Dumbledore Is Gay

At a lecture in Carnegie Hall Harry Potter author JK Rowling revealed that the character Albus Dumbledore, head wizard in the series, is gay.

I can't wait to hear what kind of debate this causes, Carrie and I already had a heated discussion about the topic this morning (she thinks its okay if people read the book and think he's not gay claiming "I don't care what the author says," I for one am a firm believer of author's intent). It's very brave of Rowling to write such a powerful, gay children's character and hopefully this will do a lot for tolerance and understanding.

In news unrelated to gay wizards my cold is starting to subside finally. We had a rough weekend as I was playing at a jazz club in Hollywood every night and didn't get home until 1 AM or so. So I had to sleep all day and leave Carrie with the sick baby, she was a real champ. We're taking Milo to the doctor today, hopefully the little guy will be feeling better soon.

And if you haven't heard Los Angeles is on fire. None of the fires are too close to our home luckily. Let's hope it stays that way.

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Published:
at 7:48 AM on Monday, October 22, 2007
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6 comments:

  1. Carrie 8:50 AM

    I love J.K.R. She has given me hours of entertainment, inspired millions of kids to read and get as excited about a book release as a video game.

    I think her statement that Dumbledore is gay is interesting, and now I want to reread with the last book using that lens. However, when I said I don't care what she said, I mean it. When an author writes a book, a musician writes a song, a poet writes a poem, a cook publishes a recipe, their job is done. They have put it out there, and now the audience gets to have their turn in interepretation. Hundreds of texts have been reread with a gay/lesbian lens and many new intrepretations have been published. Most of that criticism has occured after the author's death. So, is this the only interepration of Dumbledore's character becasue she said so? No. Art is a community. In a community there is more than one way to see something.

    Is he gay? When you all read the book, did you smack you hand to your head and say, "Of course!" (Not Lyman; he didn't read it) It's a subtlty that adds a richness to the text's intrepretation, but if you didn't get that it doesn't mean that you misread it. It just means you read it for yourself.

    Having said that, some people read things the same way over and over from their own small experience. I used to read like this before college when my professors and course readings offered other interpretions beyond my own life experience. So, if kids or adults read Dumbledore differently because J.K. offers them a view outside their life experience then I commend her on her explanation of her book.

     
  2. Lyman 9:03 AM

    I don't need to read it.

    Author says he's gay, he's gay.

     
  3. Anonymous 1:08 PM

    Lyman will bug Carrie to death about this just because he loves to get her going on things like this. I'm so glad she stands her ground against his harrassment but this doesn't stop him from doing it. Hope everything went well at the doctor's today for baby boy. LYFE Grandma

     
  4. KHM 1:22 PM

    rofl---you said "head" wizard...

    this is the thing: it doesn't matter. I actually think it was rather poor form of JKR to say he is or isn't--sexuality being of little consequence to the stories she tells.; if Dumbledore's sexuality wasn't revealed in the telling to the tales then her saying he is or isn't is just kind of gratuitous, IMO.

    But in fact, I think it *would* be nice to find a major work that featured gay people in important and respectable roles in children's fiction. i just don't really think that Rowling created a gay character.

    Or, I don't know...wasn't there something a bit different in the way he held his "wand", a little limpness in the wrist perhaps? Or was it the way he slid his loafer under the stall divider when Moaning Myrtle wasn't around...?

     
  5. Special K 6:35 PM

    I kind of wish she's indicated he was gay IN the novels - it's merely interesting to know in retrospect, but it would have been super-cool to have had an openly gay character in such a popular (children's) book.

    Re: artist's intention, that's kind of a personal matter. It's generally interesting to know an artist's intent, but to me, it's almost always better taken with a grain of salt. There's a lot of fabricating and aggrandizing that occurs.

     
  6. Anonymous 6:36 AM

    People should read this.

     

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