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This is similar to (but different in important ways from) people who say that Frodo and Samwise are gay. That makes me mad, not because I don't like people being gay, but because it adds a subtext to the book that has nothing to do with the story or characterizations. I haven't read the Potter books, but at least from the movies I had the feeling that Dumbledore was an asexual old wizard. You don't think of Saruman's sexual orientation either.

There are lots of old people who are largely asexual. And lots of people for whom sexual identity is only one trait among many. Not every gay person is a walking stereotype. And honestly, aside from a dance for young people at which Dumbledore dances with someone from his workplace, is there any opportunity for Dumbledore to show his sexuality?

Now, if we could only get Tom Cruise to come out of the closet, so he stops brainwashing young starlets.

I can see how you'd be confused, though, as Dumbledore's furniture is not described as Scandinavian in design.

A lot of "New School" lit crit folks would what JD is refering to as the fallacy of authorial intent (or some such). Basically the idea is that it is indeed what's in the text that matters, and the author may write something that means something he/she didn't intend.

I have no basis for arguing one way or t'other but I'd certainly state that Dumbledor isn't even ambiguously gay in the books. His sexuality is simply not at issue. Nor is McGonagal's, Trelawny's, Sprout's, Flitwick's, Moody's, Voldemort's, Luna Lovegood's, Madame Hooch's, Quirrel's, Sirius Black's, or Dobby the fracking House Elf's. We know about Snape's. Potter's, Granger's, most of the Weasleys', Hagrid's, Madame Maxime's, Cho's, Tonks's, etc etc anon, but there simply isn't anything in the text that could lead you to speculate regarding Dumbledor's sexuality.

Of course, sometimes there's explicit textual reference to the sexuality of a character which is nonetheless incorrect. Take Picard. Totally gay. Sure he kept pretending to be interested in Vash, but really, the tense thing about Crusher's crush on him was the fact that he absolutely didn't return it. Not because she wasn't hot, but because he wasn't into hot chicks.

Not, however, that it makes fuckall difference.

The one thing that could've been gayish about Dumbledor was his association with whosawhatsit in his late teens. The previous evil you-know-who-wannabe that Dumbledor had later defeated in a duel and imprisoned. That could've had some sexual overtones to it. But it was way way subtle, if at all.

There's a limit of consistency, though. Imagine the reactions if Rowling had declared that Harry Potter was destined to become a cackling villain by age 30, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people with dark magic and murdering his old friends. It would grossly fail to fit. Or, in the case of another creator, look at the fans who still shake their heads at the Star Wars prequels and their "muddling" of the setup for the original trilogy. On the contrary, the people pleased by the Dumbledore thing apparently thought some aspects of the character made more sense if he were gay (and/or just thought it would be nice if he were - YA SF/F still isn't exactly teeming with gay and bisexual characters, by all reports).

No matter how pointless her announcement was (and I certainly think there's merit in the arguments above) I was totally thrilled when I heard about it. I probably even squeed a little.

JD, let me say that you pretty much summed up my thoughts on the issue--well, at least my thoughts after "Na, und?"

As to the first quoted sentence, it reminds me of a common refrain from freshman (in particular) history students after the get their first essay test back. "Well, I know that [particular fact] but I forgot to include it." To which, the common response is, "Well, if it's not in the essay, how do I know that you know?" I've never read any of the Potter books, so this is essentially me speaking out of my rectum, but from converrsations I've had with those who have read the books is that Roowling seems to have had no clear vision of where the story was going to go when she was writing. So, in this case, I question whether or not Rowling knew he was gay.

As to the second sentence, you've hit upon one of my biggest pet peeves regarding post-modernism: counter-text (or counter-narrative). Just because something is not in the narrative doesn't mean that it should be considered as part of the work. I mean, if, as has been suggested, Dumbledore's sexual identity is not clearly spelled out (or even hinted at), and Rowling now wants to claim Dumbledore is gay, does that mean that Rowling is an homophobe for attempting to hide his identity?

Yeah, and then there's that. But that doesn't make you a cynic.

LOL

Aw, pish and tosh.

You don't ever have to apologize for pointing out that Stanley Fish is a joke.

Personally, I think that this article in Time sums up my feelings about it very well. In the entirety of the series Rowling didn't see fit to clearly define ANY gay character. Heterosexual romance and attraction between other characters was apparently okay but not gay romance. Pffft. I feel that she should have clarified that, in her world, gay romance was just as acceptable by having a character, major or not, obviously gay and others obviously accepting of it.

Billybob invites Neville to the dance and he accepts, everybody comments on how happy Neville looks now. End of passage, end of doubt. Anything else was just a postmortem cop out

{/rant}

I know one person who complained. On the Pyramid discussion boards, there was a long discussion of Rowling's revelations about what happened to the characters after Deathly Hallows. Bill Stoddard, who wrote (among other things) GURPS Fantasy and is on the committee for the Prometheus Award (best libertarian sci-fi), was rather displeased at Rowling's assertion that Hermione ended up working for the Ministry of Magic. He felt that wasn't at all in character for her, considering all that they'd gone through with the MoM in the books. He also thought that it indicated that Rowling isn't really a libertarian, even with the anti-authoritarian leanings of the books. Which, of course, someone thought was a criticism of Rowling for not being libertarian, which led to days of sniping. I did like Stoddard's suggestion that Hermione became a research wizard, and even more his idea of Hermione working for an Alias-like organization in the role of Sydney Bristow. Pretty damn cool, if you ask me.

It spawned a rather interesting discussion of how big the MoM is compared to the wizarding population, and how that affected the governance of the wizards. Of course, as someone pointed out, they were putting more thought into it than J.K. Rowling did; her strength is not world building. In real life, a population of ten thousand or so wizards wouldn't need more than a thousand people working for its government.

As for Dumbledore being gay . . . Randy Milholland has something to say about the situation.

My favorite comment on authorial intent was from the lit-crit book for my philosophy of literature class. This is the one that I dropped because it was so flatulently pomo that I couldn't even bullshit my way through an essay exam. In the chapter on the author, it states that the identity of the author doesn't matter, and neither does the context in which the author wrote. Unless, of course, the author is a minority, a woman, or gay; then the context and who wrote the story is very, very important. Note that it didn't actually give a reason for this (at least not one that I could glean from the masturbatory text). It just stated that straight white male authors don't matter, while minority authors do. Worst. Book. Ever.

--
David L. Watkins
TANSTAAFL
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Fwiw, I noticed that Michael Gambon decided to play Dumbledore in a noticably more fey way than Harris did. I imagine he did that on advice from Rowling herself.

Gambon himself is a pretty butch guy.

I guess the best argument against the pumping up book sales theory is that she's richer than the queen of England.

Then again, Gates and Ballmer try to claim Vista is something someone would want to buy.