Lupin's...condition
Last night I forcibly dragged PF to see Prisoner of Azkaban, along with several of our nearest & dearest (well, OK, my nearest & their dearest, but why split hairs?). I found it quite enjoyable. And PF might forgive me someday.
But, OK, so there's the scene at the end where Harry finds out that Remus is leaving Hogwarts. Harry's immediate assumption is that he's has been sacked. No, Remus tells him, I've resigned. Harry demands to know why. Remus launches into this speech about 'someone' having let his secret slip, & now Dumbledore will start getting angry owls from parents who don't want their children taught by someone like him. He says this a lot - "Someone like me." He also makes a few references to 'my condition.' Know what he doesn't say? Werewolf. Lycanthropy.
Were Mr. Cuaron & Mr. Kloves trying to sneak a little morality lesson in there for us? I'd like to believe so. That speech could've been delivered by every teacher in this country who's been ousted for being gay. I've seen it happen a dozen times - the talented, much-loved teacher who quietly resigns to spare the school the pain of angry letters from parents who don't want their kids in prolonged contact with 'that kind.' And while Wolfsbane makes Remus more or less harmless, there are paranoid, reactionary parents who are going to see him as a predator intent on eating the children; just as real-life parents see any gay teacher - especially a gay man - as a sexual predator whose only goal is to seduce & corrupt the students in their charge.
Yes, only as big a geek as I am would try to find the deep social relevance of an over-hyped, over-merchandised children's movie. And no, I'm not expecting Harry Potter to change the wold. But even if you don't read Remus as gay (& you should not be surprised to hear that I do), even if you don't believe that Kloves & Cuaron had any such thing in mind with that scene, you have to think: thousands of kids are seeing this movie, most of them with a parent or guardian. If the light bulb goes on for a single one of them; if the teeny tiny tapping finger of epiphany pokes a single one of them in the head, & they somehow make the connection between how discrimination against a werewolf & discrimination against a queer, then it's done some good. And maybe Harry Potter has changed the world.