The politics of trans are v easy for HBO (some of the actors disagree with JKR, she couldn't and doesn't want to stop them, visibly the Potter audience does not care). The politics of 'whatever random thing c50 teenagers might fall out over in 2031', uh, maybe not so much.
Also the other change is we have social media and good camera phones now, unlike I'm 2006? '16 year old actor does cocaine in the background of a tiktok live' just isn't something David Yates had to deal with?
Yeah, I think the 2000s were in so many ways the perfect time to make it, in that while there was a lot of old media creepiness it was in retreat, and what we have now is so much worse.
I think I'd slightly disagree in that the noughties really were the last hurrah of the tabloid era, pre-Levenson, but yes what's replaced it isn't exactly better
Yes, the tabloid countdown till Emma Watson turned 18 was particularly grim.
Wasn't there a website counting down the days till Watson turned 18?
The countdown website prank is what sticks in people’s mind but it’s easy to forget how bad it really was for teenage girls that were famous www.countytimes.co.uk/news/2337490...
Moyles would be fired for that today. A grim time
Someone should ask the PM if he'd be happy if his daughter had to walk past a Radio One DJ'S house.
you're thinking of Charlotte Church, I think. (although tbh people are disgusting, there was probably one for every single famous teenage girl)
Yeah, website for church, which led to the sun reporting it (negatively but c’mon, more than a bit lasciviously) which led to church believing they ran a countdown. I *think* the tabloids were a bit more seedy with Watson.
Watson gave testimony to the Levenson inquiry. She was not complimentary about the press
Yeah - but have to compare to 'the same press in the 90s' and 'what we have now'. It was a dreadful decade to make those films given that but also probably the least dreadful decade to make those films?
For all that stuff from the 2000s rightly gets looked back on as appalling, in some ways that's because it's closer and well documented online. Whereas some 80s/90s stuff is jaw-dropping. Now, the issue being that it's an unpoliceable free for all rather than a few media organisations being dismal.
I don't think she gave evidence, though she did post about it. Rowling gave evidence, and Watson gave a UN address which mentions the tabloids www.unwomen.org/en/news/stor...
Yeah I remember finding the Watson stuff from the press weird despite being at the exact age range where being attracted to her was normal (5 years younger)
I think this was a myth, or at least an exaggeration, something like a tabloid pruriently reporting on some website set up by random doing the countdown - although they absolutely knew what they were doing
Wasn't the most infamous one about Samantha Fox.?Appeared in the Sun with clothes on and there was a countdown to her birthday when she was able to shed her top.
It was Charlotte Church and it was *sixteen*
Yes agreed. The surveillance culture by accident probably has more affects on our individual and collective behaviour than we probably realise.
Yeah - there's a type of person who defends the HP series to me who really doesn't seem to appreciate that since the movies were made, the media environment has become a thousand times worse.
Yes if I was a parent I would be strongly advising my child *not* to take up any acting work that would put them on the media radar. It does not seem to end well.
Effects*
I mean, boy, Lena Headey and Jerome Flynn's ~mess~ certainly didn't help late GoT by all accounts. What if one of the kids decides they refuse to film with the next Dumbledore replacement because he's said he agrees with Jk on trans rights and they're horrified.
For that matter (perhaps I've not read enough or heard enough goss) for a kids' environment on set, I've heard little toxicity or nonceyness about the HP movies compared to a lot of others sets And their attitude to the politics question as you outlined doesn't inspire child protection confidence
Are the 2 not slightly more enmeshed than that though, potentially, eg if one the cast starts making "Just so you know, I'm here under protest" noises as a result of something JKR does? As you say it'll be the "toxic set" angle that gets traction but that drags everyone involved into the discussion
Yeah, it adds another risk factor, but it's IMO well below, say (stealing this from @storywonker.bsky.social) 'something happens in US politics that is highly sensitive for HBO but something every young British actor condemns'.
God it's weird that that sentence makes sense in a way that wouldn't have seemed plausible even last year
