An upsetting thought about the new HP

[valarltd]

This talks about a minor character and his story, and lycanthropy as a metaphor for gayness.



Throughout PoA and the other books, Lupin's lycanthropy can be read as a code for him being gay. I won't belabor the point. It's there to the point my 13, who is just starting to get subtext, can see it.

Now, we are introduced to the werewolf that bit (read: molested) Lupin when he was a child. We're told he prefers children so he can poison their minds against the wizarding world that casts them out.

If this isn't code for pedophilia, and the ugly notion that gays recruit children, I don't know what is.

We're told the wizarding society is so lycan-phobic it would send its children to live with werewolves rather than raise them, even with wolfsbane potion. We're told that werewolves are against civilization and actively working to destroy it.

And we're shown that the love of a good woman (Tonks, Fleur) can fix the gay lycanthropes and make them civilized. (OK, Bill probably won't transform, but I bet he'll go all wolfish)


I'm disturbed and starting to get pissed off. I'll see what Bunny thinks after she reads it, without saying anything about my ideas to her.

Comments

Going to disagree with you slightly

[jedi-penguin.livejournal.com]

I always read his lycanthropy as a coded form for AIDS. Since many people with AIDS are gay but certainly not all, it's possible to see Remus's gayness, or at least bi-ness (which I too absolutely believe) as irrelevant to his lycanthropy. If I'm correct in my reading, Fenrir can be read as a sexual predator who bit/infected Remus when he was too young to engage in safe practices. Bill is certainly a grown man when he is bitten, though the fact that Fleur is staying in a separate bedroom at the Burrows suggests that he has limited sexual experience. As for Tonks and Fleur, I'm not sure their gender matters so much as the fact that they are willing to accept people who have contracted a disease through no fault of their own that causes society to ostracize them.

I do understand where you're coming from, but it's just not a mapping that has ever leapt out at me. I do think we can agree, however, that Remus is meant to be The Other, and it is indeed disturbing that he was incorporated into The Other through a virtual pedophile.

[oxbastetxo.livejournal.com]

Whoa...umm...huh???

Not sure where all this is coming from, but never saw a bit of that in any of the HP books.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

You
1) weren't paying attention.
2) aren't gay.
3) don't do subtext.

A queer viewpoint on movies and books is very different from a straight one. Lupin's lycanthropy is generally accepted as code for gayness.

In fact, in the film of PoA (I haven't read the book in a very long time), he comments "They wouldn't want a...well, someone like me, teaching their children." Which isn't even coded anymore.

In HBP, he talks about Fenrir, the werewolf who made him, as one with a taste for children, and about his journeys among the lycanthropes.

It's all there, if you're reading from a queer PoV.

[oxbastetxo.livejournal.com]

Ummm....I was paying attention. I general pick up subtext, but this is reaching totally in my opinion and this is the first squeek I've heard of the "gay" issue with lycanthropy.

What the heck about "They wouldn't want a...well, someone like me, teaching their children." Which isn't even coded anymore.

Hun, that's not code for anything. It could be infered to "black/gay/unmarried/etc" add your flavor.

I think what we got here is the slash/straight persective. If you're looking for it, you find it whether it is there or not.

[jedirita.livejournal.com]

Well, but didn't Cuaron say specifically that he *did* see Lupin as gay? However, I don't think it's conscious on JKR's part. But there are many social stereotypes that she does perpetuate, at the same time that she's trying to be egalitarian. For example, she does show us some strong female characters, at the same time that she can be horribly...um, "traditional" in her depiction of sex roles.

But I do see your point, Val. (Or what is the short version of your name?) I hadn't quite thought about it that far.

On the other hand, Tonks's love does not change the fact that Remus is a werewolf. And he has always been shown as pretty civilized on his own.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

Rita, I'm Angel.

I answer to Val.

[jedirita.livejournal.com]

Ah, the confusion of noms de plume! And I have such a horrible memory for such things.

[orange852.livejournal.com]

I didn't see where any of that was portrayed as a good thing, but rather as a tragic waste of wizarding potential and illustrative of cowardice in the wizarding world.

I mean cowardice in the sense that they aren't taking the risk of standing up to the very real danger their infected children represent every full moon. If I recall correctly, the wolfsbane is fairly complicated (Lupin relied on the potions master rather than his own or any others' skills for it) and may not work 100%.

Taking the analogy another step, the entire wizarding world is gay, with lycanthropes as the AIDS infected and that Fenrir guy as a vilely evil pedophile. The analogy isn't perfect, since there aren't really any same-sex pairings (that I know of) in HP canon; a non-lycanthrope woman redeeming a lycanthrope man isn't quite the same as a het woman "straightening out" a gay man, unless the wolfy men in question cease to be lycanthropes.

If that's the case, then I might be a little miffed, too, but not about the "pedophilia," which I don't expect to see JKR portraying as anything but purely and flatly wrong.

[kc-anathema.livejournal.com]

I hadn't even thought of that (I'm so wrapped around the wheel about dark magic that I was blind to the werewolf thing), but that's a damn good point. There's a ton of stuff getting whitewashed and covered over in these books. A lot seems to be made of "shame" or "family name's" so that the wizarding world seems obsessed not just with blood but with reputation and how they're seen by everyone else. It's like the wizards on the "good" side are made up of mostly cowards. No wonder a handful of death eaters can wreak such havoc.

[chibisama.livejournal.com]

*shrug* I don't think Rowling would purposely put that there to be interpreted as such..

[loligo.livejournal.com]

I really do see what you're saying, but I don't think it reflects what JKR thinks, even her subconscious beliefs. I think it's a combination of the fact that she's rather deaf to subtext, and that she's always moving forward forward forward without pausing much to look back. I'm sure she thought of the whole lycanthropy thing as a metaphor for social prejudices in general (and homosexuality may have been one that came to mind), but when it came to Fenrir I'll bet she was just "Oh, I need something creepy here!" and when it came to the romances she was all "Oh, I need happy endings here [and have difficulty thinking out of the heteronormative box]". And it never occurred to her to actually see what the combined subtext of all these disparate bits were saying, because by then she was on to the next Thrilling Adventure.

She excels at propulsive plot momentum. She's not so great with coherent themes. Um, so I guess I'm saying she's not anti-gay, just a bad writer. ;-)

(Hey, we once discussed car-pooling to VividCon -- I'm heading out of town for a week and a half this afternoon, but if you're still into the idea, we can confer when I get back....)

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

I can't go to VVC, sorry.
My kids' school starts the same day as the con.