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With the new Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 1 movie debuting here in the U.S.A. this weekend, this post couldn't wait.
Yesterday, on Facebook, I saw this quiz:
Your Harry Potter Boyfriend (Girls Only)
Girls Only?
Why?
Why make this fun quiz about which fictional character would be someone's boyfriend only okay if you're heterosexual? Why leave the gay boys out of it?
With the Yule Ball coming up, why can't WE say which Harry Potter guy we'd like to ask us? (There are lots of options...)
The only possible purpose "Girls Only" serves is to reinforce the idea that even in the magical alternate universe of Harry Potter, it's only girls that are supposed to crush on boys.
Come on, people - Dumbledore is Gay, as J.K. Rowling stated though sadly, really only addressed head-on outside of the seven books:
JKR: My truthful answer to you... I always thought of Dumbledore as gay. [ovation.] ... Dumbledore fell in love with Grindelwald, and that that added to his horror when Grindelwald showed himself to be what he was. To an extent, do we say it excused Dumbledore a little more because falling in love can blind us to an extent? But, he met someone as brilliant as he was, and rather like Bellatrix he was very drawn to this brilliant person, and horribly, terribly let down by him. Yeah, that's how i always saw Dumbledore. In fact, recently I was in a script read through for the sixth film, and they had Dumbledore saying a line to Harry early in the script saying I knew a girl once, whose hair... [laughter]. I had to write a little note in the margin and slide it along to the scriptwriter, "Dumbledore's gay!" [laughter] "If I'd known it would make you so happy, I would have announced it years ago!"
Shouldn't it be okay if us fans are Gay, too?
Let's notice how even in our fandom, prejudice can thrive - and let's address it.
Come on, fellow Harry Potter fans, recognize and celebrate that some of us are GLBTQ. And with that sense of larger community, enjoy the movie.
Namaste,
Lee
4 comments:
Thanks for posting on this, Lee. I also saw this on Facebook and was horrified.
What could be the possible rational behind this? It's so silly and so stupid to be exclusionary on a FB quiz of all things!
Still so much work to do, isn't there?
Thanks Anne. And yes, Colleen, there is still much work to do - but at least we're talking about it, pointing it out, and starting to notice it.
That's how change starts.
Namaste,
Lee
It's not the first time I see a quiz on FB that excludes one sex in order to keep the results heterosexual.
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