Dumbledore es gay...¿importa?

JK Rowling

Hace días se desató un escándalo en los medios de comunicación porque la escritora JK Rowling, autora de la saga de Harry Potter, afirmó a un público en Nueva York que Dumbledore, el gran mago y director de Howarts, era gay.

Edwards Rothstein escribe hoy en The New York Times sobre si realmente importa que Dumbledore sea gay, y analiza porque la autora tomó la decisión de revelarlo. Copio lo más importante del argumento:

There is really a puckish impulse at work in Ms. Rowling’s declaration, a provocation evident in the books themselves. She sets the epic in a British school long associated with landed privilege and wealth. But throughout she undercuts the claims of that old world. Those who believe in the importance of ancestry and inherited powers turn out to be easily corruptible and morally blind — tools for Voldemort.

Her heroes are the hybrids, the misfits, those of mixed blood, all bearing scars of loss and love: the half-giant Hagrid, the mudblood Hermione (whose parents were not wizards), the poverty-stricken Ron, the orphaned Harry. Perhaps speaking of Dumbledore as gay was just a matter of creating another diverse rebel against orthodoxy.

This is the formula for much popular fiction, but Ms. Rowling refuses to be content with simply rejecting the old order and championing a morally vague multiculturalism. The pure-bloods here are blinded by their pride, but Harry and his friends see something more profound, a threat that goes beyond self-interest and identity. This is why Dumbledore’s supposed gayness is ultimately as unimportant as Ron’s shabby clothes. These wounded outsiders recognize the nature of evil, and finally that is what matters.