Ten years ago, author J.K. Rowling raised an eyebrow or two when she outed Albus Dumbledore, the wise old wizard in her moderately successful Harry Potter franchise. She revealed that Dumbledore was once in love with another wizard–Gellert Grindelwald–until the two had a major falling out and Gellert went to the dark side.
The next Fantastic Beasts film, which will be released later this year, introduces a young Dumbledore (Jude Law) as he pursues Grindelwald (Johnny Depp).
But not like that.
The film, called The Crimes of Grindelwald, begins after the two have had their epic falling out, with Dumbledore pursuing the now-fugitive Grindelwald in Paris.
How about we take this to the next level?
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But what would have been an amazing opportunity to explore the complexities of love, lust, desire, morality and loss will be no such thing.
Related: Power Couple Gandalf & Dumbledore Wed, Wizarding World Rejoices
The movie will entirely avoid the fact that Dumbledore had romantic feelings for the man he is now trying to apprehend.
When asked whether Dumbledore’s sexuality would even be mentioned at all in the film, director David Yates said:
“Not explicitly. But I think all the fans are aware of that. He had a very intense relationship with Grindelwald when they were young men. They fell in love with each other’s ideas, and ideology and each other.”
Talk about a missed opportunity.
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Yates added:
“[Dumbledore’s] a maverick and a rebel and he’s an inspiring teacher at Hogwarts. He’s witty and has a bit of edge. He’s not this elder statesman. He’s a really kinetic guy. And opposite Johnny Depp as Grindelwald, they make an incredible pairing.”
The dynamic would make for a better story, adding to the poignancy of Dumbledore having to hunt a now-evil Grindelwald across what is arguably the world’s most romantic city.
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This isn’t Freudian rocket science.
Rowling first outed Dumbledore in 2007, telling fans, “I always thought of Dumbledore as gay. Dumbledore fell in love with Grindelwald, and that added to his horror when Grindelwald showed himself to be what he was.”
Brody
A “Harry Potter” movie? Really?
Lordy, this is why I don’t identify as “gay” to people—they’ll automatically think I vote Democrat and watch RuPaul and read Harry freaking Potter.
Donston
I’m trying to figure out if this is sarcasm or trolling.
Basically, you don’t identify as “gay” because of sociology and ego? How are you expected to combat homophobia and stereotypes with this mentality? Because you’re just coming off like another stereotype. And when did Harry Potter become apart of “gay culture” in the least bit?
Nowuvedoneit
You don’t identify as gay because you’re a closeted bigoted conservative piece of garbage.
Kangol
Sounds like a wilting snowflake, terrified of what others will think.
Juanjo
Well Brody, in order to identify as gay, you would actually have to be gay. You aren’t. As for Harry Potter novels, your biggest problem there is that everyone identifies you with the Troll in the basement dungeon at Hogwarts which gets free. The resemblance is remarkable:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_v5g_GFm1W0
inbama
How you “identify” is BS anyway.
Attraction to men (androphilia) is a measurable physical trait.
If you are biologically male and androphilic, like it or not you are gay, homosexual or whatever similarly defined slur or euphemism you prefer.
Charlie in Charge
You get to identify however you choose; it’s your business. The fact that you belittle people for liking a TV Show or a book suggests you are rather small-minded and your opinion on the wider world isn’t worth considering.
aaparker
@Brody-I’m stunned by how much you are ruled by fear.
Donston
aaparker, that’s a rather pointed observation. Whether you feel orientation/identity should be driven by the degrees and dimensions of your attractions, arousals, desires, passions, romantic instincts, romantic satisfaction, preferences or some combo of those things it’s still too often driven by fear, sociology and/or ego, which makes the idea of self-identity sometimes problematic.
whitakerk861
Pop culture does not identify you other than vapid. Sexual attraction is that out of body experience you feel when you inexplicably fangirl on the inside about having sex with another person. Whether you choose to act upon your uncontrollable feelings is just that, a choice. It’s a constant internal battle of what your feel first and then choose to do. Good like controlling your feelings. What a silly comment.
Donston
I’m pretty certain he’s extremely gay-leaning and lives a strictly “gay lifestyle”. He just doesn’t want to deal with the trappings of a homo identity.
Donston
aka he’s just a self-hating wussy.
DCguy
No, you don’t identify as gay for two reasons.
1. You are just one screename from an anti-lgbt troll
2. Even if you were gay you are self hating enough to rabidly support politicians who actively seek to harm you. You hate all lgbt people and by extension yourself.
There, hope it helps queen.
newfomaniac
Oh hun. poor thing.
Faulk
What? I mean… What? What is going on with this comment…
Polaro
Don’t read the comments, it will only lower your opinion of gay people and the trolls that need them to feel relevant.
am_psi
I’m not really a Harry Potter fan, but just from a narrative perspective I’d think if you’re hunting a wizard super-villain and he happens to be your ex-boyfriend, that would probably come up in the story.
harricislife
I got linked to your comment via reddit and specifically created an account to reply because you’re kinda misinformed, and I get that with you being not an HP fan and all, but this whole thing is just getting blown out of proportion.
The thing is Grindelwald was never Dumbledore’s boyfriend, Dumbledore had feelings for him when they were young, Grindelwald might’ve manipulated those feeling for his gain, but the readers and the viewers don’t know the story behind it, don’t really know what happened, other than Dumbledore’s feelings and a tragedy occurring during their short time together, and I imagine it will be addressed to an extent in the upcoming films, which the next one is only the second of five.
Dumbledore is a very private person, so I don’t think he will or should be announcing his sexuality willy-nilly, or his past romantic feelings, it will definitely I think come to play in the latter movies, since in this one he is not really the main character.
Rowling does character development really well, and I think she will make sure Dumbledore’s sexuality is revealed as organically as possible, since he is her favorite character from HP, it will just not be in the second FB movie.
Ummmm Yeah
Not really when Rowling put out 87 books and never bothered to mention he was gay in them.
Sam6969
It makes me sick to think that in 2018, and because Harry Potter franchise is iconic for kids, we cannot even show remotely a love story between two men. The film director is probably afraid of some kind of boycott from the parents. That is sad.
ChrisK
It is. It’s like 1950 where you can’t even allude to something that’s relevant to the story. I’m sure this came from up higher then the director though. This is the studio afraid of losing..$
At least we have shows like Star Trek showing gay characters.
Sam6969
Yes, you are right about the producers being the first afraid of losing dollars.
Also, the HP fan above wrote Dumbledore’s romantic feelings will be shown later in the movies…I want to dream that too! It will happen!
Daniel-Reader
It’s called queerbaiting. Very old.
Donston
That’s pretty much how I took it as well when JK first revealed these details, and everything after the reveal just made it more obvious. Why bother even going there if you’re not going to put any of it in subsequent stories, plays or movies? Very old-fashion kind of queer/gay baiting.
Daniel-Reader
Donston, I agree completely.
Pistolo
When you think about it, gay people basically don’t exist in any movie that studios expect to make money from and if they do, they’re the butt of a joke. For instance “La Fou” (translation- the Fool) in Beauty and the Beast is a sycophant, desperately in love with the enemy and only very implicitly finds true love in the end but that’s not the function of his character. His inclusion in the story was considered almost radical by the press when, in actuality, it was nothing of the sort.
Then there’s this obsession Hollywood has with hiring straight actors to play gay characters and making the metric for success on the rare, hired gay actors dependent on how straight they can appear. Straight actors can appropriate gay culture for prestige and respect, gay actors have to grasp at either being convincingly straight or a caricature of themselves. It astounds me that in this culture where we talk about whitewashing, this hardly ever comes up. Get a politician who is secretly gay and the press loves that, hold them accountable for their role in the issue and they’ll ignore it all together.
JessPH
The real reason: CHINA
China banned all “promotion” of LGBT stuff in their TV and movies. And since China is the most populated country, they bring serious money to Hollywood films shown there. The producers of Harry Potter can’t afford to lose the Chinese market.
Kieran
David Yates: Profile in Cowardice.
Luc
Is this from an interview somewhere? I’d like to read the rest of it, if it is.
jcoberkrom
Sorry JK you were to wimpy to mention Dumbledore was gay in your books and now this. You need to step up or shut up!
DCguy
This is the same B.S. Hollywood ALWAYS uses.
There have been several movies about brilliant mathematicians’ or scientists.
A Beautiful mind,
The movie about Stephen Hawking
The movie about Allen Touring.
When the Touring movie came out, they tried to claim “Oh, well exploring any aspect of his being gay beyond acknowledgement would take away from the actual story
And yet in The Stephen Hawking film, AND A Beautiful mind a huge portion of the movie was taken up by their relationships with women.
Funny how it would only distract from the story when it isn’t a straight relationship. Same crap, different day.
Donston
I don’t think you mean the movie about Stephen Hawking. You’re probably thinking of The Imitation Game, which was about Alan Turing. He was a gay-identifying and gay-living man who went through horrific trials because of it. Yet, somehow the movie doesn’t even broach that. Hollywood believes that you can’t have a gay or gay-leaning lead in a “serious” movie or blockbuster movie unless it’s about the “lgbtq struggle” or it’s a gay romance. The movie has to be almost entirely about their orientation or identity. There’s very little progress on that front.
Nuttypea
They should mention it about as much as the original books did
milvinan
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