daredevil muffin-y genius ([info]monanotlisa) wrote,
@ 2007-10-20 15:18:00
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Entry tags:hp, lj, scrbs, ub

On JKR, Ugly Betty, and also Scrubs.
I really need to study, but I really wanted toss in my 0.02 €.

Here's the article on Dumbledore always having been gay.

It's not so much that I'm angry at JKR, and I have (almost) no opinion on her mentioning fanfic. To me, the whole thing merely confirms that she really is a both worse and more cowardly writer than many contemporaries think.

If this was definite character background, if she always intended it like this, then the fact there is not even the slightest proof for it in any of the books makes for poor storytelling. And to say it out loud now, after the enormous success of the last volume -- why, yes, she wanted it all: money and fame and, once that was achieved, a pat on the back for being edgy, liberal and/or progressive.

Not impressed here. I'll take Ugly Betty over Harry Potter any day, its portrayal of gay characters interesting and varied. There is no hiding, but neither is the sexual orientation of two main characters a constant dramatic issue. In their arcs, homophobia and conflicts with others do come up, but they aren't after-school specials, aren't tagged-on artificially; it all grows organically from the story, over the top as that may be by its very premise. Ugly Betty can have an unkind and shallow character like Marc because this is done on purpose and with flourish, because we have Justin, too, who is bright and sweet and tries to do right by everyone. It's not a perfect show, but the more I watch it, the more I like it. I mean, hel-lo, a transsexual main character whose problem isn't the transition but a family that put the "fun" in dysfunctional and a fashion magazine as a battlefield. ♥ If I had kids, I'd make sure to watch Ugly Betty with them.

Give me another show that, both explicitly and by implication, tackles racism, classism, and homophobia without losing a single beat and is great fun -- well, okay, there's Scrubs, which I also love a whole lot...and which more people should watch as well.

Also?

1. LJ is holding my comments hostage; I still haven't received some from yesterday afternoon.

2. New LJ layout. Not feeling so summer-y anymore.


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[info]fatema
2007-10-20 05:01 pm UTC (link)
I love you. This is exactly how I felt when I read the news. Like she was very cowardly for not putting it in the actual books. :/ And the Ugly Betty comparison? So awesome. I really love that show and seeing you say all these things about them makes me love it more.

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[info]monanotlisa
2007-10-20 08:48 pm UTC (link)
I need icons! Good ones. Hmm. & :-)

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[info]darcydodo
2007-10-20 05:16 pm UTC (link)
then the fact there is not even the slightest proof for it in any of the books makes for poor storytelling.

To be perfectly honest, I don't agree. Not that I think JKR is necessarily a good storyteller, but I don't think that omission of Dumbledore's sexual orientation is proof of this. We don't know anything about any of the teachers' love-lives. Since these books were ostensibly written as kids books, that makes sense. You never know anything about your teachers' personal lives. (I mean, we called our teachers by their first names and knew how many kids they had, but I remember, for example, how in Mathilda it was a great revelation to the students to learn Miss Honey's first name.)

In HP, we don't know if a single one of the teachers is married, has children, etc., so why should we know that one of them's gay? If we did, it would only have been there to say LOOK, I HAVE A GAY CHARACTER, I'M SO AWESOME AND OPEN-MINDED.

If Dumbledore had been alive in the 7th book, that would be a different story, because of all the stuff about Grindelwald. But he wasn't.

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[info]monanotlisa
2007-10-20 08:55 pm UTC (link)
Good point, and if we lived in a perfect world, I would completely agree: We don't learn about all the teachers' love lives, so leaving out the homosexual one wouldn't be so bad, then.

But first, straight is the default setting; if a character is gay, you'll have to do something extra, or the basic assumption remains, and here, it is wrong by her very own words.

Second, there are woefully few strong, intriguing, heroic gay characters in mainstream books, which Harry Potter undeniably is, no matter the "children's lit" or perhaps even the "fantasy" label.

Third, we do get first generation love lives -- look at Snape, whose romance-that-never-was is absolutely central to his character and the events of the novels. Going by what matters to characters, it would then have made sense for JKR to insert more about Grindelwald, since this -- again, by her own admission -- seems to have been the great love affair of his life.

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[info]darcydodo
2007-10-21 05:06 pm UTC (link)
But Snape's love-life is important because it deals with Harry, not because of how it shapes his character in general. If Lily had been, say, Padma and Parvati's mother, and he'd picked on them to no end rather than Harry, we'd probably never have gotten information on why he was so nasty to them.

And as I said on someone else's post, it's not like people reading the books from now on aren't going to know Dumbledore's gay, since her revelation has obviously spread across the internet like wildfire.

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[info]lunabee34
2007-10-20 05:35 pm UTC (link)
It might just be me, but I'm having trouble reading your journal now that the layout is changed. Whenever I click on the cut tag, half the page of your journal is obscured.

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[info]monanotlisa
2007-10-20 09:20 pm UTC (link)
Ack, no, you're the second one, Gamiila said something earlier.

What browser are you using? How big is your screen?

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[info]lunabee34
2007-10-20 10:40 pm UTC (link)
I don't exactly know what a server is. *hides* But I get online at home using AOL if that's what it means. :) I'm using a standard laptop in terms of screen size.

Everyone else's journal comes up the same as always and so does mine and your always did before the layout change. It looks like a gray bar is obscuring the right half of your journal, but I don't know what could be making it do that. I wish I was computer savvy enough to offer a solution, cause I don't want to miss any of your posts. :)

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[info]gamiila
2007-10-21 07:33 am UTC (link)
Hi Luna!

I'm having the same problem as you -- the entry shows up cut in half, with sentences running into a broad grey band on the right hand side and disappearing there, leaving a faint powder blue trace that's visible only if I squint every hard.

I'm using Internet Exlorer as my browser, and my monitor is only 12" wide; I guess either one could be the culprit.

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[info]monanotlisa
2007-10-21 10:02 am UTC (link)
Most likely, it's an unfortunate combination of both the small monitor and IE, since of the 350+ people on whose reading list I am, the two of you seem to be the only ones with problems. (Even if only half of them actually read, that makes for < 2% with these problems, and I am certain more people use either Explorer or a smaller screen.)

I checked back; Liz -- the maker of this design -- said in her LJ she'd stopped making designs for Explorer since so few people were left using it. I think in internet-savvy lj lands, this is true.

After the Exam, I'll go browse for and install for another; there's a dearth of actually good-looking designs, alas.

In the mean time, use this format?

http://monanotlisa.livejournal.com/xxxxxx.html?style=mine

You can tag the ?style=mine right behind the [number]html, and it will display every entry on the screen the way YOU have set up your LJ.

Alternatively, use the "Page Style" (or similar in Explorer) option in the main bar up there and go "No Style."




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[info]gamiila
2007-10-21 01:23 pm UTC (link)
BTW, ?style=mine serves as a workaround.

I know we all hate IE. However, Firefox which I used to use, had too much of a mind of its own as far as I was concerned. It kept wanting to be the default for everythingI might want to open on my computer, which was most annoying.

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[info]lunabee34
2007-10-21 04:39 pm UTC (link)
The style mine thing works a treat. I didn't know how to do that. Thank you very much. :)

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[info]darcydodo
2007-10-21 05:08 pm UTC (link)
While I can read your style fine, I hate what it does to comments — I have a small screen, and by the fifth or sixth comment reply I'm reading about one or two words to a line in this teeeeeeny little column. :(

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[info]monanotlisa
2007-10-21 05:19 pm UTC (link)
That's a very valid point. *nod* Will change after the Exam (it took me hours to find this one, ack).

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[info]monanotlisa
2007-10-21 10:03 am UTC (link)
Not a server -- a browser. & :-)
Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Opera are browsers used to display what's on the net for you.

Check this, and sorry for the inconvenience:

http://monanotlisa.livejournal.com/652582.html?thread=5709350#t5709350

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[info]lunabee34
2007-10-21 04:38 pm UTC (link)
No apologies necessary. :) Like you said, only two people are having issues with reading it so I really appreciate you trying to figure out what's wrong. :)

Oh, browser. :) Huh. I guess I don't know. *is lame* I just sign onto AOL. But there's a little internet explorer icon on the toolbar, so it must be that.

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[info]jolielaide
2007-10-20 06:14 pm UTC (link)
I am so, so, so much in agreement re: JKR's revelation. What's the point, now? It's outside of canon; she's doing revisionist storytelling now because it's "safe" to do so. And her comments about Dumbledore's true love being his "great tragedy" just perpetuates the boring, tiresome, wretched old myth that gay people can't be happy.

You may have convinced me to watch Ugly Betty, though. ;)

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[info]monanotlisa
2007-10-20 09:21 pm UTC (link)
And her comments about Dumbledore's true love being his "great tragedy" just perpetuates the boring, tiresome, wretched old myth that gay people can't be happy.

Yes, exactly.

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[info]icarusancalion
2007-10-20 06:51 pm UTC (link)
I'm actually amused by it. Fans have been pushing her to have a gay character and complained bitterly that she didn't. Apparently, the question came up when of the directors of the upcoming movies tried to make mention of a woman in Dumbledore's life and JKR nixed it. Since that was context, and not just fan demands, I am content.

I thought the Dumbledore/Grindelwald theory annoying, since I prefer the idea that Dumbledore was genuinely (and solely) after power. The "deluded by romance" angle echoed Snape/Lily too much.

Which is all to say: I'm still holding out for Percy to be gay.

Icarus

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[info]monanotlisa
2007-10-20 09:22 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, but fans pushed for it in the books themselves, I assume? Not so deep in HP fandom.

Love the idea of Dumbledore after power, of course. Heh.

Percy could totally be, I sez.

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[info]_divya_
2007-10-20 07:31 pm UTC (link)
I'm a little bit reminded of when Joss Whedon did this on one of the commentaries for AtS. Do you remember this wank?

Joss: Angel and Spike dun sex!
Half of slash fandom: YAY.
Other half: ...what? Yay? But why did he wait until now to say that?

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[info]monanotlisa
2007-10-20 09:24 pm UTC (link)
Heh. Joss didn't write books, though -- he made TV for a huge mainstream corporation; kinda limited there.

By the time the Angel/Spike thing came, he'd already long done a gay kiss on tv etc. pp.; his shows were never showing a purely homosexual world.

I remember smiling and nodding when he said that.



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[info]monanotlisa
2007-10-20 09:24 pm UTC (link)
PURELY HETEROSEXUAL.

*sigh*

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[info]jssangel
2007-10-20 07:47 pm UTC (link)
Hmm - that's funny - I had a totally opposite response to the Dumbledore thing.

I think part of what made me respond positively is that she was writing children's books which dealt with many different kinds of prejudice. For me, the great Muggle metaphor carried the weight of an entire wash of prejudices and discrimination - so it feels that her constant message of "don't judge, don't hate, different is NOT wrong" has been consistent, if not specific to some of the issues that the fanfic/online community cares the most about.

Also, because the stories were from Harry's point of view, it made sense to me that we would experience people's love-lives from his point of view as well(which is why I was not bugged by the abrupt dramaturgy of Tonks and Remus - as much as I would have enjoyed wallowing in their story, it made sense to me that they weren't the kind of details that Harry would absorb). I can't imagine Harry ever thinking about Dumbledore's sexuality, so it made story-telling sense that we didn't hear about it in the books.

I see what you mean about it being cowardly to bring this up now - after all the books have been published, and after the tidal wave of Deathly Hallows purchases have already happened, but ...

The people who wouldn't have bought the books for their kids if Dumbledore's homosexuality had been explicit already own them now. Their kids have finished Deathly Hallows, the stories are in their heads and the characters are part of their lives. Those parents aren't watching Ugly Betty with their kids - they wouldn't deliberately bring a gay character into their homes...but now it's too late. Nothing those parents say or do will change how their kids feel about Dumbledore - it was a sneak attack, but an effective one I think. It's different from the (delightful and necessary) tactic that Ugly Betty brings to the same subject - but differing tactics are useful when you are trying to win such a complicated war.

Also - in addition to all the coded and explicit lessons about discrimination and judgment brought to us by Muggles and Werewolves and tabloids (oh my!), what she did do was write a gigantic series of books which called good people witches. My older sister is Wican, living in an appallingly born-again Christian community, and the impact of these books and stories to people of non-Christian faiths has been (in the US at least) huge. It's not an issue that gets anywhere near the popular exposure that homosexuality does - and since she couldn't be all things to all people - I am satisfied with what she actually accomplished in terms of normalizing alternative lifestyles.

Finally, as it happens, the fanfiction community took up the gauntlet of creating a (sometimes statistically improbable) gay wizarding community years ago. Maybe she had a plan for Dumbledore all along, or maybe we inspired her. Either way, I do think her mention of fanfic, in the same breath as confirmation of Dumbledore's orientation was the closest thing we'll ever see to an endorsement - and, incidentally, a widely publicized "here's where you can read more" to anyone who wants to experience a rainbow of homosexual identity in the HP world.

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[info]monanotlisa
2007-10-20 09:32 pm UTC (link)
You say smart and uplifting things here, and yeah, I hope you're right.

I guess I'm just not convinced that

a) the parents that violently opposed to gay characters would be into wizards and witchcraft, and

b) kids this sheltered would then get to learn about this revelation.

And yeah, Darcy brings up the juvenile perspective thing, which is valid enough for the first few books but is really pretty much over in the last two or three books...which explicitly mention Snape's love life and do dive into Dumbledore's past with Dumbledore; it would have fit in seamlessly there.

In the big picture, I do understand; I fear I just cannot quite condone.

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[info]monanotlisa
2007-10-20 09:33 pm UTC (link)
...with Grindelwald. *sigh*

Back to my books, anyways....

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[info]deepad
2007-10-20 10:16 pm UTC (link)
Dude. DUDE! I had no idea! Thanks for filling me in.
Hmmm. Yeah, I think I'm with you. While I'm all for the Hero of Harry's life to be gay, that he's single, it was unrequited and a tragedy, and that it remains in the closet forever makes it every single cliche that she should have had the decency to avoid.
Although I have to say, for a fandom that looks for subtext in Hegwid/Squid - I think most of us already assumed the Grindelwald thing. Now if she had confirmed the Aberforth/Goat assumption... ;)

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[info]monanotlisa
2007-10-21 10:11 am UTC (link)
While I'm all for the Hero of Harry's life to be gay, that he's single, it was unrequited and a tragedy, and that it remains in the closet forever makes it every single cliche that she should have had the decency to avoid.

Well-put.

Now if she had confirmed the Aberforth/Goat assumption... ;)

Hee! See, I thought that was canon, with the characters sneering about it and dropping not-so-subtle hints left'n right. & ;-)

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[info]femmenerd
2007-10-21 02:08 am UTC (link)
I'm kind of torn between the fact that I have ALWAYS been critical of the fact that there were no queer people in the Wizarding world, and also YES, this is not the most direct BRAVE way for her to go about rectifying that ("after the fact," etc.).

OTOH, she didn't have to do it at all ever. So it still kind of makes me happy.

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[info]monanotlisa
2007-10-21 10:10 am UTC (link)
Oh yeah, preaching to the choir. I think times change and standards change, or damn well should -- these days, if there is no gay character in what's pretty much an epic, I'll count that as a strike against the author. (The other day, I was pondering Tamora Pierce's Tortall series, but then again, she does get sort of a free pass for all the genderplay.)

And yeah, she did; fair enough.

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[info]jwaneeta
2007-10-21 02:12 am UTC (link)
That was v. eloquent. When I hard about this I felt uncomfortable but couldn't figure out exactly why.

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[info]jwaneeta
2007-10-21 02:38 am UTC (link)
...and there's this fug hanging over it. It's like, the series is over, and she's become addicted to the adulation, so she just had to milk the series for one more hit. It... tastes bad.

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[info]monanotlisa
2007-10-21 10:06 am UTC (link)
Yeah, exactly. Darcy, Jssangel, and Femmenerd bring up good points, but still, the good of this is a little soured for me.

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