I have to admit, I am not a Harry Potter fan (yep, we’re going there today… stay with me.).
I’m not a hater or anything like that. I’ve just never read the books. And I’ve seen like 3/4’s of maybe two movies. I have no rhyme or reason or deep seeded plan to avoid the Harry Potter Craziness. I just haven’t seen it, read it, got it, whatever.
In fact, I had to google “Harry Pottery character is gay” to make sure I spelled the name right.
Yeah. We all know. Headmaster Dumbledore is, apparently, gay. (why yes, that is disdain dripping in my voice because, quite frankly, if it wasn’t addressed in the book - what the hell is the point?)
It seems there have been some whisperings about this among fans for some time (insert copious amounts of condescending eye rolling). Which might explain why the “outing” of a fictional character by an author is making big news. (and here we have more eye rolling.)
Here’s what disturbs me. Please, someone else tell me if you see anything wrong with this picture:
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Question: Why did Dumbledore never find true love?
Answer: He’s gay
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*blink*
*blink*
Um… excuse me?
No? Nothing? No one sees a problem with this?
Ok…. let’s try this another way…
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Husband’s Grandmother: Is that oldest son of yours still not married?
Husband’s Father: No mom, he’s still single.
Husband’s Grandmother: Ah. I see. So he’s gay then?
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Please God tell me that someone sees the similarities here!
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Posted in Serious Discussions - Politics, Religion, Society
Didn’t you know? Wizards are highly homophobic - it’s the whole wearing gowns and holding wands thing.
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Gah. Seriously, why wait until the end of the series? If it was that important, why not do it when the last book was released?
Oh, afraid of boycotting? Protests? So instead, you were very brave and had one of your characters come out of the closet AFTER it wouldn’t have as great of an impact on your sales. And you ingratiate yourself with the gays…….
Never said she wasn’t smart…
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I am holding my wand right now.
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I’m with you…it just kind of made me scratch my head for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was “Who cares?”
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Don’t you just hate people that go around correcting folks?
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Ah–I am with you on both fronts sugar.
I too have never read one word of Harry Potter–this kills me in trivia sometimes.
And I thought precisely the same thing—what does his being gay have to do with his being unable to “find true love?” Doesn’t that translate into JK Rowling saying if you are gay you’ll never find true love????
And how ‘blinkered’ is the gay community on this that they are actually ‘praising’ her having a ‘gay’ character. Oh my
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Okay I never heard he was gay, but then I don’t follow it all too well, I like the stories and think it is a good way to teach kids right from wrong and all that.
Yes I see the similarities. Who cares whose gay? Oh wait gay men are so fab at helping pick out shoes…I almost forgot!
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I am a harry potter fan, but this annoys me. JK is clearly an attention whore. Her series is over, so she still has to keep people talking by making sensational statements.
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I am glad you “went there” and made it ok for us non-Harry Potter folk to say so. I’ll be the first to say that I never gave Potter-mania a chance, but I don’t like stories about wizards and magic and crap.
Had I know there was a chance for man on man action, I might have given it a shot.
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For attention or not…I just don’t get why it matters. Seriously, does it make a difference if he is gay or not. I don’t get the relevance. Does it make him a worse wizard/headmaster? I’m not into Harry Potter either, but I really never thought about fictional characters’ sexuality unless it had a direct connection to the story/plot. Ya know?!
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avitable: and if that were true, it MIGHT have had some kind of relevance to the story.
ADW: or, I don’t know, maybe include it in the actual WRITING?
Mr. Fab: this is your costume, isn’t it?
DeannaBanana: yeah, exactly. The fact that this makes news is just… I don’t know. Retarded.
Turnbaby: yeah, the excitement from the gay community surprised me. I mean seriously, NO ONE picked up on that insinuation??
deb: well, and besides the fact of who cares, isn’t it just cementing the stereotype that if someone isn’t “in a relationship” that a plausible reason is because they are gay?
Amanda: as if the next movie release won’t get enough attention.
Karen: LOL, I probably still wouldn’t, but I don’t have the attention span to get obsessed over much.
pnbzmom: EXACTLY! It’s like when that teletubby or wtfever was supposedly “gay”. I was like… um… these characters are supposed to be preschool age. Their sexual “attraction” matters WHY??
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OK - time to weigh in here.
I HAVE read some of the books - never bought one but one was lying around the house. Hmmm - maybe I’ve only read one. Yes, that’s it.
But as I recall there are a LOT of charachters who “never found true love” like that Snape guy and the headmistress scary-looking-with-a-heart-of-gold woman and the goofy lady who does plamts.
It never occurred to me to question their sexuality. If I WOULD have thought about it, I would have just figured they were too busy herding a bunch of teenagers to think about sex.
I can’t figure out why “fans had been whispering” about Dumbledore’s sexuality anymore than anyone else.
Or, again, why it matters.
Very odd.
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Gotta say I LOVED the Harry Potter books . . . JK Rowling? Not so much. Now that she’s done selling books, announces one of the main characters is gay? Total attention whore.
Now I get to explain to my 6 year old what gay means, and why Dumbledore would rather marry a boy than a girl.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
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I have neighbors here in the Deep South who won’t let their kids read HP because of all the wizardry & witchcraft (because, you know, they’ll get ideas and try to go turn their brother into a toad or something like that :confused: )
The way I see it this announcement accomplishes nothing positive. It only gives people like that another reason to hate the books (on principle — not that they would actually read them) and try to get them banned.
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Actually, to better explain it, because it is not as simple as that. The question was asked if Dumbledore ever finds true love. Her answer about him being gay was to explain the following:
Rowling said Dumbledore fell in love with the charming wizard Gellert Grindelwald but when Grindelwald turned out to be more interested in the dark arts than good, Dumbledore was “terribly let down” and went on to destroy his rival.
That love, she said, was Dumbledore’s “great tragedy”. -
It was to basically explain that he had his heart broken, that his one love was a personal tragedy. But, in order to explain why he didn’t have a “happily ever after” she had to explain that he was gay and that his one great love was a tragedy.
I honestly don’t see this as a dig at all. Many authors have extensive history of their characters built up, written out usually. That’s how they can write the story and have that character’s reactions to events be so true to that character.
http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSN2321044620071023
Now, coming from a household of Potter fans (myself not included, not that I don’t like the books, just didn’t get that into them) my kids thought this news was really interesting.
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RW: only when it has NOOOOO bearing on the point. At all.
(sorry you got stuck in the “for approval” folder)
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This is the first I have heard of any of this! Does this mean the real reason Dumbeldore kept the incompetent gamekeep around was because he enjoyed always having a Giant right outside his backdoor?
I was thinking what Mom said, too many other characters were single and in fact few (if any) teachers were married. Maybe the real story is you can’t find true love if you are in education. Now THATS a theory I will support. Until then, I think Amy has the best take.
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Mom: maybe “he was too busy” wouldn’t have been as interesting.
Honeybell: no, except that most 6 year olds still think they’re going to marry their mom.
y not i: also a good point - creating a controversy for noooo reason.
AmyD: I actually read several accounts of what the question was and what the response was, etc. etc. etc. etc.
I don’t see him being gay as a dig.
But that WHOLE explanation of “well because he was jilted” - or whatever - could have happened if someone was gay, straight, or whatever.
What annoyed me was the fact that him being gay was given (in any of the “transcripts” I’ve read anyway) as a supporting detail. But as the main explanation.
Do straight people not have great loves that are great tragedies?
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Oh, and I totally get the idea of a character having an entire backstory that never makes the book.
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I saw this on a few other blogs. I still think I prefer to think of him in an asexual context. I don’t know why they wanted to write a romantic interest for him in the movie. And it just seems like a publicity stunt to reveal that type of information now. It almost would have been better to write a prequel and release the information then.
There are couples in the book that have their tragedies as well. In fact, the whole storyline is that everyone is in danger.
But, that being said, I read to book 5 and they all started to sound the same. Book 1 was by far the best, if you ever have a reason to read. The rest seem like a cookie cutter of the first to me. But through the five books I read, it never even occurred to me to ponder what sexuality Dumbledore was.
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Actually, I didn’t see her explanation of him being gay as the main explanation. I don’t think the intention was, “Dumbledore did not find true love because he is gay.”
It was more along the lines of, “Dumbledore is gay, he was in love with so and so, and it was a complete tragedy.”
But, in order to explain that WHO he was in love with, she had to get the gay thing out there first. It made perfect sense to me. I never took it that way.
In a sense, it’s not unlike “Brokeback Mountain” where true love is a complete tragedy and the gay aspect complicates things. Would Dumbledore have been as heartbroken over having to take down Grindelwald if he hadn’t been in love with him? Probably not. That’s what makes it such a tragedy.
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And, just reread what you said there, “Do straight people not have great loves that are great tragedies?”
Of course they do, look at Gable and Lombard (that’s real life though, not literature) or Romeo and Juliet.
Perhaps the better question might be - why is it so wrong for someone who is gay to have a great love and great tragedy come from that love?
It almost sounds (not that I think you are meaning this) but, it almost sounds as if you have more of a problem with the character being gay. If she had said - he was in love with the beautiful Sophia and she turned out to be evil and he had to take her out thus why he never had a happily ever after… you would have been perfectly fine with that? Why can’t there be another option?
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As Bossy is fond of repeating today: this is the exact reason she doesn’t like Fantasy Movies. Too much drama.
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I truly saw no point in it whatsoever and think she just did it for the cheap pop in the press.
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how about this is the first i heard of this? huh! guess i had better come out from under the rock where apparently i have been living, eh?
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Relevance? How about the implication that gays cannot find true love? Therein lies my problem with the whole thing.
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Lynda: unless something is specifically about who you love, don’t love, are married to, sleeping with, whatever - someone’s sexuality rarely occurs to me.
AmyD: “Perhaps the better question might be - why is it so wrong for someone who is gay to have a great love and great tragedy come from that love?”
Um, that’s kind of my point.
My problem is not at all with the character being gay. My problem is that it sure as heck SOUNDS to me like him being gay was the cause of him not finding love. Which is ridiculous.
BOSSY: similar to my reason for not liking fantasy: Too Many Species.
NYCWD: and isn’t it funny that the word “gay” still causes a pop in the press?
hellohahanarf: meh, I heard it on the radio on my drive into work.
Usedtobeme: yes, thank you, mine exactly!!!!!
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Absolutely the word “gay” causes the pop. You would never see that type of pop with the word “homosexual” which could mean either gender.
“Gay” conjures up images of Albus Dumbledore saying, “So tell me Harry, do you like gladiator movies?”
How much more of a pop could you possibly want?
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My husband walked in on his brother and his mother having a conversation when he was 17. You see, my husband had dated plenty of women, but wasn’t really interested in bringing them home to meet his family, as he did not see any long term potential in the relationships. Because of (him not ever being seen with a date)this, his brother questioned his sexuality. He walked in on his brother asking his mother if he was gay.
My husband’s response? “Let me take you back to the bedroom Big Boy, and we’ll see. ”
His brother was mortified.
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I read all the Harry Potter books, and really enjoyed them. My thoughts about the whole thing is, do I care? No, not really. Does it change my way of thinking about the book or character? No, not really. So this is no more than a blip on my don’t really care radar.
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If the dude’s still single at forty he’s totally gay.
Totally.
Ok. I blinked too.
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i think that was a real pussy move by rowling. if is was important to the story, it should have been brought up in the books, otherwise, whats the point? was she worried about sales dropping? probably
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My kids beg me to read the books. Not my cup of tea. And as far as not finding true love because he’s gay; does that mean gay couples never find true love? I’d find it insulting if I were gay.
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My love was tragic.
I’m not gay. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I’ve read the books, fell asleep during the movie (my nephews will probably never go to a movie with me again poor things). :lmfao:
And yes, I see your point - gays CAN find true love, she’s an idiot, and just trying to get more attention.
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I’m with Mom.
Seems like everyone in the book has some kind of relationship issue, or lack thereof.
What constitutes a trisexual in this series?
BTW, I used to read the books avidly, because it’s fabulous mind candy, but I dropped off somewhere and can’t remember where I left off…
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NYCWD: :lmfao: now THAT is a scene I want to see in a movie.
Angel: yeah, I think it’s funny when it happens to my BIL. Him? Not so much.
Crazy Lady: I can care surface level about a lot of things. LOL
QofD: and then it’s time for them to become priests. Clearly.
dog collar addict: yeah, pretty much.
Summer: me too. I’m insulted and I’m not gay.
Tug: at least I’m not the only one! LOL
The Absurdist: I have heard awesome things about the book, and do doubt they are good. I just can’t ever get into any kind of “fantasy”. Also why I don’t do Lord of The Rings.
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I guess homophobia has not been erased from the face of this planet yet? Fuckers! I can’t really understand why there’s still people thinking like that…
It’s comforting to know that Fab is holding his wand though… sorta.
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I figured it was the same thing as the Tim Gunn situation…he said once he was devastated by a relationship back in the 80s and never dated since because of that. I figured it was the same with Dumbledore; the devastation was the main issue, his being gay wasn’t relevant, except in the case to explain who he fell in love with. He got burned and shut himself off to love. Happens to people of all orientations all the time.
Poor Dumby!
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