Comments | smurasaki: Another Rowling Rant

smurasaki

Another Rowling Rant

Oct 22, 2007 12:37

So...Dumbledore was gay. I feel like I should be pleased, but, instead, I'm irritated. I know fandom is terribly divided over the issue, and that much of fandom is utterly unsurprised. Hell, I'm not the world's best at spotting subtext and the whole Dumbledore/Grindlewald thing had me wondering. But so did Sirius's fondness for James. And I ( Read more... )

predjudice, books, fictional gays, harry potter, rowling, rants, literature

Comments 5

shininghalf October 22 2007, 20:54:59 UTC

Preach it, sister! (And, um... That's all. ^_^; )

smurasaki October 22 2007, 21:01:32 UTC

Interestingly, it seems that the GLBT (did I get that in the right order?) community isn't all that thrilled with her for outing Dumbledore. I can't say as I'm surprised, really. *sigh*

shininghalf October 22 2007, 21:11:53 UTC

My gosh, NPR's All Things Considered is reporting on it! I still think it would be too triggering for me to listen to, but I kind of wish I could just to hear if they talk to GLBT groups, anti-gay groups, and what range of fans---ie, did they get the "some fans who want gay inclusion charge that this is way lame."

jinnayah October 22 2007, 21:41:55 UTC

Numerically speaking, the minority characters didn't bother me too much. Britain has a minority population of about 11%, which would put 8 OK for a cast of 72.

Camera-time wise is a completely different matter, though. There are no A-list minority characters. Not even a single teacher we see. B-list... What, you've got Cho for a while there? You've got to get to the C-list before you start hitting them.
Then I note that there isn't a single character of Middle-Eastern descent, despite that being a rather prominent British minority group. And the Patil twins under-represent the rather large Indian minority (in fact, I think they are either the largest minority group in Britain, or swiftly on their way to becoming so). Then I note that both of those groups are also very controversial.

So in summary, I agree with you very much.

smurasaki October 22 2007, 22:01:00 UTC

I think it was the lack of an A-list, or even permanent B-list minority character that made the percentage feel so off. They get very little screen time compared to the A-list characters and, especially given some of the numbers I've heard for the total student body of Hogwarts, felt extra sparse.