"Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling says characters Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald have an "intense" gay rela...
"Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling says characters Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald have an "intense" gay relationship with each other.
Rowling discussed the gay sexuality of her characters on the Blu-ray and DVD versions of "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald," reports USA Today.
"[Dumbledore and Grindelwald's] relationship was incredibly intense," she said. "It was passionate, and it was a love relationship."
"But as happens in any relationship, gay or straight or whatever label we want to put on it, one never knows really what the other person is feeling," the author continued. "You can’t know, you can believe you know."
"So I’m less interested in the sexual side – though I believe there is a sexual dimension to this relationship – than I am in the sense of the emotions they felt for each other, which ultimately is the most fascinating thing about all human relationships," added Rowling.
However, the alleged gay relationship between Dumbledore and Grindelwald is not shown or alluded to in the movie, "[n]ot even the 'emotions they felt for each other,'" notes USA Today.
The discussion of the gay relationship was not received well by all in Camp Intersectionality, who poked fun at Rowling for the apparently insincere attempt to be LGBT "inclusive" retroactively.
"People are rightly taking the piss out of JK Rowling for her ridiculous post publishing announcements about Dumbledore's sexuality & imaginary sex life. Unless there's an editor's note or some gay sex scene she was forced to cut out then she's simply vying for attention," wrote one critic via Twitter.
CNN's Nathan McDermott similarly mocked:
Nobody:J.K. Rowling: Hogwarts was super diverse, exceptionally gay, extremely homoerotic, and there were a ton of black and jewish kids too, I just didn't write about any of them, but they were there, trust me. Somebody:Ma'am this is a Wendy's
"J.K. Rowling Confirms Some Characters in Her Books and Movies Are Gay Everywhere Except in the Books or the Movies," said film critic Eric D. Snider, quote-tweeting a post about Rowling discussing the alleged gay relationship.
Rowling has been criticized in the past for retroactively adding "diversity" to her stories, seemingly for applause lines.
In 2017, for example, a piece published at The Huffington Post mocked Rowling for insincerely "building diversity" into her works "post facto." Researcher Nick Malherbe said Rowling tried to "out" Dumbledore's character as gay during a 2007 book tour to received "thunderous applause" from the audience. The author's notable response was: "I would have told you earlier if I knew it would make you so happy."
"There is an implication here that by telling us earlier - within the books themselves - the author would have made us unhappy. Herein lies a base fear of much authorship within the Global North to disrupt readers’ heteronormative literary assumptions. Such assumptions are to remain intact if readers are to be 'happy,'" criticized Malherbe.
"Rowling’s posthumous stab at diversification was widely celebrated and caused her to assert the place of a LGBTI community within Hogwarts, as well as the presence of a number of Jewish characters. Neither were written into the books," he wrote.
"[W]e should condemn Rowling’s cowardice at not explicitly disrupting the heteronormative assumptions that are couched within her writing. ... [S]uch a disruption only carries credence if it is written into the work, rather than after the fact," Malherbe added.
Moreover, Rowling was dragged for her insufficient Wokeness over a February tweet about the film "Black Panther."
"My whole family's out watching #BlackPanther and I stayed here to work on the novel and I'm currently full of a bitter, aching regret," tweeted the author.
My whole family's out watching #BlackPanther and I stayed here to work on the novel and I'm currently full of a bitter, aching regret.
The social justice crowd ripped Rowling for "Harry Potter's" lack of racial diversity.
"Is it regret for having like a handful of people of color on Harry Potter?" responded one user. "Maybe you should have gone. Then you would have seen what representation looks like," replied another user.
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