Harry Potter: Deathly Hallows Part 2 - The Other White Wizards

Number 3 on the list of Top 10 highest grossing movies since President Obama took office is "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. " ("HPDH2")  As one of two Warner Brothers movies to make the Top 10 ("The Dark Knight Rises" is the other), HPDH2 garnered $1.342 billion in worldwide sales, with a tremendous (but not entirely unexpected) 71.6% of sales coming from international markets (boxofficemojo.com).  HPDH2, the last of 8 movies in the Harry Potter series,  setting numerous records including the highest grossing film of 2011, highest grossing children's adaptation of all time, and pads the record already held by Harry Potter for highest grossing movie series.

As discussed with previous entries in this blog, filmmakers dealing with non-original material are loathe to make casting changes, especially for the prominent characters.  HPDH2 is no exception, returning every key actor/character pair who is still living from even the first productions.  It's truly remarkable that Warner Brothers was able to hold this large of a cast together for 11 years.  But that also spelled curtains for correcting any lack of diversity, and the lacking was plentiful.  Apparently in Great Britain, virtually all those who can speak are white.  A quick check on IMDB shows the first non-white actor is #28.  Not too many lines afforded to the 28th most important character in a film.  Warner Brothers did do a credible job filling-in crowd scenes with more diversity than remembered from earlier films in the series, but absolutely zero diversity in any memorable characters.

On a personal note, I absolutely loved the Harry Potter stories and was irrationally upset when they ended.  With such a gift for writing, I can only hope that J.K Rowling will continue, albeit in a different direction.  Maybe next time she could feature a PoC (Protagonist of Color)!  Now that would be magical!