Controversy

[prep0strus]

No: HPFGUIDX 178349

So, my initial reaction to the Dumbledore news could probably best be
described by an answer on a response poll I saw on some Harry Potter
website - 'Interesting.  Anyway...'

I agree with many of the responses that have come up - that it's nice
enough, not especially relevant, and slightly
backhanded/cowardly/pathetic/sensationlistic to not have it in the
actual books.  But mostly I thought it was about as important as the
other information - Neville married Hannah? Huh.  She does have a lot
of random facts in her head, though sometimes doesn't have the facts
we wish she had.

And I've mostly kept out of the discussion, because it's pretty well
covered on every angle, and I'm not really sure what to do with the
information - search through the books and look for instances that
might have been hints that JKR was throwing at us? Nah.  Also, message
boards are a difficult place to be tactful or express subtleties or
sarcasm, and a very easy place to be misunderstood, so I feel it would
not be hard to inadvertently insult someone on a personal level - and
since this started it seems like every other post has something in it
that has me wondering... is that an offensive comment, or am I reading
too much into it?

I think, though, at this point, I'm glad she said it.  I don't think
it adds that much to the book.  It certainly wasn't stunningly brave
or remotely offensive.  But the fact that it can dredge up this much
discussion probably achieves something she was never able to achieve
throughout her books.

She seems to so want them to be a treatise on prejudice and racism and
bigotry.  But it's all so obvious, so old, so played, that it's not
controversial in the slightest. (Unless you get into the whole
'Slytherin as secret underclass, books are actually PRO bigotry'
angle, which I don't believe was her point, and the subversive view
complicates this discussion.)  I mean, her clear analogy was with the
Nazis, and nobody is really going to be breaking any barriers by
declaring the Holocaust bad.  It's a nice enough message for kids,
that prejudice and bigotry are wrong, but she's not exactly
challenging anyone with it.  Racism is almost absent from the books,
and we have a fictional blood differentiation to stand in for racism.
 It works nicely and easily.

Then, this.  The reminder that there IS still bigotry and prejudice. 
And bigotry and prejudice that are not as unaccepted as many might
believe or hope.  We had protracted discussions about the 'soft
bigotry' of Slughorn, and whether his exclusionary tactics or slight
assumptions made him a bigot, albeit a softer, gentler, more quaint
bigot than the in-your-face bloodism of the Malfoys.

And yet, here we can see that for some, having a gay character - and
really, a character not even defined as gay in the text, can make the
series, for some, a 'gay' series.  It brings in worries about the 'gay
lifestyle'.  It makes the books as a whole, or at least parts of them,
 sexual and inappropriate.  This is regardless of the fact that it was
NOT like that when the character was an assumed heterosexual (or, as
he really seemed, asexual).  Because gay=sex. Gay=controversy. 
Gay=inappropriate. Or gay=distasteful.

Because it can still be, to some people, acceptable to say you would
not want to read or watch something because it contained someone gay
as a character.  Would it be the same for someone to say they didn't
want to read a book because there happened to be a black person in it,
or a woman, or a Hindu?  Because, since they were present, that would
mean the book was about the feminine lifestyle or the Hindu lifestyle,
or the black lifestyle.  Or to say that prejudice against people who
are gay is simply a difference of political opinion - again, can my
political differences mean I don't want to see, know, hear about or
otherwise acknowledge blacks, women, or Hindus?  Most political issues
and beliefs aren't really tied incontrovertibly with your race,
religion, gender, or sexual orientation.

So, in the end, JKR can have a little bit of what I think she strove
for.  She wanted to write something that would stand against bigotry
and for equality and acceptance.  And we'll be debating for years to
come how successful she was at that - whether the books are more for
children or adults, whether she's too trite, or whether she's actually
being subversive.  But the real controversy is that there is a group a
character can be a part of that some of her readers still would want
to exclude.  It may be disappointing that it's not part of the book
itself, as blended into the background as race and gender, so that the
focus on 'purity of blood' could more easily represent it, without it
being an actual issue with in the books... but by telling everyone
after the fact, she has done SOMETHING to say that her views on
prejudice and bigotry are universal, and the world she created
reflects that.  Again, how she did it and how successful it was is
another thing that will be debated for a long time. :)

But this is one of those times being on these boards really has
changed my mind about something.  I went from being pretty indifferent
to the news to thinking that something actually happened, based on the
responses here.  I don't think I'm exactly happier realizing that than
I was before, but it does open my eyes.  Even the most obvious
statements on prejudice become less obvious if you tap into certain
things.

Maybe the encyclopedia really will further open the world up and
inspire thought where there wasn't before.  Or maybe it will inspire
more stonewalled rejection.  Hard to say, I suppose.

~Adam(Prep0strus)