So Albus Dumbledore has been outed, albeit posthumously, the poor, closeted old thing. You’d think gays would be more welcome at Hogwarts, wizards themselves being a misunderstood minority. No doubt, as in most minorities, the wizard-rights activists wanted to work on their main goal before addressing the rights of the doubly despised homos among them.
Of course, the Muggle explanation is that author J.K. Rowling had enough trouble being a satanic influence on innocent kiddies. If she’d worked the homo angle in to the books, she’d have lost sales, poor, struggling girl that she is. Every million counts when you have children to feed.
But in either world, Dumbledore ended up doing what gay people have always wanted to do: He achieved success in his chosen field without controversy about his sex life, which had nothing to do with his career.
Whatever his predilections, Dumbledore is known foremost for his accomplishments as a great wizard, just as Margaret Thatcher is remembered less for being the first woman Prime Minister of England, and more for what she did as P.M. Granted, a lot of what she did was horrible, but even at that, she achieved the dream of all minorities — recognition for what she did, not for doing it as an interesting test case.
I wish we valued achievement more when choosing our gay icons and idols. Alas, we tend to mistake fame for achievement, and so any poll for our most influential or most admired or favorite gay people is always topped by Ellen DeGeneres and Rosie O’Donnell. When SoVo recently asked five readers "Who do you think is an important figure in gay history?" for The Q, a weekly person-on-the-street poll, two listed Ellen as their first choice.
Ick.
As Ms. Rowling did with Dumbledore, both Ellen and Rosie waited until they had piles of money in the bank before revealing the obvious. How brave. Since then, Rosie has forsaken the comedy that justified her fame, and forged a career as an obnoxious blow-hard, at once self-aggrandizing and desperate for attention.
Ellen has done some admirable work since her big belated announcement, but when all’s said and done, the highlights of her Wikipedia entry are likely to be: 1) that she blamed the demise of her sitcom on bigotry, rather than the fact that, post-outing, it got all preachy and god-awful dull, and 2) that in the midst of her bland chat show, she came completely unhinged on global television, blubbering over a dog adoption snafu as if she’d just accidentally shot her own mama.
But every cloud has a silver lining, and the dubious success of these two can be seen favorably if looked at in the sickly light of the Thatcher Effect. That is, their fame springs not from their being abrasive and/or crazy lesbians, but simply from being abrasive and/or crazy. Their individuality has surpassed their sexuality. Yay.
STILL, THE GAY population admires these two, despite the fact that they’re not very admirable. Our biggest idols have feet of something that might be mistaken for clay, if it didn’t smell like something the dog left behind. Lionizing them is like the National Organization for Women championing Britney Spears as an example of women’s achievement.
Rosie and Ellen are arguably the most glaring stars in the Homoverse, but can we not find something of deeper value than mere fame as the basis for our admiration and aspirations?
We’re so fond of pointing out that there are gays and lesbians (bisexuals, even!) in all walks of life. There are doctors and politicians and teachers and artists — people who actually do things, who create and improve and educate and help.
Why are these people not revered? Why do we not value and laud them, instead of television stars who act like black holes, sucking up attention and giving out nothing?
Fame is not achievement. Nielsen ratings are of value only to advertisers. If people like Ellen and Rosie are our guiding lights, I dread to think where we’ll end up.
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God bless you, Albus Dumbledore, wherever you are.
