I'm not sure if the critic thought well when she said that casting a woman into Watson's role "castrated" him. This is mainly because it strikes me as castration = emasculation, and feminine = emasculating. I know there's this thing where femininity or just even being like a female is considered bad and degrading for men
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I'm not sure that the critic thought about anything, given the fact she didn't even bother to watch the show before deciding she knew what it was about.
But on the subject of cartoon characters and genderswapping, when I was a kid I used to think that Dixie Kong from Donkey Kong 2 was a little French male monkey with a feather in his cap. (A rather effeminate, male monkey, but I still thought him a boy) and my best friend used to think Rabbit from Winne the Pooh was a woman -- and you know what? It didn't change anything at all. People are so funny about these things.
I don't know if I have many other examples because most of what I looked at was video games. I was very happy when pokemon finally gave you a sex to pick though. I just don't think sex should radically change a role.
I think they should have gone all the way and made Sherlock a woman as well. I mean, really fandom? You're complaining about someone taking liberties with a well-known canon? Isn't that what fandom does for the most part anyways? It feels like both Victoria Coren (despite her feminist avowals) as well as Sherlock fandom are still too in love with restrained white men in the source material.
I would have loved to see a female Sherlock -- absolutely! But I think it's pretty appalling that, after complaining about Liu's race and gender, Coren acts for a second like she wouldn't have said the very same things if Lucy was Holmes. After all, she'd still be *gasp* American.
It feels like both Victoria Coren (despite her feminist avowals) as well as Sherlock fandom are still too in love with restrained white men in the source material.
This is what I wanted, because I was really annoyed at the idea of a WoC playing second banana to a white male lead, but for the most part the writers seem to be successfully letting Joan totally whoop Sherlock's ass.
I'm STILL a little annoyed at the dynamic where a lady has to play the stoic keeper of some ~deeply flawed~ man though, ngl.
I think Joan Watson is just as flawed though and I really see that developing into a kind of co-dependency that, really, is the fulcrum of Watson/Holmes. I'm really excited to see where the series goes
The absolute idiocy and ignorance displayed in her reaction to Lucy Liu's excitement over playing an asian american watson is really the part that pushed this over the line from offensive to skin-crawlingly offensive.
She tries to be cute and say it's the "american" part she's offended about, but she's so fucking tone deaf and idiotic to not even acknowledge the significance of casting an asian woman in a role typically only for white men. I mean...wow.
I have just about had it with the fucking BBC Sherlock fandom, especially the people on Reddit and Tumblr. I love Sherlock (even though I see it's problems and I dislike Moffat intensely), but I can't stand the people who hate Elementary because it's pretty clear with 99% of them that their hatred is motivated by race and gender rather than any actual flaws in the show. Most of them haven't even seen it and yet they're. So. Damn. Bitter
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I feel you. I'm in the same boat you are, that's why I started the 'Sherlockian Feminist' blog, because really -- like, not everyone in the goddamn BBC Sherlock fandom is a loser -- the losers are just all obnoxiously loud so I thought maybe it was time a few people stood up and spoke for the rest of us? IDK.
Thank you for posting this entry, it's been eating away at me for months. I really, really love BBC Sherlock even though it's not perfect. But unlike so many of my very vocal fellow fans, I don't hate Elementary. It makes me happy that a WOC is playing such an iconic role. I love that they're not whitewashing New York, which is another of my criticisms of Sherlock. (Based on a rough estimate of the first episode of Sherlock I did a while back, only ~7.5% of the people shown on screen were POC, which is far short of London's ~30% ethnic demographic.)
I know we're not the only ones, either, it's just that the volume of the loser-segment of fandom drowns us out. Thanks for being willing to write about it and bring it to the attention of people who aren't in the fandom and don't see these people behaving in such disgusting, horrible ways. I don't see why both shows can't coexist without so many Sherlock fans getting rabidly hateful over a show they're not even going to watch. It boggles the mind.
And let's not even get into the ridiculously stereotypical portrayal of Asians in The Blind Baker or the terrorists at the end of Scandal. I got into a "debate" (I say "debate" because it was literally me just pointing out the logical fallicy that was their argument and them going NOPE NOT LISTENING) with a few fans of the series on a meta that was posted recently on livejournal about how BBC Sherlock was not sexist. You know, because they have female detectives and doctors :D
I absolutely love Elementary. It's entertaining, Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy have great chemistry and Miller's Holmes brings aspects of the character to the screen that the BBC just entirely misses. I'm like an old school Sherlock Holmes fan so it irks me when these 'fans' who're just in it for the Johnlock queer-baiting-heteronormative-ridden-fanfic-and-tumblr-tropes it makes me want to weep. How Watson wearing kitten sweaters isn't mangling the character but making Watson a woman is I will never know.
In the context of the episode was meant to be somewhat witty and quite Holmesian, indeed. He’s not saying so much that he hates being right as he is expressing the fact that, were he wrong, someone would still be alive. Which you might have known, had you not decided to judge a book by it's proverbial cover.Also the trailer seems to suggest that Holmes found out Watson was a surgeon via Google -- but if you watch the episode, you'll see that this is just edited to look that way when the truth is that he googled something else entirely. That really is the trouble with taking things out of context, really.
There is also the business with Holmes actively and verbally conveying emotion, any emotion, which is OOC, imho.
.... Well you must think Benedict Cumberbatch’s rooftop tears terribly mangled the character.
But the truth is that no it isn't out of character at all. Holmes does actively convey and talk about his feelings all the time in the original canon, he’s melancholy, he’s reflective and he is disappointed and sometimes
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But on the subject of cartoon characters and genderswapping, when I was a kid I used to think that Dixie Kong from Donkey Kong 2 was a little French male monkey with a feather in his cap. (A rather effeminate, male monkey, but I still thought him a boy) and my best friend used to think Rabbit from Winne the Pooh was a woman -- and you know what? It didn't change anything at all. People are so funny about these things.
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It feels like both Victoria Coren (despite her feminist avowals) as well as Sherlock fandom are still too in love with restrained white men in the source material.
^^ IA.
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I'm STILL a little annoyed at the dynamic where a lady has to play the stoic keeper of some ~deeply flawed~ man though, ngl.
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She tries to be cute and say it's the "american" part she's offended about, but she's so fucking tone deaf and idiotic to not even acknowledge the significance of casting an asian woman in a role typically only for white men. I mean...wow.
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I agree with everything you're saying, entirely.
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I know we're not the only ones, either, it's just that the volume of the loser-segment of fandom drowns us out. Thanks for being willing to write about it and bring it to the attention of people who aren't in the fandom and don't see these people behaving in such disgusting, horrible ways. I don't see why both shows can't coexist without so many Sherlock fans getting rabidly hateful over a show they're not even going to watch. It boggles the mind.
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I absolutely love Elementary. It's entertaining, Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy have great chemistry and Miller's Holmes brings aspects of the character to the screen that the BBC just entirely misses. I'm like an old school Sherlock Holmes fan so it irks me when these 'fans' who're just in it for the Johnlock queer-baiting-heteronormative-ridden-fanfic-and-tumblr-tropes it makes me want to weep. How Watson wearing kitten sweaters isn't mangling the character but making Watson a woman is I will never know.
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The police thought the woman was still alive and that it was a kidnapping. He hated being right because he hated the fact someone was dead.
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There is also the business with Holmes actively and verbally conveying emotion, any emotion, which is OOC, imho.
.... Well you must think Benedict Cumberbatch’s rooftop tears terribly mangled the character.
But the truth is that no it isn't out of character at all. Holmes does actively convey and talk about his feelings all the time in the original canon, he’s melancholy, he’s reflective and he is disappointed and sometimes ( ... )
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