Dumbledore is gay, says J.K. Rowling Options

[jonathan83]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/books/10/2...r.ap/index.html

NEW YORK (AP) -- Harry Potter fans, the rumors are true: Albus Dumbledore, master wizard and Headmaster of Hogwarts, is gay.

Dumbledore, played by Michael Gambon, was in love with his male rival, the author of Harry Potter books says.

J.K. Rowling, author of the mega-selling fantasy series that ended last summer, outed the beloved character Friday night while appearing before a full house at Carnegie Hall. After reading briefly from the final book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," she took questions from audience members.

She was asked by one young fan whether Dumbledore finds "true love."

"Dumbledore is gay," the author responded to gasps and applause.

She then explained that Dumbledore was smitten with rival Gellert Grindelwald, whom he defeated long ago in a battle between good and bad wizards. "Falling in love can blind us to an extent," Rowling said of Dumbledore's feelings, adding that Dumbledore was "horribly, terribly let down."

Dumbledore's love, she observed, was his "great tragedy."

"Oh, my god," Rowling concluded with a laugh, "the fan fiction."

Potter readers on fan sites and elsewhere on the Internet have speculated on the sexuality of Dumbledore, noting that he has no close relationship with women and a mysterious, troubled past. And explicit scenes with Dumbledore already have appeared in fan fiction.

Rowling told the audience that while working on the planned sixth Potter film, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," she spotted a reference in the script to a girl who once was of interest to Dumbledore. A note was duly passed to director David Yates, revealing the truth about her character.

Rowling, finishing a brief "Open Book Tour" of the United States, her first tour here since 2000, also said that she regarded her Potter books as a "prolonged argument for tolerance" and urged her fans to "question authority."

Not everyone likes her work, Rowling said, likely referring to Christian groups that have alleged the books promote witchcraft. Her news about Dumbledore, she said, will give them one more reason.

now seriously, why the heck does she feel the need to even say this now? after the books are all done?!
i think it's just going to alienate fans and cause kids to wonder what the heck all this means. i think it's a stupid move.

i read all 7 books and never once thought he was gay.

[theIncredibleEdi...]

I liked this article on Entertainment Weekly's website

Dumbledore: A Lovely Outing
Why J.K. Rowling's revelation is a rare positive sign at a particularly bad moment to be a gay consumer of pop culture


Now she tells us? When I first heard that J.K. Rowling had revealed the homosexuality of Professor Albus Dumbledore, esteemed headmaster of Hogwarts, before a packed congregation of children and adults at Carnegie Hall on Oct. 19, my reaction was half appreciation, half annoyance. Ten years, seven books, 4,000 pages, and it never occurred to her to mention this before? At least she didn't make the gay character a fairy (or a troll), so we'll be spared those jokes, I thought. Rowling's announcement felt almost too strategic, a gotcha! she conveniently withheld until the multibillion-dollar revenue stream had had years to flow. And why bother? The outing of Dumbledore doesn't seriously reshape any plotline in the Harry Potter novels, nor do the books ever drop the kind of hints that would inspire questions from readers. Also, the saga is over, and Dumbledore's, you know, dead, so, like that infamous moment on Law & Order when viewers suddenly learned that one of the show's main characters was a lesbian literally 10 seconds before she left the series, it all seemed a bit easy.

It's not. Rowling is shrewd, but she's not an opportunist or a coward. One simple fact overrode my skepticism: She didn't have to do this. Not now, not later, not with two movies pending, and not in a roomful of kids. And make no mistake: All of these were choices, including her unveiling of a romantic backstory for Dumbledore, lest anyone think she was either joking or throwing a gratuitous pride-parade Patronus at the tiny band of flat-earthers whose shrieks that her books promote witchcraft were long ago drowned out by the world's giggles.

So why now, and why Dumbledore? The answer has much to do with the universe Rowling has created, in which easy assumptions about a character's motives, past, or inner life have, in book after book, been proven wrong, and with her own progressive and humane politics. It's often said that if every gay person in the world were to turn purple overnight, homophobia would disappear: In other words, fewer people would be inclined to vilify other human beings if they woke up one day and discovered that they'd been aiming stones at their college roommate, their aunt, their grocer, or their grandson. Statistics bear this out: People who have a gay family member or friend have more enlightened attitudes about homosexuality than those who don't. What Rowling has done, brilliantly, is to turn Dumbledore purple. She didn't reveal his sexuality in order to unlock a new way of reading the books, or as a provocation. She simply told the world that a main character in the best-loved books of the last 10 years is homosexual, and asked her audience to contend with it — and with the fact that it shouldn't matter. And her choice to make a beloved professor-mentor gay in a world where gay teachers are still routinely slandered as malign influences was, I am certain, no accident.

In addition to the braying of hatemongers, there's already been some umbrage taken at the appropriateness of Rowling's decision to uncork this news in front of children, a brand of sanctimony for which I have no patience. At least one out of 25 of those children will eventually self-identify as homosexual. The other 24, having made their way through an epic series that includes multiple murders, demonic possession, and the psychic toll of having mentally ill parents, will, I imagine, be able to handle the bulletin that some people are gay, and will likely benefit from the richer understanding of the world that such knowledge provides.

This is not a great moment to be a gay consumer of pop culture. In mainstream movies, gay characters are almost nonexistent — we are, once again, the 98-pound weakling who needs Adam Sandler to reassure the straights that we're just plain folks. And on television, gay people are, like, so five years ago. Now that we're no longer the flavor of the month, it's easier for networks and studios to leave us out of the recipe altogether. The EW article linked above is correct in pointing out that the networks are more gay-friendly than Hollywood studios, but a recent survey by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation showed that only 1.1% of characters on scripted network series are gay, and not a single one is on CBS, The CW, or (shocker!) Fox. That's a drastic underrepresentation of our presence in the population, and a failure of decency and nerve on the part of the people whose job it is to reflect the world back to us in entertainment — including the tremendous number of gay producers, writers, and executives who sacrifice their convictions so they don't look too ''strident'' or ''political.'' J.K. Rowling's announcement about Dumbledore isn't a plot twist. It's a challenge to look at the world — even a world of wizards and magic — as it really is. Kids are more than up to meeting it. I wish I could say the same about grown-ups.