DUMBLEDORE WAS WHAT?

This blog entry by Jessica Nedjat-Haiem.

The story: " Dumbledore is gay, 'Harry Potter' author reveals"

The analysis:

As I opened up the yahoo page to check my mail, the first thing I saw was in bold writing, "Dumbeldore is gay 'Harry Potter' author reveals." I looked for the article later on and found it on the CNN website. The article stated that, after a short reading by the author done at Carnegie Hall, she then took questions from the audience. One of the questions was, does Dumbledore find "true love?" The author answered "Dumbledore is gay." The crowd was very shocked and the author went on to explain what direct quotes from the book were her intentions of showing the hint of his homosexuality and love interest of another character from the book.

I chose this story because it's so interesting to see sexuality where you would never even question it. For the people who have read the books, or at least watched the movies, who would even think about Dumbledore in a sexual manner? I personally have yet to read all of the books, but I did enjoy the first two that I have read and I'm getting through third as we speak. But, from my perspective and others (who I have asked from) that have read the whole series, no one really questioned the characters sexuality at all. I think this reveal of sexuality is very interesting for so many reasons and is also very important to popular culture. The fact is that in movies and popular culture in general, how often do we think about an older man and what their love interest might be? We question other younger characters or even characters in there older ages, but not much an old man (at least I don't). I had thought of Dumbeldore as an intelligent, nice, caring, asexual old man. A gross thought popped up into my head as I realized this fact that Dumbeldore was gay; is it possible that he was in love with Harry this whole time? Disgusting! The reason why I felt this thought relevant to this subject was because I think many people would assume or question any gay old man as being a younger boys' mentor as something suspicious.

For the most part I really like the fact that J.K. Rowling brought this subject up at all. I think it's important to not just make assumptions about everything and just go along with your immediate thought. When things like this come up and surprise you, it forces you to question things more often. It also forces me to look deeper into the messages that are being given out into popular culture. It makes me realize that older men are sexual people as well. They have certain love interests and their libido doesn't necessarily shut off as they get older. I also like the fact that the author brought this up because it's bringing up more unexpected homosexual characters into popular culture. People have a certain stereotype in their mind of what homosexuals look and act like. Dumbledore from the Harry Potter series certainly does not fit into that category.