Harry Potter Character Gay, Rowling Open For Criticism By Mike Coughlin

After completing all seven books in the Harry Potter series, J. K. Rowling suddenly announced that Dumbledore, the headmaster of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and a mentor to Harry and his friends, is gay.

Why would she wait to announce that until after all the books were complete?

This is like the writer of Top Gun suddenly announcing that Tom Cruise’s character Maverick is gay. Or George Lucas saying Mark Hamill’s character Luke Skywalker was in love with Hahn Solo. Not the best examples, but you get the point.

If Dumbledore is gay, Dumbledore needs to come out of the chamber of secrets himself.Rowling can’t change the facts in her books. It just doesn’t work like that. I don’t care if she is the author; the dealer can’t lay down two aces and call it a full house. If Dumbledore is gay, Dumbledore needs to come out of the chamber of secrets himself.

The subtle dark humor in all of this is that she chose the school’s headmaster to be gay. On my list of news headlines, Dumbledore’s outing is right next to a story about a gay teacher molesting a student. Great timing, Rowling.

If the students at Hogwarts had read the same set of headlines, I think they’d be watching Dumbledore’s magic wand mighty closely.

Thus, Rowling’s half-hearted attempt at showing her social awareness becomes a mockery of itself.

At a time when a gay teacher is arrested for molesting a student, she’s got a homosexual teacher in a children’s book about witchcraft. I’d say Rowling’s controversy meter is hotter than a goblet of fire (or Emma Watson, take your pick).

Even gay rights activists must be shaking their heads, “Thanks for the embarrassment.” “Way to set us back 20 years.” “Why’d you pick the character with ‘Dumb’ in his name?”

I’m not at all against gay rights. I’m all for acceptance. But if she really wanted to support gay rights, she should have written him as gay from the start. Not as her publicist’s afterthought.

Or perhaps we’re so wrapped up in ourselves, we don’t see that Rowling has the last laugh. What if Rowling is in fact mocking our society and how obsessed it is with sexual orientation?

That, perhaps, is the more interesting hypothesis. To wait until someone asks the question, and simply respond, “yes,” and move on.

Perhaps the idea had never even occurred to her until someone asked. And she said, “sure, why not,” without a second thought. It wasn’t in the stories because she didn’t care, and it wasn’t until people wanted answers that she gave them.

To her it was a coin-flip. To us, it was like getting clunked in the head with a sorcerer’s stone.

If only we could magically read Rowling’s mind and know her intentions: idiotic or inspiring.

Photo credit: Albus Dumbledore [http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/39367000/jpg/_39367963_dumbledore.jpg]