J.K. Rowling’s revelation that Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore is gay has prompted widespread comment, most of it from people who were happy that she’d done it.
There are not enough gay characters in literature, the argument runs, especially in children’s books, which reinforces the view that being gay is unusual and not normal.
Rowling herself has said the Harry Potter books are a prolonged argument for tolerance and an end to bigotry.
Back in the 1980s the portrayal of gay parenthood in the children’s book “Jenny lives with Eric and Martin” caused an uproar in Britain and played a major part in the Conservative government’s decision to pass legislation which prohibited the “promotion” of homosexuality by local government in schools, libraries and other public places (known as Clause 28). In the U.S. “Heather has two mommies” became a similarly publicised book.
More than 20 years later Clause 28 has long gone and gays and lesbians enjoy a much more open lifestyle in many countries. So why is the revelation that a character in popular children’s book is gay still such big news? Do we need more gay characters in children’s literature? What do you think?
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While typing my original post, I found myself looking for another analogy for what Rowling has done and, fool that I am, I found it just as I was hitting the “submit comment” button. Anyway, what hit me was this: Mormons often baptize their dead relatives into Mormonism. I’m not making a value judgement on Mormonism, but it’s a similar situation here. Were I to become a Mormon, I might baptize my Late Great Grandfather, a Lutheran pastor, into Mormonism. This would mean something to me, but it wouldn’t change who my Great Grandfather was. The same is true of Dumbledore. Rowling has ownership over the character, and can choose to say what she likes, but like their being no evidence of my Great Grandfather being a Mormon, there is no evidence of Dumbledore being gay. I therefore don’t think we as readers need to accept Rowling’s word on this one.
- Posted by Ryan AI find this whole argument interesting… no, wait, i’m thinking of that other word… tedious. Now, if the Vatican were to come out with a revelation that one of the main characters in The Bible (e.g. Jesus, Moses, Abraham) was actually a closet homosexual, now THAT would be interesting.
This is just J.K. Rowling keeping up the buzz on the product that she’s selling.
- Posted by YawningThis is beyond disappointing to me. Why does the sexual preference of any character in the Harry Potter series matter. It has nothing to do with any of the story lines. It makes you wonder if there really is a gay agenda out there. So many positive comments of support. As a heterosexual - it does not matter to me at all. I now have to explain to explain this to my children - thanks Rowling.
- Posted by nicknodayI agree that as a childrens book something as complex and (to some children) disturbing as sexuality should have been totally left out. Kids read these books to be taken to somewhere other than the real world. To escape the things that haunt them. All this does is make them think about things that children should not concern themselves with.
- Posted by TrentYES, absolutely we need more gay characters in books. What a ridiculous question. There is nothing to hide or nothing negative about being born gay. Furthermore the gay characters being just as normal as non-gay characters should be treated just as normal!!
- Posted by Joy D. GriffithI think this was a silly thing to do…The books have already been published and read. It is just weird that she just came up with this now. I don’t hate gay people, but I don’t see the point of this, other than trying to stir up controversy. There were never any “romantic” allusions regarding Dumbledore, because that really had nothing to do with his character. Don’t see why it matters now.
- Posted by Harry Potter Fan25Um, if Harry Potter was supposed to be this prolonged argument for the end of bigotry…
Where are the Muslim wizards? How about the Jewish ones?
No? I didn’t read about any Hindu or Buddhist wizards either.
In fact, were it not for the movie, I’d have assumed everyone in Hogwarts was white.
I think we have bigger grounds still to transverse with regards to racial and religious acceptance…
Calling the inclusion of a gay person a huge step forward in the battle against bigotry when all people with a brown complexion are being labeled as terrorists and no one’s even batting an eye…
It seems a tad overdone don’t you think?
Want to be a REAL shaker and mover for civil rights? Create a storybook where the main character is Muslim. See how that one sells.
- Posted by AdamThis is a work of fiction, and so are the characters. If the context justifies the character, then that’s what he is; if it doesn’t he isn’t. Artistically, her so called revelation is meaningless, because not supported by the fictional world she created. That makes her comment part of a social agenda after the fact. She might with just as much credibility now call him a pedophile, an alient from Arcturus or a thinly veiled reincarnation of Merlin living backwards in time. The point is, none of it is justified by the literary context of the works, for it is in that world the character lives.
- Posted by Hugh MalafryHere’s the thing. I don’t have any problem with gay people. I don’t have any problem with gay characters in literature. However, if it’s not talked about in the book, how is there any basis for this character being gay? It would be one thing if she referenced it throughout the series, but she didn’t. Frankly, she was right not to. It has absolutely nothing to do with the story and now it’s just this information we have hanging out there that detracts from what the story is really about. Good for her in publishing an encyclopedia. Maybe in it she’s going to go back and tell the story of Grindevald and Dumbledore’s love affair. I don’t know. What this looks like to me though, is a shot to get people to go back through the books looking for gay subtext, giving her publicity and more cash.
- Posted by Ryan AI hate it when authors do things like this, because it’s really not fair to the reader. When you release a text (novel, film, poem, painting etc), you’re giving the reader license to take their own meaning from it. You give clues of course, but if your writing doesn’t get them there, then you’re not really allowed to just tell them that this what they were supposed to get out of it. Imagine if tomorrow George Lucas tells us that actually Obi Wan Kenobi is gay. A relative of Tolkien’s finds a letter stating that Gandolf was gay. The same thing happens with CS Lewis and it turns out Aslan was actually gay (and a cross dresser!). None of it is supported by the text and it has absolutely nothing to add to the story. I think teaching tolerance of all walks of life be they religious, racial, sexual orientation or whatever else there is is great and kids should be exposed to it. But this? This is a cheap stunt.
I don’t understand the fuss. I don’t like the fact that he’s supposedly gay, but its not like its very evident in the series. We wouldn’t have even known he was gay unless she told us. And if 100 years if people are still reading Harry Potter, most of them probably won’t think he’s gay either if only because Dumbledore’s sexuality isn’t discussed in the books, and quite rightly so because frankly whether he is gay or not is completely irrelevant to the plot.
- Posted by LupinWhat’s all this about how great it is to have an “openly-gay” character? Nobody even seriously guessed that he was gay, so it was far from “open”. It’s an insult to gays and the series that this comes out after the fact. If he’s gay, great; but that should have been in the books to have any sort of meaning. As it is, most people will see it as a PR student and most right thinking folks will think it’s an insult to gay people since she didn’t have the courage to say it until the series was over.
- Posted by CraigI find it amusing that so many people are saying things like “I had no idea he was gay from reading the books, but had I known, I would not have read them!” If you couldn’t even figure it out from the books, then what would you have avoided by not reading them? Giving unintentional support to the non-explicit sexuality of a fictional character? It’s like saying “Oh, I won’t read the Bible because I think beards are gross and no one should wear them.”It’s not as though the books are about Dumbledore being gay, so the fact that he is shouldn’t bother you, and if it does you can just ignore it.
I also wonder how many of you guys saying “Sexuality should have no place in a children’s book!” are equally incensed over Harry, Ron, and Hermione’s various romantic liasons. I think it’s terrible that children should be forced to confront the heterosexuality of these characters. Plus, it takes valuable page space away from depictions of far more age-appropriate topics like vicious racism and magical murder.
- Posted by BrendanOK Chris C
Being gay is like being an ant or a bee or a screaming autistic thing.
Gimme a break… yes there would be no life on earth if not for gays… yeah baby
- Posted by NailI think this announcement is kind of coming out of nowhere, and doesn’t really make sense, nor add anything to the book. It seems totally extraneous. However, it is just sad to hear some people (e.g. Kim) say that she wishes she hadn’t been reading the Harry Potter books based on this silly little fact. I’m just so embarrassed for you. I hope your child grows beyond your ignorance.
- Posted by MarkTo the person who comments that from a statistical, zoological…being gay is unusual and not NORMAL. Let’s be clear about nrmal, btw - it means NOT THE NORM. it does not mean defective.
Mozart’s genius was unusual and not normal.
Being a red head is unusual and not normal (as it is a recessive gene and therefore rare).
Co-joined twins are unusual and not normal.
Many things are unusual and not normal when you look at them them as statistics.
Too many people spend too much time trying to control or eliminate or supress what is unusual and not normal. Humaity would be so much better off if we concentrated our energy on supressing, elininating and controlling what was detrimental and harmful irrespective of the statistical frequency of occurrence in the scope of human experience.
Gay or ot gay Dumbledore was clearly a heroic and noble character.
- Posted by Sofia C.I find the sniping over Dumbledore’s sexuality to be ridiculous. First, it was a non-issue in terms of plot, at least until Grindelwald showed up in book 7. From the moment she introduced him, though, it was pretty clear that he and Dumbledore were sharing more than just ideas. Does that detract from her story? Hardly. If Albus happens to be gay, it’s merely another in a long list of idiosyncracies that make him the well rounded character he is. It’ nothing to be proud of or ashamed of… it merely IS. Did she go into graphic detail? Of course not, it’s a children’s book. Did she use it as a bit of propaganda pushing some agenda? No, she left it as more of an aside to those who picked up on it, overtly revealing it well after the series was over. Does that make her cowardly for not bashing us over the head with some ridiculous social mission via our children? Not in the least. Dumbledore was gay. So what? I guess this will continue to electrify until the two gay angels in His Dark Materials become the new focus for conservative and liberal pundits. Doesn’t anybody just read for enjoyment anymore?
- Posted by Adam Roeschange spelling of second “Rowlings” above to “Rowling”. My bad
- Posted by Kimrowling desclosed this information because she is comming out with an encyclopedia about the series with all the information that was not able to be put in the books
- Posted by jennifer allenCome on, Karen, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Harry and Ginny, Lupin and Tonks… The list of characters who inject sexuality into the “books for children” goes on and on, you just don’t “see” it because you have a narrow-minded view of what is normal and what is “twisted”. Sexual preference “bled” into the stories almost from the beginning, I’m afraid.
The argument that “Dumbledore is a sympathetic character, Dumbledore is gay, therefore gayness is made sympathetic” is a very faulty and simplistic syllogism that is insulting to anyone of even moderate intelligence who engages with the books in any way.
Like any other medium, books should not be seen as things that provide only instruction, and the readers (children or adults) are just passive recipients of lessons; child readers should be taught to engage with books, to question and to ask questions.
If Harry Potter books are the only books (or media) that your child hears or sees, and your child accepts their own naive first-impression interpretation of the material as The Word, then it is not Rowling who has failed your child; it is YOU who have failed your child.
- Posted by Toby K. StoddartThe timing of this news for me is HORRIBLE! I am reading the last 100 pages of The Deathly Hallows. I have not once in all 7 books even had an inkling that Dumbledore was gay and I think this is a PR stunt on Rowlings part. I am not against gays, however as a reader I choose what material I am interested in based on certain factors.Had I known up front that Dumbledore was gay I would have chosen not to read them
- Posted by KimMy teenage son and I read the books together, watch the movies and have many discussions. I would not have chosen these books if Rowlings had been open and honest. Instead she chose to be timid and cowardly. How can this be good news for gays if even she was afraid to bring her characters out of the closet? Personally I think it happened this way because her books are finished and she wanted a grand finale rush to Barnes and Noble.