Please welcome our new contributor and resident geek, Jack, and his new bi-weekly column, Gay Geekery!

Yesterday, I went to see the IMAX release of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, which, for DCites, is playing with 3D segments at the AMC Hoffman Center in Alexandria, and without at the theater in the Natural History Smithsonian.  This was my second viewing – the first being the midnight show, obviously – and having already been stunned by the visuals and angered by the plot changes, I spent this round paying particularly close attention to the way Michael Gambon (and for that matter, the director, David Yates, and screenwriter,  Steve Kloves) portrayed the character of Albus Dumbledore.  Half Blood Prince is, after all, the first major release for the franchise since Jo Rowling outed the character at a Q&A panel in October of 2007, so I was keen to see how the revelation might be subtly integrated into the actor’s performance, or otherwise apparent on screen.

For a riff on the Merlin archetype, I have long thought Dumbledore was pretty whimsical, even – dare I say – flamboyant.  His taste for confection comes to mind and the fruity passwords to his office.  His name, “Dumbledore,” even hints at this attribute.  The word is apparently old Devon meaning bumblebee, which Rowling assigned to him because she pictured him strolling the halls of Hogwarts, humming merrily to himself.   In this film that characterization is definitely present.  One of my favorite moments was after he magically cleans up the house Slughorn which had been in hiding towards the beginning of the film and then chirrups, “That was fun….!”  Also notable was his sudden interest in Muggle knitting magazines and that fabulous scarf he was wearing in the flashback when he first met Tom Riddle.

Foremost though, I was struck by the two scenes in which Dumbledore shows a distinct interest in Harry’s burgeoning sexuality.  The first was when he comments on the woman flirting with Harry in the train station coffee shop and the second when he asks about Harry’s relationship with Hermione.  Obviously, I am quite biased, but I rather felt like both could be seen as small, endearing attempts to inquire if Harry might actually be like him.

Of course, all of this begs the question of whether one can ever effectively code a character as gay without falling back on a lot of stereotypes.  On the one hand, we want representation, but on the other, we don’t need every character to be a Tinky Winky (though I personally feel quite positive towards that particular little gender non-conforming monster).  Even the ideal of showing a range of LGBT personalities is unhelpful if it’s too ambiguous such that people can easily filter out the queerness altogether.

For Dumbledore, these stakes are even higher on two counts.  First, the character is one of the few examples of a high-profile LGBT elder in a media landscape mostly populated by gay club-going young adults and (appropriately) angsty queer teens.  This particular intersection is especially relevant in the contemporary political moment as the Baby Boomer generation is entering older adulthood and the unique challenges faced by LGBT older people begin to affect so many more in areas ranging from healthcare to housing, retirement plans that don’t benefit unrecognized spouses to assisted living facilities whose staff aren’t trained to respect gender identity.  Similarly salient is Dumbledore’s in-story vocation as a professor.  I have to believe that Rowling was making a strategic statement by casting the wisest, most nurturing teacher in the wizarding world as a gay man in light of the frequent flaps of gay panic over LGBT teachers in our own world.

With all of this potential riding on one character, perhaps it’s unsurprising that what I found in this film didn’t live up to my expectations nor did it answer my question about coding.  Ultimately, I don’t feel like we got much more gayness from Dumbledore in this flick than we’ve ever gotten on screen or on the page.  But the best may yet be to come.  Many have commented and Rowling has confirmed that the most telling textual indications of Dumbledore’s orientation lie in his past relationship with Gellert Grindelwald, which will certainly be explored in the next two films based on the seventh book.  It is my fondest hope then that Dumbledore’s sexuality, however subtextual, might make an impact on the broad audience Harry Potter has captured in the forthcoming final installments.