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Behind the Aegis

(53,831 posts)
Thu Jun 7, 2018, 12:30 AM Jun 2018

(LGBT Group) Meaningless off-screen queering has got to stop

Once upon a time, way back in the nearly forgotten days of 2007, J.K. Rowling dropped a big gay bomb on her adoring fanbase. Albus Dumbledore, beloved patriarch of Hogwarts and guiding weirdo of the Harry Potter franchise, was gay the whole time. People freaked out. It made conservatives uncomfortable. It gave the LGBTQ community a little sliver of hope. It made fanfic writers explode with new works. It cast Dumbledore's relationship with Grindelwald in a new light.

What it didn’t do was increase queer representation. Not in Harry Potter, and not in the world. A character who is not queer on screen, either by word or deed, does not actually do any of that work. In effect, this is the action of a creator who wants the credit for being inclusive while performing none of the labor and experiencing none of the drawbacks.

This seemed like a one-time thing, and the ongoing conversation about how unfair this deal was should have ensured that we never saw this strange new breed of queerbaiting again.

Narrator voice: It happened again.

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