So I just noticed that despite the appearance that my blog was finished, I hadn't blogged about Harry Potter!
While sitting in class on Tuesday with my paper ready to hand in, I realized that my title "Faerie Potter and the Sorcerer's Queene - Rowling's Inspiration for her Harry Potter Series," could be taken in a way that I had not intended. I had meant to simply combine the two titles Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and The Faerie Queene, but inadvertently I had made the allusion to an underlying homosexual tone in the "Faerie" Potter series.
After giggling to myself, I decided to Google the idea, and of course received over four thousand hits. I looked at articles such as "J.K. Rowling Had No Business Infusing 'Harry Potter' With a Minor Homosexual Undertone And Then Telling Us About It" by Debbie Newman of the gossip website Jossip.com and "Is Harry Potter Gay?" by Johann Hari, a homosexual e-journalist who hopes the answer to that question is YES!
The first article dealt with the issue of J.K. Rowling revealing in a press conference that Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts, is a homosexual. Many people were outraged because this came after all seven books of the series were published without that tidbit on Dumbledore's character. They think that because it is so scandalous and not in the books, it was wrong of her to reveal it post-publishing. After all of the bad publicity the books have gotten from their "Anti-Christian" subject matter, the hype had calmed down until Rowling 'outed' Dumbledore, one of the books most beloved characters.
Johann Hari's article was a hilarious read, although I had to shut my eyes for parts of it because he made some explicit connections between Harry's wand and other certain body parts. However, I found some of the other connections quite comical such as the fact the Harry lives in a closet, wears long flowing purple gowns, and feels as though he is different from everyone else. According to Hari, the Harry Potter series is a perfect example of a coming-of-age story combined with coming out of the closet and embracing his newfound world.
2 comments:
Wow, thats interesting... haha. I had heard about the "outing" of Dumbledore, but not about people hoping that Harry was gay as well. I don't know how much research you did of this, but I looked up a bit about it and actually found some words from Rowling herself. She said that she never intended that Dumbledore woulf have flat out homosexual tendencies, but that it may have been present in his youth. She also imagined that these feeling were rejected, and Dumbledore then took on his present state, one of sort of an asexual nature. There were also reactions from the actors and director of the film. The director said that this information will not change his portrayal any, and that he does not believe that Dumbledore's sexuality plays any part in the integrity of the story.... I feel the same way....
I laughed so hard reading this. Thank you for that.
As I was reading it though, it made perfect sense that Harry would be gay but I think the world we live in now, we tend to make connections when there's no need. I believe some people look into things way to hard and not let things be. I'm not too sure if J.K Rowling wanted Harry to be gay but I think she'll let us know if he is after the whole Harry Potter phenomenon cools down.
I find it interesting, though, how people make such a big deal out of the lives in Harry Potter. I remember when a lot of parents wouldn't let their children read Harry Potter because of magic and I wonder if this whole gay speculation would cause even more parents to say no. It is a fictional character but I guess the impact of Harry Potter is bigger than we thought but I'm pretty sure no one has actually learned magic from Harry Potter and I don't think anyone will learn any gay tendencies from it either.
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