If you’re looking for the next family friendly movie this holiday season, then you should avoid Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them at all costs.
[THERE MAY BE SOME SPOILERS AHEAD]
The latest Harry Potter flick from the mind of author J. K. Rowling is a tale of Newt Scamander, a young British wizard, who travels to New York en route to Arizona. If you’ve seen the film, Scamander (portrayed by Eddie Redmayne) gets caught up in catching some of the beasts that have escaped his magically-expanded suitcase.
Scamander gets into a bit of trouble with the Magical Congress of the United States of America (a.k.a. MACUSA) for not being a registered wizard. Since there are many parallels between the magical community to organized religion, this notion that a wizard has to register with the government screams of the World War II-era. During that time, Jews had to register in Germany before the war, and Japanese Americans had to register in the United States.
The idea behind it is to protect the magical community from being exposed to non-magical people (a.k.a. No-Majs).
Over the course of the story, the protaganist, Scamander, works with MACUSA to catch a dark, mysterious force known as an Obscurus from tearing up New York City.
Percival Graves (portrayed by Colin Farrell), who is a high-ranking Auror (official) and Director of Magical Security for MACUSA, uses unethical and downright malicious means to expose the MACUSA’s unjust laws and unnecessary overreach. He admits at the film’s climax that he released the Obscurus to expose the magical community to the rest of the world, insinuating that wizards and witches were more concerned about protecting the No-Majs at the expense of the magical community.
The laws restricting wizards are similar to the Patriot Act and the USA Freedom Act, which were passed by wide margins on both the Democratic and Republican sides. These pieces of legislation were seen as laws that infringed on the civil liberties of certain communities in America to protect the greater public.
Going back to the film, if you remove Graves from some of the actions he undertook to reach his goal, then he would be considered a hero. Graves could be compared to Edward Snowden, who is revered for exposing the federal government’s NSA bulk collection of data, which is a significant violation of the 4th Amendment and a person’s right to privacy.
In the end, however, Graves is arrested for his crimes, but the message resonates well with Libertarians and Conservatives, who want the government out of their lives. All Libertarians and conservatives want is smaller government with fewer laws and regulations that infringe on everyone’s rights. Only a big liberal like J.K. Rowling would push for the idea of bigger government to instill a false sense of security.
If you end up going to see this film, just be warned that Big Brother is watching you watching how Big Brother operates. Thanks, Obama.
Watch a trailer to the film below:
