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Interesting article
Jul. 2nd, 2003 05:17 pm Harry Potter as Queer in all senses of the word
"That may sound ridiculous to most, but for the first time in its public-moralizing career, the Christian Right just might be – at least partly – right. The Harry Potter books are a threat to normally accepted ideas about the social welfare and good mental health of American children. Not because they romanticize witchcraft and wizardry, but because they are deeply subversive in their unremitting attacks on the received wisdom that being "normal" is good, reasonable, or even healthy.
The Harry Potter books are, in a word, queer. As used today, "queer" means "homosexual," but it has larger connotations too. The word also suggests a more generally deviant, nonconformist, renegade identity. In its oldest, original sense, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (which recently added the word "Muggle" to its august pages), queer means "deviating from the expected or normal; strange" or "odd or unconventional in behavior." The Harry Potter books can be read as queer in the "gay" sense, but also in the broader sense."
"That may sound ridiculous to most, but for the first time in its public-moralizing career, the Christian Right just might be – at least partly – right. The Harry Potter books are a threat to normally accepted ideas about the social welfare and good mental health of American children. Not because they romanticize witchcraft and wizardry, but because they are deeply subversive in their unremitting attacks on the received wisdom that being "normal" is good, reasonable, or even healthy.
The Harry Potter books are, in a word, queer. As used today, "queer" means "homosexual," but it has larger connotations too. The word also suggests a more generally deviant, nonconformist, renegade identity. In its oldest, original sense, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (which recently added the word "Muggle" to its august pages), queer means "deviating from the expected or normal; strange" or "odd or unconventional in behavior." The Harry Potter books can be read as queer in the "gay" sense, but also in the broader sense."
