Hey guys? If you have time, could you “like” the Elementary trailer?
Even if you’re not in any related fandoms.
I’m talking to BBC Sherlock fans, too.
Look, it’s really uncool to try and make this thing flop before you see more than a…
The thing is, though, I don’t dislike it because I’m a fan of the BBC Sherlock. I’m a fan of the BBC Sherlock because I watch their version and I go: “Hey, yeah, ACD would probably think this was pretty damned good”. I watch it and I feel the novels that I love coming to life in an interesting way. In this Elementary series, just in that three minute trailer, there are so many things that I disagree with purely based off of my adoration for the novels. If you want to call something an adaptation, fine, but then it actually has to be an adaptation, it has to relate to the original work in more ways than just using the names. Watson repulsed by a dead body? Holmes wishing he wasn’t always so smart? That alone is enough for me to be wary.
People need to stop thinking BBC fans are against Elementary just because of the BBC series. Sure, I like BBC, but I also like Jeremy Brett’s version, which I’ll say by far is the closest to the Conan work I’ve ever seen. If Elementary wants the same amount of respect as Sherlock obtained, then they need to actually take the novels, the original stories, the characters that ACD created, and work with them. Not just take their names and go from there.
Sure, I’ll watch the first episode, but am I going to watch more than that? It’s unlikely. After that first one I’ll probably curl up with my novels.
Do I think people should actively hate on Elementary by flaming the tag and ruining it for others? No, I don’t. But I don’t think that people who dislike it should be getting a bad rap either. Remember, not everyone out there is just turning it down because BBC did it first. I mean, I was wary about Sherlock at first. I changed my mind on the matter because they did it well. I’m wary about Elementary because from what I’ve seen, there’s nothing but a couple of names to bring me back to stories I loved.
When Elementary shows me a true Sherlock Holmes that comes from the novels, a John (Joan, whatever her name is) Watson that is a women for an actual reason besides trying to be different and a potential heterosexual relationship, then sure, I’ll support the Hell out of it. But so long as I can’t see ACD’s work coming out of it, then I’m not going to be behind you. You can’t be upset with people for that, as much as you might want to be.
While that’s all perfectly fine and good (nobody can force you to like something! The inclusion of “you can absolutely loathe it” in my rambling was intentional!) the point of this post was never “enjoy this thing or you’re a bad person.”
I do disagree with you that the majority of vehement criticisms directed towards the show aren’t at least in some way colored by the BBC. One quick trip down the Elementary tag (or the comments on the trailer, or the Sherlock tag, or Moffat’s “protect the brand” (???) commentary) is enough to show that. Otherwise very few would take so much time to be angry about it and deliberately try to kill it, they just wouldn’t watch it.
Which is my entire point. There is nothing in this post that was attacking people who dislike it. Please don’t try and read a message of hatred where it isn’t there; I used “olive branch” terminology on purpose too. The purpose of this post itself you seem to agree with: give it a chance, quit flooding the tag, don’t purposefully try to destroy it for other people. By saying “like this trailer” I’m trying avoid the chance that it could be annihilated before we have the chance to see it. It’s all fine! I’d rather you hadn’t reblogged just to set my message up as one of opinion-squashing, but other than that we’re on nearly the same side.
Sherlock meta, take two. In which I ramble about queerness, the canon, and what that means for Sherlock.
And again, it relates back to the original canon and interpretations thereof. In my last one I ended up talking over the original issue of asexuality to talk about gay/etc. interpretations, so: here we go again!
(A note before I start: contrary to what a lot of people seem to think, asexual and gay/bi/etc are not mutually exclusive. Some asexual people are heteroromantic, biromantic, homoromantic, etc. So these posts being separate is not supposed to suggest that they’re fundamentally exclusive interpretations. Nor is this supposed to argue he ‘should’ be this or that. It’s to argue he could be queer and that arguments that it’s ‘impossible’ are by and large badly thought out.)
The biggest obstacle a lot of people seem to stumble over when it comes to the idea of Sherlock, as a show, making one or both of its leads queer is that it’s an unfaithful thing to do with regards to the original stories. (This is true, let’s be fair, when discussing any Holmes adaptation in which the issue arises, as it almost always does.) The argument tends to go that he wasn’t gay (and it’s always gay. For the record, I’m using ‘queer’ as a catch-all here) in the original stories, and therefore it’s just wrong to ‘make him gay’ in an adaptation.
Can we please break down the fallacies in this argument when it’s applied to Sherlock?
WHAT A GOOD POST
Also he goes on to defend the way he writes women because essentially “I WROTE RIVER SONG HOW COULD I BE SEXIST??”
okay first of all buddy
you chose to phrase it as having a “fetish for powerful women”
think very carefully about why that might have been a bad idea
secondly, river’s entire life…
the reason why river isn’t a sexist character can be found the first time we meet her:
- she is not traveling with the doctor. considering that she is his spouse, this is pretty independent isn’t it? literally every other companion (at least from new who) give up/put their lives on hold to travel with the doctor. she doesn’t, she carries on with her career.
- she is still an archaeologist. lots of people got iffy because they thought she was only becoming an archaeologist in order to meet the doctor again - if that were true, she would have found an event he was at, gotten a vortex manipulator, turned up and stayed with him. Clearly, she chose that job for another reason.
i think complaining that Rivers storyline’s revolve on her interacting with the Doctor is like complaining that all the storyline’s in Firefly happen on board Serenity. He is the title character and she is a recurring character, not a regular character, therefore her plots need to be linked to the doctor. Since she is an independent character not everything she does revolves around the doctor, however since the show is about the doctor, we don’t see those times. It’d be like there being an episode of just Craig and Sophie without the doctor, it wouldn’t make sense.
I think you’ve missed my point.
These are good traits for her to have, though I would argue about why she became an archaeologist; I thought it was pretty concisely summed up when she outright said that she was “looking for a good man.” She may have done other exciting, interesting things while being an archaeologist! From what little we see of her character outside of her interactions with the Doctor, she probably really enjoyed her job! But we don’t see any of that, you’re right. And therein lies the problem.
In an episodic set-up, you’re going to have to tie the side characters in to the main, that’s true. But we literally see nothing about River outside of her ultimate purpose to kill/marry/etc. the Doctor. Even other companions through NuWho are given complex outside motivations. Family, friends, career goals, people to protect, development that happens on their own accord outside the Doctor’s influence. River? Well, maybe at one point she was obsessed with killing the Doctor, but now she’s obsessed with saving him instead, so that totally counts as character development! Anything she might have accomplished outside of this takes place off-screen and is thus portrayed as utterly irrelevant to her character and the audience. We’re not really meant to care what she does when she’s not thinking about the Doctor. Again, superficial “strong” character traits that wind up being pretty much irrelevant to her overarching narrative.
Look, okay, my goal here is not to bash River. I like a ton of characters that I think are written in a not-so-great way, River (and Irene Alder, who was the quiet focus of this post, much more than River tbh) being one of them. I really like the idea of the timestream-crossed love affair, and there are female characters who are much, much worse off in modern media. But Moffat is pretty insistent that he is TTLY NOT SEXIST!!! and I dunno if you watch Sherlock but some of the stuff he does with Irene is Not Okay. Yet he feels perfectly comfortable telling anybody who criticizes his depiction of women that they are the ones being sexist!! Because he has a “fetish for powerful women” and that makes him progressive!
Basically I wish more writers would realize that creating Strong Female Characters involves more than making them kick people while wearing heels.
yes still angry about moffat
Also he goes on to defend the way he writes women because essentially “I WROTE RIVER SONG HOW COULD I BE SEXIST??”
okay first of all buddy
you chose to phrase it as having a “fetish for powerful women”
think very carefully about why that might have been a bad idea
secondly, river’s entire life is centered around the doctor’s? The disconnect here is, of course, that moffat doesn’t realize that having a female character with superficially “strong” characteristics is not an inherently feminist portrayal of women if their lives revolve entirely around men. You don’t just write the character, you write the entire world they reside in and the way the moral order of that world treats their decisions and allegiances. making her a capable fighter or time traveler or what have you doesn’t make her free of sexist influences?
I know this is probably a rehash for a lot of people. i probably wouldn’t be this annoyed about it if moffat wasn’t so smug about absolutely everything. There are plenty of shows and movies with terrible or insufficient portrayals of women/queer characters/POCs/etc, and I am entirely capable of enjoying the shit out of them, or loving the women/queer characters/POCs they do create. (River Song is a beast, for the most part!!) But when you as a creator start proclaiming how progressive and non-sexist you are you need to back your shit up instead of telling everybody else that they are the sexist ones for telling you what you’re doing badly!
Because that is an actual thing that moffat did
it was gross
It’s the choice of a monk, not the choice of an asexual. If he was asexual, there would be no tension in that, no fun in that – it’s someone who abstains who’s interesting. There’s no guarantee that he’ll stay that way in the end – maybe he marries Mrs Hudson. I don’t know! —
Steven Moffat- Guardian interview
Hahaha wow. I’m not buying your no evidence claim. Sherlock Holmes is like the only high profile asexual character and you want to change that. Because it’s not interesting. Fuck you too buddy.
(via superjustice)
noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo stop talking steven moffat stop
(via revolutionator)
…also none of this is true? in the novels he is very explicitly coded as queer? in ways that modern readers do not always pick up on, but would have been evident to people reading them at the time they were written! THERE IS A CHAPTER ON THIS IN “STRANGERS”. IT’S VERY INFORMATIVE AND MR MOFFAT SHOULD READ IT. :T
(via scarfmouse)
STEVEN MOFFAT
MORE LIKE “STEVEN MUFFED IT”
(via batmanandsobbin)
I would argue against the idea that we can know for certain that Holmes was intentionally coded as queer, although there is some interesting circumstantial evidence that has always made me eyebrow raise a bit and sort of fondly wonder what ACD was getting at. More than anything, I think that Holmes was coded as a living a bohemian lifestyle (and by coded I mean explictly stated by Watson as), something that most adaptations completely fail to translate, which ties him inherently with counter-culture. I do think that Holmes is meant to be unquestionably asexual in canon if only because it was sort of his literary function to be a little less and more than human at times. Asexuality as an identity didn’t really exist in the Victorian era the way it does today. That Sherlock Holmes was not interested in sex and romance even in passing is a clearly stated character trait meant to communicate his utter and single minded devotion to his craft. It was Watson who women admired and who fell in love. ACD definitely did NOT intend for Holmes to be living a life of self-denial; it was clear that he was sincerely not interested. So wrapped up in this quote is: a) confirmation that the show really is riddled with really homophobic “no homo”ing, b) the misogynistic implication that a man rejecting sexual involvement with women is an act of strength and intellectual purity (OH BOY I HAVE NEVER HEARD THAT ONE BEFORE) and c) a dire failure to understand very basic facts of Sherlock Holmes canon. Three for three, Moffat. I’d tell you to play again, but I really don’t want to see another attempt.
(via cephiedvariable)
MTE. I was reading this interview last night, and it’s incredibly depressing. He reverts to calling Holmes a “psychopath” too, which is just disappointing in so many ways.
I dunno, guys. I still really like the show for the merits it does have, and all of the actors are fantastic and a lot of the characters are set up with a lot of potential, but they just don’t come through on a lot of important shit. The whole Sherlock tag likes to shake their fist at the air and ironically yell “MOFFAT!!!” when he does something particularly ~~~clever, but when I do it I am genuinely angry as hell.
Guess I’ll just do what I do with Merlin and love it for what it could be more than for what it is.
(via aeromachia)
