odds :: Gay characters in YA lit :: ends

[pauraque_bk]

eponis asked a good question the other day: Didn't Fred and George ever wonder why this bloke named Pettigrew was always shown on the map in Ron's dorm?

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scarah2 has a post on the perennially popular topic of whether particular characters may be gay in JKR's mind, regardless of whether she'll ever tell us so.

This put me in mind of a discussion keladryb and I recently had on the subject, more focused on whether JKR can/would explicitly state that a character is gay in the books. I'm not sure what purpose it would serve, beyond diversity for the sake of it. Remus is already figuratively queer, so it would seem a bit odd to make him literally queer as well, wouldn't it?

We agreed that JKR can write whatever she wants; no one could possibly stop her. We also discussed the precedent of gay characters in children's/young adult literature. Kel brought up Annie On My Mind, one of the very first YA novels about gay characters.

I've read Annie On My Mind, and it was pretty frank for the age-bracket it was aimed at. With that as a standard of what's acceptable, allowing Remus Lupin to be gay as a small part of an epic series seems like something that should be taken in stride.

Yet, it doesn't feel like it would be taken that way, at least not to me. We talked about the fact that Annie On My Mind is not just a novel with gay characters, it's a gay novel. You'd know that as soon as you read the back cover. It's in its right place on the Gay Interest shelf, where it's easy to avoid if you don't like it.

But mentioning at this point in the HP series that Remus is gay -- that's quite different. It tells us that he's a human being first, a teacher, a wizard, an expert on dark creatures, a person who makes mistakes -- all these things first, and then he also happens to be gay. It tells us that being gay isn't the end-all-be-all of someone's personality and life experience. It tells us that there isn't a great divide in the world with all the gay people conveniently Over There on their proper shelf where you don't have to see them (separate but equal).

And that's what I think would cause the controversy if JKR did decide to tell us Remus is queer. Even if it was only a passing, minor point -- perhaps especially if it was a minor point -- the message that being gay simply isn't anything to get worked up about is something I think a lot of people would have a huge problem with in a very mainstream YA series.

Any thoughts?

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On a totally different note: If you, like so many of us, are possessed by an unexpected love for movie!Remus, go here to add 'lupin's cardigan' to your interest list.

Comments

[wootsauce.livejournal.com]

I think this is a lot more likely than the happyland idea, if only because of pureblood-agenda related political reasons. I think a lot of writers WANT it to be a sort of utopian environment, and I think the early books really present Hogwarts that way, whatever the events and anything else may actually indicate. The fact that it's not *entirely* a made-up world makes me expect problems.

[maidenjedi]

The fact that it's not *entirely* a made-up world makes me expect problems.

That, and as we get a wider view of the wizarding world, we're learning that the only real difference between it and the Muggle/"real" world is the practice/existence of magic. All the usual societal problems, concerns, values, politics, etc. exist in the wizarding world as they do in the world *we* inhabit.

YA authors have two options - to ignore the realities of the world their readers inhabit, or to incorporate those realities. I think there's even a third option, and that's to turn reality into allegory and leave it to the discerning, more mature YA reader to dissect. Stories are stories when we're very young, and as we get older the same stories become lessons. Rowling doesn't have to educate youth on tolerance for specific real world things, since she's busy doing it for Potter-world things that parallel or allegorize real world issues. But as fanfiction writers who largely take from the imaginative, pure-story aura of our source material, we're more inclined to whitewash and write about a utopian 'verse that we prefer to see (the step *after* stories exist as education).