Grumble about Watson's limp

[sqbr]

Overall I liked the new Sherlock Holmes series, here are my spoilery general thoughts.

And now a spoilery grumble about the portrayal of Watson's limp in Sherlock. I don't know enough about PTSD to say anything about the portrayal of that. They didn't seem to be going to much effort to show it at all, really, apart from him being generally down to start with.


Spoilers! Though not for the murderer or anything.

When we heard the limp was psychosomatic I thought "Oh that is totally going to vanish when it suits the plot" and sure enough we were clearly supposed (from the way it was framed and shot) to think "Oh poor Watson, he limps, how tragic" and his limp vanishing was directly correlated to him finding purpose and happiness. I'm not saying that sort of chronic pain never happens, and I don't know a lot about psychosomatic disorders (though looking them up they're related to stress related illness which I am prone to). But it was all too convenient, and the subtext was dodgy.

The fact that I've had people (including a doctor) tell me that if I go for a walk and cheer up maybe my own mobility problems will magically vanish does not endear me to this plot :/ It is possible to have a limp and be awesome at the same time! I was hoping we would get to see that but apparently not.

Oh, and in an unrelated grumble I didn't like that there was an "uptight negative black woman who is having an affair and being a killjoy" character, especially since there really weren't any good or relateable female characters to make up for it.

Comments

[ex_peasant441]

As I watched I thought to myself that you would be disappointed when the limp turned out to be psychosomatic.

Two points:

Firstly, they may have been using the 'vanishing limp' as a play on the fact that in the books Watson starts out with a war wound from Afghanistan which is conveniently forgotten about on most occasions - just as they made some play with the fact that Conan Doyle apparently sometimes forgot which side the wound was supposed to be. The only sensible explanation for a vanishing limp like that would be psychosomatic.

Secondly, just because a disease is psychosomatic doesn't mean it isn't 'real' or that it's not serious. There is apparently a distinct possibility that Stephen Hawking has a psychosomatic illness and nobody would dismiss his problems as trivial. CFS may be psychosomatic and you and I both know it is not trivial or fake. We also both know that in an emergency we can often achieve things that are impossible in our day to day lives - and I hope you know that is a good thing and to be welcomed, not something to be ashamed of or see as somehow a disappointment when a similar situation is portrayed on TV. And if you want some good examples of similar miracle cures, just look at the bible - 1st century Judea was a breeding ground for PTSD. (I can recommend The Bible: Medicine and Myth by Margaret Lloyd Davies and T.A. Lloyd Davies for good details.) Psychosomatic illnesses are not fake illnesses, they are just ones with a different cause and hence sometimes amenable to 'miraculous' cures.

The fact is they need Watson to be able to run around and do the action stuff because that is a vital part of the role. You can't do that with a normal non-psychosomatic leg wound.

[sqbr]

I definitely don't think there's anything wrong with psychosomatic injuries appearing in fiction in principle. But they're a lot more vulnerable to being inconsistently written and the kind of thing people introduce into stories just because it allows them to make the injury appear and disappear to suit the plot. If they had surprised me and not done that then I wouldn't have had a problem with it, but they did.

If they HAD to have Watson be able to run (and I'm not sure they did, there's ways around it) then they still could have had the injury be variable without playing so completely into the tropes they did. It's not something I can explain very well but to me they clearly wanted to have their cake and eat it too, have Watson be injured but never have that injury inconvenience them as writers. Compare, say, Toph and Teo from "Avatar the Last Airbender", whose disabilities are mostly counteracted in ways that let the writers include them in action scenes etc, but still inconvenience them when it makes sense for them to, not just when the writers want to go "Oh, look at the sad disabled person".

If they wanted to make the limp vanish and be inconsistent for homage reasons then I can kind of see that but it still feels like the "It's ok that this character is a -ist stereotype, it's irony!" defense which rarely convinces me unless it's done in a much more clever and obvious way. Plus that's still no excuse for being all "Oh poor Watson and his limp, having to use a cane is so saaaad" thing.

[sqbr]

I haven't read the books in so long that when it comes to noticing allusions it's almost like haven't read them at all. That said, I don't remember noticing an inconsistency in Watson's wound at the time, I probably thought something like "Huh, I could have sworn it was the other leg, I must be misremembering" since I am bad at keeping track of that sort of thing. But I think it's reasonable to judge the show without lots of canon knowledge, since a large proportion of the audience is in that boat and they have to pitch the show to both sorts of audience. I will admit that it didn't occur to me that it might be a deliberate homage to that aspect of the books (since I didn't know that aspect existed) and it's possible that my opinion will change when I watch the later episodes with it in mind.

At the moment I am getting the impression that you are disappointed because a character who you thought was going to be permanently disabled in fact turned out to be only temporarily disabled and he got better

No, definitely not. I'm having trouble articulating the subtext I perceived, which means I'm not making a very compelling argument, but it was the way it got better, not that it got better at all. Anyway, I think I'm going to wait and see how the show progresses and re-assess.

[fizzyblogic]

Oh, wow. I was worried, because Moffat, but I had no idea it'd be that bad. I knew there was a reason I didn't watch it :/

[sqbr]

Yeah I was not impressed.

[onceamy]

I'm annoyed that people are prepared to forgive its ableism.

How is anything ever going to get better when people just tune in next week?

*head thump*

[sqbr]

Well, the way I'm watching it *cough* doesn't increase the ratings or anything, so I don't see what harm it does (except maybe to my soul, but that's my own decision). I certainly wouldn't buy the dvds or anything.

For me there's a difference between "This sends a message I can't support and I refuse to give them money" and "This sends a message which offends me and I can't enjoy it". Some fiction manages to entertain me despite it's incredibly horrible subtext and I don't see the point in pretending it doesn't, even if I sometimes refuse to financially support it. Other much less flawed fiction happens to hit my buttons and irritate me so much I can't enjoy it. Despite being horribly ableist Sherlock managed to entertain me and I want to know what happen next.

But by making this post I warn other disabled people that they might not want to watch it, or to prepare themselves if they do. Plus I hopefully open the minds of other people a little.

[kitsune_dream]

Here from . It seems you and I had some similar issues with the show while still managing to enjoy it overall.

And I did enjoy it - especially Watson. And I'm really glad that I'm not the only one who thought there was a real problem with how it was handled.

[kitsune_dream]

Erm...that would be fizzyblogic. Sorry for the html fail.

[sqbr]

Hello! I saw your post on disabled_fandom (I think? One of those comms) and had a similar moment of "Yay, it wasn't just me!"

I'd be curious to know what people with real psychosomatic pain/mobility impairments think of the show.

[grahame]

Hah, not to mention the assumption that an affair is a bad, dishonest thing!

The portrayal of disability was a fail, but otherwise I liked the show. Definitely a bit slow, and Sherlock not quite so dazzlingly brilliant as in the books, but I'm wondering if that's just difficult to portray on the format. I wonder how they could have had Watson as the wounded veteran (which is a reference to the books) and not had him limp in the next two episodes? I guess they could just have had him heal, over time.

[sqbr]

I'm curious to see what they do with his limp in the next few episodes, it seemed TOTALLY gone by the end of the first one and I'm wondering if it will return and how.