Dumbledore gay? Much ado about nothing (in my eyes)

I have never been homophobic, nor am I a big fan of the Harry Potter franchise, so I have been quite amused with the uproar caused by author J.K Rowling’s recent revelation concerning one of it’s most beloved characters sexuality.  I am, of course, referring to a recent Q&A session that found the world’s first (and only) billionaire author outting the paternal figure Albus Dumbledore.

The question was: 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 rather like Bellatrix he was very drawn to this brilliant person, and horribly, terribly let down by him. Yeah, that’s how i always saw Dumbledore. In fact, recently I was in a script read through for the sixth film, and they had Dumbledore saying a line to Harry early in the script saying I knew a girl once, whose hair… [laughter]. I had to write a little note in the margin and slide it along to the scriptwriter, “Dumbledore’s gay!”

Needless to say, ever since she uttered those words news wires have been in overdrive, providing us with an abundance of opinions on the matter.  The homosexual community has expressed joy at what the consider “an acknowledgement of the obvious“, conservatives have lambasted the announcement as an example of an author pushing their own political agenda ( I absolutely CAN’T wait to hear Pat Robertson’s take on this one), and a great many others have seized the opportunity to have a good natured debate of all things in between.

In the end we are getting all worked up over an author’s take on her own fictional character.  Some people will argue that they saw it all along (that line starts right here by the way), while others will say this is just another case of the popular books subverting christian ideals.  The most cynical will say this is nothing more than a clever maketing ploy, while the academic community will debate whether an author has “proprietary rights over a character’s sexuality”…an argument I find to be inherently flawed.

Wherever you may stand on this one, I think it is safe to say that there are far more pressing issues to be dealt with in this day & age.  Homosexual rights proponents should be more concerned with pushing for a recognition of gay marriages, christian leaders would be better served in trying to diminish the mainstream perception that they have been hijacked by the extreme religious right, cynics should go find some joy in their lives and academics need to….well, debating silly stuff like that is kind of the point of academia so I am going to give ‘em a free pass on this one.

I guess my point is that just because something that has occurred is relatively new, that doesn’t mean that it is news.

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