Hijacking the Hysteria: Reading Heteronormativity, Homophobia and a narrative of Queerness into J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels

Abstract

The Harry Potter novels by J.K. Rowling, despite being fantasy, rarely address problems that
cannot be taken up in reality, whether for critique or accommodation. Fiction allows for this
through its constructed spaces; but the Potter world is drafted with an exclusionist bias, lopsided defamiliarization of reality. Heteronormativity is enforced, utopia, in the end, seems
exclusivist and incomplete.There is negligible queer visibility/consciousness
embodied/expressed in the texts. No questioning occurs in this bildungsroman which could
well be Harry’s coming-out tale. The wizarding community inaugurates a queer subtext, but
Harry himself never seemingly celebrates pluralism or diversity. Rather, hegemonic
masculinity and homophobia dictate adolescent life, focusing instead on its British boarding
school contextualization and dormitory culture. What implication does this have for the
adolescent reading public?Must heroism necessarily be heteronormative? Men can be
‘masculine’ outside such constructions, disrupting the traditional image of the hegemonic
heterosexual masculine. Queer masculinities exist, applies even to ‘straight’ men, exposing the
spectrum of masculinity in its spatial, temporal variance. Homophobia is a characteristic of the
hegemonic masculine, but Harry has none of the latter in his ideologies and interactions. Is it
indicative of queerness, or masculinity in crisis? There is not only a consistent queer subtext,
absence of which must be problematized, as also placing Harry’s sexuality under the scanner,
whose ambiguities and implications need examination: both from the interpretative
framework and authorial intentions, besides present-day relevance.