Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Dumbledore, Tinky Winky, and Missing The Point

Dumbledore, Tinky Winky, and Missing The Point

Predictable backlash to the posthumous outing of one Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore:

Psycheout at Blogs 4 Brownback called it “revolting,” saying “Dumbledore is a gay homosexual who doesn’t deserve to live on G-d’s green earth.”

Well, uh, he doesn't. Ever notice how the Harry Potter books are in the fiction section?

Don Surber wondered why the audience would “applaud” the revelation and suggested that Rowling was “knock[ing] the Christians” to “sell books.”

What does Rowling have to do to get the Christian analogy through your head, Don? Wasn't the whole death and resurrection thing enough, or does Harry have to actually get nailed to a cross for you to get it?

Meanwhile, from the other angle, John Cloud at Time wishes Dumbledore had outed himself, or at least that Rowling had tried to put the tolerance lesson directly in the texts instead of as a spoken afterthought:
In a typical passage, the briefly mentioned Blaise Zabini is described as "a tall black boy with high cheekbones and long, slanting eyes." Would it have been so difficult to write in a line in which Zabini takes the exquisitely named Justin Finch-Fletchley to the Yule Ball?

Yes, duuuuh, it would have, because Zabini is a Slytherin and Justin Finch-Fletchley is Muggle-born. Or am I too into this? (I'm still wondering whether Harry and Ginny wind up living at 12 Grimmauld Place...)

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