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.
I really don't get it because no one is taking away their show. Elementary in no way hurts them or Sherlock. It's really a bunch of whiny white people obsessed with white dudes crying because someone dared to try to equalize portrayals of women and people of color in modern interpretations of Sherlock Holmes. If you dare upset their status quo, that sends them off the deep end and they foam at the mouth with rage. Their entitlement knows no bounds.
Also, what's supremely gross to me is that Victoria Coren said she'd "like to press Liu’s face into a bowl of cold pea soup for that statement." What the fuck does that even mean, in the first place? And in the second place that's an extremely aggressive and viscerally violent description of punishing (killing?) a woman of color for daring to be a pioneer for representation of POC in media. Who the fuck says shit like that? (Racist, sexist douchecanoes, that's who.)
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.
Oh, jeez, The Blind Banker. So racist I almost don't even know where to start (except I do, hah, at the beginning because it's all downhill from there). I hate how the writing on Sherlock is so lazy at times. Everything white-people sanctioned is covered in a blanket of "normalcy" so that they can then contrast it with those "oh so foreign" people and places. It's so dismissive and belittling, they don't even comprehend how othering it is. "Oh those wacky Chinese! With their happy cats and their circuses and their smuggling!" UGH.
I also hated how they made Soo Lin powerless, she was just supposed to cower in fear and hide until her brother found and killed her. And her only hope was the two white guys, but they ran off so she died. THE END. What a shitty story.
I know Steve Thompson wrote TBB, but Moffat and Gatiss signed off on it so they're equally culpable.
Steve Moffat is the worse thing to happen to fictional women. Seriously because he thinks he's being so progressive! Like, I just CAN'T with Irene Adler. I wanted so badly to like her but I just fucking cannot. I plan to cover that next, I want to do a piece on how fucking RAD the original Irene Adler was -- and how progressive she was for the time just because that's the worst thing about the re-vamp. That they took away the agency of an excellent, strong female character and turned her into a plot device with a pussy. There are still parts of the story that I enjoy, but I really just can't with that episode, every time I think about it I like it less.
Moffat is hardly progressive, his interviews prove that. I get so pissed when I read his sexist, homophobic claptrap.
I could have taken the dominatrix caricature with a grain of salt if she hadn't been whittled away to nothing by the end, once again reliant on the white man to save her, the white man who bested her and proved his superiority who then deigned to come along and rescue her from the stereotypical terrorists. Even when she seems in control, it's revealed that the whole time she's been working for Moriarty, and is therefore under his thumb. And the only reason she was in that situation at all is because she's obsessed with Sherlock for who knows what reason, considering she's a lesbian and almost as smart as he is. The degaying definitely bothered me in addition to all the other things. It was like a trope-fest of all the most anti-feminist crap they could stuff into one character.
Right? Irene has no victories. She doesn't see through his disguise like she does in the original -- it's all Moriarty, and from her first scene onward she's a mess. I had no problem with her being a dominatrix by itself except, once again you have a 'powerful' woman depowered by the end just to further along the man's story line. To show Sherlock's ability to forgive? Fuck him. It reminded me so much of this trope it isn't even funny.
I had a hard time arguing against fans about her too, because people kept saying things like "well, she had to lose--she was a criminal" without thinking that, you know, she wasn't ever originally a criminal at all and that was a choice the writers made. or "everyone's story revolves around Sherlock--the show is about him" without thinking about the fact that characters (all male) like John and Lestrade at least seem to have their own motivation for being around or doing as they please whereas Irene just... doesn't. She makes no decisions on her own and why she's involved at all is senseless.
It hurt me so bad because I've always really, really loved the way the women in ACD's stories are. Like Violet Smith and Irene -- even Violet, who needs saving -- has a moment where she chases after the man stalking her to try and figure out who he is on her own. They just have personality, and reasons and motivation and the fact all of that is gone from Irene in an "updated" or "modernised version" of the character is actually sick.
I really don't get it because no one is taking away their show. Elementary in no way hurts them or Sherlock. It's really a bunch of whiny white people obsessed with white dudes crying because someone dared to try to equalize portrayals of women and people of color in modern interpretations of Sherlock Holmes. If you dare upset their status quo, that sends them off the deep end and they foam at the mouth with rage. Their entitlement knows no bounds.
Also, what's supremely gross to me is that Victoria Coren said she'd "like to press Liu’s face into a bowl of cold pea soup for that statement." What the fuck does that even mean, in the first place? And in the second place that's an extremely aggressive and viscerally violent description of punishing (killing?) a woman of color for daring to be a pioneer for representation of POC in media. Who the fuck says shit like that? (Racist, sexist douchecanoes, that's who.)
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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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I also hated how they made Soo Lin powerless, she was just supposed to cower in fear and hide until her brother found and killed her. And her only hope was the two white guys, but they ran off so she died. THE END. What a shitty story.
I know Steve Thompson wrote TBB, but Moffat and Gatiss signed off on it so they're equally culpable.
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I could have taken the dominatrix caricature with a grain of salt if she hadn't been whittled away to nothing by the end, once again reliant on the white man to save her, the white man who bested her and proved his superiority who then deigned to come along and rescue her from the stereotypical terrorists. Even when she seems in control, it's revealed that the whole time she's been working for Moriarty, and is therefore under his thumb. And the only reason she was in that situation at all is because she's obsessed with Sherlock for who knows what reason, considering she's a lesbian and almost as smart as he is. The degaying definitely bothered me in addition to all the other things. It was like a trope-fest of all the most anti-feminist crap they could stuff into one character.
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I had a hard time arguing against fans about her too, because people kept saying things like "well, she had to lose--she was a criminal" without thinking that, you know, she wasn't ever originally a criminal at all and that was a choice the writers made. or "everyone's story revolves around Sherlock--the show is about him" without thinking about the fact that characters (all male) like John and Lestrade at least seem to have their own motivation for being around or doing as they please whereas Irene just... doesn't. She makes no decisions on her own and why she's involved at all is senseless.
It hurt me so bad because I've always really, really loved the way the women in ACD's stories are. Like Violet Smith and Irene -- even Violet, who needs saving -- has a moment where she chases after the man stalking her to try and figure out who he is on her own. They just have personality, and reasons and motivation and the fact all of that is gone from Irene in an "updated" or "modernised version" of the character is actually sick.
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