Is Bem The Most Racist Character In The Harry Potter Movie Series?

Watching a re-run of ‘Prisoner Of Azkaban’ on Sky Cinema brought to mind a matter which appeared to have escaped the attention of the Harry Potter fanbase all these years (no surprise there), and that is Bem is responsible for some of the most racist moments in the entire Harry Potter series.

This non-canonical character has two pieces of dialogue in this film.

The first part being ‘Taking the form of a giant spectral dog, it’s among the darkest omens in our world.’

Later on, when Seamus Finnigan (the series’ Irish-are-all-bomb-making-terrorists stereotype – forever being blown up …) announces that Sirius Black had been seen, what does Bem say?

‘Black could be anywhere.’

They could have given these lines to any other character, yet they chose to give them to a non-canonical extra who never even appeared in the later movies, contrary to the myth.

(Ekow Quartey has tried to claim he was in ‘Order Of The Phoenix’, but the extra black kid in Dumbledore’s Army in ‘Order Of The Phoenix’ was future X-Factor star Paije Richardson – see below – no idea who the Hufflepuff is, could have been Sara Bispham who played Sally Anne Perks, the infamous ‘missing’ Hogwarts student).

This is more than some actors who appeared in the entire eight movies, including Dean Thomas:

The Harry Potter series had attracted criticism from the race relations industry due to the lack of dialogue being given to its black characters – even though Lee Jordan commentated the Quidditch matches exclusively in the first two films.

In the case of Dean Thomas they had a case certainly – it remains beyond belief Alfred Enoch never uttered a single word in the whole series, as the tallest Hogwarts student actor, it wasn’t as if he was easy to miss onscreen either!

But instead, the new people who took over from Christopher Columbus decided to add in for one movie an overweight extra with bloodshot eyes for what appears to be no other reason than to placate the moaners, and with two pieces of dialogue which looked suspiciously like – in a manner open to interpretation – they were making a cheap racial jibe en passant.

It’s very hard to resist the conclusion the new broom at ‘Harry Potter’ did a little bit of cynical race baiting (and some fat baiting thrown in for good measure) – yet not a word was ever said.