Sherlock 2x01
Jan. 4th, 2012 11:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kindkitI watched A Scandal in Belgravia and loved the first hour, before everything went horribly wrong. I don't like that they made Irene Adler an actual villain, and I'm still confused about what kind of villain she was--was she supposed to be some kind of jihadist sympathizer? Because that's just weird. And if she wasn't, if she really just did want protection, then why the fuck did she send the flight information to the terrorist cell? (ETA: Also, the fact that she loses to Sherlock, and because of her feelings for Sherlock, when in the original she fools him and goes off to be with the person she loves.)
Then there's the fact that the episode (a) presented Sherlock Holmes as the man who can make a self-professed gay woman fall in love with him, and (b) showed Sherlock returning her love, this in the same goddamn episode where it was sorta kinda canonically established that Sherlock and John have highly complicated feelings about each other. (Having said that, I did rather like the exchange between Irene and John about their mutual Sherlock-caused romantic and erotic confusion.)
The ending didn't make any damn sense (what, Sherlock just took a quick trip to Karachi--which, by the way, I think is possibly a little big and urban to be full ofninjas jihadis going around beheading people in public--infiltrated a terrorist group and fought them off with swords to save Irene? And no one noticed?) and generally kind of annoyed me.
I liked a lot in this ep, especially Mycroft and the hints of their childhood. And the Christmas party scene where Sherlock attempts, belatedly, to be nice. And Sherlock's bedsheet. But the Adler plot really was a hot mess, with too many attempts to be Sexy and Edgy.
Also, call me crazy, but I feel like the show is trying to win gay-positive cred by including lesbian characters (and not well, since the lesbians are either invisible, like Harry, or fall in love with Sherlock) but has neglected to feature a single non-villainous gay man. Yes, Sherlock has said some things that imply Mycroft is gay. But Mycroft is the Ice Man, even less likely to have sexual or romantic relationships, or feelings, than Sherlock, so I'm not sure I believe it. Conversely, Moriarty, although he claimed to have been just "playing" gay, is a walking gay stereotype.
The Sherlock/John relationship, while I do give the show some credit for showing it as intense and complicated (and I don't think it's just being played for laughs or as a tease) is probably never going to be made more definitely romantic than it already has been. *sigh*
And yet, despite all my objections, the show has re-hooked me even though I hated 1x02 and had mixed feelings about 1x03. Anybody read or written any good fic? By "good," I mean that it slashes Sherlock and John in an emotionally plausible way, or it explores Sherlock's personality interestingly, or it focuses on Mycroft-Sherlock relationship and what I suspect was the unbelievable weirdness of their childhood?
Then there's the fact that the episode (a) presented Sherlock Holmes as the man who can make a self-professed gay woman fall in love with him, and (b) showed Sherlock returning her love, this in the same goddamn episode where it was sorta kinda canonically established that Sherlock and John have highly complicated feelings about each other. (Having said that, I did rather like the exchange between Irene and John about their mutual Sherlock-caused romantic and erotic confusion.)
The ending didn't make any damn sense (what, Sherlock just took a quick trip to Karachi--which, by the way, I think is possibly a little big and urban to be full of
I liked a lot in this ep, especially Mycroft and the hints of their childhood. And the Christmas party scene where Sherlock attempts, belatedly, to be nice. And Sherlock's bedsheet. But the Adler plot really was a hot mess, with too many attempts to be Sexy and Edgy.
Also, call me crazy, but I feel like the show is trying to win gay-positive cred by including lesbian characters (and not well, since the lesbians are either invisible, like Harry, or fall in love with Sherlock) but has neglected to feature a single non-villainous gay man. Yes, Sherlock has said some things that imply Mycroft is gay. But Mycroft is the Ice Man, even less likely to have sexual or romantic relationships, or feelings, than Sherlock, so I'm not sure I believe it. Conversely, Moriarty, although he claimed to have been just "playing" gay, is a walking gay stereotype.
The Sherlock/John relationship, while I do give the show some credit for showing it as intense and complicated (and I don't think it's just being played for laughs or as a tease) is probably never going to be made more definitely romantic than it already has been. *sigh*
And yet, despite all my objections, the show has re-hooked me even though I hated 1x02 and had mixed feelings about 1x03. Anybody read or written any good fic? By "good," I mean that it slashes Sherlock and John in an emotionally plausible way, or it explores Sherlock's personality interestingly, or it focuses on Mycroft-Sherlock relationship and what I suspect was the unbelievable weirdness of their childhood?
no subject
Date: 2012-01-06 11:43 am (UTC)Further points:
- It's said early on that Irene broke up a couple (and it's not said it's a lesbian couple) by sleeping with both of them, so I assumed early on that she's bi, which made the "I'm gay" statement either false or a generalization of "not straight".
- Sherlock was definitely distracted by her, but it didn't seem like he ever felt sexual desire for her, which lends credence to the idea that BBC's Sherlock is asexual (which is not to say he's necessarily aromantic, or that his interest in either Irene or John is unromantic).
- John Sessions' character was a non-villainous, though stereotypical, gay man.
Having said that, I largely agree.
I can rec one fix-it fic for the ending of A Scandal in Belgravia (this one), but I've read very few Sherlock fics and what I read aren't what you wanted. One started out with extremely IC Moriarty and John, but I wasn't pleased with how they handled the Sherlock/John it inevitably turned into. (And one was OOC, and one was pure smut, and that's all I've read.)
I can rec an art Tumblr, though - http://reapersun.tumblr.com - very silly but the art is high quality and really funny.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-06 05:09 pm (UTC)She describes herself as gay; I think we have to take her word over something that's presented in the text as rumor. (And, for that matter, I've known people who identify as gay or lesbian who have sometimes had sex with people of the other sex WITHOUT identifying as bisexual. One gay man of my acquaintance said he'd had sex with "a few" women, and when someone asked how many that was, said about forty.)
The way Irene was written was inconsistent on that point, and should have been done better, but I choose to accept her self-description. Anyway, my point wasn't OMG IRENE CAN'T POSSIBLY BE BI, it was that describing her a gay and then showing her falling in love with a man (and then redeemed by that love) is incredibly problematic and in fact a homophobic trope.
BBC's Sherlock is asexual
*shrugs* It's one possible interpretation. It doesn't happen to interest me very much, just as the possibility of Sherlock being heterosexual doesn't interest me very much. I'd rather the BBC kept his sexuality undefined than went with either of those options, but we'll see what happens.
John Sessions' character was a non-villainous, though stereotypical, gay man.
Do you mean the man whose lover murdered his sister? He may not have been personally a villain, but it still shows a gay relationship as leading to and involved with crime. And, okay, it's a crime show, but there are people in it who aren't criminals or victims and it would be good if some of them could be LGBT.
I don't know where you're trying to go with this point-by-point rebuttal. If you think Sherlock is doing a perfectly fine job with queer characters, I'd like to see your argument instead of just trying to take mine to pieces.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-06 09:56 pm (UTC)I do agree, actually, on the basic idea that it's problematic to show gay women falling in love with men, as it is to show gay men falling in love with women, specifically because it erases their gayness, and in the case of gay women as highly sexual as Irene, it turns their gayness meaningless and, dare I say, makes it titillating but unthreatening to straight men. Women's bisexuality in media seems to be all about titillation, which bugs the hell out of me.
I guess the reason why it didn't offend me so much in the case of Irene Adler was that I always expected there to be attraction between them, because that's how Irene Adler is written whenever the author moves away from canon even a little bit. So it was hardly a shock.
- Asexuality - it's the interpretation that rings most true for me, though I could probably write outside it. But we all have our own interpretations and mine is no more valid than anyone else's. I can totally also see repressed homosexual, possibly Ireneromantic.
- Oh, dude, I wasn't going anywhere, I just like to discuss things in unnecessary depth. I think everything is better with queer characters, and that Moffat's writing is problematic and his non-straight-male characters tend to lean on stereotypes, and don't get me started on Molly, or 1x02. I like Sherlock the show, but I'm not a rabid fan or anything.
Think of it as making your argument more specific?
no subject
Date: 2012-01-11 03:19 am (UTC)That has not been my experience at all, except when "gay" is used with a qualifier ("kind of gay" or "a bit gay" or something). But when people flat-out describe themselves as gay, in my experience it's almost meant either exclusively same-sex attracted or so predominantly same-sex attracted that in their opinion the other attractions don't signify.
dude, I wasn't going anywhere, I just like to discuss things in unnecessary depth
Okay. It's just that your last reply was basically a list of things that in your view I'd got wrong. To me it felt blunt to the point of being combative.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-11 08:52 am (UTC)Maybe it's just my RL queer circle, then. I know a couple of non-monosexual girls - one bi, one polysexual - who keep using "gay" to refer to themselves, interchangeably with polysexual and bi, though this may be because they're both in same-sex relationships at the moment, and I seem to see it on TV and online.
When it comes to Irene, though I assumed she was bi from the couple-story, I can totally also see that they meant she was straight for Sherlock (which is the trope). Well, well. But I should probably stop talking now.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-15 04:10 pm (UTC)