I was going to put this with the HP thread, but since I'm relating it
to the show, I thought I'd make a seperate topic.
So JK Rowling has outed Professor Dumbledore as being gay - article
link is below.
http://entertainment.tv.yahoo.com/entnews/ap/20071020/119288766000.html
At first, I thought this was a joke, and second, why it's supposed to
matter now I don't know. The final book has been out for months, and
anyone who's wanted to speculate about that or a myriad of other HP
topics already has. In the article, Rowling points out that the signs
showing Dumbledore is gay include never having any significant
relationships with women, and having a troubled past. Grindlewald was
his one true love.
I would like to point out to Rowling and to the author of this article
that absolutely *none* of the older charcters in the book ever had any
dating/marriage relationships to speak of. The entire faculty at
Hogwarts are unmarried, and none of James' friends ever dated. (A
fact I am choosing to rectify in my own fan fic about Sirius Black,
thank you. But he has been recast as Clive Owen because Gary Oldman
didn't fit my picture of Sirius. I always thought he was supposed to
be much more attractive than that.)
It's extremely unrealistic for none of James' friends to have ever
dated anyone. Peter's a weasel, so he might not have been that
attractive. Remus I can see not dating, since he likes to brood about
being a werewolf, even after he marries Tonks. But Sirius would have
been quite a good catch and would have gotten plenty of dates. Does
that mean that all the characters in the book are gay unless they're
married? The article also pointed out that "explicit scenes" about
Dumbledore (yuck!) have already appeared in fan fic on the Internet.
Again, explicit scenes have appeared about *every* character combo you
can think of (Remus/Sirius, Draco/Harry, Ginny/Draco, etc.) and
bunches of ones I don't even want to think about.
Now to get this back on topic, I'm addressing that whole "troubled
past" thing. So Dumbledore had some tragedies in his life. So do
lots of people. How does this contribute to him being / "becoming"
gay?
The same "troubled past" argument was used to explain Bayliss' gay/bi-
curious stage. I never found that convincing, nor did I find HLOTS'
exploration of the issue very interesting. The whole story arc just
came out of nowhere. If there had been signs or indications in the
earlier eps (the one where they investigate the death of the phone sex
worker, or the one where the man was killed because he was thought to
be gay) it would have made much more sense, and would have added more
depth to the character.
Being sexually abused (as in Bayliss' case) doesn't "make" you gay!
Writers seem to like that as a shorthand excuse for a character being
gay. This really makes no sense. I think it's just that a writer is
being lazy and is trivializing homosexuality and sexual abuse as
well. (Do the writers sit at meetings and say, "We need ratings, so
let's make this character gay. We'll just say he/she was abused as a
kid. That works."?)
I honestly don't care if Dumbledore or the rest of the HP characters
are gay, or if Bayliss and Frank had a raging affair. (I'm sure
there's fan fic somewhere like that, but I don't write HLOTS fan
fic.) It doesn't change them as people, nor does it change how I feel
about them. But if you're going to do that, then you have to make it
realistic and not try to use some lame plot device or lazy writing for
your reasoning.
Anyone have any thoughts on this?
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