Harry Potter, Cursed Child and the Problematic Depiction of Women
By Lacy Baugher
The Great Hall in “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child”. (Photo: Official Site/Manuel Harlan)
There’s a lot to dislike about Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the official eighth Potter tale, especially when we look at the way the story treats women
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has a lot of problems. There are some fairly glaring plot holes, awkward reappearances by beloved characters from the original novels, and an ultimate villain that can be described by virtually no other word than stupid. Many of these issues have already been scrutinized at length here at Culturess. However, one of the most frustrating elements of the play is what it doesn’t contain: Compelling, interesting women with agency.
It’s not as though the original Harry Potter books were necessarily champions of feminism themselves. But the series did make a real effort to include different types of women with a variety of skills, interests and backstories. The women of the original Potter books all had their own stories and agendas, no matter how they connected to Harry. Their voices mattered. And those stories actually give its women something to do, and their actions made a real impact on the narrative.
The women of Cursed Child, on the other hand are constantly sidelined and seem to generally exist in order to serve the storylines of the male characters. They do very little on their own and are so flat they might as well be made out of cardboard. This is upsetting precisely because we expect more from this universe, because Hermione Granger and Ginny Weasley were role models and life goals for so many young women. To see them get pushed so thoroughly aside is downright depressing.
What’s so frustrating about the Cursed Child women? Let’s take it case by case.
WARNING: The following spoils the heck out of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. If you haven’t read it yet, beware!
Next: Poor Astoria Malfoy, though.