the curious case of the exhausting weekend
So! This weekend, thanks to a friend who has fallen headlong into first Sherlock (BBC) and then Sherlock Holmes fandom, I went to a Sherlock Holmes convention, specifically focused on the stage and film portrayals of the detective. I had a wonderful time. It was, bar none, the weirdest convention I have ever attended.
My friend had given me a heads up about the demographic make-up of the average Sherlockian event, but it's one thing to hear 'most Sherlockians are men in their sixties and seventies,' and another thing to be in a group that consists primarily of men with white hair. I have attended comic conventions, starting way back when, and I thought I knew what a male-dominated fan space would be like. Not quite! Add age and scholarly ambition, and it's a different ballgame.
I listened in on several conversations away from the main convention areas between women who are trying to break into existing Sherlockian groups on how difficult it is to command respect, as someone young and as someone female. There's an interesting push-pull between wanting to fit in with an existing community and wanting to upset a status quo that allows for invitation-only scion societies that don't contain a single living woman. Also the perennial question 'why is the young guy blogger getting so much more attention, when we started around the same time and interact with the same segments of the community?' came up.
Illustrative incident of my own: the younger, female attendees all snagged a table together at the banquet - we immediately called ourselves the kids table, even though the average age was well into the thirties. A gentleman (who was himself far too young for this to be even remotely charming as some kind of generational divide thing) sat with us and condescended at us throughout the meal. He assumed we were locals who all knew each other and were there on a lark rather than individuals who actually cared about Sherlock enough to be active in the community and who might be sitting together because we had grown tired of being treated as novelties by that point in the evening. Even after learning we all came from all over, he kept trying to direct the conversation and dumb it down to things like favorite stories and basically did not recognize or treat us as potential peers. But the condescension didn't happen as much as it could have, and most of the fans were welcoming if bemused by us, so I'm calling the weekend a win in that respect.
Also, I'm not a serious fan at this point, so I don't really care if people take me seriously.
There seemed to be a weird competitive aspect to the Sherlockians in general. As my friend put it, many of them act like the one who dies with the most knowledge wins. Coming from more communal knowledge communities, we find it baffling -- and in her case, as someone who wants to be part of the Sherlock community and wants to enlarge that community and make it more inclusive, frustrating. But yes, competitive in collecting, competitive in ability to quote and cite and out-minutia, competitive in terms of which Holmes is the BEST.
Which brings us to the presenters. Most of whom wore their allegiance on their sleeves, but in the positive, fun way. "I love this actor; he is what Holmes should be, because [whatever reason]" Fun! And then there was one man, who I had been warned was considered pompous even amongst Sherlockians. And wow. WOW. First, he kept playing six degrees of William Gillette, the stage actor who played/rescripted/directed Sherlock Holmes early on. Some made sense - actors and actresses who appeared in his productions and went on to greatness. Others, not so much. For example, Gillette is responsible for the success of Christian Slater, because in his first role, Slater played Billy the Page in a stage production. Even though Doyle had used a page character... Gillette gave Billy his name and characterization as we know them. Therefore, he created Christian Slater.
YOU'RE WELCOME, GIRLS OF THE NINETIES.
My friend and I had started passing notes during his presentation. And I kind of broke her when he put up a slide featuring a scenic sketch of Victorian London, with the dome of St Peters and all, and up in the corner, the iconic cameo profile of Sherlock. And he's all 'blah, blah, based on Gillette's profile, so what if Doyle described him as hawk-nosed first, blah' and I look at the slide with its black profile on a yellow oval up in the sky and scribble "BATMAN." My friend could not look at the screen over the stage or me without having to stifle giggles until that slide came off.*
But here's the thing: not only is his favorite Holmes THE BEST and more responsible for the iconic status of Holmes than Doyle himself, but Rathbone only got the part because he looked like him. That's right - he made a direct slam on Rathbone at a Holmes convention, where a previous presenter had already described Rathbone as the Holmes 'of my heart.' I have never heard such a cold silence in a room that large in my LIFE.
But even though the weird and irritating tend to make for interesting stories, I had a FANTASTIC time. I love being around people who embrace their geeky loves, even if it's not quite my geekdom. I love enthusiasm, and these people have enthusiasm in spades.
I touched a leaf from a Gutenberg bible and heard an entire room gasp at a first edition Canterbury Tales before bursting into applause at the unveiling of a Beeton's Christmas annual. I got to listen to a character actor who will, by his own admission, never be cast as Sherlock Holmes talk about the reasons the actors who have been often grow to resent the character. The scriptwriter for the BBC radio plays talked about the primacy of the Holmes-Watson relationship throughout the canon and then played the final, extra-canonical, and very meta scene of the series that nearly brought me to tears. I watched a film (that is very much Of It's Time and not particularly recommendable) featuring Sherlock Holmes having a sword fight on top of a train while Watson practiced his cheerleading. ("He has no backhand!") I listened as annotator extraordinaire Leslie Klinger did a dramatic reading of Doyle's play "The Speckled Band." (Watson was SMARMY in that version, omg.) I nodded and suppressed a smile as a fan earnestly explained that the gun on the poster of the new Sherlock Holmes movie wouldn't exist yet during the year the movie is set, and that he hoped he 'hadn't ruined the movie' for us. (Those of us who loved the first Ritchie film are not going to be bothered by the inaccurate weaponry; and for those that don't, it's really only one of many, many ways the movies diverge from the books/era.)
I participated in the Sorting discussion as it relates to Sherlock Holmes characters with a girl who designs her own Lolita-steampunk clothes, and I defended the dubious honor of Slytherin. I high-fived someone over having the good taste to read Katie Forsythe's fanfic. I played tour guide in a place I love. I actually used my Twitter account (injiver, for those of you playing the home game) and plan to continue in order to keep in touch with some of the other young fans. And I apparently participated in the founding of a new scion society. Go team us! I bought a used copy of a guide to Sherlock Holmes's London, illustrated with sepia-tinted photos from the 1870s-1890s. I led an expedition to the local Irish pub where I then had a 'granny' drink. I stayed up too late, talking about Holmes and Watson, and mystery writers, and cats, and Stephen Fry clocks, and kids.
Yeah, I had a fantastic weekend.
Now to psych myself up for a return to work.
*Dear fandom: I want this story. I want a Holmes-signal and a red telegraph line straight from Scotland Yard to 221B. Please point me towards it.
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My friend had given me a heads up about the demographic make-up of the average Sherlockian event, but it's one thing to hear 'most Sherlockians are men in their sixties and seventies,' and another thing to be in a group that consists primarily of men with white hair. I have attended comic conventions, starting way back when, and I thought I knew what a male-dominated fan space would be like. Not quite! Add age and scholarly ambition, and it's a different ballgame.
I listened in on several conversations away from the main convention areas between women who are trying to break into existing Sherlockian groups on how difficult it is to command respect, as someone young and as someone female. There's an interesting push-pull between wanting to fit in with an existing community and wanting to upset a status quo that allows for invitation-only scion societies that don't contain a single living woman. Also the perennial question 'why is the young guy blogger getting so much more attention, when we started around the same time and interact with the same segments of the community?' came up.
Illustrative incident of my own: the younger, female attendees all snagged a table together at the banquet - we immediately called ourselves the kids table, even though the average age was well into the thirties. A gentleman (who was himself far too young for this to be even remotely charming as some kind of generational divide thing) sat with us and condescended at us throughout the meal. He assumed we were locals who all knew each other and were there on a lark rather than individuals who actually cared about Sherlock enough to be active in the community and who might be sitting together because we had grown tired of being treated as novelties by that point in the evening. Even after learning we all came from all over, he kept trying to direct the conversation and dumb it down to things like favorite stories and basically did not recognize or treat us as potential peers. But the condescension didn't happen as much as it could have, and most of the fans were welcoming if bemused by us, so I'm calling the weekend a win in that respect.
Also, I'm not a serious fan at this point, so I don't really care if people take me seriously.
There seemed to be a weird competitive aspect to the Sherlockians in general. As my friend put it, many of them act like the one who dies with the most knowledge wins. Coming from more communal knowledge communities, we find it baffling -- and in her case, as someone who wants to be part of the Sherlock community and wants to enlarge that community and make it more inclusive, frustrating. But yes, competitive in collecting, competitive in ability to quote and cite and out-minutia, competitive in terms of which Holmes is the BEST.
Which brings us to the presenters. Most of whom wore their allegiance on their sleeves, but in the positive, fun way. "I love this actor; he is what Holmes should be, because [whatever reason]" Fun! And then there was one man, who I had been warned was considered pompous even amongst Sherlockians. And wow. WOW. First, he kept playing six degrees of William Gillette, the stage actor who played/rescripted/directed Sherlock Holmes early on. Some made sense - actors and actresses who appeared in his productions and went on to greatness. Others, not so much. For example, Gillette is responsible for the success of Christian Slater, because in his first role, Slater played Billy the Page in a stage production. Even though Doyle had used a page character... Gillette gave Billy his name and characterization as we know them. Therefore, he created Christian Slater.
YOU'RE WELCOME, GIRLS OF THE NINETIES.
My friend and I had started passing notes during his presentation. And I kind of broke her when he put up a slide featuring a scenic sketch of Victorian London, with the dome of St Peters and all, and up in the corner, the iconic cameo profile of Sherlock. And he's all 'blah, blah, based on Gillette's profile, so what if Doyle described him as hawk-nosed first, blah' and I look at the slide with its black profile on a yellow oval up in the sky and scribble "BATMAN." My friend could not look at the screen over the stage or me without having to stifle giggles until that slide came off.*
But here's the thing: not only is his favorite Holmes THE BEST and more responsible for the iconic status of Holmes than Doyle himself, but Rathbone only got the part because he looked like him. That's right - he made a direct slam on Rathbone at a Holmes convention, where a previous presenter had already described Rathbone as the Holmes 'of my heart.' I have never heard such a cold silence in a room that large in my LIFE.
But even though the weird and irritating tend to make for interesting stories, I had a FANTASTIC time. I love being around people who embrace their geeky loves, even if it's not quite my geekdom. I love enthusiasm, and these people have enthusiasm in spades.
I touched a leaf from a Gutenberg bible and heard an entire room gasp at a first edition Canterbury Tales before bursting into applause at the unveiling of a Beeton's Christmas annual. I got to listen to a character actor who will, by his own admission, never be cast as Sherlock Holmes talk about the reasons the actors who have been often grow to resent the character. The scriptwriter for the BBC radio plays talked about the primacy of the Holmes-Watson relationship throughout the canon and then played the final, extra-canonical, and very meta scene of the series that nearly brought me to tears. I watched a film (that is very much Of It's Time and not particularly recommendable) featuring Sherlock Holmes having a sword fight on top of a train while Watson practiced his cheerleading. ("He has no backhand!") I listened as annotator extraordinaire Leslie Klinger did a dramatic reading of Doyle's play "The Speckled Band." (Watson was SMARMY in that version, omg.) I nodded and suppressed a smile as a fan earnestly explained that the gun on the poster of the new Sherlock Holmes movie wouldn't exist yet during the year the movie is set, and that he hoped he 'hadn't ruined the movie' for us. (Those of us who loved the first Ritchie film are not going to be bothered by the inaccurate weaponry; and for those that don't, it's really only one of many, many ways the movies diverge from the books/era.)
I participated in the Sorting discussion as it relates to Sherlock Holmes characters with a girl who designs her own Lolita-steampunk clothes, and I defended the dubious honor of Slytherin. I high-fived someone over having the good taste to read Katie Forsythe's fanfic. I played tour guide in a place I love. I actually used my Twitter account (injiver, for those of you playing the home game) and plan to continue in order to keep in touch with some of the other young fans. And I apparently participated in the founding of a new scion society. Go team us! I bought a used copy of a guide to Sherlock Holmes's London, illustrated with sepia-tinted photos from the 1870s-1890s. I led an expedition to the local Irish pub where I then had a 'granny' drink. I stayed up too late, talking about Holmes and Watson, and mystery writers, and cats, and Stephen Fry clocks, and kids.
Yeah, I had a fantastic weekend.
Now to psych myself up for a return to work.
*Dear fandom: I want this story. I want a Holmes-signal and a red telegraph line straight from Scotland Yard to 221B. Please point me towards it.
The Dreamwidth version of this entry currently has
comments.