Home > Blog > » Harry Potter

Harry Potter on The Cracked Blog

Ian’s Unnecessary News Roundup

Thursday, January 17th, 2008

Okay folks, time to set aside such weighty matters as Tom Cruise’s gun, Val Kilmer’s gut, and the amazing vocal talents of Gladstone, and once again turn your attention to those matters least deserving of attention… the Unnecessary News!

un_burt.gifAsshole Adonis: Mustachioed macho-man Burt Reynolds told reporters recently that he hates looking at pictures from his 70s-sex-god days because they make him look like “an asshole.” The Cannonball Run II star much prefers recent photos, which make him look like an asshole with a really shitty facelift.

un_brit5.gifNothing and Nobody: In accordance with my solemn vow of January 4th, nothing reportedly happened to no person this week, much to the shock of no one. Despite the fact that Starpulse is clearly baiting me, I steadfastly report that no half-unclothed person made any non-statement to any public employees regarding said lack of clothes or that non-existent person’s attractiveness, nor wrote any suicide notes, nor purchased any reproductive diagnostic tests at any time. It just didn’t happen!

And finally, in the item voted “Most Likely to Earn Me a Death Threat”:

un_pope.gifPapal Bull: Just in time to be ten years too late, Pope Benedict XVI has lashed out at the colossally successful Harry Potter franchise. The Supreme Pontiff (shown here in his “Bad Santa” costume) argued in the Vatican’s newspaper L’Osservatore Romano that the popular books and films could lead children towards an “unhealthy” interest in Satanism, and away from healthier pursuits such as giving priests handjobs.

Unnecessary, I tell you!

Posted in Celebrities are Beautiful, Harry Potter, Religion, Shmitney Shmears, Unnecessary News | 9 Comments »

He Wears a Blue Robe to Work. Of Course He’s Gay.

Monday, October 22nd, 2007

Dumbledore being fruity.The wordsmiths over at Entertainment Weekly just published this glittering narrative description of a recent J.K. Rowling reading and Q and A session. The article joyously depicts the breadth of the evening and the bustle and merriment of the crowd of scrub-faced youth, all sweepstakes winners, who turned out to applaud the author and ask probing questions about their favorite members of the wizarding world. Fortunately, you don’t have to read any of that shit, because the important information is in the article’s headline: DUMBLEDORE IS GAY.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Just because the elderly wizard who shepherded young waif Harry Potter from tender boyhood into manhood is a homosexual doesn’t mean he was necessarily molesting him. It just gives a million slashfic writers justification for assuming so. It also opens the door for a staggering array of inappropriate uses of the word “wand.”

But when all is said and done, does it really change anything if Dumbledore’s beard is white for a reason? YES, J.K. Rowling, it does! Now I’m probably not qualified to tell a billion-copy selling author how to do her job, but here I go: Dumbledore is in the Harry Potter stories for one purpose and one purpose only. Namely, to be the elderly wizard/father figure. He’s a goddamned ARCHETYPE.

He’s not a person; he’s a character, and there’s a big difference between the two. It was bad enough he got a back-story; making us imagine him in any kind of sexual situation is like writing in a scene where Voldemort goes to a magical burrito place (it’s called El Wizardito’s) and has diarrhea all night. Sure, it could happen, but it completely undermines his image.

Although to be fair, at least Rowling set us up for this revelation. If you reread some of those early books, the clues abound:

  • The way Dumbledore is always described as moving “mincingly.”
  • The fact that Dumbledore has a pet phoenix, widely recognized by historians as the gayest mythological bird.
  • How Dumbledore’s staff is described in one passage as “carved in the style of a phallus and worn as if from constant and vigorous private use.”
  • The fact that his name is Albus.
  • The scene at the end of Azkaban where Dumbledore blows Snape.

    • Of course I thought nothing of any of this at first, but now that Rowling’s confirmed the wizard’s sexual orientation, it’s hard not to see the signs, subtle though they may be.

    Posted in Gay, Harry Potter, books | 18 Comments »