Harry Potter and Headlines ...

This past week author J.K. Rowling revealed that the Headmaster of Hogwarts was Gay ... and the media flew into a frenzy of commentaries and speculations ... the religious right rose in indignation at the tainting of impressionable young minds and questions Dumbledore's relationship with young Harry ... and people began to speculate how such a "significant" detail could have been over looked, ... AND EVERYONE went looking for clues to this "revelation."
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Meanwhile ... the world carried on, and real life continued to unfold and be lived ... Everyone seemed to forget one simple fact in the midst of ALL of this ... and that is Harry Potter and the seven hugely successful books and five movies ARE FICTION !!!!!!

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Having said that, I can't help but think that our media is stretching for stories lately ... the major web sites have entire sections chronicling the antics of "STARS" like Britney, Paris, and who ever slithers onto the radar screen of pop culture ... and we get reams and reams of stories about ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Even this morning on CBC's programme "The House" had listened questioning why our Government won't tackle the issue we're really concerned about - poverty, homelessness, loss of job, and the loss of security for those who are not in the 6 figure income group ... This past week I had an intense conversation with someone for whom the biggest issue facing us is Violence against women.

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He noted the coverage of the Pickton Trial in BC and said - "that should never have happened, but it was women who were his victims ... if he was killing men, it would have made headlines after the second woman went missing ..." I shared with him a conversation I had with one of the esteemed elders of a BC Church who during the time Police were identifying dozens of missing women on the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver looked at the photos on the Front Page of a Newspaper and said - "well, they're women who have chosen to live that kind of lifestyle ..."

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I've always wondered if she would feel that way if it was HER granddaughter missing from the streets of Vancouver ... or was it simply a case of women who were to be regarded as disposable because of their social background, because of their ethnicity, because of their addictions, or because they have been victims of violence since their lives began ...

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In Tomson Highway's works, Violence against Women is a dominant theme. His motivation has been the friendship with Helen Betty Osborne, the First Nations woman who died in The Pas in 1971, and for decades, her murder remained "un-solved" ... The scenes dealing with the casual nature of violence against Native Women in Kiss of the Fur Queen are devestatingly honest ... and utterly breath-taking (and NOT in a good way) ...

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I marvel though, at how our Media can focus SO much attention on something as completely and utterly irrelevant and unimportant as the sexuality of a figure in a book for children and youth ... I say "hear hear" to the revelations of Dumbledore's homosexuality - our children deserve to have literary figures who reflect the marvelous diversity of the HUMAN family. Reading about key figures in a story line like Harry Potter who are gay and lesbian is merely a reflection of the REAL world that we inhabit.

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Maybe as we teach our children values like tolerance and understanding and (heaven forbid) acceptance, we will begin to see the world change for the better ... THEN perhaps we will not only begin to talk about issues like poverty, homelessness, violence and the other REAL issues that grip us, maybe our children will finally do the task that we are failing to do - ADDRESSING THOSE ISSUES.

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If nothing else, the whole frenzy over Dumbledore's sexuality has shown us the shallowness of our media and their open reluctance to address and deal with the REAL issues that dog us ... AND the parallel reluctance of our Government to deal with the same issues ...

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Maybe one day we'll finally stand in a place where poverty, homelessness, violence and other such issues are addressed ... and we no longer hear dismissive sentiments about the deaths of women like Helen Betty Osborne, the women from the Downtown East side, or any of the victims of a violence that is an intolerable component of our world ... Instead of diverting our attention with the sexuality of characters in Childrens' Books, our media would better serve us by reminding us of WHAT IS REALLY IMPORTANT !!!