This is about Rowling’s revelation of Albus Dumbledore’s sexual preference. However, let me make it clear that I’m not here to start a gay rights issue. I am not making anti-gay statements, for the record.

According to her statement, she had never mentioned anything about that till then because “she had never before been asked directly.”

The funny thing in my opinion, is that for how casually Rowling mentioned that he was gay, never did any proof of that statement appear in the novel. Who’s to say whether she really did have that in mind from the beginning, and didn’t just think that up later on to “shake things up”? If she was trying to sent a pro-gay message, then why not just come out with it in the novel itself? Her only supporting evidence of it was her statement that Dumbledore was secretly smitten with Grindelwald, but who’s to say that that wasn’t just something she decided to add on a whim?

“He is my character. He is what he is and I have the right to say what I say about him,” defended Rowling.

The question was whether he would find true love or not. Even if he was gay, you wouldn’t expect her to say it like that unless her decision to do so was driven by a goal that required her to say, outright and above all, that he is simply gay. Why not something that answered the question instead of something that scratched her itch (and that of the fans) to include a gay character in the story?

Because technocally, his sexual preference was never an issue in the book. If she really wanted to fight for gay rights and not just make fans and the media and bloggers go crazy, she wouldn’t have done it this way.

In the end she does admit that her book was written for political purposes, against authority, bigotry, and the like. But to me at that moment, she stepped out of her shoes as a woman of literature, threw that statement out in all directions to see what happens. It seemed to me in poor taste.

She cannot honestly say that the fuss surprises her. Really.

Technorati tags: rowling, gay, harry potter, dumbledore, grindelwald, carnegie hall

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 25th, 2007 at 7:57 am and is filed under Society, Entertainment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.