Sherlock: In appreciation of friendship
You know I said that the last post would be my final word on Sherlock, well it appears that I was being somewhat mendacious with the truth!
Good friends, best buddies, best mates for many of us make the world a far, far better place. My best friend is the other side of the world from me. I've known her for decades. She was one of the main reasons I didn't want to move and she remains one of the most important people in my life. Fortunately with the wonders of the internet and Skype I am in contact with her on almost a daily basis.
I brought my children up to recognise the value of friendship. To acknowledge that while romantic love can and does come and go, friendship, if you are lucky, can be for life. I've emphasised this perhaps more with my daughter than my son because of the few things things in life that woman can say that they have it better than men friendship is one of them.
We woman can demonstrate our love for our friends without anyone raising an eyebrow. Hugs, kisses, closeness, trips together, weekends together, women only holidays, regular and long phone calls... no one blinks. Change the sex of the friends and the innuendos start flying. It is a really sad state of affairs that while homophobia is becoming less and less acceptable in the Western world, the concept of brotherly love and loyalty seems to be getting lost as we appear unable to give men the space we women accept without question, of having intimate and loving non sexual friendships.
And yes, this does leads to BBC Sherlock. Sherlock is about a detective, Sherlock Holmes and his friend, Dr John Watson. In the canon stories Watson writes about Holmes with great admiration and the friendship and love between both men comes through very strongly. The creators of Sherlock have followed that format and created a modern day story of love and friendship which has developed amazingly over the 9 episodes (plus mini episode) and has been an absolute pleasure to watch.
Because we see intimacy yet listen to John, in some exasperation, correcting those who jump to the conclusion that he and Sherlock are a couple we have some of the more vocal parts of the fandom yelling homophobia and gay bashing/baiting. They appear to have fallen in the trap of refusing to acknowledge that John and Sherlock can love and adore each other to tiny little pieces yet not want to fall into bed with each other. It is as if romantic, sexual love is the highest form of love. That a lack of desire and sex means that Sherlock and John's love and friendship is somehow less. That John's grief of losing (the best and wisest of men) can only be seen in sexual terms to mean anything. That Sherlock’s determination to keep John (the best man I have ever known) safe is because he secretly pines for him.
As a slasher of well over two decades I know the pleasure of putting on my slasher glasses and 'seeing' the innuendo and subtext and going for it. Those of us with slash-tinted glasses do have a tendency to relate all affection between the men we like as sexual. We may be playing in a fictional sandbox but, we, along with much of Western society, are very much to blame for equating intimacy with sex, with putting romantic love on a pedestal. By doing so we are doing a strong disservice to platonic love by failing to appreciate just how damn wonderful true friendship is.