ROWLING OUTS DUMBLEDORE

On Friday night, J. K. Rowling spoke about Harry Potter to a select audience at Carnegie Hall. I happened to walk by the building around 5:30 pm and see heavily armed police officers outside, by the subway entrance.

By now you probably know that, during her talk, Rowling revealed that she "always thought of Dumbledore as gay." (The transcript is being finessed at The Leaky Cauldron.) This will probably provide fodder for discussion for many years, including lots of jokes for late night comics. I myself would like to make some joke about trolling for Larry Craig in a Hogwarts bathroom, but it's getting late. I will note that, although there has already been some criticism of Dumbledore as representing something of a negative gay stereotype, I think his character is more of a well-rounded gay stereotype.

And this (approximate) statement from Rowling shouldn't be ignored:

The Potter books in general are a prolonged argument for tolerance, a prolonged plea for an end to bigotry, and I think it's one of the reasons that some people don't like the books, but I think that it's a very healthy message to pass on to younger people that you should question authority and you should not assume that the establishment or the press tells you all of the truth.

You can find some commentary at Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch Blog.

Photo (from July 21, 2007): David Marc Fischer