‘Harry Potter’ author J.K. Rowling explained to fans that wizard Albus Dumbledore is gay. Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.
advertisement
advertisement
|
By Rick Lopez
Friday, October 26, 2007
The latest celebrity outing isn’t the result of media hounding or use of the f-word, but it does involve a book character who’s been flying under the gaydar for years.
Last Friday, “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling dropped a bombshell at Carnegie Hall by telling fans that Albus Dumbledore, the influential headmaster—no jokes, please—of the young wizard’s magic academy is gay.
By all accounts, it wasn’t just another morsel of inside knowledge she has offered readers during her worldwide book tour. It almost sounds like blogger Perez Hilton offering another snarky assessment of Clay Aiken.
A fan asked if Potter’s eccentric mentor, a proponent of the power of true love who is integral to the series, will ever find love himself after believing in it so strongly all his life. “My truthful answer to you,” she replied, “I always thought of Dumbledore as gay.”
“I would have told you earlier if I knew it would make you so happy,” she later told her audience of 2,000, which celebrated with applause.
Based on the following week’s headlines and TV banter, the world was eager to see a coming-out without an agenda or the taint of scandal—even if that person lives only in works of fiction.
“It’s wonderful that J.K. Rowling would help open readers’ eyes to the life and truth of such a beloved character,” said Neil Giuliano, the president of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). “Rowling’s decision to allow readers to see Dumbledore for all of who he is—and her determination to preserve the authenticity of his character in the films—will enrich the power of these stories for generations to come.”
Some are dubious about Rowling’s timing. The author, whose books have sold 350 million worldwide, is no stranger to brewing publicity. Her disclosure of Dumbledore’s sexuality comes three months after she released the swan song of her series and while two movie projects are on the horizon.
“Clearly, the addition of Albus Dumbledore, one of the most beloved figures in fictional mythology, has been a great victory for gay culture, collecting lists of great personages who were also gay,” said Robert Thompson, a pop culture expert and professor at Syracuse University. “Because his creator chose to out him not in the seven volumes themselves but in a Q-and-A session during a public appearance, makes this a strangely Pyrrhic victory.
“The question remains as to why Dumbledore couldn’t have been revealed as gay from the get-go, or at least in the final volume, where his relationship with the evil wizard was discussed.”
Even some gay journalists agree. In a Time magazine article titled “Put Dumbledore back in the closet,” John Cloud wrote: “Why couldn’t he tell us himself? The Potter books add up to more than 800,000 words before Dumbledore dies … and yet Rowling couldn’t spare two of those words—‘I’m gay’—to help define a central character’s emotional identity? We can only conclude that Dumbledore saw his homosexuality as shameful and inappropriate to mention among his colleagues and students. His silence suggests a lack of personal integrity that is completely out of character.
“Here is a gay man as de-sexed as any priest—and, to uncomfortably extend the analogy, whose greatest emotional bond is with an adolescent boy: scarred, orphaned, needy Harry. … As far as we know, Dumbledore had not a single fully realized romance in 115 years of life. That’s pathetic, and a little creepy. It’s also a throwback to an era of pop culture when the only gay characters were those who committed suicide or were murdered.”
Coincidentally or not, book deals and coming out are sometimes intrinsic, as in the case of Rosie O’Donnell and former NBA player John Amaechi, who both disclosed their sexuality after having their biographies published. Rowling, since booting Dumbledore out of the broom closet, has mentioned to the press her ideas to write a Potter “prequel” and encyclopedia. But Rowling said she made no revelations about Dumbledore’s sexuality before Friday because she had never before been asked directly.
“There were so many theories, and people wanted so much information in advance of the stories that I—just to keep my sanity and keep my eye on my own plot—did not give masses away ahead of time because I needed to remain focused,” she told reporters Tuesday during a reading in Toronto, the last stop of her tour. “It has certainly never been news to me that a brave and brilliant man could love other men.”
GLAAD’s Giuliano said the timing of Rowling’s annoucement shouldn’t diminish the importance of her message.
“Past, present and future readers of these books now know from the author herself that the character of Dumbledore is gay,” he said. “For fans of these books, Rowling’s public discussions about her characters—whether the insights she reveals were spelled out explicitly in the books or not—become an integral part of these stories.”
It’s tempting to speculate on what might have happened if Harry Potter fans had known all along that Dumbledore was gay, says David Urban, professor of marketing at Virginia Commonwealth University who’s read every Potter book. Rowling herself has acknowledged that her first six installments barely mention Dumbledore’s personal life, and she and her fans have never relented to conservatives who call the books satanic and seek to remove them from libraries.
“The (seventh) book had huge advance sales, and I doubt very seriously that people who were fans of the series would have cancelled their orders for the books. The whole point of the last book was … what would happen in the end between Harry and his evil nemesis,” Urban said. “Will large numbers of people stay away from theaters and forego the remaining two films in the series? I don’t think so—they’ll still want to see them. Ten years from now, will parents still be reading the Harry Potter books to their kids. I bet they will.”
|
