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In mid-October, the Harry Potter author, J.K. Rowling, announced, after a reading at Carnegie Hall, that Albus Dumbledore, the beloved headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, is gay. The crowd at the reading sat in silence for a few seconds and then burst into wild applause. That news has indeed reverberated around the world. That such an announcement is a shock would be an understatement. Dumbledore is a fictional character—not real! So, why mention this in the first place?
There is little question that one of the major themes of the Harry Potter series is tolerance. Voldemort is a Hitler-like monster who promotes a message of racism and totalitarian terror. “Pure-bloods” and muggles are labels for superior and inferior people in the series. Discrimination based on such differences is ultimately condemned and defeated in the world of Harry Potter. The entire series takes evil, death and hatred very seriously. In the end, evil is defeated by sacrificial love—a boldly Christian theme. But it seems absurd to hide this rather critical element of Dumbledore’s sexual identity throughout the entire 800,000 words of the seven volumes of Harry Potter. Why announce it now? Rowling obviously intended this announcement for its shock value. She obviously is more interested in ideological conformity to this Postmodern culture than running against it. For a series that emphasizes so admirably the themes of sacrificial love, friendship, loyalty and courage, this unnecessary and ludicrous pronouncement diminishes the heroic character of Albus Dumbledore. Heroes run against the tide of culture and eventually overcome that rising tide. Albus Dumbledore championed this throughout the seven volumes of Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling has now cheapened the heroic character of Dumbledore and made him into a Postmodern figure, one who adopts a politically correct ideology that embraces debased depravity in the name of liberty and autonomy. How tragic and how sad!
See John Cloud in Time (5 November 2007) and Michael Gerson, Washington Post (26 October 2007). |
