The real reason Dumbledore isn’t shown to be gay in Fantastic Beasts (and why he never will be)
So, I’ve seen a lot of people criticize Crimes of Grindelwald for not explicitly showing Dumbledore to be gay. I’ve also seen a lot of people defending that movie by pointing out that there are still three more movies where Dumbledore could come out. But Dumbledore will not come out in the next movie, or the next one, or the next one. There’s a simple reason:
Money.
Homosexuality is still criminalized in 72 countries. Even in countries where it is technically legal, gay relationships might still be frowned upon and LGBT representation in media might be censored. That’s a minimum of 72 countries where the Fantastic Beasts movies will be banned and where WB will not be able to make money from ticket sales, DVD sales, streaming or merchandise sales.
I couldn’t find a complete list of countries that censors LGBT representation in media but it doesn’t really matter because only one country truly matters.
China.
In 2017, China explicitly banned homosexual content in its TV series. Movies banned in China include Call Me By Your Name and Brokeback Mountain.
Every Hollywood movie wants to be released in China. China is the second most important territory for Hollywood films and the only reason it is not the most important is because the Chinese government takes a sizable percentage of grosses. The Chinese government only allows 34 foreign movies to be released a year and every Hollywood movie is vying for a spot. In 2017, Hollywood movies made $3.26 billion at the Chinese box office. The first Fantastic Beasts movie made $85.9 million at the Chinese box office, or around 10.5% of the movies total worldwide gross.
So that’s a lot of money that Fantastic Beasts will miss out on if the movie gets banned! The first Fantastic Beasts movie had a production budget of $180 million. The second cost $200 million. That’s not including the money spent on marketing the movies, which is also probably around $200 million. To recoup this cost, Warner Bros. will want to distribute the movie to the maximum possible audience. The first Fantastic Beasts movie is estimated to have made a net profit of $164 million. So this money could mean the difference between Fantastic Beasts generating a profit and losing money.
Bottom line, Warner Bros. simply will not risk the possibility of Fantastic Beasts being banned in China and other countries where homosexuality is censored/banned. They stand to lose a lot of money.
Would I like to be proven wrong? Absolutely! But as it stands I would not be getting my hopes up for Grindeldore, or for LGBT representation in big budget Hollywood movies anytime soon.
Disclaimer: I am not a box office expert but most of this is fairly common knowledge and I feel pretty confident in saying this.
(So this isn’t showing up in the tags and I heard that Tumblr blocked external links or something so I’m going to try posting this without the links. If you want to see the sources just go to my blog!)
It’s about this dude Henry who’s an artist living in New York,
and he has to go back to his hometown in Montana to take care of his grandfather who just recently had a stroke and is wheelchair-bound.
Things are all fine and dandy until Henry finds out that his old best friend from high school, as well as object of his unrequited affections that he’s never really been able to let go of is also back in town. His name is Dean. He’s there with his two sons to recoup from a recent divorce from his wife.
Henry is extremely frazzled by seeing his long-time crush after so many years, but they spend a lot of time together over the passing weeks and seem to fall into their old friendship very easily. Perhaps a little too easily….??? hmmm???
And with everything with Dean happening, Henry can’t be blamed that he’s entirely oblivious to Pike, the man who runs the local general goods store.
It’s obvious to us (and the whole damn town) that Pike’s been head over heels for Henry since high school, but is painfully shy. He can barely talk to Henry at all and it’s the cuTEST GODDAMN THING oh lord help me from this movie.
Throughout the movie, Pike can’t seem to help himself from wanting nothing more than to make Henry happy from afar. He’s supposed to be delivering food cooked by one of the older ladies in town to Henry and his grandfather’s house to eat every night, but Pike cooks his own, exceptionally better meals, and delivers those instead and tells no one.
Now, Henry does notice Pike, and something about him catches his attention. Even if he doesn’t understand why yet. He tries to invite him to stay for dinner almost every night in an attempt to get him to open up, but Pike only becomes more closed off when he notices what’s going on between Henry and Dean.
I’ll stop there, as I don’t want to give the whole thing away, but I can’t leave this without talking about the town’s residents in this movie. This place is 100% one of those little towns where everyone knows each other as well as their business, you have nosy little old ladies, dudes who do nothing all day but sit on the porch of the corner store and smoke a pipe, and they all go to church on Sundays.
AND YET, not only is this movie void of any homophobia from any character, basically the whole freaking town is all up in this whole love triangle. They support Pike so much that there’s even scenes where they all play matchmaker with him and Henry. They root for them in the goofiest, most loveable way.
SO BASICALLY, this is a silly romantic comedy, except gay. It’s all super lighthearted comedy with tiny bits of drama thrown in. No one dies!!!! No one is killed or commits suicide and has a 100% happy ending!!! The three main guys are just normal guys!!! There’s not a stereotype to be found here!! anD ONE OF THEM IS NATIVE AMERICAN. No seriously guys it hurts me that not everybody knows about this movie. I discovered it when I was in middle school in our video store’s tiny little LGBTQ section, and must have rented it 20 times throughout the years before I finally bought it. I know this movie almost frame by frame I’ve watched it so many times because it’s just so disgustingly cute and always makes me happy. NOW, this movie isn’t perfect. It’s got some clunky acting, weird.. I guess artsy moments that don’t make sense, and crosses into the line of cheesy quite a few times, BUT, that’s really not important. This is treated exactly as if it were a het romantic comedy. Their being gay has nothing to do with the overall story, and is never brought up save for a small plotline where Henry is guilty with himself for never coming out to his grandfather. But overall, more LGBTQ movies need to be like this, it’s just way too rare.
GO WATCH IT YOU’LL BE GLAD YOU DID. Sadly, the only way I know to get ahold of it is to just buy the DVD. But it’s fairly cheap on Amazon! And even cheaper if you buy it used on there, but either way I promise it’s worth it to own. Like I said, I think I kept our video store in business from my renting it so many times.
Oh, and I hope you enjoy country music to some extent because this has the countriest soundtrack of all time.
If someone tells you to stop ripping on them, even if you’re joking, fucking listen. That shit gets tiring doesn’t matter if it’s a fucking joke no one wants to hear negative shit all the time.
Some of y’all think you can be rude asf all the time bc you’re “just joking” but you’re seriously wearing people down.
Fun Vampire Fact; the reason that Vampires traditionally cannot see their reflections in a mirror is because mirrors used to be backed with a reflective layer of silver — which, as the metal of purity, would not ‘interact’ with Vampires, who are the Devil’s work.
However, modern mirrors have used aluminum as their reflective backing for many years now — and aluminum is not a ‘picky’ metal at all. So Vampires are able to see their reflections in modern mirrors.
All I can think about is a vampire used to not seeing their reflection in mirrors for centuries, and one day they are just walking along and unknowingly pass a mirror backed with aluminum and THEY NEARLY SHIT THEMSELVES.
Silver Nitrate was also used in old photographs.
So when the modern camera came around, Vampires must of been enthralled by seeing their own image after centuries of having to rely on scared Artists to paint them.
Vampires would clearly be taking ALL the selfies.
“Anna pls put the phone down-”
“I HAVEN’T BEEN ABLE TO STYLE MY HAIR ON MY OWN PROPERLY IN CENTURIES, SUSAN, I SIMPLY MUST PUT IT ON THE INSTAGRAM”
Freddie Mercury (debatable, but considering he had had a long-term relationship with Mary Austin and he tended to keep quiet on matters of his private life, we’ll never know for sure)
All or which have either been given the name “gay” or “straight“ by the media despite coming out. There are more than two sexualities and this is a fact that most people (even on Tumblr nowadays) forget. People tend to assume that since someone is with a person of the same gender, they’re gay. (Or vice versa in Angelina or P!nk’s case) This is incorrect to assume because you’re erasing their identities in the process. The people on this list aren’t gay or straight, they’re bisexual.No matter how much the media tries to erase that.
Channing Tatum is openly bisexual but people just….ignore it.
No the fuck i don’t. The fact that i have a chance with Channing Tatum regardless of my gender has gotten me through some bad days. Also David Bowie.
Omg I can’t believe he wasn’t listed I had to double check!
AND DAVID FUCKING BOWIE
reblogging for all my bi kids out there who are trying to find bisexual role models. there are a lot of bi celebrities out there, it’s just that the media doesn’t like to accept that.
Don’t base them exclusively on physical and/or sexual attraction. While these kinds of attraction can certainly strengthen relationships, they can’t create anything but a weak foundation for a relationship on their own.
Know how your characters like to show and be shown affection. Not everyone shows their interest in others the same way. Some people like to give gifts. Others like to cuddle. Still others like giving compliments. Different people like to receive different kinds of affection as well.
Remember that love at first sight is a myth. You can have lust at first sight and romantic interest at first sight, but true love takes time to develop.
Show the characters interacting and getting to know each other. This should be obvious, but it is all to common for a character to be given a love interest at the last minute or to be paired off with someone the reader hasn’t seen them interact with much. Remember, the reader doesn’t have to see every little thing they do together, but the relationship will feel forced to the reader if they don’t see the characters interacting and establishing that they genuinely care about each other in a significant way. If the reader views your character’s significant other as little more than a stranger, then you’re doing something wrong.
Have both characters do things for each other and contribute to the relationship in meaningful ways. Relationships are two way streets. While you don’t need to keep score of exactly who does what for who (Relationships are not a competitive sport!), the relationship should seem fairly balanced or, if it’s not, then the characters should be working to change that.
Don’t give your characters completely incompatible traits. While it’s healthy for people to differ from each other, there are some differences that even people that are otherwise perfect for each other probably can’t overcome. For example, a environmental activist would have a hard time having a healthy relationship with someone who wants to chop dow a forest. Basically, know your characters’ deal breakers so that you won’t try to match up characters who are simply incompatible with each other.
Have them share interests. This is a great way to add substance to relationships outside of physical attraction and compatible personalities. Maybe they both like fishing. Maybe they share a passion for baking. Whatever you decide to have them like, don’t be afraid to use your characters’ shared interests as opportunities for them to bond. Also, if your characters don’t share a lot of interests/hobbies, consider having one character introduce the other to their hobby or have one character take initiative to try something the other likes. This is a great way to show how much your characters care about each other because it demonstrates your characters’ genuine interest in what makes their partner happy.
Let the relationship experience at least a few bumps in the road. No relationships are perfect. Let your characters disagree, argue, and maybe even have a full on fight. Relationships that withstand obstacles seem stronger to readers, especially if the characters grow as people because of these hardships.
Stop talking and start doing: My Fallout Shelter for my Tumblr blog 