My reaction to the DD news
Oct. 19th, 2007 11:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gina_r_snapeSo, for those of you who have not yet heard, Dumbledore is gay.
I've never been a fan of slash pairings in the Potterverse. Not because of homophobia, or because I don't "get off" on slash, but because almost none of the characters emerged for *me* as being gay. Most we didn't get to know all that well. Though I did have my suspicions about Draco, Pettigrew, Crabbe, Goyle, Remus, Luna and Lavendar (and movie!Madame Hooch) for reasons I won't get into here.
So, putting all other slash pairing speculations aside, DH screamed of DD gay subtext to me from the get go. It was fun to ponder, and easy to identify for anyone schooled in the art of finding lgbt subtext in a book/tv show/film/media that DD may have had something more than innocent boyhood friendships with Grindelwald and that other guy who wrote his eulogy for the Daily Prophet (whose name escapes me. Doge?)
But anyway, after the initial "A ha!" moment regarding the news wears off, I find myself with extreme ambivalence. On the one hand, I think --ABOUT BLOODY TIME, JKR. A ginormous series, an entire wizarding universe created, and you don't include ANY LGBT characters???? So great, she gives us one. Well, two if you consider DD got it on with Grindelwald, come to think of it.
Yet, what does DD get? A modern, male version of Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness. Hurray, we can officially celebrate a gay character in the series. But oh, he's completely closeted as a gay man and suffers a lonely life because his formative romantic relationship was a horrible tragedy. So instead, he becomes machiavellian towards the people on his side, an emotionally removed mentor to two who desperately need emotional (not sexual) closeness--Harry and Snape, and an emotional recluse who remains lonely in his daily life. Doesn't he bemoan at one point having no one with whom to share his thoughts and ideas?
Greeeaaaaat.
After DH, I'm no lover of DD. And it annoys the shit out of me that she considers him good while Snape remains "petty, vindictive and cruel." But did not even DD deserve to live his life as a whole human being? Does nobody but Harry in this damn series get to be fully and unregrettably themselves? Maybe if DD had been given the gift of pillowtalk with an intimate partner, he would've developed more compassion for Snape, respect for Harry, and hell, respect for the rights of anyone to think and choose for themselves instead of being set up for a master plan.
Thanks, JKR, for turning an opportunity for LGBT inclusion into replication of LGBT invisibility, heterosexism, internalized homophobia and character loneliness. I'm sure you thought you were being cute, funny, and encouraging for "all the fanfiction."
I've never been a fan of slash pairings in the Potterverse. Not because of homophobia, or because I don't "get off" on slash, but because almost none of the characters emerged for *me* as being gay. Most we didn't get to know all that well. Though I did have my suspicions about Draco, Pettigrew, Crabbe, Goyle, Remus, Luna and Lavendar (and movie!Madame Hooch) for reasons I won't get into here.
So, putting all other slash pairing speculations aside, DH screamed of DD gay subtext to me from the get go. It was fun to ponder, and easy to identify for anyone schooled in the art of finding lgbt subtext in a book/tv show/film/media that DD may have had something more than innocent boyhood friendships with Grindelwald and that other guy who wrote his eulogy for the Daily Prophet (whose name escapes me. Doge?)
But anyway, after the initial "A ha!" moment regarding the news wears off, I find myself with extreme ambivalence. On the one hand, I think --ABOUT BLOODY TIME, JKR. A ginormous series, an entire wizarding universe created, and you don't include ANY LGBT characters???? So great, she gives us one. Well, two if you consider DD got it on with Grindelwald, come to think of it.
Yet, what does DD get? A modern, male version of Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness. Hurray, we can officially celebrate a gay character in the series. But oh, he's completely closeted as a gay man and suffers a lonely life because his formative romantic relationship was a horrible tragedy. So instead, he becomes machiavellian towards the people on his side, an emotionally removed mentor to two who desperately need emotional (not sexual) closeness--Harry and Snape, and an emotional recluse who remains lonely in his daily life. Doesn't he bemoan at one point having no one with whom to share his thoughts and ideas?
Greeeaaaaat.
After DH, I'm no lover of DD. And it annoys the shit out of me that she considers him good while Snape remains "petty, vindictive and cruel." But did not even DD deserve to live his life as a whole human being? Does nobody but Harry in this damn series get to be fully and unregrettably themselves? Maybe if DD had been given the gift of pillowtalk with an intimate partner, he would've developed more compassion for Snape, respect for Harry, and hell, respect for the rights of anyone to think and choose for themselves instead of being set up for a master plan.
Thanks, JKR, for turning an opportunity for LGBT inclusion into replication of LGBT invisibility, heterosexism, internalized homophobia and character loneliness. I'm sure you thought you were being cute, funny, and encouraging for "all the fanfiction."
