Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Bloomsbury (UK) & Scholastic (US)
Book released 2 July 1998 (UK) & 2 June
1999 (US)
Written by JK Rowling
Warner Bros.
Film released 2002
Director: Chris Columbus
Writer: Steve Kloves
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint,
Emma Watson, Richard Harris, Kenneth Branagh, every British actor ever
Rated: PG
Grade: 5/5
Mk, let’s return to the wizarding world and
the second instalment of JK Rowling’s gift to humanity. God is a woman and her
name is JK Rowling.
We’ve covered the queerness of Harry literally coming out of the closet, the
queerness of wizardry, the beginning of Hermione’s war against the patriarchy,
and the gayest gay of them all, you guessed it, Dumbledore, and now we need to
talk about a couple of things that come up in the second book that just make
the series that much queerer.
First up, Dobby and the house elves.
The
biggest thing the movie leaves out is the genius of SPEW. For those of you plebeians
who are not in the know, SPEW stands for the Society for the Promotion of
Elfish Welfare and it begins Hermione’s single-handed pursuit to emancipate
house elves. SPEW has a (mostly) consistent presence throughout the series and
I’ve always been super disappointed that it got left on the cutting room floor
because it is seriously genius and it establishes Hermione as a passionate
activist. House elves are about as queer as you can get. They are essentially
an enslaved population, taken advantage of by wizards. So much queer oppression
going on. When Dobby meets Harry and he’s actually the first person ever to even say one nice thing to Dobby
and care about his wellbeing and all he does is politely offer him a seat, you
know there’s some hateful bigotry going on in the background of this poor
character’s life. I don’t think this one needs much more explaining; the
queerness here is pretty explicit. I mean, he wears a pillow case for goodness’s
sake.
Next, we really get a better sense of the
Weasley’s economic status in this book/movie. They’re a huge family squeezed
into this tiny house that barely fits all of them.
They have to buy second hand
everything and they work hard for what they do have. But what’s important in
the depiction of their economic status is that, while it is sometimes a source
of shame for Ron, they are an incredibly happy family. Harry even envies them
and the life they lead. Mr. Weasley loves the work that he does and is
incredibly passionate and together, they persevere to make it work. Their
poverty rarely reveals itself as a set back. On the contrary, their family
becomes idyllic through Harry’s eyes. Queer points for the Weasleys!
Before I get to the big queer issue of the
book, I wanna talk about Hagrid for a little bit.
We get a bit more of his backstory
in this book, although not all of it, but I want to talk about him anyway and
maybe reference some stuff that we learn about in other books. In Chamber, we learn that he was expelled
from Hogwarts as a teen because Tom Riddle (aka young Voldy) framed him for
being the heir of Slytherin and killing Moaning Myrtle. And he gets shipped off
to Azkaban in this book because they think he was the one who re-opened the
chamber. We don’t learn explicitly until book four that Hagrid is half-giant,
but the discrimination he faces in this book (and honestly in most of the
others) establishes his queer status before we understand the full extent of
his queer identity. I think it is important to acknowledge it here because of
the parallels it makes to ableism. Hagrid is often treated like a lower being
than the rest of the wizarding community. He’s looked down upon, called an “oaf,”
and generally faces a lot of demeaning bigotry. His half-giant status not only
establishes him as outside of pure blood wizards, but also within another
species category that is generally thought of a intellectually inferior to wizards.
There’s more to talk about once we get to The
Goblet of Fire and The Order of The
Phoenix, so I’ll save the rest till then. Just know that Hagrid is hella
queer.
The big one in this instalment is the
beginning of the pure blood versus muggle-born debacle. This is where we first
hear the slur, “mudblood.”
And the whole Chamber of Secrets thing is laced with
near genocidal rhetoric. The heir of Slytherin is out and about again and on
the hunt for muggle-born blood. This pure blood/muggle-born clash basically
drives the plot of the entire series with Voldemort’s obsession with
essentially, purifying the entire wizarding world (cue the allusions to Hitler
and WWII). It’s the racial debate of the wizarding world, and its queerness is
overwhelming. Malfoy’s bullying of Hermione brings the issue into full focus
and we get to see the horror of the issue unravel through Harry’s eyes. Any
queer kid getting bullied at school can relate to Hermione’s experience with
Malfoy and her struggles with prejudice just because of who her parents are.
AND SHE’S STILL THE BEST WITCH IN HER CLASS! If that’s not overcoming adversity
then I don’t know what is.
A few quick queer things:
-Lockhart is totally queer. But he’s a
pretty crumby guy so let’s not talk about that.
-I’ve always thought there was a bit of an
undertone of mental heath going on with Harry being about to hear the snake
through the walls and with Ginny and her dependence on Riddle’s journal. Not
quite sure what to make of it though.
-lol, Ron’s fear of spiders. Not only is it
totally relatable, but it also subverts gender stereotypes. Ron would be
screaming like a little baby while Hermione swats at spiders in their kitchen.
MVQ: Dobby.
OTP: Still looking at me and Hermione…I
mean really, who doesn’t ship themselves with Hermione?
Favorite Moment: Dobby gaining his freedom
with Harry’s smelly sock.
