runic knight said:
JimB said:
Politrukk said:
JimB said:
faefrost said:
It's like the whole Harry Potter "Dumbledore is gay" thing. What [does] it matter? It in no way informed the story.
What did the whole "Harry, Ron, Hermione, every Weasley, Malfoy's dad, Harry's parents, Harry's aunt and uncle, and anyone else I'm forgetting are straight" thing do to inform the story? What does their sexuality matter? Shouldn't Ms. Rowling have left all their sexual orientations undefined for gay, bisexual, pansexual, and otherwise queer people to project onto?
What a silly thing to say...
Harry and Ron's parents are parents in the traditional sense M/F stereotype meaning they had to be heterosexual, same goes for Draco's.
I am not the one who set the ground rules for this method of determining what is and is not to be included in a story. Sexual orientation can, according to faefrost's rules, only be included if it informs the story; and in this context, to inform the story means to permeate or pervade with manifest effect. How does it matter that Harry's parents are male and female? The only thing that serves the story of "good wizard vs. bad wizard" is that one of his parents blessed him with protection; nothing about their monogamous, heterosexual relationship serves that story. Likewise, the only thing that matters about "good wizard vs. bad wizard" that is served by Ron's home life and his heterosexual parents is...nothing, actually. All of that probably should have been left out, by the standard being argued for.
Now, you might argue that these relationships don't directly permeate the story and shouldn't need to because they enrich the characters and make them more robust and three-dimensional, but if you do that, you must be prepared to demonstrate how only heterosexuality is capable of such a feat.
I thought the point of raising the complaint with the Dumbledore example was more about how that character's sexuality was entirely a non-issue in the story itself and seemed like it was tacked on after the fact and pushed for publicity by some like a freakshow attraction. Not that only heterosexuality can enrich a character, but the question of why make a big deal of their sexuality when it doesn't affect the story any more than Argus Filch being straight. Now compare that to another trait of that character that DOES affect the character, how they interact with the world and what their motivations are, like the fact Fitch was a Squib. In the harry potter world, the character not having magic would be a lot more important to note, especially given the themes later on in the books. No one cares what gender Fitch is attracted to (though his relationship with his cat may raise eyebrows), it doesn't affect the story in any way, so no one bothers to mention it. Yet the gay character is treated different when the trait has the exact same amount of effect on the character and story. Really not hard to see why people would point it out as an example of doing things poorly.
Character relationships and sexuality can give depth and complexity to characters, but being done when lacking a point should be noted as just that as well. Ron's family life being so much better then Harry's was demonstrated by the loving family environment. Harry's parents relationship showing he was a wanted child but tragedy happened demonstrated the evil of Voldemort in taking it away. The sexuality of the relationships there actually don't matter in context of the story (Harry could have been adopted by gay parents, Ron's folks could have been a gay couple, the points of those parts of the story would have been the same there.) But the relationships, even harry's own attractions and relationships, demonstrated the character's personality and growth over time.
What did Dumbledore being advertised as gay after the fact actually do for the story though? How did it enrich the character any more then knowing their favorite color? Honestly, it doesn't, all the enrichment of it stems from public perception of the trait itself, not how or why the trait impacts and gives dimension to the character. And that is probably why people call it out. The promotion of a trait that affects nothing in the character or story but still being treated as important.
Tying that in to this question answered, given the use of the trait as a crutch or quick "look at me" sort of thing, I can see why people would take one look at this news and think to themselves that it is the same situation of a character being given a trait of sexuality for no other reason then an appeal to a subset of the audience and feel patronized to for it. Add into that the fact the trait is not unique (there has been both canonical and non-canonical examples of gay characters) and that it is coming from someone that I am pretty sure is much less attached to the project then last time around, and it really does look like some sort of baity, publicity-generating statement of the same sort as a trashy hollywood gossip story. "You'll never guess which starwars character was discovered to be gay! Click here to find out."
But you are suddenly changing the dynamic because what was written for 7 books does not include the "gay parents" it very specifically specifies that Lily is a woman and that James is a man and that Severus Snape vied for Lily's affections leading him to become the character he is.
A lot in Harry Potter actually IS tied to classic gender roles.
The problem is that JK Rowling basically invokes Death of the author upon herself both with Black Hermoine,Non Ginger Ron and Gay Dumbledore.
As in the Author JK Rowling that wrote the original 7 books is apparently dead because despite her expressive writing style and the character design choices that she made with the movies coming out.
JK Rowling as an author and in the original books is a very expressive writer she takes every pain and detail to show us that the Weasleys are Ginger that Draco Malfoy is blonde (Actually the entire Mud-blood thing could be interpreted as a race issue where someone like Malfoy fits the blond hair blue eyes stereotype and these others are called MUD-blood mud=brown to my knowledge).
She shows us that Lupin loves Tonks, that Ginny loves Harry,That Fleur loves her Weasley, that Severus loves Lily,etc.
She shows us very clear features for many characters.
Both Hermoine suddenly being black and Dumbledore being gay within her writing style would have featured prominently it is impossible to take how the books were written and then claim from that source alone we should have interpreted it as such.
Rowling is re-interpreting her own work which means she should either amend it:
1 She could write a "Rita Skeeter Article" about Dumbledore's diary being found or something of the kind in which he expresses that he's gay and adding that as "canon" (although this is a bit sketchy).
2 If it's so damn important she could write a pre-quel written from Dumbledores perspective where we actually see him identifying as a gay man.
3 She could re-write the books to suit these new changes (very bad choice to my opinion).
Rowling currently seems to be either A badly and falsely using controversial topics to draw attention back to her work B To be abusing her own writing with bad re-interpretations and additions to illustrate her current opinion on sociopolitical issues.
Back on topic:
I wholeheartedly agree with your view on Abrams's comments.
In our modern society explicitly stating that you're including a gay or a black person just feels like you're doing it for the attention.
Why not cast 5 gays 2 blacks 5 women and then let us see the movie and find out?
Drawing attention to either the character being played being gay or the actor playing the character being gay is doing it for the attention.
Ser Loras Tyrell is uncontroversially gay, Renly Baratheon is uncontroversially gay and Jim Parsons is a gay man that uncontroversially plays a socially awkward straight man in Sheldon Cooper.
There's no reason to point out every gay character in GoT because there are many and it is acceptable.
