One of many artists' conceptions of Harry Potter and nemesis Draco Malfoy getting it on (type "Harry Draco" into images.google.com and you'll see many more where this came from). Harry-on-Draco stories ("fics") also abound on the Internet. (One of the many such "fics," titled "Unspeakable Thoughts," starts with "Chapter One: Unexpected Use for a Wand.")
Is Harry a homo?
Alternet.org is running an interesting article from the Boston Phoenix titled "What Is It About Harry?" (I like my title better) that examines, in some detail, the subversiveness of the Harry Potter books and right-wing "Christians'" crusade against the book series. The article's author, Michael Bronski, writes:
The Harry Potter books are, in a word, queer. As used today, "queer" means "homosexual," but it has larger connotations too. The word also suggests a more generally deviant, nonconformist, renegade identity. In its oldest, original sense, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (which recently added the word "Muggle" to its august pages), queer means "deviating from the expected or normal; strange" or "odd or unconventional in behavior." The Harry Potter books can be read as queer in the "gay" sense, but also in the broader sense.
The article is a compelling read, perhaps especially for me because I'm gay and I myself use the term "Muggle" to describe people who just don't get it (which is most people).
Bronski argues how Harry Potter could be seen as gay -- for instance, he is rejected and mistreated by his own family, who demand that he keep the truth about himself hidden, and he finds happiness with his own kind. But, of course, even the second "X-Men" movie goes there when Iceman "comes out" to his parents as a Mutant; and Professor Xavier's school for Mutants, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and gay and lesbian bars all have something in common: they're a refuge for people who are different from those who might harm them.
Still, Bronski compellingly writes of the homosexual angle on the Harry Potter books:
Sure, all this may seem like "reading into" the novels – which is, after all, what literary criticism does. But what are we to make of the fact that Harry, before he learns of his true identity, is forced to live in a closet? Or that before he learns of his acceptance to Hogwarts, he is preparing to go to Stonewall High School?
I must confess that I haven't read any of the Harry Potter books, but I did see both of the films. Harry Potter as portrayed in the films struck me as pretty asexual, but Draco Malfoy seemed to me quite possibly to be hot for Harry, although in a twisted way. While Harry seemed to be able to do just fine without Draco, Draco sure seemed to want to interact with Harry, and the scene in the second Harry Potter film in which Harry and Draco duel with their magic wands (see below) until they are spent -- well, you get the idea.
 
From Bronski's article one might conclude that by virtue of their sexual preference, all gay men and lesbians are witches and wizards and all straight people are Muggles. Not true. There are heterosexual wizards and witches, and lots of gay men and lesbians are Muggles. (I coined the term "Mugglefag" for a gay man who lacks a magic wand; a fairy without a wand is a sad thing indeed.)
As much fun as it is to think that the Harry Potter books are one of the many wily ways in which we fags and dykes ensnare our new, youthful recruits, in his article Bronski makes a point about the Harry Potter books that is much larger than Harry's possible homosexuality:
Children, before they are completely socialized, have vibrant imaginations and often a very finely tuned sense of alternative possibilities. They are, in a very real sense, queer.
They have to be taught how to become "civilized." Socialization involves mastering table manners and politeness, but it also concerns learning how to conform to the world's most terrible ways. Children have to learn racism – to hate or fear certain people because of how they look; they have to be taught that work is far more important than play and that pleasure is always suspect; they have to be taught that there is only one correct way to worship God and everyone else is going to hell; they have to learn that heterosexuality is the only acceptable form of sexual behavior, and that some forms of sexual pleasure are wrong.
They are taught to be normal – whatever that may mean – within the terms of the prevailing culture. They are taught to be Muggles. Is it any wonder evangelical Christians find the Harry Potter books threatening?
Blast from the past! Read my review of "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" (now on DVD), from Nov. 19, 2002, here.
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