Oh, all sorts of things
*big sigh*
The awesome Book Bitches reference in a recent post this article in Time about the outing of Dumbledore. Which, yeah, it happened like two weeks ago, so what? I've been busy and in the doldrums. I am now, by virtue of having been repeatedly annoyed over the last day or so, not in the doldrums any longer.
So the gist of the article is, if JK Rowling planned to keep Dumbledore's sexual preference out of the books, she never should have told anyone, because it's shameful that he wasn't allowed to be the Hollywood Montrose of Hogwarts. How dare he not swish about the castle at night dressed in pink tulle? How dare he not, in any conversations with his students, slip the fact of his homosexuality out in conversation? Because nothing is more appropriate in a discussion between Headmaster and student than revelations about buttsecks.
No, no. According to the writer, in denying Dumbledore the chance to turn Hogwarts into Big Gay Albus's Big Gay Wizard School, Rowling has given us a bad gay male role model. And of course he's right, because everyone knows the following facts:
1. The only defining characteristic of a gay man is his gayness. It MUST be always first and foremost in any examination of him, and he must react to all situations by waving his hands in the air and squealing.
2. A dignified gay man is a disgusting and pitiful character, because he has not allowed his inner Judy Garland out to play.
3. The sexuality of teachers can and should be an open subject for discussion among teenagers and preteens. It cannot be kept secret, no matter what sex they go to bed with, because keeping one's bedpartners private is apparently silly when dealing with adolescents.
4. The idea that an elderly gay man may not be actively having sex is terrible.
Whatever. Personally, I don't really care, because the sexuality of the aforesaid elderly man never interested me, just as the sexuality of none of my teachers ever interested me. (Except Mr. Reims, our eighth-grade gym teacher, because he was very handsome and we did wonder if he was gay. He had highlights, you see. And, y'know...Mr. Reims. But rumor also had it he was getting it on with the female gym teacher, whose name escapes me. Anyway.)
You'll notice I've added Tionna Lee Smalls's blog to my blogroll. Go visit her. She is the rockinest.
I'm in German!. Okay, sort of. The book is in English, but it is available on both Amazon Germany and Japan (be warned, the Japanese one doesn't really load well without the Language Pack thing.) But still, hee! I thought that was so cool!
My buddy and fellow Deliciously Naughty Writer Sherrill Quinn has a new EC release, Demon of her Dreams! It's her first EC release aside from a Caveman antho story, so go check it out!
I forgot...our untitled wedding story at League of Reluctant Adults is complete! And AWESOME. So go read it again here, and suggest a title for it, too!
And that's really all I can share, although I swear I intended to link to something else today too...I'll come back if I remember what it was.
15 comments:
Guten tag and glockenspiel! (That's the extent of my German, sorry.)
What about Dudley? He's clearly not into heterosex...
What amazes me is all the "I knew he was gay from the beginning" going around. Really? You pick up a book with no sex in it, a CHILDREN'S BOOK, and actually think about the sexual lives of the characters therein? I find that a little odd.
But even in real life, unless somebody's getting their grope on right in front of me, I kind of assume nobody has a sex life.
I think that's called "projecting..." :p
I don't think it's anyone's business, lol.
It does seem rather ingenious that she bring it up now. And anyway, it's a fictional character - sheesh. For all we know, he's also a werewolf as well as a fairy.
:-)
Swishing around Hogwarts, lol!
And there was always something rather telling in the long dresses he insisted on wearing...
I never thought of gayness in Harry Potter one way or the other. It didn't come up.
Kerry, I read it for the adult characters (I admit I skipped some of the Harry angsting and the tent scenes), and yes, the hints were there.
December, lots of English books ara avaliable on Amazon.de. You can guess that makes me a happy girl, since I can get them free of shipping that way.
Am I the only person who couldn't care less about Dumbledore? I wonder if J.K. is trying to keep the gravy train going by teasing, then writing, the Hogwarts backstories.
Lol, she can leave that to the fanficcers. They probably don't even want her version. ;)
I don't care if the character is gay or not; but it bugged me that she had to "out" him after the fact. She could have written him that way if she wanted in the first place, I'm sure.
I agree with Robyn, and I don't get it at all. J.K. writes an entire series of hugely popular children's books, ends the string, and then decides to out an adult teacher as gay... huh?! Maybe Tolkien can come back and out all those damn Hobbits too. :)
Lol Kerry, I'm the same way. If their sex life isn't part of the story, and they're not particularly sexy characters, the thought of their sex life never crosses my mind. I guess I'm clueless about gay subtext too because I never saw it either.
Lol, Sam, I always wondered why all wizards wore long gowns, oh well.
I didn't either, Charles. It just never occured to me. Honestly I thought it was deliberate, because as I said, who thought about their teachers' sex lives?
See, Gabriele, I guess I'll have to reread them with that in mind. Never occurred to me at all, lol.
I can imagine you must love the English books on Amazon, that's so cool!
You're not the only one, Robyn. I was surprised, and kind of felt like, Oh here we go...but it doesn't really change anything, I'm not happy and I'm not upset, it's just, Oh, okay.
Lol Gabriele, no they probably don't!
I agree, Written. It kind of feels to me like now the series is done she decided to throw that in there--but apparently that isn't the case. I don't know. Honestly the only thing that interests me about the whole thing is that article I linked to, which I find ridiculous.
I guess it was just in response to a question someone asked her about DD's sex life, Bernard, but I know she's working on a sort of History of Hogwarts kind of book, with all the stuff about all the characters, so it probably would have been in there.
The excuse trotted out by some is that it explains Dumble's motivations/backstory.
Now, does one need to be sexually attracted to a person of the same sex to be willing to go to the wall for them?
I don't think so.
I agree with Robyn that there's a purely promotional interest at work here, perhaps in the "gayness is cool" angle.
Right, Bernita. I thought one of the best things about the books was the idea that friendship is a strong and important tie. To reduce all that to sexual desire is...kind of sad, really.
Either way, Bernita, I hate the idea that suddenly DD has to be a GAY MAN instead of just a man.
Bringing the subject of sexual orientation into a story where it has no bearing in helping to define the character is like openly farting at a dinner party.
STOMP.
It really doesn't matter to me if he is gay or not gay. What I don't understand is as others stated why she waited until now to say something. It doesn't change the books but since she waited I think it wasn't that important to her and yes, she's wanting to keep the pot stirring. Not probably the best way she should have choosen to do so. IMHO.
I dunno. Big Gay Wizard School does sound kind of fun, though.
Coming very late to the party. Another possibility is that she always had Dumbledore in mind as gay, but decided it wasn't a fact about him that deserved screen time. But now she wanders around and people all day long want to dicuss her books with her. They ask her what this meant and what that meant and what happened to so and so? Etc. So, as part of the fun of doing that she mentions what many would consider juicy gossip.
And that's all there was to it.
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