The world turned toward morning

Seriously, Sherlock Holmes fandom(s), settle the fuck down

isolamunroe:

I have issue with your arguments and I shall out line them here.

ayries:

Sherlock Holmes is one of the most popular characters ever. I want you to think about that for a moment. He’s the most portrayed character in the media ever. Stories about him by people other than ACD were being…

Uh, OK, you haven’t seen any of the posts I’m complaining about by the sounds of it, but just for the record:

• I have seen people complain she is a woman.
• As in, ‘it ruins it if a woman replaces a man because men are better’.
• I have seen people assume the only reason they cast her is because ‘women = eyecandy’, as though there is no other purpose for a female character. Sexism in the TV industry aside, female characters do frequently exist as more than that.
• I have seen people say/imply Sherlock is original, and Elementary isn’t, and generally act like Sherlock invented the idea of a Holmes adaptation. (These people are exactly as ridiculous as they sound. I know, I couldn’t believe it either.)
• Also, as I’ve pointed out elsewhere, as have others, it does bear mentioning that due to the horrible racism in US TV, it is arguably somewhat unlikely that a woman of colour will be a love interest! Normally I’d agree that there’s a huge chance they’ve put her there to act as one and I’d be worried, but, well, as disgusting as it is, that does bear at least acknowledging IMO. It muddies the waters a bit, and it brings some issues of intersectionality in, and, well… yeah. Complicated.

You seem… to have misunderstood my post? My post was ranting about people who think Elementary is unoriginal, Sherlock is original, that no adaptations are allowed to come after Sherlock, that changing Watson to a woman is somehow unoriginal (because… changing things apparently makes you derivative?), that there is no possible reason to cast women at all, ever, except to act as love interests (and yes, I’ve seen it said that explicitly), etc. etc. If that doesn’t apply to you, OK! It doesn’t apply to you!

But, er, when I made that post, it was a reaction to a general trend in fandom. It was not a reaction to a single argument, and acting like it is won’t really get you anywhere, to be honest. You can’t argue, ‘oh, well, they mean this!’ because you don’t actually know who the ‘they’ I mean are.

Also, when I said ‘check your facts’ I meant ‘check how many adaptations there have been’, not ‘check facts about Elementary’.

(Also, there are ‘lol no homo’ jokes in Sherlock because Sherlock is, in many ways, hugely homophobic, as the entire concept of ‘bromance’ is. As most adaptations that use ‘bromance’ are! Look, I am really not interested in discussing why the concept of ‘bromance’ is hugely hurtful to queer representation here, but seriously: the writers get all offended whenever the topic comes up despite admitting they put the subtext in on purpose, Moffat gets pissed off if anyone thinks Holmes is gay and/or asexual and, in general, the whole thing is a horrible exercise in ‘let’s exploit an under-represented minority to give us a fanbase while refusing to then represent them!’, which, well, that’s ‘bromance’ for ya. Your assertion that there is no homophobia in using queer subtext but not text when queer people have traditionally been denied representation by only showing subtext, not text is wildly problematic and, well, ridiculous. No, Sherlock is not ‘that adaptation’ that makes it explicit. The reason being that Moffat finds the idea of such an adaptation ‘ridiculous’, and just so happens to prefer to constantly make in-show jokes about it. You know, while being a straight man in a society which regularly reduces gay people in the media to that. It is not a coincidence.)

(I mean, I’m not saying Sherlock has to make them gay. I’m saying that if Sherlock isn’t going to, then they should get rid of the queer subtext and admit it won’t make them gay, because yanking around a group which is always yanked around is cruel and horrible, and doing it in a way that sets the possibility of them existing up as a bit of a joke to be enjoyed and then dismissed is nasty. I feel really uncomfortable watching parts of Sherlock as a queer person for that very reason; they’re taking the fact that I have almost no representation and then exploiting it!)

(OK I’m going to shut up before this becomes An Angry Queer Rants About Bromance, but yeah no ‘bromance’ ew.)