Fantastic Beasts director David Yates is trying to rectify his words from an interview earlier this year.
In a recent interview with Empire Magazine, the director of the first two Fantastic Beast Films (as well as the last four Harry Potter films), shared that Dumbledore is clearly gay in the prequel franchise. It’s just that his sexuality isn’t the main focus.
More specifically, Yates said that the Hogwarts professor is not “out as a gay man in this film.”
Yates then added:
“This part of this huge narrative that Jo is creating doesn’t focus on his sexuality, but we’re not airbrushing or hiding it.”
“The story [of the romantic relationship] isn’t there in this particular movie but it’s clear in what you see… that he is gay.”
“A couple of scenes we shot are very sensual moments of him and the young Grindelwald.”
Evidence of this was shown in the most recent and final trailer for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.
But why does Yates feel the need to express this? Because LGBTQ fans have been at his throat since an interview back in February.
In February, Yates revealed in another interview that Dumbledore would not be “explicitly” gay in the film.
Fans then took that to mean that his sexuality would be erased and ignored. They then turned their heads towards Harry Potter author and Fantastic Beasts screenwriter JK Rowling.
This is despite JK Rowling saying last year that a younger Dumbledore’s sexuality will be depicted in the new Wizarding World franchise.
“Well, I can’t tell you everything I would like to say because this is obviously a five-part story, so there’s lots to unpack in that relationship,” she said.
“I will say that you will see Dumbledore as a younger man, and quite a troubled man because he wasn’t always the sage.
“He was always very clever, but we’ll see what I think was the formative period of his life. As far as his sexuality is concerned, watch the space.”
While young Dumbledore’s sexuality isn’t the main focus of this upcoming film, it seems that it won’t be outright ignored. As such, this months-long controversy will ultimately have been just fan fervor and mob outrage.
Will that be the case? We’ll see when Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald appears in UK and US theaters on November 16.
Even before I knew the movie was called the crimes of grindelwald I knew for a fact that dumbledore was gay