Recently, at a book signing or somesuch place (the old Chef wasn’t exactly paying attention), J.K. Rowling (if you don’t know who she is, you must have spent the last several years living under a rock bigger than the Maitre d’s enormous potato-shaped head) announced (without too many parenthetical asides) that the beloved Headmaster of Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore, is gay. We here at the Buffet are going to leave aside the obvious snide innuendo about Dumbledore’s position with the school and be mature (for us, anyway). We will simply note that this is, to the world at large, no big deal. The irrational fundawhacko crowd has already burned every copy of the Harry Potter series within easy reach because of the fact that the books teach our children dark secrets like friendship, courage, and imagination (or maybe it was witchcraft…I always do forget what the Robertson/Falwell/Chick crowd gets so upset about), so it is unlikely that they can get any more fervidly opposed to anything that mad English woman writes. Exactly what effect this low-megaton bombshell will have on Rowling’s fan community is unclear, although it’s certain to throw the Harry/Snape slashfic writers for a loop or three.
As said before, the religious fundamentalist crowd has already denounced the Potter books as being wicked and vile, and can hardly do more than add another bullet point to their list of reasons the series should be banned from school libraries across the Bible Belt. “Oh, yeah, in addition to all this black magic and Satan worship, it encourages homosexuality! We always knew those wuz linked!” Their reaction is going to be predictable and monotonous.
The Chef, however, just wonders why Dumbledore’s leanings matter at all. Granted, I always figured that the old boy and Ms. McGonagal had something more than a mutual respect between then, and assumed that Albus and Minerva were knocking boots behind the scenes. But that’s most likely just the Chef’s own flaming heterosexuality making him see things that aren’t there. That, or perhaps she was just his beard, because the Malfoys and their crowd are homophobic (they used every other excuse they could find to get him fired, so why not add charges of bumping uglies with other men?). Before this turns into a serious discussion of the Potter literature, the Chef will steer this boat back to other, more treacherous waters.
You see, when homosexual characters show up on TV or in mainstream books, they tend to be little more than flaming stereotypes. The few who aren’t are usually, well, boring. I have no idea why that is, except to guess that the writers were so busy trying not to write a stereotypically “gay” character that they forgot to put anything resembling life into said character. Dumbledore, however, is neither a flaming stereotype (at least, that we know of – it’s possible he could have been sneaking out at night to go see the drag shows at a little dive called the Man Hole in Hogsmeade), nor is he boring (for the most part). While he sometimes comes off as a bit of a walking copyright infringement on Gandalf’s territory, Albus is an interesting character with a rich past and a defined personality. In the shadow of those, his sexual leanings are beneath notice.
I can hear the reaction from some readers now: “Beneath notice? But Chef, if someone’s gay, that’s a part of their personality and should be taken seriously!” In reality, one’s sex drive and relationships, no matter which team you bat for, define part of one’s life (not all of it, despite what the esteemed Herr Freud would say). In case you didn’t notice, the Potter books aren’t the really-real world (and if you think they are, you’re probably in the fundamentalist crowd who believe that the books contain true black magic spells – and the Chef for one is disappointed, as he was looking forward to learning the Cruciatus Curse). They’re fiction, and heroic fiction at that. And from the standpoint of heroic fiction, Dumbledore’s sexual preferences don’t matter much.
Dumbledore fills what we in the literary business call the role of the mentor. Like his counterparts Obi-Wan Kenobi, Gandalf, Hudson, and Morpheus, old Albus exists in the story to teach and protect the young hero (that would be Harry) so that when the time comes he’ll be ready to defeat the villain. Most of the time, the mentor character doesn’t get a love interest (Morpheus and Niobe in the Matrix movies notwithstanding – but by the time that one happened, Morpheus had become more of a sidekick or backup hero instead of a mentor), since their primary role in the story focuses on their (99% of the time) platonic relationship with the up-and-coming young hero. In short, most of the time, a mentor may as well be a eunuch as far as the story is concerned (lovely singing voice, though). This was probably the reason that the Obi-Wan/Anakin/Padme love triangle in the early drafts of the Star Wars prequels was dropped – it takes the focus off of the relationship between mentor and ward.
In the end, this revelation is an interesting tidbit that adds realism and diversity to the Potter world, but in a literary sense has no impact on the character or story. So why would Rowling even mention it?
Simple. She was asked, and answered.
She wasn’t asked specifically if Dumbledore might enjoy getting it on with sweaty men, but Rowling was given the question of whether or not Albus might have had feelings for another (female) character. After answering no, she went on to explain why that was, and got a favorable reaction from that crowd. Fine and dandy, but some people might ask why she had to even go on to mention it.
My guess is that the Potterverse may not be wrapped up as we thought. Rowling has already announced an encyclopedia of the series that will explain much of the background information, her thought processes, and additional material that didn’t make it into the books. Whether or not she’ll include sexual preferences in each characters’ entries is obviously up in the air, but I doubt that will be it. Rowling may well have in mind a prequel series chronicling the adventures of a young Dumbledore and his boyfriend (or partner, if you prefer – personally, the Chef has always thought the politically-correct terminology sounded too cold and sterile). Only time will tell.
For now, though, the reaction from most people is…ambivalence?
The Chef was born 856 years ago on a small planet orbiting a star in the Argolis cluster. It was prophesied that the arrival of a child with a birthmark shaped like a tentacle would herald the planet's destruction. When the future Chef was born with just such a birthmark, panic ensued (this would not be the last time the Chef inspired such emotion). The child, tentacle and all, was loaded into a rocket-powered garbage scow and launched into space. Unfortunately, the rocket's exhaust ignited one of the spectators' flatulence, resulting in a massive explosion that detonated the planet's core, destroying the world and killing everyone on it.
When the would-be Chef awoke from his torpor, he looked around at the new world he found himself on. His first words were, “Hey, this place sucks." Disguising himself as one of the planet's dominant species of semi-domesticated ape, the being who would become known as the Chef wandered the Earth until he ended up in its most disreputable slum - Paris, France.
Taking a job as a can-can dancer, the young Chef made a living that way until one day one of the cooks at a local bistro fell ill with food poisoning (oh, bitter irony). In a desperate move, the bistro's owner rushed into one of the local dance halls, searching for a replacement. He grabbed the ugliest can-can dancer he could find, and found himself instead with an enterprising (if strange) young man who now decided, based on this random encounter, to only answer to the name “Chef".
His success as a French chef was immediate (but considering that this is a country where frogs and snails are considered delicacies, this may or may not be a significant achievement). Not only was the Chef's food delicious, it also kept down the local homeless population. He rose to the heights of stardom in French cuisine, and started a holy war against the United Kingdom to end the reign of terror British food had inflicted on its citizens.
When the Crimean War broke out around France, the Chef assisted Nikola Tesla and Galileo in perfecting the scanning electron microscope, which was crucial in driving back the oncoming Communist hordes. It would later be said that without the Chef, the war would have been lost. He was personally awarded a Purple Heart by the King of France.
After that, the Chef traveled to America, home of such dubious culinary delights as McDonald's Quarter Pounder With Cheese. He immediately adopted the Third World nation as his new home, seeing it as his job to protect and enlighten it. When the Vietnam War began, he immediately volunteered and served in the Army of the Potomac under Robert E. Lee and General Patton. During the war, the Chef killed dozens of Nazis, most of them with his bare hands.
Marching home from war across the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, stark-naked and freezing, the Chef wound up on the shores of Mexico. He spent several years there, drinking tequila with Pancho Villa and James Dean. He put his culinary skills to the test when he invented the 5,000-calorie Breakfast Chili Burrito With Orange Sauce (which is today still a favorite in some parts of Sonora).
Eventually, the Chef returned to his adopted home of America, where he met a slimy, well-coiffed weasel who was starting up a new kind of buffet - one dedicated to providing the highest-quality unmentionable appetizers to the online community. The Chef dedicated himself to spreading the word of his famous Lard Sandwich (two large patties of fried lard, in between two slices of toasted buttered lard, with bacon and cheese), as well as occasionally writing about his opinions on less-important topics than food.
Every word of this is true, if only in the sense that every word of this exists in the English language.
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