Harry Potter prequel ‘Fantastic Beasts’ tackles marriage inequality in a very magical way
Harry Potter’s US-based spin-off will be set in a world with repressive laws about sex and marriage.
Upcoming blockbuster Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which stars Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander, is set in the Harry Potter universe – but takes place decades before the adventures of the boy wizard.
The film takes the action to 1920s New York – and a new featurette released today revealed a rather depressing metaphor that will be at the heart of the world.
Discussing the American wizarding world, travelling British wizard Newt Scamander laments: “You have rather backwards laws about relations with non-magic people.
“You’re not meant to befriend them, you can’t marry them, which seems wildly absurd to me.”
Author JK Rowling explained: “‘My heroes are always people who feel themselves to be set apart, stigmatised or othered.
“That’s at the heart of most of what I write, and it’s certainly at the heart of this movie.”
“Newt walks into a society he doesn’t really understand.”
The plot, which has seemingly-deliberate parallels with the civil rights movement and LGBT rights, will be at the fore of the movie as the hero unwittingly brings a non-magical person into his world.
Eddie Redmayne explains: “Newt feels more at home with creatures than he does with people.”
The film is rumoured to include a young version of gay wizard Albus Dumbledore, whose views on equality for non-wizarding people are strong throughout the Potter books.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is scheduled to be released on November 18 worldwide.
