LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
Of Wizards and Fairies |
by Eric C. Peterson |
(Warning! This column contains spoilers; if you have not yet read Books 6 and 7 of the Harry Potter series and plan to, please turn the page.) When my adoptive lesbian mom fell ill in 2000, she was confined to a hospital bed for weeks. She was in a lot of pain, but worseshe was bored out of her mind. News of her boredom spread, and she was suddenly gifted with many books, all of which came highly recommended. And she wanted to read them, but the drugs that she was taking to manage her pain left her unable to concentrate on any of the sophisticated, literary fare that had been offered. Then, a friend visited with a copy of the first Harry Potter book. That night, she stayed up all night reading it. The next time she saw her friend, she asked for Part Two. She was hooked. And soon after, so was I. Sure, it was kid litbut the books were intelligent in a way that didn't need big words, and not nearly as cloying as I suspected they might be. The tales they told were a welcome relief from the grind of the everyday, and besides, millions of adults were reading these "kid's books," despite the fact that they didn't reflect our decidedly non-magical reality in the least. Or didn't they? For those who didn't know, J.K. Rowling was at Carnegie Hall last month, reading from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and answering questions from her fans about the characters she created. One young person asked her if Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts and Harry's mentor and fiercest defender, finds "true love." To my mind, this is a pretty silly question for anyone who has read either of the final two volumes to ask, but whatever. J.K. Rowling is more forgiving than I. She paused, than said, "Dumbledore is gay." The audience gasped, and then applauded. Somehow, I don't think that would have been the reaction anywhere outside of New York or San Francisco, but there it is. Rowling then went on to explain that Dumbledore's great love was rival wizard Gellert Grindelwald. They met as boys, and before Grindelwald was seduced by Dark Magic, were childhood friends. After Grindelwald became a Dark Wizard, Dumbledore had to choose between his principles and the boy he loved. He fought Grindelwald, and killed him. "He was horribly, terribly let down," Rowling said. This love, she observed, was Dumbledore's "great tragedy." And he lived for another seventy years, never had sex again, and died a tragic, lonely old man. The End. Waitdid that sound ungrateful? Because really, this is good news (he said, not very convincingly). Seriously, this is the most successful author of literature for children and young adults that human history has ever known, and the creator of characters beloved all over the world. Dumbledore is her primary hero's father figure and mentor, a wise and trusting man who embodies all that is good and noble and just in the Harry Potter universe. And...he's gay. She said so herself. On the other hand (and you knew there was another hand)...couldn't Harry have had a gay schoolmate who grows up to fall in love with the Captain of the Quidditch Team and adopt magic orphans from their swanky loft overlooking Diagon Alley? Well...no. Of course this wasn't possible; Rowling couldn't inject obvious homosexuality (or the suggestion of man-on-man "action" outside the parameters of traditional heterosexual marriage) into a book for kids. Yes, it's 2007. On the other hand, it's only 2007. But couldn't Professor Pomona Sprout (Herbology) and Madame Hooch (the P.E. teacher, for cryin' out loud) have shared a residence on the Hogwarts campus, holding weekly salons on their front porch with the literati of the wizarding world a la Gertrude and Alice? I actually think that, or something like it, could have worked. It wouldn't have been as newsworthy as Albus Dumbledore being outed, I realize, but at least it would have presented Rowling's rabid fan base with an image of gay people as productive, happy, and loved. Contrast that with the image of a young gay boy who falls in love with his best friend (no word on whether or not the friend loved him back, and we wouldn't want Grindelwald on our team anyway), is "terribly, horribly let down" when the friend is not only straight, but a psychotic terrorist, kills him, and never finds love again. His only companion for the rest of his long, long life is a pet bird that self-combusts every few years (I tried to work in a joke off the word "flaming" here, but it never quite came together...still, if I had figured it out, it would have been damn funny). In the end, he gives his own life so that others may live. That's right, kids...another gay suicide. But you know what really disappoints me? Ironically, the Harry Potter series was gayer before Dumbledore was outed. When I first started reading these books in 2000, I was thrilled knowing that little boys and girls who would one day grow up to realize that they were gay were reading the story of a hero who felt different but didn't know why, literally lived in a closet, discovered thatdespite the protestations of "normal people"his difference was something to be celebrated and not ashamed of, and that once he met others who were also different, he felt whole and understood, and reveled in the freedom to be himself for the very first time. You see where I'm going with this, right? The Harry Potter books have always had this appeal to gay and lesbian readers; mostly, I think we wished that there had been a series like this when we were kids. It will literally thrill me to my bones in six or seven years when I hear a gay kid coming back from his first trip to a gay disco saying, "It was just like when Harry Potter found Hogwarts!" And some gay kid will say that, whether I'm around to hear it or not. But now that one of the characters is literally homosexual, it takes some of the punch out of the symbolism that was always just underneath the Invisibility Cloak, as it were. (Hello? Invisibility Cloak??!!) Don't get me wrong; J.K. Rowling is a friend, and a powerful one. It's quite possible that outing Dumbledore will encourage many readers, young and old, to take a more tolerant stance toward gay people. I just want us to be loved...is that so wrong? Eric Peterson can be reached at red7eric@aol.com. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 17, No. 15 November 21, 2007 |