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

[threeoranges.livejournal.com]

Much as I wish I could say that children's literature should have moved past the era of "coded gayness" by now, I suspect JKR would never explicitly state whether Remus, or any character, was gay or bi. British children's series - C.S. Lewis, Enid Blyton - operate in a nostalgic fug where sexuality is just not mentioned as it destroys the illusion of youth and innocence. Not that it's not there in Blyton's MALORY TOWERS - the butch horse-riding Bill and her pretty femme friend Clarissa are an inseparable couple and even plan to go into business together by the end of the series! - but it has to be described as a "special friendship". Nothing more.

(Kannaophelia has written some brilliant Bill/Clarissa, btw, if you haven't already sampled the delights thereof.)

So, yes, British children's series tend to want to preserve the innocence of its characters: if gayness is mentioned, it's coded so that the reader sees only what s/he is capable of seeing and there's no suggestion that the young and impressionable child has been "corrupted".

As for Peter Pettigrew, maybe the twins thought the possessor of that name was a ickle Gryffindor in Ron's year?

[lasultrix.livejournal.com]

Um, more than a half-century has gone by since Lewis was writing, and longer since Blyton. How can you possibly lump these in with Potter in terms of social mores? Really, I might as well claim that desegregated schools wouldn't happen in modern American fiction.

[threeoranges.livejournal.com]

I get your point; I think I got lured into the comparison due to the nostalgic tone of the Potterverse with its veddy English boarding-school setting, class boundaries, formal titles for teachers etc. In this respect it hearkens back to the era of Lewis and Blyton, and I suppose one has to ask oneself why, if Rowling's about being relevant to the modern reader, she didn't make her magic academy reflect the modern comprehensive-school age. If a modern comprehensive-school setting for Hogwarts would suddenly make it seem a lot less "magic" - and it certainly would for to me - then one must admit that this historical setting is more appealing than the modern day, and that most of the appeal comes from the element of escapism. That is, I suppose, why the Lewis/Blyton comparison sprang to mind; Rowling seems to be the natural heir of that kind of towering children's fantasy, good versus evil, than of the Judy Blume school of YA! realism.

But, I hear you say, why can't Rowling incorporate elements of both? Why can't she deal with the big mythic questions of what it takes to be good, how to walk the best path in a turbulent time etc. AND tackle the kids' developing awareness of other people's sexuality and the controversial issues that raises as well? Well, she could, but that would probably switch the focus of her series from the big issues to smaller, more personal ones. Perhaps Harry did wonder about Professor Flitwick's choice of a flambuoyant Carmen-Miranda-esque cocktail in The Three Broomsticks, but for Harry's curiosity to dwell on the issue of Flitwick's sex life would imply an amount of leisure-time and freedom that he simply hasn't got. When one is fundamentally afraid for one's life, as Harry is, one has better things to think about than whether one's teacher sleeps with his own gender or not.

If you're wondering whether this implies a head-in-the-sand approach to sexuality on my part, I assure you this isn't the case; it's just that I can't see how Rowling could deal in the intensely personal question of her characters' active sexuality without switching her focus from the big issues she's been dealing in since now. Sexuality in a big epic tends to be treated in one of two ways: 1) hardly-mentioned-at-all or 2) so-important-it-becomes-the-focus-of-everything. It's distracting, and unless handled carefully it can also seem prurient. This is why I think Rowling's going to leave things "coded", just as Blyton would, rather than having a couple of men or women explicitly kiss in front of Harry.

[lasultrix.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Well, I think Rowling *has* been incorporating bits of both - you'd never get the whole Yule Ball thing, or Ginny's OotP string of boyfriends, in an older style of British school fic.

And I think it'd be easier than you think to incorporate canon homosexuality into the books without it necessarily being a big deal. It wouldn't even have to be onscreen. You could have Ron showing up wide-eyed and red-faced, Hermione hot on his heels berating him for staring slack-jawed at Lavender and Parvati kissing because, "it's rude!" and Ron saying "But... kissing!" and Harry saying "Lavender and Parvati?" and Hermione telling him, "Honestly, Harry, do you notice nothing that goes on?" and you could pretty much wrap it up there, having established that yeah, gay teenagers exist in Britain, it's not a big deal, and they exist in the wizarding equivalent too.

[threeoranges.livejournal.com]

Great idea! That would be an excellent way to introduce the subject in the Potterverse - keep it as "kissing", and laugh at anyone who objects. Child-friendly, instructive and it wouldn't turn things into "Harry Potter and his Sexual Odyssey".

Of course Rowling would probably get some backlash - the accusation of shoehorning in a "gay agenda" or of being too strait-laced to present a "here, queer, get used to it" character or of her selection of those characters to "represent" gayness (since you can find faults in virtually any HP character you care to mention) - but since anything she does will draw fire from some corner, that shouldn't stop her.

Now you've made me want to see it happen in the series!

[ellid.livejournal.com]

Actually, the twins said they had the map pretty much memorized when they gave it to Harry in his third/their fifth year. They'd already had two years to study it when Ron arrived at Hogwarts, so they probably wouldn't have needed/wanted to check out Gryffindor Tower, just the approaches to the secret corridors to check for faculty and staff.

Also, Ron seems to have carried Scabbers on his person a good bit - there are lots of references to Scabbers being in his pocket. In that case I'd think that the map would show "Ron Weasley" since Ron is physically carrying the rat, and would show "Peter Pettigrew" as a separate entity only when Ron was asleep.

Does anyone know if the ghosts show up on the map? If so, the twins might have thought Peter had become another Gryffindor ghost....

[analise.livejournal.com]

already had two years to study it when Ron arrived at Hogwarts,

yeah, but the rat was Percy's first, so if they'd been studying that hard, they would've seen him, because he would've been with/around Percy.