Monday, October 22, 2007

monday morning musings

It's Monday morning. Time for a few thoughts coming off the weekend.

Watching CNN this morning, I notice that the corner logo for CNN is green. A Google search on "CNN logo color" turned up this Digg for a site called TVNewser. Turns out the logo changed color on Friday. Now I'm trying to figure out if I went all weekend without watching CNN, or if I just didn't notice it until this now...

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One of my regular reads, Jay Voorhees' blog Only Wonder Understands first brought to my attention the "outing" of Albus Dumbledore, the well-loved major character from the Harry Potter series. Jay's headline, "I never saw this one coming...", captures my initial reaction.

I'm a pretty big Harry Potter fan, and I have to admit that my second response to Rowling's announcement was a bit of dismay. There are already too many well-meaning Christians who condemn the series based solely on the fact that it's about "witchcraft". Now undoubtedly there will be cries of "I told you so" from those who want to justify their condemnation.

Yup. Here's one early example, from an ABC News report:
One major anti-Potter crusader is Laura Mallory, a mother of four from Georgia, who made headlines earlier this month when she told the Gwinnett County Board of Education that the series was trying to indoctrinate children into the Wicca religion. In response to Dumbledore's outing, Mallory told ABC News that the Potter series has "an anti-Christian agenda," and, "this only further supports that."
I don't agree with Mallory. The Potter series does not have an anti-Christian agenda. Just the opposite, in fact.

What I can't understand is why Dumbledore's sexuality matters. I've read the entire series (more than once, excepting the final book), and it never occurred to me to even wonder about Dumbledore's sex life. I really never saw this one coming.

5 comments:

Jeff said...

Welcome to the blogging world - I see we were together in KC earlier this month.

Thanks for stopping by and for leaving a comment!

Rich H said...

Thanks, Jeff. I'm definitely "wet behind the ears" when it comes to blogging.

KC was great. I'm hoping I can get back again next year.

Beth Quick said...

hi Rich - thanks for commenting on my blog - you should check out the methoblog if you haven't, and request to get on the blogroll - you'll build some more traffic that way.

Anonymous said...

At first I thought the "outing" of Albus Dumbledore referred to his death. It was only after continuing to read with this misunderstanding that I discovered the "outing" was in reference to his sexuality.

Was there ever any implication throughout the books that his exuality, or the sexuality of ANY of the characters, mattered in one way or the other to the story Rowling was telling? I didn't infer any.

Nice blog, keep it going!

Rich H said...

Thanks, Janice.

Except for the dating lives of the students, and such things as the wedding of Fleur and Bill, sexuality does not enter into the story. At least not that I can think of. And I've read others commenting on this subject that make the same point.