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When I searched the internet for photo references for my previous Newt and Theseus-piece, I stumbled upon some old and new articles regarding Fantastic Beasts. Some older ones regarding Newt and how boring as a lead he is and some newer ones mostly about FB 2 and 3 and how poor they have handled representation and should stop the series here. And representation is really important and they talked much Nagini and about asian women and culture and how they have been handled in pop culture and also Dumbledore and Grindelwald’s relationship and pride, some things in this series that I haven’t given too much thought about before, as I’m either asian, woman or gay but I love the Wizarding World and read through what they had to say and yeah, they had really good and valid opinions for wanting this series to end.. but these are not the only types of people represented in Fantastic Beasts…

Early in the series production, actor Eddie Redmayne and author J.K Rowling sat down and discussed the character of Newton “Newt” Scamander and came to the conclusion that the magizoologist has Autism Spectrum Disorder, more precisely, Newt has Asperger's Syndrome, the very same disability that I have.

I haven’t thought much about representation cause I never felt that I was in need of any for quite some time. I knew I was different, everyone else knew I was different, there were some books about how to treat someone as different as me and that was that and I tried to think as little of it as possible. I grew up reading comic books and connecting to the characters in those books, mostly Spider-Man. Cause yeah, neither of us were popular, we were both nerds, loved science and had money problems, this seems like a cool character and that was where the similarities ended. And yeah, me and my mom watched shows like The Good Doctor and those helped her understand my thought process a little more and how it is for me to do.. anything. But I didn’t really connect to any of those cause their autism wasn’t as high functioning as mine so just like Spider-Man, “yeah, I can find some similarities, I guess.” But that kind of changed when I went to the movies to watch J.K Rowling’s new Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and I fell for Newt Scamander the moment he awkwardly stepped in.

Redmayne plays the character wonderfully, the natural and shy avoidance of eye contact, the clear contrast in comfort between a dinner with friends and taking care of his beasts, I could find the tiniest similarities in just his walk and posture and I loved every second he was on screen and I didn’t care how mediocre the movies were (but personally, the first one is a 10/10). I love this character so much and watching his adventures has helped me these few years since the release to just be more comfortable in myself and it's nice to finally see someone on my side of the spectrum for once and I really don’t want these movies to end quite yet.

But I don’t want the continuation of my representation to keep hurting the ones of others. I want these movies to keep coming and get to their planned conclusion but in order to do so, they will have to fix and get better on how they treat all the characters’ cultures, backgrounds and sexualities.

People have been talking about not to bring up this series or Rowling online and to boycott the movies and games because they just give them exposure and power to keep on doing what they do and yeah, I can see your point there but if you just give them the cold shoulder and ignore them, it feels like they will have a harder time to understand what the problem is and how to fix it, I feel like the opposite could be smarter, do bring it up, do talk about it, do come with critique and examples on how to fix it and hopefully the right person sees it and something could happen. But what do I know? I’m just a disabled kid who wants to keep seeing his idol save the world through the power of autistic hyperfixation on his special interest!

Description

When I searched the internet for photo references for my previous Newt and Theseus-piece, I stumbled upon some old and new articles regarding Fantastic Beasts. Some older ones regarding Newt and how boring as a lead he is and some newer ones mostly about FB 2 and 3 and how poor they have handled representation and should stop the series here. And representation is really important and they talked much Nagini and about asian women and culture and how they have been handled in pop culture and also Dumbledore and Grindelwald’s relationship and pride, some things in this series that I haven’t given too much thought about before, as I’m either asian, woman or gay but I love the Wizarding World and read through what they had to say and yeah, they had really good and valid opinions for wanting this series to end.. but these are not the only types of people represented in Fantastic Beasts…

Early in the series production, actor Eddie Redmayne and author J.K Rowling sat down and discussed the character of Newton “Newt” Scamander and came to the conclusion that the magizoologist has Autism Spectrum Disorder, more precisely, Newt has Asperger's Syndrome, the very same disability that I have.

I haven’t thought much about representation cause I never felt that I was in need of any for quite some time. I knew I was different, everyone else knew I was different, there were some books about how to treat someone as different as me and that was that and I tried to think as little of it as possible. I grew up reading comic books and connecting to the characters in those books, mostly Spider-Man. Cause yeah, neither of us were popular, we were both nerds, loved science and had money problems, this seems like a cool character and that was where the similarities ended. And yeah, me and my mom watched shows like The Good Doctor and those helped her understand my thought process a little more and how it is for me to do.. anything. But I didn’t really connect to any of those cause their autism wasn’t as high functioning as mine so just like Spider-Man, “yeah, I can find some similarities, I guess.” But that kind of changed when I went to the movies to watch J.K Rowling’s new Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and I fell for Newt Scamander the moment he awkwardly stepped in.

Redmayne plays the character wonderfully, the natural and shy avoidance of eye contact, the clear contrast in comfort between a dinner with friends and taking care of his beasts, I could find the tiniest similarities in just his walk and posture and I loved every second he was on screen and I didn’t care how mediocre the movies were (but personally, the first one is a 10/10). I love this character so much and watching his adventures has helped me these few years since the release to just be more comfortable in myself and it's nice to finally see someone on my side of the spectrum for once and I really don’t want these movies to end quite yet.

But I don’t want the continuation of my representation to keep hurting the ones of others. I want these movies to keep coming and get to their planned conclusion but in order to do so, they will have to fix and get better on how they treat all the characters’ cultures, backgrounds and sexualities.

People have been talking about not to bring up this series or Rowling online and to boycott the movies and games because they just give them exposure and power to keep on doing what they do and yeah, I can see your point there but if you just give them the cold shoulder and ignore them, it feels like they will have a harder time to understand what the problem is and how to fix it, I feel like the opposite could be smarter, do bring it up, do talk about it, do come with critique and examples on how to fix it and hopefully the right person sees it and something could happen. But what do I know? I’m just a disabled kid who wants to keep seeing his idol save the world through the power of autistic hyperfixation on his special interest!