Follow up post about the BBC Sherlock

[sqbr]

If you like watching slashy pretty men being jerks and are fine with the erasure, dismissal, objectification and mistreatment of anyone who isn't white, straight, male, upper middle class, English, and able bodied, then this is the show for you. Well, episodes 1 and 3 are, episode 2 is just bad all round (and amazingly racist).

I...found parts of it interesting and engaging, and the slashiness is of a particular type I quite enjoy, but on the whole it wasn't as clever as I would have liked and large sections made me very annoyed. Meta: Neoliberal Holmes, or, Everything I Know About Modern Life I Learned from Sherlock gives a very damning critique, but to follow up on the portrayal of Watson's disability in particular: it is NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN. At all. Not even vaguely alluded to.

And "That's the way it was dealt with in the books" doesn't make it ok, that just means it's not inaccurate as well as ableist. If they were doing a totally 100% literal adaptation which followed every minute detail exactly as it happened in the books I might forgive them and blame Arthur Conan Doyle, but they weren't by a long shot. They chose to keep that particular flaw of the books and must bear the responsibility for that choice.

Comments

[nixwilliams]

thanks for that link!

[sqbr]

Gotten via torachan, who is the source of much linkage.

[nixwilliams]

i must have missed it on his post. i'm glad you shared it, too!

[lilacsigil]

I read that link yesterday, and it explained my creeping unease (after the first episode, I didn't watch the rest) so perfectly.

[nixwilliams]

p.s. i haven't seen #3, but i really want the coroner/morgue girl to be moriarty.

[sqbr]

I wanted that too and...well. Was very annoyed at how both those plotlines got dealt with.

[nixwilliams]

yes, i thought that was wishful thinking. oh well, i'll watch the third ep soonish.

[whatistigerbalm]

Thanks for the link. Some points I agree with, like the one you bring up here; some are worrying. (Not about the show, but about the viewers' mindset. It reminds me of that creeping didacticism in What Fandom Wants: "Oh noes, the shitty protagonist gets away with being shitty! The writer had to be more explicit on how this was bad!" What are we, three years old?)

[sqbr]

I'm not sure I 100% agree with all her points myself, but she cpatured what I did agree with so well I decided to link to it anyway.

I do think that Sherlock's prattishness was not supposed to be entirely sympathetic/"right", but the narrative supported his prejudices and arrogance enough that I find it hard to draw the line.

[onceamy]

Heh, and this is why I don't get excited about new things. And why I feel isolated from fandom.

I like the way you mentioned the lack of cleverness and originality - if anything else, that was appalling. Holmes is a fandom that is not meant to be easy thinking!

I don't even get the big 'slashy' deal -- the producers are affirming that they are both straight. So, yet another fandom where homoerotic subtext has been declared null and void by producers very quick to reaffirm the heteronormative 'ideal'.

[sqbr]

Oh, it's definitely not original or extra specially unique. And I'm not really a slasher so I'm not the best judge anyway, I guess.

Can I have a show where they leave the homoerotic subtext in, but don't declare the character's sexuality as something that needs to be on the public record?

Indeed. Or ones where the characters are canonically lgbtq! But that is of course INCONCEIVABLE.

[hl]

Fuck, some of those phrases. O_O

That's a powerful post, thanks for linking it.

[elaran]

not really surprised at the amazingly racist =/ and yeah, that post kinda gets you where it hurts.

(will probably still love it)

If they were doing a totally 100% literal adaptation which followed every minute detail exactly as it happened in the books I might forgive them and blame Arthur Conan Doyle, but they weren't by a long shot. They chose to keep that particular flaw of the books and must bear the responsibility for that choice.
nodnodnodnodnodnod

[sqbr]

Hey I still enjoyed parts of it. I have a problem with people enjoying it without even noticing the issues, but pretty much everything fun is tainted in one way or another :/