Editorial Report 12b

This editorial report will focus on the third body paragraph, which gives my point of view as a fan of the books and the movies, and how my view changed as I grew up.

Rough Cut

I grew up reading these books. I loved following Harry on his heroic adventures, Ron’s funny comments, and Hermione telling them what to do when they found themselves in trouble. Because the first book came out the year I was born, I watched the first three movies before I read the books. Therefore, the Harry I pictured in my head has always been Daniel Radcliffe, because I hadn’t gotten the chance to come up with my own picture of these characters. This was never a problem for me. I always looked forward to seeing the movies, because I think I was young enough that I never found anything wrong with them even after reading the books. I think this is also why I never questioned why most characters were white. If a new character was introduced in the books that I had never seen before in the movies I had seen, I automatically assumed in my head that he or she was white until I was otherwise told. Looking back this sounds kind of awful, but it’s true. I am not sure why this was; it could be my own skin color, but also it could be the effect of growing up watching movies with mostly white actors and actresses. I wasn’t aware of the problem until Twitter blew up with #OscarsSoWhite and I looked more into it. I found that while the Oscar nominees and winners did tend to be white, the awards show was not the problem: it was simply representing the problem—Hollywood. When I read that they were casting Dumezweni for Hermione in the stage sequel, it surprised me, mostly because I was so attached to the Emma Watson version in my head. But after reading more into it, the new face to this beloved character seemed like a refreshing change to this well-known story, and a much-needed change at that. 

Re-edited version

I grew up reading these books, and loved following Harry on his heroic adventures, Ron’s funny comments, and Hermione telling them what to do when they found themselves in trouble. Because the first book came out the year I was born, I watched the first three movies before reading the books. Therefore, the Harry in my head has always been Daniel Radcliffe, the actor in the movies, because I hadn’t gotten the chance to come up with my own picture of these characters. This was never a problem for me. I always looked forward to seeing the movies, because I was young enough that I never found anything wrong with them even after reading the books. I think this is also why I never questioned why most characters were white in the movies. However, if a new character was introduced in the books that I had never seen before in the movies, my head automatically assumed that he or she was white by default until I was otherwise told. Looking back that sounds kind of awful, but it’s true. As to why my brain did this, I am not completely sure. It could be my own skin color, but it's more likely that it is the effect of growing up watching movies with mostly white actors and actresses. I wasn’t even aware of the problem until Twitter blew up with #OscarsSoWhite and looked more into it. I found that while the Oscar nominees and winners did tend to be white, the awards show was not the problem: it was simply representing the problem—Hollywood. But regardless, it got my attention so it made some movement towards change. When I read that they were casting Dumezweni for Hermione in the stage sequel, it surprised me, mostly because I was so attached to the Emma Watson version in my head. But after reading more into it, the new face to this beloved character seemed like a refreshing change to this well-known story, and a much-needed change at that.

The content changed a little bit. I edited mostly for sentence fluency. Reading through I realized I used "I" literally a thousand times. Hopefully the edited version is a little bit better about that.

The form changed because now it is double spaced. This makes it look more professional and more like a standard college essay. This adds to my credibility.