Elementary and Joan Watson
WARNING: Spoilers for pretty much every iteration of Sherlock Holmes.
I have previously talked about getting into fan fiction through the fandom for BBC's show Sherlock, and the fact that I read pretty much all of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories as a teenager. I don't know if I've mentioned it or not, but I have also seen both of Robert Downey, Jr.'s Sherlock Holmes movies. It should therefore not be surprising that this year I have been watching NBC's show Elementary, which moves Holmes to modern-day New York and makes Watson an Asian-American woman played but Lucy Liu.
The show has grown on me, and while I can't say I love it I do mildly look forward to watching new episodes. On the plus side, I've always liked Lucy Liu, and the banter between her Watson and Johnny Lee Miller's Holmes is done well, even though my crappy TV and Miller's English accent sometimes makes it hard for me to make out what he's saying. Also, the show takes place in a distinctly multi-racial New York, and Watson always wins when calling Holmes out on his sexist or outright misogynistic comments. On the minus side, the mysteries are not terribly well done, though they're about as well constructed as the ones on Castle. (And like on Castle, it's nearly always a woman who is the culprit.)
But all that is what goes into my enjoyment of an individual episode. When I look at the series as a whole, there is one thing that bothers me quite a bit, and it's almost enough to make me give up on the show entirely, despite the pluses outlined above. Joan Watson has been distinctly disempowered compared to John Watson.
John Watson in the original stories is a surgeon and a veteran of war. He has a limp from being shot (though the site of his bullet wound shifts over the course of the stories) and carries a gun himself; he suffers from some sort of recurring fever; once back in London he builds a private practice as a general practitioner; he is Holmes's flatmate, then friend, then biographer. The John Watson in the Robert Downey, Jr. movies doesn't get a backstory, but he seems to agree with these particulars. The John Watson in the BBC show, as far as I can tell through fan fiction, is also essentially the same, though his bullet wound is in his shoulder and has left him with nerve damage so he can no longer be a surgeon, and his limp is psychosomatic. Also, he chronicles his Holmes's exploits through a blog instead of stories published in a newspaper.
John Watson is very much his own man. He and Holmes choose to associate with each other -- they help each other equally, as Holmes takes command of Watson's checkbook so he can't gamble his money away, and Watson provides translation services from Holmes to the common folk, smoothing over ruffled feathers after Holmes has been abrasive and reminding Holmes of the emotional responses he isn't well-suited to parsing.
Joan Watson is nothing like John Watson.
She is a former surgeon, it's true. But she walked away from that job because a man she was involved with became a drug addict, and she decided she wanted to dedicate her life to helping people (men) overcome that addiction. When introduced to the series, she makes her living as a "sober companion" -- a babysitter for former addicts recently out of rehab.
She has no military background whatsoever, nor does she have any sort of training in physical combat. Not even a kickboxing cardio class through her local gym.
And she does not choose to associate with Holmes. Instead, she is hired by his father in her role as "sober companion" to a Holmes just getting over cocaine addiction. When her paid time is up, she stays on because she has become Holmes's friend and enjoys helping him solve mysteries, but as she needs an income she literally becomes Holmes's assistant -- he is training her in his deductive processes, and gives her a cut of his fees.
In other words, when chasing after Holmes in pursuit of dangerous criminals, John Watson can handle himself and very often rescues Holmes. Joan Watson is someone who needs to be protected. And when Holmes faked his death, John Watson was emotionally devastated but not particularly materially harmed, as he still had his medical practice to fall back on (and in the original stories and the Robert Downey, Jr. movies he wasn't even living with Holmes at the time). If they ever do a version of the Reichenbach Falls on Elementary, Joan Watson will be without any source of income and probably without a roof over her head -- her name certainly isn't on the lease.
That sort of disempowerment of canonical female characters is getting to be a bit of a pattern on Elementary. Irene Adler, the only person to outsmart Holmes in Doyle's stories (well, until Moriarty), has simply been fridged -- she is Holmes's ex-girlfriend who was murdered, and the inability to solve her murder sent Holmes into his addiction spiral. And Mrs. Hudson, Holmes and Watson's teasing landlady in the Doyle stories, the Robert Downey, Jr. movies, and the BBC show, is here simply a former associate of Holmes who has fallen on hard times and who Holmes hires as a weekly cleaning lady.
Because the on-screen interaction between Holmes and Watson shows a fairly equitable relationship -- this Holmes is nowhere near as abusive to his Joan as Doyle's Holmes and the BBC's Holmes are to their Johns, likely because the gender-flipping would highlight that it is actual abuse rather than something funny -- I can continue to watch and sometimes enjoy the show. But that inherent inequality of power gets under my skin, and stops the show from being as subversive as it ought to be.
I have previously talked about getting into fan fiction through the fandom for BBC's show Sherlock, and the fact that I read pretty much all of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories as a teenager. I don't know if I've mentioned it or not, but I have also seen both of Robert Downey, Jr.'s Sherlock Holmes movies. It should therefore not be surprising that this year I have been watching NBC's show Elementary, which moves Holmes to modern-day New York and makes Watson an Asian-American woman played but Lucy Liu.
The show has grown on me, and while I can't say I love it I do mildly look forward to watching new episodes. On the plus side, I've always liked Lucy Liu, and the banter between her Watson and Johnny Lee Miller's Holmes is done well, even though my crappy TV and Miller's English accent sometimes makes it hard for me to make out what he's saying. Also, the show takes place in a distinctly multi-racial New York, and Watson always wins when calling Holmes out on his sexist or outright misogynistic comments. On the minus side, the mysteries are not terribly well done, though they're about as well constructed as the ones on Castle. (And like on Castle, it's nearly always a woman who is the culprit.)
But all that is what goes into my enjoyment of an individual episode. When I look at the series as a whole, there is one thing that bothers me quite a bit, and it's almost enough to make me give up on the show entirely, despite the pluses outlined above. Joan Watson has been distinctly disempowered compared to John Watson.
John Watson in the original stories is a surgeon and a veteran of war. He has a limp from being shot (though the site of his bullet wound shifts over the course of the stories) and carries a gun himself; he suffers from some sort of recurring fever; once back in London he builds a private practice as a general practitioner; he is Holmes's flatmate, then friend, then biographer. The John Watson in the Robert Downey, Jr. movies doesn't get a backstory, but he seems to agree with these particulars. The John Watson in the BBC show, as far as I can tell through fan fiction, is also essentially the same, though his bullet wound is in his shoulder and has left him with nerve damage so he can no longer be a surgeon, and his limp is psychosomatic. Also, he chronicles his Holmes's exploits through a blog instead of stories published in a newspaper.
John Watson is very much his own man. He and Holmes choose to associate with each other -- they help each other equally, as Holmes takes command of Watson's checkbook so he can't gamble his money away, and Watson provides translation services from Holmes to the common folk, smoothing over ruffled feathers after Holmes has been abrasive and reminding Holmes of the emotional responses he isn't well-suited to parsing.
Joan Watson is nothing like John Watson.
She is a former surgeon, it's true. But she walked away from that job because a man she was involved with became a drug addict, and she decided she wanted to dedicate her life to helping people (men) overcome that addiction. When introduced to the series, she makes her living as a "sober companion" -- a babysitter for former addicts recently out of rehab.
She has no military background whatsoever, nor does she have any sort of training in physical combat. Not even a kickboxing cardio class through her local gym.
And she does not choose to associate with Holmes. Instead, she is hired by his father in her role as "sober companion" to a Holmes just getting over cocaine addiction. When her paid time is up, she stays on because she has become Holmes's friend and enjoys helping him solve mysteries, but as she needs an income she literally becomes Holmes's assistant -- he is training her in his deductive processes, and gives her a cut of his fees.
In other words, when chasing after Holmes in pursuit of dangerous criminals, John Watson can handle himself and very often rescues Holmes. Joan Watson is someone who needs to be protected. And when Holmes faked his death, John Watson was emotionally devastated but not particularly materially harmed, as he still had his medical practice to fall back on (and in the original stories and the Robert Downey, Jr. movies he wasn't even living with Holmes at the time). If they ever do a version of the Reichenbach Falls on Elementary, Joan Watson will be without any source of income and probably without a roof over her head -- her name certainly isn't on the lease.
That sort of disempowerment of canonical female characters is getting to be a bit of a pattern on Elementary. Irene Adler, the only person to outsmart Holmes in Doyle's stories (well, until Moriarty), has simply been fridged -- she is Holmes's ex-girlfriend who was murdered, and the inability to solve her murder sent Holmes into his addiction spiral. And Mrs. Hudson, Holmes and Watson's teasing landlady in the Doyle stories, the Robert Downey, Jr. movies, and the BBC show, is here simply a former associate of Holmes who has fallen on hard times and who Holmes hires as a weekly cleaning lady.
Because the on-screen interaction between Holmes and Watson shows a fairly equitable relationship -- this Holmes is nowhere near as abusive to his Joan as Doyle's Holmes and the BBC's Holmes are to their Johns, likely because the gender-flipping would highlight that it is actual abuse rather than something funny -- I can continue to watch and sometimes enjoy the show. But that inherent inequality of power gets under my skin, and stops the show from being as subversive as it ought to be.