bookgazing (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bookgazing) wrote2010-07-30 03:49 pm
bookgazing) wrote2010-07-30 03:49 pm
A Study in Stupidity
I’m jetting off to Croatia on Monday for a week of drinking, island hopping and marvelling at beautiful ruins with two friends. Before I go I feel like there’s something vitally important and bookish related that we must discuss – the new three part ‘Sherlock Holmes’ series, currently running on the BBC. Yes, it is really important!
Specifically I’d like to ramble on angrily about this article, quoting the star of the show Bendict Cumberbatch and the creator Stephen Moffat saying that the new Sherlock Holmes is not meant to be gay. Thank fuck Freeman is staying out of this at the moment, or I might curl up in a corner and cry (oh those wonderful interviews he gives, where he seems to be puzzled and quite angry about the stupid questions he’s being asked – sigh of love).
The biggest problem with this article is that while it states that Moffat wanted to ‘play on the confusion of Holmes and Watson's relationship and never intended to confirm either character's sexuality’* Cumberbatch's quotes are, well, confirming Holmes and Watsons’ sexuality as straight. He characterises their relationship as a bromance – oh the ambiguity is fine, he says, but remember it’s a bromance not a love affair. Umm, well that is not ambiguous at all Mr Cumberbatch. I think his real point is that a bit of ambiguity for hilarious misunderstanding related titillation is fine with him, as long as everyone remembers the reality of the pairs straightness (awful, just awful, just please stop). Moffat saying ‘I don't think there is anything that suggests Sherlock is gay’ is again saying that Holmes character is straight. Good job not confirming their sexuality there Mr Moffat – just...good job! Slow hand clap to infinity.
I expect that we will see the tired ‘but the text does not state Holmes is gay, so he’s not’ analysis dragged out. This will be used to shut up anyone who thought that putting Holmes into a modern setting (hello gigantic textual revision the first) might mean his sexuality could also be revised. Or it will be aimed at those who thought that at the very least a modern adaptation, written by modern men, would provide the opportunity to hint much more strongly than ever before at the real possibility that the previous lack of classification of Holmes sexuality allows for the option that Holmes is gay and have the people who created the series agree that Holmes’ sexuality is at the very least genuinely ambiguous and not contradict themselves right away.
Here’s the problem with interrogating classics using only what is present in the text; not very long ago, writers could not write openly gay characters. Some wrote characters whose sexuality could be seen as ambiguous, but heavily suggested they were gay (Oscar Wilde), some wrote books with gay characters and left them to be published after they died (E M Forster), some wrote characters whose gayness must now be divined through tiny hints, or one key scene (a plethora of people who make me so happy and so sad at the same time). Some sadly, but inevitably made characters, which seem clearly gay to many modern readers, nonsexual beings to avoid the whole problem of navigating negative attitudes towards gay people. This means that mention of their sexuality is missing from the text, so in some cases a character’s lack of reference to physical attraction doesn’t necessarily mean they lack sexual interest altogether, it means their sexuality was necessarily repressed or discarded because of the intolerance of the society they were written into **. So when someone says ‘but the text doesn’t say...’ it’s not always a valid criticism of someone else’s theory about a text, especially when the text loudly neglects to mention a Victorian male’s interest in women. The gaps and silences in texts are why we have revisionist fiction attached to some of the most revered classics ever produced, because in some ways the text of the original is not enough.
This new Shelock Holmes adaptation, set in a modern society where being gay is supposed to be accepted was the opportunity for a much more open insinuation that Holmes is gay. Yes, married to his work, incapable of having a relationship, but still attracted to men as much as Holmes ever spares time to be attracted to anyone. Robert Downey Jnr did a fine job of getting audiences to think about this in the first half of Guy Ritchie’s recent film, but a strong interpretation of his character's gay sexuality was ultimately foiled by the inclusion of Irene Adler. And now the idea that Holmes, placed in a modern, tolerant world, might be free to come out of the silence and speculation his textual lack of sexuality created around him has been taken off the table by those involved in creating his new incarnation. I mean I will still be imagining this Holmes as gay with wanton abandon, but really the writer and the star have tried to shut down that line of examination.
Let me tell you how I came to this series. I too was wondering what I would watch now that Dr Who is over and the delightful Amy Pond and Rory (yes and the new Dr he is quite lovely, even if he can never be Tenant, or Eccles) are off our screens. The Sherlock Holmes trailers started showing up, but as it was set in present day I was convinced it would be a terrible heresy. But you probably know how it is with things that look like heresy, they exert a pull: ‘You Must Watch Me and See How Awful I Am’. I am always convinced I’m very traditional when it comes to Holmes adaptations, but actually when I start watching any half decent concept I am fine AS LONG AS HOLMES IS RIGHT – no compromise allowed on that.
Anyway to cut out more waffle I was charmed by the first episode, largely because it is essentially ‘If David Tenant as Dr Who pretended to be Sherlock Holmes for a bit’ (come on can’t you just see Tenant saying ‘Serial killers, I love serial killers’ in that provocatively contradictory, yet lovely, way of his – whatever Bendict Cumberbatch, you know you totally want to be the next Dr/ a stunningly evil Who villian). Also the pairing of Freeman and Cumberbatch has that special chemistry Holmes and Watson need to ensure that Watson follows Holmes through every ridiculous and exciting situation, with very little trepidation. In fact all the characters work pretty well, in that loveably cosy, yet slightly dangerous way, that makes Dr Who so much like eating sugar covered thunderclouds.
But part of my hot and heavy love for this new adaptation came from the fact that there is so much blatant ‘Aren’t you guys gay?’ assumption, discussion and questioning (something Stephen Moffat says was a preoccupation of his when creating this adaptation). There is not just suggestive, flirtatious eye contact between the leads and innuendo from supporting characters, people openly talk about thinking they’re a gay couple because this is 2010, we can haz straightforward conversation about people being gay now. Now yes, the way this is treated is still a bit problematic, because it’s no one’s right to ask Sherlock if he is gay, or to make assumptions about his sexuality because he fits a stereotypical Fry/Wilde shape of gayness in other people eyes. But still – ordinary people talking about him and Watson being a gay couple, acceptingly and without making it a crazy big issue = WIN. It made me giggle from happiness. And in the article Moffat says presenting the view that society is more accepting of the possibility of a gay couple was an aim of his. Hurray.
And now all that positive acceptance stuff is kind of tainted, because it seems Moffat is fine with people saying ‘Oh, are they a couple?’ as long as his audience very clearly hears his message that ‘They’re not y’know’. So it’s cool that society is so accepting now, that people are fine with thinking that a pair of blokes might be together and if they were together everyone would be fine with that, but any suggestion that Moffat’s versions of Watson and Holmes might actually be gay, or bisexual was not something that he wanted to explore. That’s too far a revision for him. And allowing ambiguity to stand, without kicking down the ambiguity as soon as anyone suggests the characters might be gay, because the audience is responding to the ambiguity and carrying it to a different conclusion from Moffat and Cumberbatch, is too much to ask apparently.
And probably there are a bunch of problems I’ve missed here, but probably you were getting my generally unhappy tone after the sarky bit about the handclapping. Please see bookshop’s wonderfully angry, link full paragraph, which culminates with the article I linked to (and was the inspiration for this post). How to combat this article of fail? I guess imagine Watson and Holmes together even harder.
* * We can take Holmes as a truly asexual person, whose consuming passion is his work – some people do. It’s an option suggested by the text. Right, I’ll move on now I’ve acknowledged that alternate theory ;) Seriously I don't have a problem with people believing in alternate Holmes theories to my own, but I do have a problem with seeing the way I view Holmes dismissed entirely. Why can't it exist in tandem with other people's ideas about him? It can and it should be allowed to.
Specifically I’d like to ramble on angrily about this article, quoting the star of the show Bendict Cumberbatch and the creator Stephen Moffat saying that the new Sherlock Holmes is not meant to be gay. Thank fuck Freeman is staying out of this at the moment, or I might curl up in a corner and cry (oh those wonderful interviews he gives, where he seems to be puzzled and quite angry about the stupid questions he’s being asked – sigh of love).
The biggest problem with this article is that while it states that Moffat wanted to ‘play on the confusion of Holmes and Watson's relationship and never intended to confirm either character's sexuality’* Cumberbatch's quotes are, well, confirming Holmes and Watsons’ sexuality as straight. He characterises their relationship as a bromance – oh the ambiguity is fine, he says, but remember it’s a bromance not a love affair. Umm, well that is not ambiguous at all Mr Cumberbatch. I think his real point is that a bit of ambiguity for hilarious misunderstanding related titillation is fine with him, as long as everyone remembers the reality of the pairs straightness (awful, just awful, just please stop). Moffat saying ‘I don't think there is anything that suggests Sherlock is gay’ is again saying that Holmes character is straight. Good job not confirming their sexuality there Mr Moffat – just...good job! Slow hand clap to infinity.
I expect that we will see the tired ‘but the text does not state Holmes is gay, so he’s not’ analysis dragged out. This will be used to shut up anyone who thought that putting Holmes into a modern setting (hello gigantic textual revision the first) might mean his sexuality could also be revised. Or it will be aimed at those who thought that at the very least a modern adaptation, written by modern men, would provide the opportunity to hint much more strongly than ever before at the real possibility that the previous lack of classification of Holmes sexuality allows for the option that Holmes is gay and have the people who created the series agree that Holmes’ sexuality is at the very least genuinely ambiguous and not contradict themselves right away.
Here’s the problem with interrogating classics using only what is present in the text; not very long ago, writers could not write openly gay characters. Some wrote characters whose sexuality could be seen as ambiguous, but heavily suggested they were gay (Oscar Wilde), some wrote books with gay characters and left them to be published after they died (E M Forster), some wrote characters whose gayness must now be divined through tiny hints, or one key scene (a plethora of people who make me so happy and so sad at the same time). Some sadly, but inevitably made characters, which seem clearly gay to many modern readers, nonsexual beings to avoid the whole problem of navigating negative attitudes towards gay people. This means that mention of their sexuality is missing from the text, so in some cases a character’s lack of reference to physical attraction doesn’t necessarily mean they lack sexual interest altogether, it means their sexuality was necessarily repressed or discarded because of the intolerance of the society they were written into **. So when someone says ‘but the text doesn’t say...’ it’s not always a valid criticism of someone else’s theory about a text, especially when the text loudly neglects to mention a Victorian male’s interest in women. The gaps and silences in texts are why we have revisionist fiction attached to some of the most revered classics ever produced, because in some ways the text of the original is not enough.
This new Shelock Holmes adaptation, set in a modern society where being gay is supposed to be accepted was the opportunity for a much more open insinuation that Holmes is gay. Yes, married to his work, incapable of having a relationship, but still attracted to men as much as Holmes ever spares time to be attracted to anyone. Robert Downey Jnr did a fine job of getting audiences to think about this in the first half of Guy Ritchie’s recent film, but a strong interpretation of his character's gay sexuality was ultimately foiled by the inclusion of Irene Adler. And now the idea that Holmes, placed in a modern, tolerant world, might be free to come out of the silence and speculation his textual lack of sexuality created around him has been taken off the table by those involved in creating his new incarnation. I mean I will still be imagining this Holmes as gay with wanton abandon, but really the writer and the star have tried to shut down that line of examination.
Let me tell you how I came to this series. I too was wondering what I would watch now that Dr Who is over and the delightful Amy Pond and Rory (yes and the new Dr he is quite lovely, even if he can never be Tenant, or Eccles) are off our screens. The Sherlock Holmes trailers started showing up, but as it was set in present day I was convinced it would be a terrible heresy. But you probably know how it is with things that look like heresy, they exert a pull: ‘You Must Watch Me and See How Awful I Am’. I am always convinced I’m very traditional when it comes to Holmes adaptations, but actually when I start watching any half decent concept I am fine AS LONG AS HOLMES IS RIGHT – no compromise allowed on that.
Anyway to cut out more waffle I was charmed by the first episode, largely because it is essentially ‘If David Tenant as Dr Who pretended to be Sherlock Holmes for a bit’ (come on can’t you just see Tenant saying ‘Serial killers, I love serial killers’ in that provocatively contradictory, yet lovely, way of his – whatever Bendict Cumberbatch, you know you totally want to be the next Dr/ a stunningly evil Who villian). Also the pairing of Freeman and Cumberbatch has that special chemistry Holmes and Watson need to ensure that Watson follows Holmes through every ridiculous and exciting situation, with very little trepidation. In fact all the characters work pretty well, in that loveably cosy, yet slightly dangerous way, that makes Dr Who so much like eating sugar covered thunderclouds.
But part of my hot and heavy love for this new adaptation came from the fact that there is so much blatant ‘Aren’t you guys gay?’ assumption, discussion and questioning (something Stephen Moffat says was a preoccupation of his when creating this adaptation). There is not just suggestive, flirtatious eye contact between the leads and innuendo from supporting characters, people openly talk about thinking they’re a gay couple because this is 2010, we can haz straightforward conversation about people being gay now. Now yes, the way this is treated is still a bit problematic, because it’s no one’s right to ask Sherlock if he is gay, or to make assumptions about his sexuality because he fits a stereotypical Fry/Wilde shape of gayness in other people eyes. But still – ordinary people talking about him and Watson being a gay couple, acceptingly and without making it a crazy big issue = WIN. It made me giggle from happiness. And in the article Moffat says presenting the view that society is more accepting of the possibility of a gay couple was an aim of his. Hurray.
And now all that positive acceptance stuff is kind of tainted, because it seems Moffat is fine with people saying ‘Oh, are they a couple?’ as long as his audience very clearly hears his message that ‘They’re not y’know’. So it’s cool that society is so accepting now, that people are fine with thinking that a pair of blokes might be together and if they were together everyone would be fine with that, but any suggestion that Moffat’s versions of Watson and Holmes might actually be gay, or bisexual was not something that he wanted to explore. That’s too far a revision for him. And allowing ambiguity to stand, without kicking down the ambiguity as soon as anyone suggests the characters might be gay, because the audience is responding to the ambiguity and carrying it to a different conclusion from Moffat and Cumberbatch, is too much to ask apparently.
And probably there are a bunch of problems I’ve missed here, but probably you were getting my generally unhappy tone after the sarky bit about the handclapping. Please see bookshop’s wonderfully angry, link full paragraph, which culminates with the article I linked to (and was the inspiration for this post). How to combat this article of fail? I guess imagine Watson and Holmes together even harder.
Anyone else watching this? I'd love to hear your thoughts about the article, or the series in general (or general Holmesian love, or dislike - I'll go for anything that involves this detectoring pair).
* Never mind that I absolutely don’t believe Moffat isn’t intent on confirming at least Watson’s sexuality as straight in this series – what’s up with the failed flirting with Holmes brothers female secretary if his sexuality is meant to be ambiguous? Again, good job on the ambiguity front there. But I could go on and on about the choices in portraying Watson’s sexuality in the most recent adaptations.* * We can take Holmes as a truly asexual person, whose consuming passion is his work – some people do. It’s an option suggested by the text. Right, I’ll move on now I’ve acknowledged that alternate theory ;) Seriously I don't have a problem with people believing in alternate Holmes theories to my own, but I do have a problem with seeing the way I view Holmes dismissed entirely. Why can't it exist in tandem with other people's ideas about him? It can and it should be allowed to.