by Mikah Mazza
I always thought of Dumbledore as gay!” author J. K. Rowling announced in 2007. A Carnegie Hall audience of Harry Potter fans erupted in applause. Invigorated, Rowling continued: “In fact, recently I was in a script read-through for the sixth film, and they had Dumbledore saying a line to Harry early in the script saying I knew a girl once . . . I had to write a little note in the margin and slide it along to the scriptwriter, ‘Dumbledore’s gay!’ If I’d known it would make you so happy, I would have announced it years ago!” (Rowling qtd. in Grossman). For some, this declaration of representation was welcome at a time when LGBTQ+ characters were notably absent in the media, but some weren’t ready to accept only the author’s word on Dumbledore’s identity. After all, in the Harry Potter books, “there is nothing overt—no coming out, no love interests, and no clear hints—that would suggest that Dumbledore would be sexually attracted to men” (Nordin 37). Rowling was, as Lev Grossman put it for TIME Magazine, “continuing to muck around with the books after she wrote the final words. If she really wanted Dumbledore to be gay . . . why didn’t she just write him that way?” (Grossman).
That announcement and the succeeding events marked a significant moment in the broader discussion surrounding queerbaiting in twenty-first-century media. As defined by Oxford English Dictionary, queerbaiting is “the incorporation of apparently or potentially LGBTQ characters or relationships into a film, television show, etc. as a means of attracting or appealing to LGBTQ audiences, while remaining deliberately . . . ambiguous about the characters’ sexuality” (“Queer baiting”). The character of Dumbledore hadn’t initially existed in a queer context—at least not explicitly in the universe Rowling had created. Fanmade stories and artworks, on the other hand, consistently placed her characters in queer identities and relationships. Wired journalist Emma Grey Ellis asserts that “Fan fiction, especially . . . Harry Potter fanfic circa 2007, has always been a space for queer storytelling. Rowling was adding canonized kerosene to a spark that was already there” by giving fans a queer character to weave into their already queer stories (Ellis).
More than a decade after the famous wizard’s outing, in 2018 “the discussion shifted . . . to how Dumbledore’s sexuality would (or would not) be portrayed in the upcoming movie Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald,” in which the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald’s past would be explored in depth (Nordin 37). At Carnegie Hall in 2007, Rowling had explained “that she saw the relationship between Dumbledore and Grindelwald . . . as a romantic one” (Coggan). A new film about Grindelwald’s history meant an opportunity to see Dumbledore’s sexuality explored, which hadn’t happened in the books (or subsequent movies) because they hadn’t been written with that intent. The fans excited at the confirmation of a gay character were ecstatic at the chance to see him onscreen. Naturally, Fantastic Beasts director David Yates fielded numerous questions regarding the depiction of Dumbledore. Would he or wouldn’t he be openly gay?
“Not explicitly,” Yates replied when asked if the film makes it clear that Dumbledore is gay. “But I think all the fans are aware of that. He had a very intense relationship with Grindelwald when they were young men. They fell in love with each other’s ideas, and ideology and each other” (Hibberd).
Scholar Emma Nordin gives a detailed account of the ensuing controversy. “People reacted with anger and disappointment,” she writes, “calling it ludicrous that [Dumbledore’s sexuality] would be ‘not explicit’ and questioning what exactly that meant… For people familiar with queerbaiting, Rowling’s response is nothing unusual” (Nordin 37). Rowling had informally established the wizard’s sexual identity, but fans wanted to see it displayed on screen instead of only hearing about it through her words. It’s true that a gay character in such a popular book series would have been revolutionary in 2007. This historical context could even explain why Rowling never wrote Dumbledore in such a way; the first Harry Potter book was released in 1997 into a world that didn’t yet widely accept LGBTQ+ individuals or representation of their identities. What is tougher to explain is why in 2018, as society became kinder toward the LGBTQ+ community, and when The Crimes of Grindelwald was in production, that movie wasn’t utilized to exhibit what Rowling claimed of Dumbledore’s identity years ago.
Dumbledore’s depiction in The Crimes of Grindelwald harkened back to an earlier era of film, when a production’s survival often necessitated deniable queer representation. Until the late 1960s, US film production was self-censored according to the rules of the Hays Code and as late as the 1990s, producers in the US might have faced “legal and social” repercussions for displaying queer content in media (Nordin 26). Written in 1930 by Will H. Hays, chairman of the Motion Picture Distributors and Producers of America, the Hays Code presented over twelve pages of content restrictions with their rationales. While following the Code was technically optional, studios tended to adhere to it “as a convenient means of staving off pressure groups” (Brooke). Within the code, romantic and sexual scenes were required to depict “pure love,” defined as “the love of a man for a woman permitted by the law of God and man,” not only limiting love to (male-dominated) heterosexuality but highlighting the illegality of queerness (Doherty 354). Pages later, the Code doubled down: “Sex perversion or any inference to it is forbidden” (Doherty 363). By that designation, queerness was perverse. It was immoral and deviant, and it twisted ‘pure love’ into something depraved. At a time where being queer was criminalized, it isn’t difficult to see why exhibiting queerness on screen was to pervert and criminalize love, at least in the eyes of the Hays Code and its supporters.
Attitudes toward queerness in film in the West have since changed. The Motion Picture Association rating system—originally G, M (for Mature), R, and X—replaced the Hays Code in 1968 which loosened constraints on what could and couldn’t be shown. The legalization of gay marriage in the UK in 2014 and in the US the following year represented a societal shift toward acceptance and celebration of queerness. Preceding that, the early 2000s ushered in a greater acceptance of queer people in television shows like Will & Grace and Modern Family, both of which prominently feature LGBTQ+ characters and relationships, so the question is no longer whether queer people deserve to see people like themselves on screen, or whether the community at large deserves a fairer representation of itself. On the heels of a more welcoming society, the film industry came to acknowledge that a healthy portrayal of marginalized groups onscreen is necessary- after decades of refusing to. The question lies, then, in what a healthy portrayal entails. What constitutes an authentic exhibition of queer identities in which queer people can truly see themselves?
The definition of authenticity as it concerns queer identities, and the best way to go about exhibiting them on screen, is nebulous at best. There are certain tactics, namely queerbaiting and queercoding, common in media, that walk the line between representation and inauthenticity for the sake of maintaining an audience. To reiterate, queerbaiting is defined as, “apparently or potentially LGBTQ characters” are incorporated into media to attract LGBTQ audiences, even as their sexuality remains ambiguous (“Queer baiting”). Related to that idea is queer coding, defined by dictionary.com as “the act of implying that a fictional character is LGBT+ through deliberate subtext or the use of stereotypes without confirming this directly” (“Queer coding”). An important distinction to make is in the latter’s case, a queer relationship or identity can be confirmed (if only outside of the canon) via subtext beneath the words and actions of the characters; baiting, meanwhile, involves very few subtextual hints and more often than not, relies solely on the words of the creator. In both definitions, there is an intentional use of implied queerness. If the viewer wants a character to be queer, the evidence supporting it exists below the surface. If the viewer doesn’t, such evidence isn’t real because it is deniable. Because nothing is ever confirmed in canon, viewers can make their own decisions about the characters’ identities: queer people can see themselves in certain characters if only in their mind’s eye, and queerphobic viewers need not worry because these characters aren’t confirmed to be queer.
A near-textbook example of implied queerness, particularly queercoding, lies in BBC’s Merlin, a television show loosely based on the Arthurian legend, in which any representation exists only in the show’s subtext. The relationship between the future king Arthur and his servant, the warlock Merlin, often places them in close physical proximity: Merlin helps Arthur dress and bathe, accompanies him on his missions (even on those where a servant really shouldn’t be there—a running joke among fans), and saves his life on multiple occasions—fifty-eight occasions, to be exact (Thea313). Immediately, fans caught what they considered to be stolen glances, compliments veiled as insults, a rather ridiculous amount of self-sacrificial behavior by one to save the other—even though each insisted they hated the other. There is little surprise that just a month after the series premiere, a fan asked members of the Merlin cast and the show’s producers about the potential for a love story between Merlin and Arthur in later seasons. “These epic tales,” responded series producer Johnny Capps, “there is a certain homoeroticism to them, because these are men fighting with swords doing desperate things. You’re always going to get those kinds of questions” (Capps qtd. in Brennan 6). With that comment, Capps threw fuel onto a fire clearly building within the fanbase. Not a yes, not a no, just a green light to fans to continue asking those questions concerning their relationship. It’s unclear whether Capps’s answer was intended to guide audiences to the preexisting homoerotic subtext in Merlin and Arthur’s interactions or if it was confirmation that it was situational, only related to whatever homoeroticism is brought on by men fighting with swords. Or, perhaps, it was a means to maintain an audience that resonated with the characters in his show without alienating viewers who’d take issue with a gay romance.
Capps’s refusal to offer a clear answer about the nature of Merlin and Arthur’s relationship was met by an audience used to such frustration. User ‘no-literally’ on the fan blog Something Clever expressed:
Basically, what I’m trying to say is that I think explicit representation is hugely important in canon. The fact that the Merlin showrunner played coy about whether or not his show presented a gay couple subtextually . . . just adds a bit of insult to injury. (@no-literally)
The injury in question was Arthur’s marriage to Guinevere in the fourth season of the show, leaving Merlin just Arthur’s servant. Despite that monumental, heterosexual development,he subtext underneath their interactions didn’t change enough to snuff the talk of a romantic relationship between the two among fans. Where queer representation is so lacking, queer fans desperate to see themselves on screen must accept an absent denial as a confirmation of romance As author Monique Franklin describes, “In the current climate of scarcity, nuance is a luxury that cannot be afforded” (Franklin 48).
There is no end of confirmed straight couples in the media. Almost universally, any single character is assumed straight until proven queer—and they rarely are, so there is indeed a climate of scarcity surrounding queer representation. The subtext could be glaring and the coding near-evident, but at the end of the day, straight couples in film and television don’t need and are not forced to be nuanced. They’re not relegated to subtext and producers’ commentary. They say “I love you” to one another. On screen, they hold hands and title their relationship romantic and do everything people in love do. Queer-coded couples aren’t afforded that luxury. Subtext is all they get; they don’t get to hold hands or call each other romantic partners and, therefore, can never be on the same canon pedestal as their straight counterparts.
When showrunner Julian Murphy announced that he did consider Merlin’s series finale “a love story between two men . . . jokes and innuendo aside,” it was as commentary only available on the DVD box set of Merlin’s final season, after the series was completed (Murphy qtd. in Wilken). Sound familiar? True, Merlin and Arthur had clear romantic subtext (unlike, say, pre-Grindelwald Dumbledore), so Murphy’s comments stemmed from somewhere. The issue is they led nowhere. It’s a love story between two men, he says, but only after there’s nothing more to be done in canon, and only after one of the men has married a woman. Blogposter ‘no-literally’ insists: “I do want them to say ‘I love you’ to each other. I think it’s important. If Gwen and Arthur . . . can say ‘I love you’ to each other, I think [Merlin and Arthur] should be able to as well.”
Could Merlin have been made without Arthur and Guinevere’s marriage, an integral piece of the original Arthurian legend? Maybe not. Maybe a gay love story as the foremost plot of a television show, especially in 2008-2012 as Merlin was being released, was a hard sell. But if it wasn’t pitched that way so that it could be made, why not use the fans’ open-armed reception of a queer romance to shift the plot to involve one? Queerbaiting and queer coding are not inherently evil and not always derogatory; sequestering queerness to subtext was a survival strategy in eras where there might be legal or social repercussions. But when media in a more tolerant society is created in a way that teases queerness, tears it away, and then assures us that it was queer all along, it treats queerness not as an identity or a community of human beings but as a marketing ploy, a tool to be used at its creators’ discretion.
Queerness as a promotional device peaked in BBC’s Sherlock. In 2017, Sherlock fans eagerly awaited confirmation of The Johnlock Conspiracy (the name, abbreviated as TJLC, given to the ship of John Watson and Sherlock Holmes) in the show’s fourth season. Leading up to the season, TJLC fans believed that “not only was a Holmes/Watson love story on the horizon but it was the inevitable outcome . . . [and] this outcome had been heavily foreshadowed by a series of clues scattered throughout the preceding episodes” (Nielsen 82). Nielson asserts that “almost every episode of the show includes dialogue” suggestive of queerness, including numerous assumptions by other characters that Johnlock was romantic, Watson indignantly denying being gay (as though it was a horrid thing, to be assumed gay), and notably Watson’s refrain of ‘people might talk’ to Sherlock when anything suggestive happened between them (Nielsen 84). This evidence mounted to an assured queer ending—which, after seven years of waiting, many fans thought they had well earned. The controversy began when “season four came and went without the anticipated confirmation of Johnlock” (Nielsen 82). The TJLC fans heavily invested in that relationship exploded with anger, going as far as “attacking [Sherlock creators Steven Moffatt and Mark Gatiss] on social media (their primary anger reserved for the openly gay Mark Gatiss) for queerbaiting their viewers” (Nielsen 83). The fans’ eruptive reaction was particular to this situation: Merlin’s heterosexual marriage hadn’t incurred such a reaction; Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald’s non-explicit representation was met with disappointment, but was not so explosive. So why now? Why Sherlock?
TJLC arose from a unique combination of symptoms, notably technology’s ability to foster a widespread but heavily connected community. Social media’s existence and growing popularity, particularly those that streamline and promote fan connection, created a hivemind of Johnlock shippers and the “possibility of immediate, unmediated interaction between actors/producers/showrunners and their fans” (Nielsen 86). Via social media, fans could discuss and inflate the importance of every tiny detail of the show that might allude to a canon Johnlock, but could also analyze anything posted by anyone involved in the show’s production; any tweet, post, or public message by someone involved was now under a microscope with which fans searched for hidden reassurance that Holmes and Watson would end up together (Nielsen 86). The show then (accidentally) gave them the time to discuss, as each season had years between their releases. With no new content, fans turned to the old and with each rewatch, new details revealed themselves. For close to seven years before the release of the final season, a well-established Sherlock fan base developed, sharing thoroughly thought-out theories of a queer Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. Indeed the show’s writing in part lends itself to such theories:
John Watson, as told by John Watson, is not gay (though of course he never mentions whether he’s bisexual). So while John Watson may not be protesting too much, he’s certainly protesting an awful lot. . . . Sherlock’s sexuality is more ambiguously rendered. . . . He could easily be read as asexual or asexual and aromantic, and, indeed, many fans have done so. (Nielsen 85)
What purpose does such ambiguity serve? Perhaps it opens up the floor for interpretations, which many fans flocked to exchange. Perhaps it was intended to generate buzz among (especially queer) viewers, to get them talking, to quietly coax them to spread the word of their show. Being purposefully nonspecific about the romantic and sexual attractions of characters allowed fans to discuss with each other first what they believed about a character’s identity. While it did create excitement around the show, the theories that garnered the most attention and support from the fanbase, such as Johnlock, became a prophecy fans believed was sure to come true.
However, when fans began to search for the prophecy’s fulfillment, they turned to the producers, showrunners, and creators to confirm (or, god forbid, deny) what they believed. “The emphasis on the weight of the producer as a point of authority means that discussions often get waylaid by an attempt to decipher authorial intent” (Franklin 46-47). Or in cases such as Johnlock, fans used the words or ‘hints’ from showrunners to find any proof of the interpretations they had set in stone for themselves (Nielsen 86); after all, “The producers [had] the final say in what representation [was] considered ‘real’—even though the hints are considered to be deliberate, they are meaningless without the producer’s confirmation” (Franklin 41). And the creators, Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, denied the interpretation while at the same time igniting hope:
[They] have repeatedly made statements such as “[Fans] are mostly projecting [queerness] onto the show themselves” or that writing Sherlock and/or John as gay was “not a temptation,” and “not what we’re doing” . . . Alternately, the showrunners’ disavowal of a queer subtext could be taken more seriously if they weren’t also fond of statements such as, “But wait and see, who knows what’ll happen.” (Nielsen 90-91)
Nielsen highlights, instead of just ambiguity, a level of hypocrisy in the creators’ words. Rather than being purposefully vague from the beginning, Moffatt and Gatiss both deny the gay romance and also keep fans hooked—not with a retroactive confirmation like Rowling gave or a claim of homoerotic subtext as Capps did, but with a task: to “wait and see.” The fans received a silent promise that there might be more beneath the surface. Their job was to wait, and to come back and see what was in store. But more important than that, the producers received a surefire returning audience. How could they not return if they thought Holmes and Watson would finally become a couple? And there is the producers’ bottom line: a returning audience, engagement, buzz, fan involvement, profit, by whatever means necessary.
‘Whatever means,’ that is, except giving the audience what they want: real and true queer characters. There seems to be a sort of continual anxiety from the era of the Hays Code around exhibiting the queerness of characters within media. Instead, they get assigned an LGBTQ+ identity outside of the canon, and that’s considered enough. J. K. Rowling professed at Carnegie Hall that “You [fans] needed something to keep you going for the next 10 years!” (Rowling qtd. in Grossman). But ten years after that, she had the chance to give the fans more with The Crimes of Grindelwald, and she didn’t. What do the fans have now to ‘keep them going’? Unfulfilled identities, closeted queer characters, postmortem love, years of will-they-won’t-theys that turn into they-won’ts because they never do?
All those ten years did was leave a bitter taste. No matter whether Rowling’s, or Capps’s and Murphy’s, or even Moffatt’s and Gatiss’s actions were queerbaiting or queer coding, they certainly did not sponsor genuine, whole queer representation. Without exhibition, genuine queer representation cannot exist. A character’s identity must be on display, apparent and undeniable, or they represent no one because no one can see themselves in commentary, subtext, and nuance alone. To represent queer people fully, the media must embrace queerness fully. Perhaps over the next ten years, characters and love stories in the media can become fully, unabashedly, openly, proudly queer.
Works Cited
Brennan, Joseph. “Introduction: A History of Queerbaiting.” Queerbaiting and Fandom: Teasing Fans Through Homoerotic Possibilities, edited by Joseph Brennan, University of Iowa Press, 2019, pp. 1-22.
Brooke, Michael. “The Hays Code.” BFI Screenonline, 2019, www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/592022/.
Coggan, Devan. “J.K. Rowling’s Long History of Discussing—but Not Depicting— Dumbledore’s Sexuality.” EW.com, 19 Mar. 2019, ew.com/movies/2019/03/19/harry-potter-fantastic-beasts-jk-rowling-dumbledore-sexuality/#:~:text=October%202007%3A%20Rowling%20reveals%20Dumbledore.
Doherty, Thomas Patrick. Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema, 1930-1934. New York, Columbia University Press, 1999, pp. 347–359.
Ellis, Emma Grey. “The Internet Made Dumbledore Gay.” Wired, 19 Mar. 2019, www.wired.com/story/the-internet-made-dumbledore-gay/.
Franklin, Monique. “Queerbaiting, Queer Readings, and Heteronormative Viewing Practices.” Queerbaiting and Fandom: Teasing Fans Through Homoerotic Possibilities, edited by Joseph Brennen, University of Iowa Press, 2019, pp. 41-52.
Grossman, Lev. “Dumbledore = Gay.” Time, 22 Oct. 2007, techland.time.com/2007/10/22/dumbledore_gay/.
Hibberd, James. ““Fantastic Beasts” Director Reveals How Sequel Handles Dumbledore Being Gay—Exclusive.” EW.com, 31 Jan. 2018, ew.com/movies/2018/01/31/fantastic-beasts-dumbledore-gay/.
Nielsen, E.J. “The Gay Elephant Meta in the Room: Sherlock and the Johnlock Conspiracy.” Queerbaiting and Fandom: Teasing Fans Through Homoerotic Possibilities, edited by Joseph Brennen, University of Iowa Press, 2019, pp. 82-94.
Nordin, Emma. “Queerbaiting 2.0: From Denying Your Queers to Pretending You Have Them.” Queerbaiting and Fandom: Teasing Fans Through Homoerotic Possibilities, edited by Joseph Brennen, University of Iowa Press, 2019, pp. 25-40.
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“Queer baiting, N., Sense 2.” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, July 2023, doi.org/10.1093/OED/7836459819.
“Queer Coding.” Dictionary.com, www.dictionary.com/browse/queer-coding.
Smith, David. “Harry Potter Character Dumbledore Was Gay, JK Tells Amazed Fans.” The Guardian, 21 Oct. 2007, www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/oct/21/film.books.
Thea313. “Every Time Merlin Saved Arthur’s Life and Vice Versa.” Reddit, 18 Jan. 2019, www.reddit.com/r/merlinbbc/comments/ahfxq9/every_time_merlin_saved_arthurs_life_and_vice/#.
Wilken, Selina. “‘Merlin’ Showrunner Shares His Thoughts on the Series Finale in DVD Commentary.” Hypable, 22 Jan. 2013, www.hypable.com/merlin-showrunner-shares-his-thoughts-on-the-series-finale-in-dvd-commentary/.
“Will H. Hays.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 12 Mar. 2024, www.britannica.com/biography/Will-H-Hays.