But Dumbledore is the good kind of gay, right? Non-spoken and dead?
[Uh oh, Soapbox Time.]
J.K. Rowling, author of Harry Potter series, admitted during a reading this weekend in New York that she considers Headmaster Albus Dumbledore gay.
Question: Did Dumbledore, who believed in the prevailing power of love, ever fall in love himself?
JKR: "My truthful answer to you... I always thought of Dumbledore as gay. [ovation] ... Dumbledore fell in love with Grindelwald, and that that added to his horror when Grindelwald showed himself to be what he was. To an extent, do we say it excused Dumbledore a little more because falling in love can blind us to an extent, but he met someone as brilliant as he was, and ... he was very drawn to this brilliant person, and horribly, terribly let down by him. ... In fact, recently I was in a script read-through for the sixth film, and ... I had to write a little note in the margin and slide it along to the scriptwriter, 'Dumbledore's gay!'" [laughter]
"If I'd known it would make you so happy, I would have announced it years ago!"
"I had to give you something to talk about for the next 10 years...Just imagine the fan fiction now."
YAY for Gay!Dumbledore and BOO to JKR for admitting it too late.
If it's not written or hinted in the books, it's not actually canon, is it? So her considering Dumbledore as gay means that millions of readers will not know it or think it, and her Book Empire is not stained by the horrible secret that someone is gay. I roll my eyes when someone is outed AFTER the books are published, as though it matters. Now that it's safely too late, she's thrown us this scrap. Thanks a lot.
In fact, it goes back to why I was annoyed with the Epilogue. Marriages with babies equal happy endings? I don't want to stoke that fire again, since I did like the book and I'm happy that Harry's happy. She's a hetero-mommy, so of course her writing voice will have hetero-mommyhood as the last word. The series comes down to maternal love, after all. So I can understand her wanting to lock up people's straightness and get them breeding. (I am really being sarcastic here, no flames plz.) I'm only in SoapBox Mode right now, so I'll continue to say that most people being straight and some having babies is worth mentioning, but she didn't think someone being gay was worth mentioning. The only relationships in print are straight relationships. Now I have to wonder if Hagrid's parents might be the only printed example of non-traditional couples, so even then, I'm not quite satisfied. Tonks and Remus having a baby had NOTHING to do with the plot, in fact, their relationship was difficult to conceive the whole time JKR shoved it down our throats. Molly warned us that when war is coming, people start hooking up. So when you're making long lists of couples, illustrating how so many random people hook up for war, make sure they're all straight. Because gay couples just aren't interesting enough to mention.
Dude, I cannot scream this next point enough:
Dumbledore's possible love turned greatest enemy, fighting the greatest battle the wizarding world had ever known, is WAY MORE INTERESTING AND RELEVANT than Remus and Tonks getting married and having a baby, only to futilely die in battle and leaving an orphan.
How much time do we spend looking at Albus in the 7th book? We learn loads about his past, his faults, his family, his enemies, his friends ... so you can't say there wasn't a convenient time to learn about his gayness. If a reporter as ruthless as Rita can sling mud for everything else, she would have pounced on his gayness. You have to make an effort to omit that kind of detail.
Because you talk about his motivations to fight, how difficult it was to turn against his "friend", blah blah blah. JKR had the right time, she had the relevance, she had the captive audience, she had the exposition tool ... and nope. No gayness here. Move along, kids! In fact, go get married and have kids like this long list of characters! Plenty of time and worthiness to mention them, though!
As I said in my rant last time, I love the series and I've enjoyed her (flawed) writing for years. My complaints come down to this: I'm upset with JKR because she's missed some of the greatest opportunities ever to educate children about the ideals and reality of the world.
Finally, my previous reviews have also ended by thanking you, because fandom did it better. Maybe I'm fortunate to travel in circles of brilliant writers and artists. But fanfic wrote Snape way better than JKR ever did (or barely did, that bitch), and I thought Dumbledore/Grindelwald was pretty clear fanon. Sure, we gay-up plenty of people, not only because we're omni-curious, but anyone with half a Gaydar had zero trouble seeing the possibility. In fact, it was so obvious a possibility that JKR could only omit it with purpose, right?
If one person is gay, and that's relevant to the story you're telling, but you don't think it's "worth" writing, even speaking, until after it's published? You're a biased writer who missed a good opportunity.
Meanwhile, if lots of people are straight, and it's not relevant to your story, but you write that in, several times? You are a cunt.
ADDED: gmonkey42 made excellent points why you can't say we shouldn't include sexual orientation in children's books, because opposite-sex partners are featured heavily by default. Seriously, go read it.
Heteronormativity: When you include opposite-sex partners but say there wasn't a reason to include same-sex partners, you are writing in default, marginalizing everything else as non-normal, or written only as needed.
If someone's sexuality isn't specified, it's assumed they're straight. If someone's race is not specified, it's assumed they're white. Have we ever seen Hermione written as white? Brown bushy hair, right? When someone adds race, gender, or sexuality to an identity, it is only because it has to be specified as non-normative. Author becomes "black author". Nurse becomes "male nurse". Marriage becomes "same-sex marriage". Whereas you rarely see "white author", "female nurse", or "opposite-sex couple", because those meanings are socially implied.
I imagine this race puzzle is less of a problem in Britain, since I seem to recall that black was added to the Dean Thomas description for the US edition. But homophobia is a still a huge problem, world-wide. And while I will clap for adding this to his character, I'm still giving her a finger for being a jerk and/or coward in the end.
ADDED: I also like innerbrat's views on this. Interesting that her only outed character is the brother of a suspected sexual deviant (bestiality?). Her commenters also include a terrific point that if we only see couples through Harry's point-of-view, so Albus's gayness wasn't relevant, and being gay is normal and accepted, then Remus/Sirius would have been the obvious and easiest choice for allowing gay people to have an unspoken identity in canon -- but JKR went out of her way to make Remus straight. Albus being the only outed gay character means gayness stayed out of Harry's POV, he was too old to be a sexual interest or threat, and he's dead now so don't worry. Furthermore, funny how plenty of straight couples find true love and paired-off happiness, but the only outed character's love ended up being his enemy and he lives to old age without a mentionable partner.
Yep, still a cunt.
ADDED: "Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself." -- Albus Dumbledore
WOW, sweetwaterpink linked to an article called Harry Potter and the Imbalance of Race that does a nice job poking fun at The Race That Shall Not Be Named -- or how black characters are sometimes described flat-out as "black" (Angelina, "a tall black girl with long, braided hair.") or Dean Thomas, "a black boy even taller than Ron ...") while white characters are never introduced as "white", instead using only descriptive allusions like pink-faced or having blonde hair. True of this book and true of most writing!
But let me ask you this: Is it not up to us the readers, to supply our own visuals? Cormac McLaggen is described as a "large, wiry-haired youth", which could mean black ... but I'll admit until just now -- I assumed Cormac was white! I'm guilty with the rest of 'em. *wink*
ADDED: We are clapping for Gay Dumbledore. I love Gay Dumbledore and he needed to be outed, even if it's too late. I have read several good points on the positive side for this news. This post is not one of them. "I don't think she 'hid it' in the books because she's a homophobe. But DD's (or any other character's) homosexuality just wasn't what the story was about."
Allow me to rip my eyelashes out one a time for a moment.
coell: "Change that to "(any character's) heterosexuality just wasn't what the story was about" and you can start asking why so many opposite-sex couples were "worth" writing about.
I think this is what upsets me the most. It's not be about homosexuality. It's about just sexuality. She made efforts to mention the opposite-sex orientation of dozens of characters, even when it had no relevance to the story. Dumbledore's possible love for Grindelwald, who betrayed him and became his greatest enemy, much like the followers of Voldemort were betrayed by his cruelty and madness? That is fantastically relevant and would have made Harry care for the old man even more -- sympathy for suffering, understanding for how he could have been friends with a monster... and while she spent pages and pages describing Dumbledore's faults, and motives, and family, and history ... she leaves that detail out. It is a disservice to Dumbledore's character and it reeks of homophobia. If Grindelwald had been a witch, you can bet fifty knuts his possible love interest in her would have been mentioned. "But Dumbledore's heterosexuality isn't what HP is about!" Really? Because love lost/betrayed/unrequited (Peter-James, Snape-Lily, Dursleys-Harry, Harry-Cho, Hagrid-Maxime, Remus-til-he-got-Tonks, Fleur-fretting-Bill-might-leave, etc.) is a device she's happy to use everywhere else (read: every-orientation else.)
Dumbledore's gayness as canon would have fit wonderfully in Rita's mud-slinging and the world could shrug and say who cares about orientation these days? It would have been a field day for the Ministry to try and get him fired and the world would say it's not right to discriminate based on orientation. It would have been a message that someone you've known and loved is also gay and we're not asking for more than some subtle reference. We don't need a press conference or comment at Carnegie Hall, all she had to do was print it and think it was a natural thing to write about someone and it fit well in the story. No fuss at all. Not a big deal. She's "always known" it, so why not print it? If it's not in the books, it's not canon. There are no gay characters in Harry Potter, only who JKR and/or the fans suspect to be, post-publication and in fan fiction.
Non-relevant opposite-sex relationships are written in, but relevant same-sex relationships are not, only spoken as considerations after the series is over."
If she didn't recognize how this fact she's "always known" would delight fans, or at least create a more engaging story -- a deeper, sympathetic, and inclusive story -- then this is a valid criticism of a writer who's missed a tremendous opportunity.
If she did recognize it and omitted it on purpose (which seems clear) -- we are left to wonder if this was a subconsciously homophobic choice, or whether she simply didn't have the balls, or the heart, or the brains.
Last addition, I swear!
This Pandagon article does a FANTASTIC job of explaining how people are so afraid of being labeled a racist that they jump to defensiveness when they're caught doing racist actions. For example, kids playing blackface, or Michael Richards calling the audience niggers -- those are racist actions and we called them on it. They're quick to insist "I am not a racist!!!" Racists burn crosses in yards, right? No ... they play in blackface and call audiences niggers. They aren't bad people, in fact, they're you and me. We all make decisions and opinions based on race. So instead of saying "I am not racist!" we need to say "Some of my actions are racist! And it's OK to talk about them!"
So when we start "bashing JKR" for her possibly homophobic handling of Dumbledore's identity, there is no need to jump to defensiveness. We are allowed to discuss these actions. She is not a bad person, she merely made a bad choice.
J.K. Rowling, author of Harry Potter series, admitted during a reading this weekend in New York that she considers Headmaster Albus Dumbledore gay.
Question: Did Dumbledore, who believed in the prevailing power of love, ever fall in love himself?
JKR: "My truthful answer to you... I always thought of Dumbledore as gay. [ovation] ... Dumbledore fell in love with Grindelwald, and that that added to his horror when Grindelwald showed himself to be what he was. To an extent, do we say it excused Dumbledore a little more because falling in love can blind us to an extent, but he met someone as brilliant as he was, and ... he was very drawn to this brilliant person, and horribly, terribly let down by him. ... In fact, recently I was in a script read-through for the sixth film, and ... I had to write a little note in the margin and slide it along to the scriptwriter, 'Dumbledore's gay!'" [laughter]
"If I'd known it would make you so happy, I would have announced it years ago!"
"I had to give you something to talk about for the next 10 years...Just imagine the fan fiction now."
YAY for Gay!Dumbledore and BOO to JKR for admitting it too late.
If it's not written or hinted in the books, it's not actually canon, is it? So her considering Dumbledore as gay means that millions of readers will not know it or think it, and her Book Empire is not stained by the horrible secret that someone is gay. I roll my eyes when someone is outed AFTER the books are published, as though it matters. Now that it's safely too late, she's thrown us this scrap. Thanks a lot.
In fact, it goes back to why I was annoyed with the Epilogue. Marriages with babies equal happy endings? I don't want to stoke that fire again, since I did like the book and I'm happy that Harry's happy. She's a hetero-mommy, so of course her writing voice will have hetero-mommyhood as the last word. The series comes down to maternal love, after all. So I can understand her wanting to lock up people's straightness and get them breeding. (I am really being sarcastic here, no flames plz.) I'm only in SoapBox Mode right now, so I'll continue to say that most people being straight and some having babies is worth mentioning, but she didn't think someone being gay was worth mentioning. The only relationships in print are straight relationships. Now I have to wonder if Hagrid's parents might be the only printed example of non-traditional couples, so even then, I'm not quite satisfied. Tonks and Remus having a baby had NOTHING to do with the plot, in fact, their relationship was difficult to conceive the whole time JKR shoved it down our throats. Molly warned us that when war is coming, people start hooking up. So when you're making long lists of couples, illustrating how so many random people hook up for war, make sure they're all straight. Because gay couples just aren't interesting enough to mention.
Dude, I cannot scream this next point enough:
Dumbledore's possible love turned greatest enemy, fighting the greatest battle the wizarding world had ever known, is WAY MORE INTERESTING AND RELEVANT than Remus and Tonks getting married and having a baby, only to futilely die in battle and leaving an orphan.
How much time do we spend looking at Albus in the 7th book? We learn loads about his past, his faults, his family, his enemies, his friends ... so you can't say there wasn't a convenient time to learn about his gayness. If a reporter as ruthless as Rita can sling mud for everything else, she would have pounced on his gayness. You have to make an effort to omit that kind of detail.
Because you talk about his motivations to fight, how difficult it was to turn against his "friend", blah blah blah. JKR had the right time, she had the relevance, she had the captive audience, she had the exposition tool ... and nope. No gayness here. Move along, kids! In fact, go get married and have kids like this long list of characters! Plenty of time and worthiness to mention them, though!
As I said in my rant last time, I love the series and I've enjoyed her (flawed) writing for years. My complaints come down to this: I'm upset with JKR because she's missed some of the greatest opportunities ever to educate children about the ideals and reality of the world.
Finally, my previous reviews have also ended by thanking you, because fandom did it better. Maybe I'm fortunate to travel in circles of brilliant writers and artists. But fanfic wrote Snape way better than JKR ever did (or barely did, that bitch), and I thought Dumbledore/Grindelwald was pretty clear fanon. Sure, we gay-up plenty of people, not only because we're omni-curious, but anyone with half a Gaydar had zero trouble seeing the possibility. In fact, it was so obvious a possibility that JKR could only omit it with purpose, right?
If one person is gay, and that's relevant to the story you're telling, but you don't think it's "worth" writing, even speaking, until after it's published? You're a biased writer who missed a good opportunity.
Meanwhile, if lots of people are straight, and it's not relevant to your story, but you write that in, several times? You are a cunt.
ADDED: gmonkey42 made excellent points why you can't say we shouldn't include sexual orientation in children's books, because opposite-sex partners are featured heavily by default. Seriously, go read it.
Heteronormativity: When you include opposite-sex partners but say there wasn't a reason to include same-sex partners, you are writing in default, marginalizing everything else as non-normal, or written only as needed.
If someone's sexuality isn't specified, it's assumed they're straight. If someone's race is not specified, it's assumed they're white. Have we ever seen Hermione written as white? Brown bushy hair, right? When someone adds race, gender, or sexuality to an identity, it is only because it has to be specified as non-normative. Author becomes "black author". Nurse becomes "male nurse". Marriage becomes "same-sex marriage". Whereas you rarely see "white author", "female nurse", or "opposite-sex couple", because those meanings are socially implied.
I imagine this race puzzle is less of a problem in Britain, since I seem to recall that black was added to the Dean Thomas description for the US edition. But homophobia is a still a huge problem, world-wide. And while I will clap for adding this to his character, I'm still giving her a finger for being a jerk and/or coward in the end.
ADDED: I also like innerbrat's views on this. Interesting that her only outed character is the brother of a suspected sexual deviant (bestiality?). Her commenters also include a terrific point that if we only see couples through Harry's point-of-view, so Albus's gayness wasn't relevant, and being gay is normal and accepted, then Remus/Sirius would have been the obvious and easiest choice for allowing gay people to have an unspoken identity in canon -- but JKR went out of her way to make Remus straight. Albus being the only outed gay character means gayness stayed out of Harry's POV, he was too old to be a sexual interest or threat, and he's dead now so don't worry. Furthermore, funny how plenty of straight couples find true love and paired-off happiness, but the only outed character's love ended up being his enemy and he lives to old age without a mentionable partner.
Yep, still a cunt.
ADDED: "Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself." -- Albus Dumbledore
WOW, sweetwaterpink linked to an article called Harry Potter and the Imbalance of Race that does a nice job poking fun at The Race That Shall Not Be Named -- or how black characters are sometimes described flat-out as "black" (Angelina, "a tall black girl with long, braided hair.") or Dean Thomas, "a black boy even taller than Ron ...") while white characters are never introduced as "white", instead using only descriptive allusions like pink-faced or having blonde hair. True of this book and true of most writing!
But let me ask you this: Is it not up to us the readers, to supply our own visuals? Cormac McLaggen is described as a "large, wiry-haired youth", which could mean black ... but I'll admit until just now -- I assumed Cormac was white! I'm guilty with the rest of 'em. *wink*
ADDED: We are clapping for Gay Dumbledore. I love Gay Dumbledore and he needed to be outed, even if it's too late. I have read several good points on the positive side for this news. This post is not one of them. "I don't think she 'hid it' in the books because she's a homophobe. But DD's (or any other character's) homosexuality just wasn't what the story was about."
Allow me to rip my eyelashes out one a time for a moment.
coell: "Change that to "(any character's) heterosexuality just wasn't what the story was about" and you can start asking why so many opposite-sex couples were "worth" writing about.
I think this is what upsets me the most. It's not be about homosexuality. It's about just sexuality. She made efforts to mention the opposite-sex orientation of dozens of characters, even when it had no relevance to the story. Dumbledore's possible love for Grindelwald, who betrayed him and became his greatest enemy, much like the followers of Voldemort were betrayed by his cruelty and madness? That is fantastically relevant and would have made Harry care for the old man even more -- sympathy for suffering, understanding for how he could have been friends with a monster... and while she spent pages and pages describing Dumbledore's faults, and motives, and family, and history ... she leaves that detail out. It is a disservice to Dumbledore's character and it reeks of homophobia. If Grindelwald had been a witch, you can bet fifty knuts his possible love interest in her would have been mentioned. "But Dumbledore's heterosexuality isn't what HP is about!" Really? Because love lost/betrayed/unrequited (Peter-James, Snape-Lily, Dursleys-Harry, Harry-Cho, Hagrid-Maxime, Remus-til-he-got-Tonks, Fleur-fretting-Bill-might-leave, etc.) is a device she's happy to use everywhere else (read: every-orientation else.)
Dumbledore's gayness as canon would have fit wonderfully in Rita's mud-slinging and the world could shrug and say who cares about orientation these days? It would have been a field day for the Ministry to try and get him fired and the world would say it's not right to discriminate based on orientation. It would have been a message that someone you've known and loved is also gay and we're not asking for more than some subtle reference. We don't need a press conference or comment at Carnegie Hall, all she had to do was print it and think it was a natural thing to write about someone and it fit well in the story. No fuss at all. Not a big deal. She's "always known" it, so why not print it? If it's not in the books, it's not canon. There are no gay characters in Harry Potter, only who JKR and/or the fans suspect to be, post-publication and in fan fiction.
Non-relevant opposite-sex relationships are written in, but relevant same-sex relationships are not, only spoken as considerations after the series is over."
If she didn't recognize how this fact she's "always known" would delight fans, or at least create a more engaging story -- a deeper, sympathetic, and inclusive story -- then this is a valid criticism of a writer who's missed a tremendous opportunity.
If she did recognize it and omitted it on purpose (which seems clear) -- we are left to wonder if this was a subconsciously homophobic choice, or whether she simply didn't have the balls, or the heart, or the brains.
Last addition, I swear!
This Pandagon article does a FANTASTIC job of explaining how people are so afraid of being labeled a racist that they jump to defensiveness when they're caught doing racist actions. For example, kids playing blackface, or Michael Richards calling the audience niggers -- those are racist actions and we called them on it. They're quick to insist "I am not a racist!!!" Racists burn crosses in yards, right? No ... they play in blackface and call audiences niggers. They aren't bad people, in fact, they're you and me. We all make decisions and opinions based on race. So instead of saying "I am not racist!" we need to say "Some of my actions are racist! And it's OK to talk about them!"
So when we start "bashing JKR" for her possibly homophobic handling of Dumbledore's identity, there is no need to jump to defensiveness. We are allowed to discuss these actions. She is not a bad person, she merely made a bad choice.