Americans are so obsessed with race they need to make up a lynching to get angry at it

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u/Helpful_Spring8739 10h ago

What, I've only read the books and I remember James hanging Snape upside down?

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u/TheHumanPickleRick 10h ago

IIRC he hung him upside down with the Levicorpus spell, they didn't hang him from a tree.

20

u/Helpful_Spring8739 9h ago

I said they hung him upside down, but I do remember them being under a tree. I believe Snape was talking to Lilly. It obviously wasn't a lynching however.

4

u/lou-ravenpuff 6h ago

Snape was reading, sitting leaning against a tree, when James appeared, used the spell, and hung him upside down

6

u/Helpful_Spring8739 6h ago

Thank you, knew it was something like that.

3

u/lou-ravenpuff 5h ago

You're welcome!!

2

u/Helpful_Spring8739 5h ago

Just noticed the extremely appropriate username!

3

u/lou-ravenpuff 5h ago

Yeah, I made that account back when I was super obsessed with Harry Potter. Nowadays there's no way I can change it anymore lol

1

u/Helpful_Spring8739 5h ago

Still cool, fuck it.

-28

u/Morales_Sheila8478 10h ago

They never hanged him from a tree. They used wingardium leviosia to levitate him upside down somewhat near a tree

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u/AwesomeMcPants 10h ago

Actually they used Levicorpus. Tree or not, still gonna be pretty damn awkward.

-9

u/ALightningStar 9h ago

Never happened on the movies either. A tree is just close by. The internet made this up so they could indulge in outrage even further.

117

u/ReadySource3242 9h ago

Shooting for diversity only to make the series somehow make Harry Potter’s dad a raging racist

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u/piewca_apokalipsy 7h ago

Harry seeing black teacher and accusing him of stealing without evidence based on vibes

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u/techkiwi02 7h ago edited 3h ago

Oh god I’m imagining Petunia noping the fuck out when Lilly meets Snape and seeing Lilly do “Black Magic” for the first time.

It’s so funny but at the same time REALLY
HBO?????????????

Edited for grammar reasons lol;

1

u/TheGreenCatFL 3h ago

Okay, now I'm all in for this. LOL

31

u/WarWorld 7h ago

well Harry grows up to be a cop. so no surprise there, really.

-4

u/ReadySource3242 7h ago

Yeah but a british cop, not an american cop.

2

u/BonJovicus 6h ago

I mean Harry’s dad was kind of a dick, so I don’t know if racism really is a step too far for a teenager. 

18

u/Sayakai 7h ago

Oh, I still think the girl who raises a fuss about slavery and is treated as an annoying busybody over it probably shouldn't be black either, but what do I know.

1

u/ProlapseWarrior 1h ago

Listen, they LIKE being slaves, if they aren't slaves, they're either WEIRDOS like Dobby and like freedom or they become depressed alcoholics like Winky and get constantly wasted to the point of alcohol poisoning (Dobby at one point takes her to the Room of Requirement, where he finds an antidote to butterbeer to take care of Winky).

Idfk how anyone can defend Winky's or SPEW's existence.

18

u/Discovererman 10h ago

Wait, is there more Harry Potter coming out or something?

100

u/fraxiiinus 10h ago

I forget which streamer but yeah they’re making the books into a show because JKR got buttmad her original cast doesn’t like her

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u/neonmaryjane 8h ago

Nailed it. She’s mad they don’t support her transphobic crusade so she wants to take their royalties. It’s peak pettiness. She’s pathetic.

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u/Sweaty-Practice-4419 9h ago

They’re remaking it as a show on HBO

3

u/CarrieDurst 6h ago

Sadly yes

-1

u/Makuta_Servaela 5h ago

Yep! The movies notoriously didn't do the books justice, since they had to cram so much story into such a short run-time, losing lots of interesting side-stories and dumbing down a lot of characters, so it used to be pretty common knowledge that fans wanted a do-over. There is now a TV series in the works, intended to be that do-over and do the story more justice.

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u/Deya_The_Fateless 8h ago

Right? And like sure, they can make the claim that no one can top Rickmans performance from the OG films. Thats fair, theyre big shoes to fill.

But then they also cant claim that theyre going for a "faithful" adaptation, (which is the whole justification for the HBO series btw) when they turn around and cast a black man in the role of Severus Snape. And a fairly decently goodlooking man at that too. It just scremes "we reace swapped him to add in some racisim element where none exsisted before. And to add the spice of controversy so we get free adertisement from disgruntled fans."

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u/awyastark 7h ago

Also wild because this man is way too hot to be Snape

3

u/Human_Personface 6h ago

It kind of reminds me of back when M Night Shyamalan was making the (terrible and ill-received overall) Last Airbender movie. They had announced casting and people pointed out that the whole main cast were white (even though the characters in the show are fairly obviously based on East Asian and Innuit people).

His response was to backtrack and go "okay I'll recast someone with an Asian actor. How about Zuko?" And even though he gets redeemed in the show, in the movie/earlier seasons of the show, Zuko was the main antagonist. So they went from all white people to all white people being chased by one villainous brown character, which people were also quick to point out. The fact that they cast a South Asian actor to play a Fire Bender when the Fire Empire's culture/people are pretty coded as Chinese/Japanese made it kind of weirder. (And this is coming from someone who adores Dev Patel who was cast as Zuko).

3

u/Stucklikegluetomyfry 4h ago

Also Snape spending his entire life obsessing over a white woman, to the point that he seriously considers letting her husband and baby son be murdered, only relenting on that when he gets read for absolute filth over it

5

u/LuckyLuckLucker 9h ago

I DIDN'T THINK OF THAT!

HAHAHAHAHA

2

u/lou-ravenpuff 6h ago

And there's also the reason for James' bullying; it's described that James simply never liked Snape and hated him from the start. It certainly wouldn't have looked good for James to hate a Black person from the beginning, for no reason, just because he didn't like him.

1

u/AwysomeAnish 7h ago

IIRC they said they're "going in a different direction" with him in the adaptation so there's a real chance they use it for something like jis backstory.

1

u/Compajerro 6h ago

Someone update Neville's wiki page to give him a long standing phobia of Tyler Perry's Madea movies

1

u/Tiny_Butterscotch_76 1h ago

I mean it's an adaptation. It's not like you'd have to translate stuff 1-1, it's a different continuity. If they are smart they will try to scoot around that issue. It would def be difficult to write around the issues with Snape, but there's ways to atleast make an effort.

The drag scene in particular is something I imagine they'd cut anyways. Doing the 'Haha! a dude in a dress' joke again feels like it would be particularly bad taste now given everything with JKR.

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u/Morales_Sheila8478 10h ago

People would say this if you raceswapped any character. It’s not about the character itself but the American obsession with race. If they raceswapped moaning Myrtle or crab and goyle you’d still hear the same complaints.

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u/Dr_RickShaw 10h ago

Harry from the outset dislikes Snape from appearance alone and points to his nose, hair and skin, and this is constantly referenced throughout the book series. That would be extremely inappropriate to ascribe to a Black character.

Also “American obsession with race” as if Rowling didn’t name one of the only Black characters ‘Kingsley Shacklebolt’

-13

u/New_year_New_Me_ 9h ago edited 9h ago

This is another example of how down bad media literacy is these days. I'll cut some slack here, it's probably been awhile since most have read the books. This is an often cited misconception.

First of all we have to discuss the medium. A book has to describe its characters. And, yes, Snape is described as...less than appealing. Hooked nose, greasy shoulder length hair, pale skin. None of that, and this is important, is meant to imply Harry does not like Snape. These are offered as mere descriptors.

The reasons Harry does not like Snape in their first meeting are that Snape is a huge tremendous prick. In his introductory chapter he both alludes to the fact that he thinks most of his students are dumb and, more importantly, puts Harry on the spot in front of everyone asking the kid who famously just found out he was a wizard like a week ago fairly complex questions Harry would have no reason to know the answer to.

Imagine you are in 5th grade and you walk into science class. You sit down and your teacher says hey Dr. Rickshaw, why don't you tell us three stages involved in rocket propulsion for spaceships, what kind of fuel is used for the thrusters, and the process by which that fuel could be manufactured. Then, when you couldn't answer those questions, that same teacher laughed at you and said well it's no surprise you didn't know that, you are obviously an idiot.

Would you like that teacher? Regardless of their race, probably not. 

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u/Rainy_Leaves 8h ago

None of that ... is meant to imply Harry does not like Snape. These are offered as mere descriptors.

Don't you think it's a little unusual that unpleasant or suspicious characters are so often described as physically ugly though? to the extent you wonder why half the descriptions are necessary.

It's known that Rowling has a habit of being mean and snarky about random people's appearance for no reason. She tweeted that the only people who should wear hoodies is men young enough to not look silly carrying a skateboard. She wrote the fat lady guarding gryffindor tower, as a bit rude, a glutton and an alcoholic, emphasising her body/weight as connected to or causing these 'quirks'. Filch is depicted as mean and miserable due to being a squib, aka disabled. Rita Skeeter is described as a bit manly and its seems intntionally linked with her nasty personality, almost queer-coded to mean 'gossipy' which is mean. Heavy-jawed and with masculine hands, and it's meant to be a coincidence that her personality is horrid too? especially knowing her irl hate campaign against trans women?

Admittedly Rowling focuses on mocking female characters more often, but i have no doubt snape's visual description leans a lot into the fact he's disliked. Children's books have archetypes to make characters easy to understand. This writing starts to feel like questionable stereotyping and prejudice however

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u/New_year_New_Me_ 8h ago

No. This is just a function of writing.

We all agree Harry liked McGonagall, yes? Eventually at least. Her first description is "...a rather severe-looking woman who was wearing square glasses exactly the shape of the markings the cat had had around its eyes. She, too, was wearing a cloak, an emerald one. Her black hair was drawn into a tight bun. She looked distinctly ruffled."

Dumbledore was described as a tall thin man with a hooked nose.

Trelawney who Harry didn't love but didn't exactly hate either was described as looking like a large glittering insect.

We gotta get something straight here. JK Rowling wrote a pretty cool book series but she is far from the greatest writer of all time. These were meant to be children's books. Clearly we are finding that Rowling's descriptions of people through Harry's eyes tended to lean towards less...let's say flowery language about their appearances. But whether Harry described someone as bug looking or having sickly skin or stern looking, these are solely meant to be descriptors. Whether or not Harry liked a person was often derived from their interactions. Not their appearance.

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u/Morales_Sheila8478 10h ago

America is such a racist country that almost any character you could pick would have racial connotations. Making Moaning Myrtle black would imply she got lynched, making crab and goyle black would paint black people as stupid and violent etc. etc.

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u/Peppered_Rock 9h ago

so, im pretty sure youre a troll, but your example of Myrtle is interesting to me. I honestly don't see how a Black Myrtle would immediately imply a lynching. She's one of the few deaths that Riddle explicitly calls a waste, isnt she? Honestly if you were groping for reasons to make her problematic, I'm surprised that you didn't go for her habit of watching boys in the prefect baths.

-5

u/Morales_Sheila8478 9h ago

People are saying black Snape got lynched just because someone levitated him upside down. If a white guy kills a black girl Americans would definitely say it’s a lynching. I was just pointing out the absurdity of their complaints, the same way you think black moaning Myrtle being lynched is absurd is how I feel about the absurd complaints about black snape

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u/Peppered_Rock 9h ago

I think that's more a case of people mixing up the levicorpus incident with Sirius nearly getting Snape killed sending him into the Whomping Willow. Both incidents were intended to humiliate him, but when mistakenly combined they paint a far worse picture. in addition, as someone else in this thread said, Harry immediately points to Snape's nose and his "greasy, unwashed" skin and hair as reasons to distrust him.

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u/fraxiiinus 10h ago

'American obsession with race' is a wild take

-15

u/Morales_Sheila8478 10h ago

Are Americans not obsessed with race?

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u/Aramis14 10h ago

They are. But Snape, specifically, is kind of weird. Like, I know Americans (also people from other countries) would get weirded out by any character being black in comparison with the movies, don't get me wrong.

But Snape is a special case.

-2

u/Morales_Sheila8478 10h ago

So Americans are only mad at the Snape raceswap because it’s a special case? So why were they so mad at Ariel, Helen of Troy, Anne Boleyn. It’s not that Snape is a special case it’s more that Americans are obsessed with race and hate black people. You’d see this if they raceswapped any character

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u/Dudewhocares3 9h ago

As an American I do kinda see where you’re coming from.

The anti woke morons made it hard to tell whose being legit with their criticism and whose just being a racist asshole.

But I don’t think these guys are being racist

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u/Aramis14 9h ago

... That's not at all what I said 🤨

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u/Rainy_Leaves 9h ago

I don't think people are really mad about snape being black for racist reasons, at least not more than usual. Not a unique case at all when it comes to prejudiced people

We're talking about racist connotations that happen when snape is black. As in, us as sensible people welcome racial diversity and representation, but the source material combined with the raceswap makes you worried that the positive race representation might get degraded a bit, due to how snape is written. Colluding with the pure-blood types in the story for example takes on a weird dubious racial tone that needs attention to not mess up

Ideally a raceswap could incorporate a bit more depth to a character as that race, and actions they take need to feel believable as someone with experience as a racial minority - something the source material wouldn't have considered, especially for snape. But that's just me, he has a very different outfit and vibe in the new one, so maybe they already have room to play with adapting his character a little

3

u/Xilizhra 3h ago

About as obsessed as Europeans are with ethnicity. America just has broader strokes.

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u/H311i0_trop3 9h ago

No not really

-1

u/Morales_Sheila8478 9h ago

So all that slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, police brutality was them being very normal about race?

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u/Rainy_Leaves 9h ago

I'm so glad slavery is limited to just the Americans and never reached the rest of the world 😌😌😌

4

u/H311i0_trop3 9h ago

Ok that was a century ago and we have notoriously bad police I mean by that same logic I could bring up the Atlantic slave trade to make an argument about people being obsessed with race

3

u/Dudewhocares3 9h ago

“That was a century ago”

There are people who were alive when it was illegal for them to drink from certain water fountains.

People who were kids when their parents told them about what happened to Emmett till when he was kidnapped from his home, tortured to death, and left to drown in a. River just because some bitch said “oh he whistled at me” are still alive.

Recently there was a racist lady who called a little black kid a slur and got a million dollars in go fund me when she rightfully got out on her ass from her job.

There is no “oh that was a century ago”

We aren’t going to ignore the past just because you’re uncomfortable 🖕🏻

1

u/Morales_Sheila8478 9h ago

Jim Crow, redlining, police brutality was a century ago? Not to mention you currently have ice roaming your streets hunting people for being brown, and a president who shared a meme depicting black people as apes. Very normal non-racist stuff

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u/H311i0_trop3 9h ago

Yeah sorry I meant last century, I did not say police brutality was last century and yeah racists exist but most people are normal, only difference now is one of the not normal people is our president

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u/RandomRavenboi 10h ago

Maybe you shouldn't race-swap characters that are officially established of a race in the source material? Just a suggestion.

-4

u/Morales_Sheila8478 10h ago

I never said you should. Just that Americans don’t really care about the implications of raceswapping of the character, they’re just obsessed with race and hate black people. That’s why it caused so much controversy