Confession
So, I have a confession to make, and I'm going to make it now, before I blog about the BSI Weekend (should I do that again) in a few weeks and attract a temporary influx of likely-to-be-offended Sherlockian traffic. Ready? Good.
Fangirl
It's this way. I've been a Sherlock Holmes fanatic since I was 13 or 14 years young -- i.e., since whatever 1970-something year it was that The Seven-Per-Cent Solution was first published and my adolescent self, intrigued by the cover art and humorous dust jacket copy, decided to read the original Conan Doyle stories just so I would be able to enjoy Nicholas Meyer's pastiche of them. (This, BTW, is not the confession.) Anyhow, I fell in love with the real stories "at first read," but -- undoubtedly because it was an ersatz version that led me to them -- I've also retained a high tolerance for fiction "inspired by" Sir Arthur's creation. Indeed, there's not an adaptation or a spin-off or a piece of Doyle-related pseudo-scholarship (aka Sherlockian "Higher Criticism") that, if it comes my way, I won't at least give a chance to. New stories written in an imitation Dr. Watson voice? I'm game for at least a few chapters. Fake biographies of Holmes, Watson, et al? I'll at least rifle the pages. Black-and-white Hollywood flicks pitting the Great Detective against the Nazis? I'll stay up for the late, late show and watch for at least as long as I can keep my eyes open (indeed, for exactly that long, by definition). Musical plays that invariably star as Holmes some semi-singer affecting Rex Harrisonian patter? I'll at least buy the album, if one's available. Hey, put a tiny deerstalker on a mouse, or a large one on a Star Trek android in a holodeck, and I'm there. You get the idea, yes?
(This is still not the confession.)
No, really: *serious* fangirl
Over the decades, I've spent my hard-earned cash on scores of cheesy Holmesian paperbacks, ordered numerous cassette tapes of now-unintentionally-hilarious Old Time Radio broadcasts dramatizing the Great Detective's exploits, collected both "scholarly" journals and fan magazines devoted to the original tales, tracked down Sherlockian comic books (one series features the Muppets), and even bid on bootleg videos of failed 1970s & 80s TV pilots (yeah, that's plural) which attempted to update the characters "for today" (one starred Larry Hagman as an amnesiac cop who *thinks* he's Holmes, while another involved a cryogenically preserved Sherlock). I've read (and tolerated!) amateurish fan-fiction (as well as some that was much better) introducing romance into the characters' lives, sci-fi takes playing fast and loose with the settings, and absurd crossovers teaming Holmes and Watson with other prominent Victorians both real and fictitious. I've driven hours to see regional theatre productions of Sherlockian plays, and I've broken bread with other adults at events where we straight-facedly discussed the events of the stories as if they'd occurred in "our" universe. I reckon the only thing I wouldn't try would be Sherlockian porn, if such exists -- and, that said, I've seen some pretty racy slash fanfic.
(None of this, as I expect I hardly need tell you, has yet been the confession.)
Fair and balanced
What Sherlockiana I do look at, I think I give more than a fair shake to, happy to accept whatever it is on its own terms (even the racy slash fanfic) and willing to enjoy whatever enjoyable aspects I can find therein. Sometimes I find almost nothing there for me (e.g., in the aforementioned slash, or very dark tales like Michael Dibdin's The Last Sherlock Holmes Story). Sometimes I find much to love (e.g., in Meyer's books, Basil of Baker Street, and Baring-Gould's Holmes biography). Most of the time my reaction is somewhere in between; and always it is a mysterious function of what I judge to be the absolute quality of the product plus its discernible degree of respect and affection for said Canon (even when departures are made).
Now, I realize that the notions of "good" and "bad" taste are so slippery as to be close to bogus (in the end, you like what you like, right?); however, besides being a goofy fan with her own idiosyncrasies, I am also a huge reader and a more-or-less academic, and I suppose I like to think that my tastes approach the "high" end. While it shouldn't matter to me (though it does, undoubtedly because I'm a square who willingly spends her workdays mired in Received Opinion), my preferences at least seem to dovetail with those of the Sherlockians I most respect -- and I don't think it's because I'm a poser (what would be the point, at this stage of my life?).
So here comes the confession: why is it, in the midst of almost universal enthusiasm for the programme among both the cognoscenti and the general public, that I -- whose virtually indiscriminate affection for All Things Holmes is, I think, well established -- find myself with so little love for BBC Sherlock?
*Gasp*
Yeah, that's right. Oh, I've seen it (well, some of it). And I don't dislike it -- indeed, I rather admire it. But at the end of the day, it leaves me pretty cold, and this despite my ability to milk genuine enjoyment from some pretty unlikely sources (did I mention the Muppets? the Nazis?). And since I seem to be almost alone in my feeling, I've just about decided that the problem can't lie with BBC Sherlock. It must be me.
I do acknowledge that the show is excellent of its kind, and indeed that it's sufficiently innovative (for what should be the inherently non-innovative project of adapting another person's work) that one could make the case that it's the *only* one of its kind. I've watched the program (okay, I've seen half of the episodes so far broadcast in the US) and enjoyed it well enough in real time (that is, while I'm watching). But when it's over, I don't pine to replay the episode, nor does my imagination grab the football and run down the field on its own, continuing the characters' exploits. I do think that the main stars are both terrifically talented and well cast, and I agree with general consensus that the plots cleverly update a number of aspects of Canon. Finally, I acknowledge that not only has BBC Sherlock invigorated and revived the fandom (in the way that Nicholas Meyer's books and the Granada series starring Jeremy Brett did in their respective days), but (1) it has fundamentally transformed that fandom, at its core & forevermore, and (2) such revivals/transformations are periodically necessary in any community that hopes to survive. In short, Sherlock is, relative to the milieu under consideration, *important*.
Still, when I compare my attitude (of mere grudging respect) to the enthusiasm of the Sherlockians I now hang out with, it's as if I must be watching a different programme. I mean, *they* spent all of 2013 waiting for the next series (the show's third) of three feature-length episodes, racking their brains to work out how Holmes -- sorry, Sherlock -- could have survived the version of Reichenbach with which Series Two ended in 2012. My Facebook feed is littered with embedded trailers, as well as links to fan videos and other things with which the show's devotees have been tiding themselves over while awaiting the upcoming installment. Women more than a decade older than myself happily describe themselves (with respect to this show) as "squeeing fangirls" (or even "Cumberb*tches"), and I read with a kind of amazement their accounts of standing side-by-side with younger counterparts (in whom such behavior makes more sense, right?) for tickets to midnight openings of Star Trek and The Hobbit (i.e., other films featuring the divine Benedict C. and/or adorable sidekick Martin Freeman). Male fans are tellingly less effusive (which, I should add, is far from the norm in the Sherlockian world), but they still beat my level of enthusiasm by miles. While as curious as the next guy (or Cumber-gal) about how Sherlock survived his tumble from that high building, I didn't even consider locating a pirated version of the newest episode -- shown in the UK on New Year's Day -- to find out before PBS shows it in mid-January (which is soon enough for me). Meanwhile, several of my fellow American Sherlockian acquaintances, both male and female, are already posting vague reviews.
De gustibus non est disputandem?
Hey, everyone likes what he or she likes, right? So why do I feel the need to examine my lukewarmness where Sherlock is concerned? Why does it bother me that I differ from the crowd (not to mention the in-crowd) on this one? In answer to the second question, I suppose part of the reason I'm so acutely self-conscious about my relatively negative attitude is that it excludes me, to a certain extent, from a community in which I only just got very involved and have been enjoying being included.
But perhaps the deeper reason for my disquietude is that I suspect my lack of deep love for Sherlock may be attributable to an unappealing personal perversity. Am I simply unable to like what everyone else likes, either because I fear not standing out from the herd or because I resent the mega-success of the creators & purveyors of popular things? You might remember how I never got on the Harry Potter bandwagon (I maintained that I found the writing clunky, but I also admitted that it bothered me that people were acting as if J.K. Rowling had invented reading), and how I was the last woman in America to embrace The Big Bang Theory. Then again, how come I so willingly love *old* things that everyone else likes, such as Shakespeare and the Beatles?
Perhaps I have (ironically) developed a certain amount of cultural chauvinism as a reaction to years of loving all things English but sensing little affection in the return direction. You'll recall that I plied my Anglophilia in the UK for a couple of years and more than occasionally felt stung by anti-Americanism among even my closest associates. Maybe I now balk a little, even when I think I completely understand them, at English things that are "super-inner-circlishly" English in tone (and Sherlock is definitely such a thing). I mean, look how generous I am to the much more derivative (of other TV cop shows) and less Canonical *American* show, Elementary!
BBC Sherlock has definitely swelled the ranks of the out-and-proud Sherlockians. Could it be that I don't like it when too many people start to invade my turf -- kinda the way you sort of mind when everyone suddenly finds your special, off-the-beaten-path restaurant and now you can't get a seat, or when the world discovers and begins wearing the t-shirt of your favorite band? Right away you think, "Hey! I was here first," and then, perhaps, you become resentful when it's clear that these new kids' way of being a fan is not quite like your own. (I'm looking at you, people who've met Dr. Who in its contemporary incarnation rather than the old, charmingly cheesy one, and who now routinely cheer for the Doctor to fall in love with a companion, as if that's allowed!) While intellectually assenting to the proposition that communities need to grow and change (or die), maybe I wish this community were growing or changing differently.* Of course, those would be oddly "invested" feelings for a relative newcomer to said community to have (again, I've been in the fandom in my own private way for almost 40 years, but, as you know, I'm less than two years in the organized ranks). Moreover, I tend to *like* all the new-wave fans I meet individually, so I don't really experience myself as the get-off-my-lawn type (then again, who does?).
* You're seeing the application to church dynamics, yes?
Not perfect
I'm not 100% sure whether any of the above notions begins to account for my snob of a self's not being over-enamored of a product which I acknowledge to be much higher in quality than many other things that I somehow enjoy more. Of course, it might be possible that, at the end of the day, we *don't* need to call in Dr. Freud -- that the issue is simply that some aspects of Sherlock's aesthetic don't appeal to me on even my best, fairest, least curmudgeonly day. These might include the whole "fundamentally pathological Sherlock" trope (aka the Defective Detective, seen in other adaptations and certainly justifiable with selective use of Canon, but never my favorite take on the character), the "have your cake and eat it, too" treatment of the BBC character's sexuality (he is clearly being sold to the female viewer as an asexual sex symbol), certain departures from Canon (e.g., skinny spymaster Mycroft, dominatrix Irene) that don't happen to work for me personally, and, well, an underlying, off-putting smugness (to the whole show, not just the main character) that reminds me of what some of my friends have said they don't like about TED talks.
And there you have it -- my confession for 2014. Meanwhile, my resolution, vis-s-vis this program, is to watch all the episodes again (maybe with Number Two Son, an objective outsider) and see whether I can't locate the Awesome that all the other kids are seeing. I mean, I owe it to myself as a fan to find the fun, if there's fun to be found.
Fangirl
It's this way. I've been a Sherlock Holmes fanatic since I was 13 or 14 years young -- i.e., since whatever 1970-something year it was that The Seven-Per-Cent Solution was first published and my adolescent self, intrigued by the cover art and humorous dust jacket copy, decided to read the original Conan Doyle stories just so I would be able to enjoy Nicholas Meyer's pastiche of them. (This, BTW, is not the confession.) Anyhow, I fell in love with the real stories "at first read," but -- undoubtedly because it was an ersatz version that led me to them -- I've also retained a high tolerance for fiction "inspired by" Sir Arthur's creation. Indeed, there's not an adaptation or a spin-off or a piece of Doyle-related pseudo-scholarship (aka Sherlockian "Higher Criticism") that, if it comes my way, I won't at least give a chance to. New stories written in an imitation Dr. Watson voice? I'm game for at least a few chapters. Fake biographies of Holmes, Watson, et al? I'll at least rifle the pages. Black-and-white Hollywood flicks pitting the Great Detective against the Nazis? I'll stay up for the late, late show and watch for at least as long as I can keep my eyes open (indeed, for exactly that long, by definition). Musical plays that invariably star as Holmes some semi-singer affecting Rex Harrisonian patter? I'll at least buy the album, if one's available. Hey, put a tiny deerstalker on a mouse, or a large one on a Star Trek android in a holodeck, and I'm there. You get the idea, yes?
(This is still not the confession.)
No, really: *serious* fangirl
Over the decades, I've spent my hard-earned cash on scores of cheesy Holmesian paperbacks, ordered numerous cassette tapes of now-unintentionally-hilarious Old Time Radio broadcasts dramatizing the Great Detective's exploits, collected both "scholarly" journals and fan magazines devoted to the original tales, tracked down Sherlockian comic books (one series features the Muppets), and even bid on bootleg videos of failed 1970s & 80s TV pilots (yeah, that's plural) which attempted to update the characters "for today" (one starred Larry Hagman as an amnesiac cop who *thinks* he's Holmes, while another involved a cryogenically preserved Sherlock). I've read (and tolerated!) amateurish fan-fiction (as well as some that was much better) introducing romance into the characters' lives, sci-fi takes playing fast and loose with the settings, and absurd crossovers teaming Holmes and Watson with other prominent Victorians both real and fictitious. I've driven hours to see regional theatre productions of Sherlockian plays, and I've broken bread with other adults at events where we straight-facedly discussed the events of the stories as if they'd occurred in "our" universe. I reckon the only thing I wouldn't try would be Sherlockian porn, if such exists -- and, that said, I've seen some pretty racy slash fanfic.
(None of this, as I expect I hardly need tell you, has yet been the confession.)
Fair and balanced
What Sherlockiana I do look at, I think I give more than a fair shake to, happy to accept whatever it is on its own terms (even the racy slash fanfic) and willing to enjoy whatever enjoyable aspects I can find therein. Sometimes I find almost nothing there for me (e.g., in the aforementioned slash, or very dark tales like Michael Dibdin's The Last Sherlock Holmes Story). Sometimes I find much to love (e.g., in Meyer's books, Basil of Baker Street, and Baring-Gould's Holmes biography). Most of the time my reaction is somewhere in between; and always it is a mysterious function of what I judge to be the absolute quality of the product plus its discernible degree of respect and affection for said Canon (even when departures are made).
Now, I realize that the notions of "good" and "bad" taste are so slippery as to be close to bogus (in the end, you like what you like, right?); however, besides being a goofy fan with her own idiosyncrasies, I am also a huge reader and a more-or-less academic, and I suppose I like to think that my tastes approach the "high" end. While it shouldn't matter to me (though it does, undoubtedly because I'm a square who willingly spends her workdays mired in Received Opinion), my preferences at least seem to dovetail with those of the Sherlockians I most respect -- and I don't think it's because I'm a poser (what would be the point, at this stage of my life?).
So here comes the confession: why is it, in the midst of almost universal enthusiasm for the programme among both the cognoscenti and the general public, that I -- whose virtually indiscriminate affection for All Things Holmes is, I think, well established -- find myself with so little love for BBC Sherlock?
*Gasp*
Yeah, that's right. Oh, I've seen it (well, some of it). And I don't dislike it -- indeed, I rather admire it. But at the end of the day, it leaves me pretty cold, and this despite my ability to milk genuine enjoyment from some pretty unlikely sources (did I mention the Muppets? the Nazis?). And since I seem to be almost alone in my feeling, I've just about decided that the problem can't lie with BBC Sherlock. It must be me.
I do acknowledge that the show is excellent of its kind, and indeed that it's sufficiently innovative (for what should be the inherently non-innovative project of adapting another person's work) that one could make the case that it's the *only* one of its kind. I've watched the program (okay, I've seen half of the episodes so far broadcast in the US) and enjoyed it well enough in real time (that is, while I'm watching). But when it's over, I don't pine to replay the episode, nor does my imagination grab the football and run down the field on its own, continuing the characters' exploits. I do think that the main stars are both terrifically talented and well cast, and I agree with general consensus that the plots cleverly update a number of aspects of Canon. Finally, I acknowledge that not only has BBC Sherlock invigorated and revived the fandom (in the way that Nicholas Meyer's books and the Granada series starring Jeremy Brett did in their respective days), but (1) it has fundamentally transformed that fandom, at its core & forevermore, and (2) such revivals/transformations are periodically necessary in any community that hopes to survive. In short, Sherlock is, relative to the milieu under consideration, *important*.
Still, when I compare my attitude (of mere grudging respect) to the enthusiasm of the Sherlockians I now hang out with, it's as if I must be watching a different programme. I mean, *they* spent all of 2013 waiting for the next series (the show's third) of three feature-length episodes, racking their brains to work out how Holmes -- sorry, Sherlock -- could have survived the version of Reichenbach with which Series Two ended in 2012. My Facebook feed is littered with embedded trailers, as well as links to fan videos and other things with which the show's devotees have been tiding themselves over while awaiting the upcoming installment. Women more than a decade older than myself happily describe themselves (with respect to this show) as "squeeing fangirls" (or even "Cumberb*tches"), and I read with a kind of amazement their accounts of standing side-by-side with younger counterparts (in whom such behavior makes more sense, right?) for tickets to midnight openings of Star Trek and The Hobbit (i.e., other films featuring the divine Benedict C. and/or adorable sidekick Martin Freeman). Male fans are tellingly less effusive (which, I should add, is far from the norm in the Sherlockian world), but they still beat my level of enthusiasm by miles. While as curious as the next guy (or Cumber-gal) about how Sherlock survived his tumble from that high building, I didn't even consider locating a pirated version of the newest episode -- shown in the UK on New Year's Day -- to find out before PBS shows it in mid-January (which is soon enough for me). Meanwhile, several of my fellow American Sherlockian acquaintances, both male and female, are already posting vague reviews.
De gustibus non est disputandem?
Hey, everyone likes what he or she likes, right? So why do I feel the need to examine my lukewarmness where Sherlock is concerned? Why does it bother me that I differ from the crowd (not to mention the in-crowd) on this one? In answer to the second question, I suppose part of the reason I'm so acutely self-conscious about my relatively negative attitude is that it excludes me, to a certain extent, from a community in which I only just got very involved and have been enjoying being included.
But perhaps the deeper reason for my disquietude is that I suspect my lack of deep love for Sherlock may be attributable to an unappealing personal perversity. Am I simply unable to like what everyone else likes, either because I fear not standing out from the herd or because I resent the mega-success of the creators & purveyors of popular things? You might remember how I never got on the Harry Potter bandwagon (I maintained that I found the writing clunky, but I also admitted that it bothered me that people were acting as if J.K. Rowling had invented reading), and how I was the last woman in America to embrace The Big Bang Theory. Then again, how come I so willingly love *old* things that everyone else likes, such as Shakespeare and the Beatles?
Perhaps I have (ironically) developed a certain amount of cultural chauvinism as a reaction to years of loving all things English but sensing little affection in the return direction. You'll recall that I plied my Anglophilia in the UK for a couple of years and more than occasionally felt stung by anti-Americanism among even my closest associates. Maybe I now balk a little, even when I think I completely understand them, at English things that are "super-inner-circlishly" English in tone (and Sherlock is definitely such a thing). I mean, look how generous I am to the much more derivative (of other TV cop shows) and less Canonical *American* show, Elementary!
BBC Sherlock has definitely swelled the ranks of the out-and-proud Sherlockians. Could it be that I don't like it when too many people start to invade my turf -- kinda the way you sort of mind when everyone suddenly finds your special, off-the-beaten-path restaurant and now you can't get a seat, or when the world discovers and begins wearing the t-shirt of your favorite band? Right away you think, "Hey! I was here first," and then, perhaps, you become resentful when it's clear that these new kids' way of being a fan is not quite like your own. (I'm looking at you, people who've met Dr. Who in its contemporary incarnation rather than the old, charmingly cheesy one, and who now routinely cheer for the Doctor to fall in love with a companion, as if that's allowed!) While intellectually assenting to the proposition that communities need to grow and change (or die), maybe I wish this community were growing or changing differently.* Of course, those would be oddly "invested" feelings for a relative newcomer to said community to have (again, I've been in the fandom in my own private way for almost 40 years, but, as you know, I'm less than two years in the organized ranks). Moreover, I tend to *like* all the new-wave fans I meet individually, so I don't really experience myself as the get-off-my-lawn type (then again, who does?).
* You're seeing the application to church dynamics, yes?
Not perfect
I'm not 100% sure whether any of the above notions begins to account for my snob of a self's not being over-enamored of a product which I acknowledge to be much higher in quality than many other things that I somehow enjoy more. Of course, it might be possible that, at the end of the day, we *don't* need to call in Dr. Freud -- that the issue is simply that some aspects of Sherlock's aesthetic don't appeal to me on even my best, fairest, least curmudgeonly day. These might include the whole "fundamentally pathological Sherlock" trope (aka the Defective Detective, seen in other adaptations and certainly justifiable with selective use of Canon, but never my favorite take on the character), the "have your cake and eat it, too" treatment of the BBC character's sexuality (he is clearly being sold to the female viewer as an asexual sex symbol), certain departures from Canon (e.g., skinny spymaster Mycroft, dominatrix Irene) that don't happen to work for me personally, and, well, an underlying, off-putting smugness (to the whole show, not just the main character) that reminds me of what some of my friends have said they don't like about TED talks.
And there you have it -- my confession for 2014. Meanwhile, my resolution, vis-s-vis this program, is to watch all the episodes again (maybe with Number Two Son, an objective outsider) and see whether I can't locate the Awesome that all the other kids are seeing. I mean, I owe it to myself as a fan to find the fun, if there's fun to be found.