An ‘anti-woke’ content creator is getting dunked on for a horrific ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ casting take

DreamWorks’ How to Train Your Dragon live-action cast has been announced, and once again, people are not happy. Astrid’s casting, in particular, has caused a small—yet annoyingly vocal—minority to kick up a fuss, although they seem to have conveniently forgotten who voiced her originally.

The film has been anticipated for some time, especially as the original animated film is so beloved, and now we’ve been given a glimpse of what is to come, as well as who will take on the roles of Hiccup, Stoic, Astrid, and co.

• Stoic: Gerald Butler will be reprising the role he lent his voice to in the first two animated films.
• Hiccup: Originally voiced by Jay Baruchel, the movie’s hero will be played by Mason Thames. You might have seen Thames in the supernatural horror The Black Phone.
• Astrid: Nico Parker, who you’ll have seen in the live-action adaption of Dumbo and The Last of Us, will be taking on the role of the fearsome Viking warrior.

“Yeah, it has to do with her race”

It’s Astrid’s casting that has certain individuals deeply upset. As if there aren’t other, more important things to be upset about in the real world. Since the casting’s announcement, some have boldly proclaimed online that they think Parker is wrong for the role because, wait for it, she is mixed race! Here we go again. Parker is the daughter of British director Ol Parker and British actress Thandiwe Newton, whose mother is from Zimbabwe and whose father is English. That makes Nico Parker one-quarter Zimbabwean, which is apparently too much to play a Viking in a world where dragons also exist.

One individual, a content creator by the name of Mally Mouse, was so enraged that she actually exerted energy into releasing a racist rant over the casting. She posted the rant on X, where she started by saying, with a picture of the casting behind her, “What the f**k. And before you start with me, yeah, it has to do with her race.” Wow, right off the bat. Her reasoning for this uncontrollable anger is: “This is a story about Vikings!” Yeah, and dragons, too, which aren’t remotely real. Mouse points to the character design for the animated version and says, “Look at the real Astrid. Blonde hair. Blue eyes.” Again, the character is not real, she was designed and created by an animator.

What’s even more woefully ironic about this situation is that Mouse seems to have conveniently forgotten who voiced the character. Well, the rest of the internet hasn’t, and now they are dragging her online, causing Latina actress America Ferrera, the voice actress behind Astrid, to trend on X.

Considering that Ferrera is so proud of her cultural identity as a Latina, one user felt Mouse’s take was … odd. Replying to Mouse’s first post, which simply reads “You should not be Astrid” and features Mouse’s blatantly racist video rant, X user S.A.M. wrote, “An insanely weird take especially considering the original Astrid was voiced by America Ferrera … an actress whose entire personality is being Hispanic lol.”

Some pointed out the ridiculousness of trying to discuss “accuracy” in a film containing dragons. Another user wrote “Ah yes, let’s go back to the original actress who played this character … noted white woman America Ferrera … genius. Also, to be clear she is worrying about the historical accuracy of the race of a character in a movie about DRAGONS. What are we doing??”

Many were just upset at the sheer vehemence and bigotry behind this, as one user responded: “Genuinely upsetting how passionately racist this one was.”

This shrieking over historical accuracy when POC actors are cast in fantasy films adapted from animation has gotten so boring. Get over it; your childhood is not under attack. Get some therapy so you can deal with your rage.