Dumbledore’s sexuality has long been an area of debate in the Harry Potter franchise. Writer JK Rowling claims he’s gay, but there’s no evidence of it in the source texts so, for some, her word just isn’t good enough. After all, retrospectively claiming representation and diversity where it doesn’t exist seems like a way to back out of the arguments that Harry Potter is a book about white, straight people. When Harry Potter and the Cursed Child announced a black Hermione, Rowling was the first to claim that Hermione was never described as white in the books (an iffy assertion), but never is she explicitly stated to be a woman of colour. This retroactive diversity just isn’t good enough, and the recent news of the lack of representation of Dumbledore’s supposed sexuality in the Fantastic Beasts sequel only proves that such claims of representation are empty.
The excuses for not making Dumbledore explicitly gay in the original series at least make sense, even if they’re disappointing. The relationship he was supposedly in took place years before the timeline of the books and Dumbledore was dead (conveniently) by the time she announced he was gay. It reads a little like Rowling chose a character she could claim was queer without actually needing to write anything into the books that would concern conservative families and damage sales. But now that Fantastic Beasts has returned to a far younger Dumbledore, fans were rightly expecting this claimed representation to come to fruition on the big screen. When David Yates, director of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, admitted that Dumbledore would ‘not explicitly’ be gay, he claimed that the fans being aware of Dumbledore’s sexuality is enough. This wildly underestimates the impact of a visible gay character in the biggest media franchise of all time, which could have immeasurable positive effects on queer viewers.
Not putting inclusive characters in the Harry Potter books or films was a not just a mistake on behalf of Rowling, but potentially a calculated decision to maximise profits. Now Fantastic Beasts has presented an opportunity to right some wrongs, in an era where including gay characters in a film isn’t going to have a negative effect on box office sales, and Rowling and Yates are passing up the chance. Without having seen the film it’s impossible to say whether the extra-textual backstory Rowling ascribed to Dumbledore will be rewritten or not, but the lack of its inclusion at a time in the story when it would have been extremely relevant is enough to worry multiple fans, myself included. A quick scroll through twitter reveals some responses:
Choose your fighter but bullshit edition:
David Yates saying Dumbledore is not explicitly gay in Fantastic Beasts because “fans already know” vs. Rowling saying she didn’t write Dumbledore’s sexuality into the books because “it wasn’t needed”
— dilara (@elbirdilara) 31 January 2018
How is it that we can have MOONLIGHT win Best Picture last year, have a bunch of films representing the LGBTQ+ community this year be recognized with awards, but major films still won’t make a character explicitly queer?https://t.co/DO9oL9TR5M
— Josiah Wampfler (@JosiahWampfler) 31 January 2018
JK Rowling made a huge deal out of announcing Dumbledore was gay after she was done actually writing Harry Potter. Now, given the chance to write new Dumbledore stories with the Fantastic Beasts movies, his sexuality will … still not be explicit https://t.co/Tv8mjckAwl
— Christian Holub (@cmholub) 31 January 2018
Perhaps the film won’t disappoint in regards to queer diversity as much as this early interview seems to suggest, but right now it’s clear that inclusivity is not at the top of the list of what’s important to the Fantastic Beasts series. Between the queer-baiting in the Harry Potter franchise, the lack of any mention of non-straight sexualities in the books, and this newest revelation that the films will continue to be as conservative as ever, it makes me wonder how great an impact the franchise could have had if it had been as inclusive as Rowling would have us believe it was.