On Nagini from Fantastic Beasts, and How Orientalism Surfaces Again and Again

The character names and story titles change, but one thing is always the same.

The moment I knew that Fantastic Beasts is not for me was most likely when it was announced the Asian school was named “Mahoutokoro” by JK Rowling, author of the popular Harry Potter series. The proposal for Fantastic Beasts was ambitious — to present wizards and wizard schools from around the world, such as in Asia and in South America. Considering how little of the vast amount of mythology and literature from Asian countries are translated into English, I assumed Rowling — who doesn’t speak nor read any Asian languages at a fluency where she could produce new literature about Asia — had a plan to co-write the parts of Fantastic Beasts that would be in Asia or involve Asians with an Asian author. Possibly someone who was bilingual and already popular in an Asian country for fantasy writing.

Instead, mahoutokoro.

It was one of those names that only someone who was proud that they didn’t know Japanese or any Japanese people would think was a good idea. The name “mahoutokoro” is a combination of the words “magic” and “place”. Literally, “Magic place”. If I heard this name without context, I would guess it was the name of a child daycare in Japan, or the name of a TV program intended for preschoolers. Or possibly the name of a performance group that regularly puts on 30 minute musicals for young children in parks and department stores. The name was a joke. Childish. Unsophisticated. Unclever.

It was a disappointing reflection of how JK Rowling, one of the most famous authors of our time, considers Asian countries and Asian cultures to be a joke. She could see how her own culture is sophisticated, clever, mature, and serious enough to make thoughtful names like “Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry”, “Durmstrang Institute”, “Beauxbatons Academy of Magic” — all names that sound like they’re named after the last name of someone famous — but 59.66% of the world population that lives in Asia will rely on one school named “[Magic Place] School of Magic”.

The school being located on Iwojima — an island invaded by white people by murdering Asian people for reasons even white people admit was a waste of human lives — is another hint that she never stopped once to consider how Asians would feel about her writing, nevermind consulting a writer that’s Asian. It was apparent to me that she was writing her story only for white people to enjoy. How much people in Asia and Asian people might enjoy the story was a non-consideration.

Many of the white fans of Fantastic Beasts respond to my reaction with dismissal, or they downplay my observations on why Fantastic Beasts is only for white audiences. They’re unfamiliar with the idea that it’s unpleasant to see story after story where things white people are good at (or are known for creating) are painted as normal, while things people of color are good at (or known for creating) are painted as being weird, exotic, mysterious, unusual, rare, eccentric, or strange. This fascinating phenomenon is called centering whiteness, or white centering, where everything is assumed to be white or for white people, even when it’s not about white people.

White centering is why if you search on google images for “smiling woman”, the first dozen results are all women that look white. It’s assumed that the default woman is white, but the default woman is never assumed to be a woman of color. White centering is where people spend so much time relating to white people and how white people feel that they forget to notice people of color and what people of color think, feel, or do, as though we don’t exist at all. When a writer describes the globe through a white centering perspective, this is called Orientalism.

Orientalism is when white people describe non-white cultures despite not being members of those cultures, often to paint people of color as being unsophisticated, savage, or primitive compared to European cultures. It’s often a series of mis-observations and mistaken assuptions made by white people who don’t speak the languages spoken by the people of color they are attempting to describe, combined with the suspicion that people of color are not wholly people like white people, but closer to wild animals with a human shape. Simply put, Orientalism is white people showing what they think about people of color to more people than people of color ourselves, regardless of how outdated, harmful, or useless their white thoughts are to people of color.

I was (and still am) happy for my friends who enjoy Fantastic Beasts and JK Rowling’s other works, but personally I knew this author did not care for people like me. By picking a name like Mahoutokoro for a school, Fantastic Beasts had quietly told its fans “You can’t be a fan of Fantastic Beasts unless you pretend you don’t know Japanese”. I heard this silent rule of orientalism and decided not to be a fan of it until it wanted to include people who prefer to maintain that Japanese speakers and Japanese people exist while in a fandom.

Japanese as a language is not weird or ridiculous: The majority of white people are bad at Japanese, but that doesn’t mean Japanese is a bad language that should be ridiculed with an unrewarding school name like “[magic place] school of magic”. White people are good at a variety of things, but that doesn’t mean Japanese has to be easy for white people to learn for white people to treat Japanese as a proper language the way they respect European languages.

I expected Fantastic Beasts would have the run-of-the-mill Hollywood style orientalism if it reaches mahoutokoro in its story; complete with geisha, samurai swords, a bizarrely prominent display of red lanterns, a strange lack of any font besides Meiryo even on storefront signs, pan flutes, brocade bathrobes, repeated mentions of honor, sushi, chopsticks, accented near-nonsensical English instead of subtitles, kung fu, tacky interior design choices, unnecessary kanji, dusty unpaved streets and straw roofs, perhaps an Asian woman with a purple hair streak. Maybe she would have the chopsticks in her purple hair streak. Most likely she’ll be killed to make the viewer feel sorry for the white male protagonist and how much he had to struggle to kill her.

What I didn’t expect was for Fantastic Beasts to turn one of the enemies into a person and then to cast a person of color into that role and then to announce it as though that’s doing people of color a service. I considered this might be something Asians who don’t speak an Asian language might enjoy, as many Americans who don’t speak an Asian language also enjoy Airbender even though Zuko was the only character voiced by an Asian person, while the main characters (none of which are white) were voiced by white people. Or how many people were very excited for Lana Condor being cast to play Jubilee in X-men Apocalypse. But the school was still named as though nobody understands Japanese. There was also no announcements on what Asian writers were being invited to join the Fantastic Beasts movie team to write things Asians viewers would enjoy — Things that acknowledge the existence of the magical sorcery stories written by Asians that are familiar to many people in and from Asia, and would reward us as viewers for knowing popular stories written by Asians.