“Saturday Night Live” mocked HBO’s upcoming “Harry Potter” television series over the weekend for race-swapping the villain, Severus Snape.
Paapa Essiedu, a black British actor, is set to play the role, a character described in J.K. Rowling’s books as having pale, yellow skin.
During the “Weekend Update” segment on Saturday’s show, “SNL” cast member Kam Patterson portrayed a black version of Snape and joked about how the character might be perceived.
“Good evening, Mr. Jost — nah, I’m playing. I don’t talk like that, bro. It’s called code-switching. Codio switchio!” Patterson said after being introduced by host Colin Jost.
Jost asked how things were going at Hogwarts, inspiring Patterson to reply, “Not great. We got this new kid. His name is Harry Potter, and he’s racist as hell. Harry Potter — or, the Proud Boy Who Lived — spent the whole year telling everybody that the school’s only black teacher was secretly evil.”
Jost interjected, “I think he’s just worried because he knows someone’s trying to steal the Sorcerer’s Stone.”
“So somebody stole something, and the number one suspect is Black Snape? They didn’t even look at the white guy in the turban. So offensive. He’s got a wizard on the back of his head,” Patterson shot back.
“I’m really sorry that he just jumped to conclusions like that,” Jost said.
Snape replied, “All good. It happens all the time. I showed up at Hogwarts, and on the first day, they looked at me and said, ‘You’re the professor of the Dark Arts.’ I never even studied that! I majored in African Muggle Studies.”
“The whole wizarding world is racist,” Patterson went on in the bit. “There’s one other black guy, Kingsley Shacklebolt, a name I’m guessing they got out of the Wu-Tang name generator … why they got to put ‘shackle’ in his name? That’s crazy, man. Shackle? Shackle!”
The skit went on, with a reference to Rowling being “problematic.”
Essiedu claimed that haters have been out in force since his casting for “Harry Potter” was announced. The British star told The Times last month that he’s been told, “Quit or I’ll murder you.”
“It really matters,” he says. “The reality is that if I look at Instagram I will see somebody saying, ‘I’m going to come to your house and kill you.’ …nobody should have to encounter this for doing their job. Many people put their lives on the line in their work. I’m playing a wizard in Harry Potter. And I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t affect me emotionally.”
“But the abuse fuels me,” he went on. “And makes me more passionate about making this character my own, because I think of how I felt as a kid. I would imagine myself at Hogwarts on broomsticks, and the idea that a kid like me can see themselves represented in that world? That’s motivation to not be intimidated by someone saying they’d rather I died instead of doing work I’m going to be really proud of.”
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