Before the last Sherlock is aired
Jan. 15th, 2012 01:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chaniHere's a good read, via selenak :
"A Sandal in Fandom: Steven Moffat, Irene Adler and the Fannish Gaze "
Many very good points. Among them, here are a few picks:
About Sherlock:
"If there's an emphasized spine running through the whole show, it's what Lestrade says in the very first episode: Sherlock Holmes is a great man, and one day he may even be a good one. As he stands, the story makes clear, he's both a fascinating, charismatic genius and a thoroughly rotten human being. More than that, the text points out that there's development at work; John Watson is there to humanize him. If there's a first big turning point for the character, it's probably the end of The Great Game, which is the first time Sherlock shows any sort of genuine concern for the welfare of another person. Before then... check out how appalled Watson is earlier in that episode, when Sherlock's reaction to Moriarty killing an innocent is "Well technically I won". Sherlock is explicitly painted as a man who's a long way from decent.
Molly, of course, is there to drive home that point. Because as with Tom Baker, it's easy to shrug off Sherlock being rude to minor police functionaries or even Watson; that's all part of the fun. Even in the Christmas-party scene before he turns his gaze on Molly, he's already being beastly to his closest friend -- demolishing Watson's hopes that his sister has quit drinking, shattering his plans for a happy family Christmas. But hey, that's just Sherlock being Sherlock, it's all part of the game. It's only when he starts dissecting Molly that the scene breaks out of our comfortable expectations; now we recognize that Sherlock Holmes really is an arse.
But there's more going on here than just kicking a puppy. Again, this is part of a larger context being developed through the whole series; he's done this sort of thing to Molly before, most notably when he outs Molly's boyfriend in the previous episode. But the previous times, even when Molly and Watson called him on it, he's just shrugged it off. This time? He apologizes. Never mind that he's awkward and cursory about it, he bothers. This is not just (as Foz presents it) a sop to him not being quite as bad as he could have been; it's also directly underlining that he's changing. This is perhaps the first time in recorded history that Sherlock Holmes has apologized for anything.
Given the emphasis on that, both in the previous episodes and the next one, Moffat clearly wants us to pay attention to this bit of the context. It's very much woven into the story Moffat is consciously telling (even if not into the story fans are focused on hearing): this man is a bastard who's limping towards humanity."
About Irene Adler in the original story not being exactly what we'd like her to be...
"Really her reputation as The Woman Who Out-Thought Sherlock Holmes is entirely down to a couple of paragraphs of good press from Watson as narrator, rather than what she actually does in the action of the story. In that story, she doesn't actually keep pace with Holmes; she's genuinely taken in by Holmes' various deceptions -- even though she's been warned in advance to look out for him in particular. The victory she wins over Holmes is simply a matter of spotting when she's given herself away, and getting the hell outta Dodge before Holmes comes back -- having decided that she can't go up against "so formidable an opponent". Far from engaging in an intellectual battle of wits with Holmes, she's actively trying to avoid such a clash.
And as strong female characters go... well, the original Irene is way more Fatal Attraction than anything. She starts her whole blackmail scheme to ruin her ex, because she'd rather see him humiliated than let him marry someone else. (People who've been complaining about Adler being sexualized in the modern version may be forgetting that this is a story about a Victorian sex scandal.) She finally abandons her scheme for no better reason than that she's found the love of a good man, with Godfrey Norton. And her new husband -- conspicuously absent or downplayed from most of the commentary on Ms. Adler -- makes a respectable woman out of her; after the wedding, she ends up more explicitly defanged and harmless than the free agent at the end of Moffat's script."
And about the Irene in Moffat's story:
"But what of the Irene Adler who's actually in Steven Moffat's script? She's actually a good bit closer to the match-for-Sherlock ideal... Look at the bit of the episode that's actually a reasonably-direct adaptation of the short story (sans husband). Where the original Irene never keeps pace with Holmes, and doesn't win a trick against him until it's too late to do anything but flee, this Irene is ahead of the game even before she lets Holmes into her house. She's shown as able to keep up with his deductive abilities, and has the same attitude of relishing the battle of wits that he does. [...] The third round, of course, Sherlock wins; he manages to crack the phone code and prevent further blackmail. Here he's recognizing and exploiting her emotions in exactly the way she's already done his. So, not exactly a sign of one being inferior to the other... more of them being evenly matched."
or
"And that's at the heart of a lot of the criticisms being flung round here, especially by Jones. Details only admit one meaning, the most negative possible one. When Moffat's Irene identifies as gay, while still being attracted to Sherlock, no, we can't look at that in the context of the other material being emphasized in this story -- an asexual man being attracted to Irene, and indeed a straight man (John Watson) being attracted to Sherlock as well. No, it's just Pussy Galore all over again. Instead of acknowledging that Moffat is telling a very different sort of story about the flexibility of love and desire, we'll just use that fragment of the story as another more-or-less-conveniently-shaped stick to beat him with."
selenak :"A Sandal in Fandom: Steven Moffat, Irene Adler and the Fannish Gaze "
Many very good points. Among them, here are a few picks:
About Sherlock:
"If there's an emphasized spine running through the whole show, it's what Lestrade says in the very first episode: Sherlock Holmes is a great man, and one day he may even be a good one. As he stands, the story makes clear, he's both a fascinating, charismatic genius and a thoroughly rotten human being. More than that, the text points out that there's development at work; John Watson is there to humanize him. If there's a first big turning point for the character, it's probably the end of The Great Game, which is the first time Sherlock shows any sort of genuine concern for the welfare of another person. Before then... check out how appalled Watson is earlier in that episode, when Sherlock's reaction to Moriarty killing an innocent is "Well technically I won". Sherlock is explicitly painted as a man who's a long way from decent.
Molly, of course, is there to drive home that point. Because as with Tom Baker, it's easy to shrug off Sherlock being rude to minor police functionaries or even Watson; that's all part of the fun. Even in the Christmas-party scene before he turns his gaze on Molly, he's already being beastly to his closest friend -- demolishing Watson's hopes that his sister has quit drinking, shattering his plans for a happy family Christmas. But hey, that's just Sherlock being Sherlock, it's all part of the game. It's only when he starts dissecting Molly that the scene breaks out of our comfortable expectations; now we recognize that Sherlock Holmes really is an arse.
But there's more going on here than just kicking a puppy. Again, this is part of a larger context being developed through the whole series; he's done this sort of thing to Molly before, most notably when he outs Molly's boyfriend in the previous episode. But the previous times, even when Molly and Watson called him on it, he's just shrugged it off. This time? He apologizes. Never mind that he's awkward and cursory about it, he bothers. This is not just (as Foz presents it) a sop to him not being quite as bad as he could have been; it's also directly underlining that he's changing. This is perhaps the first time in recorded history that Sherlock Holmes has apologized for anything.
Given the emphasis on that, both in the previous episodes and the next one, Moffat clearly wants us to pay attention to this bit of the context. It's very much woven into the story Moffat is consciously telling (even if not into the story fans are focused on hearing): this man is a bastard who's limping towards humanity."
About Irene Adler in the original story not being exactly what we'd like her to be...
"Really her reputation as The Woman Who Out-Thought Sherlock Holmes is entirely down to a couple of paragraphs of good press from Watson as narrator, rather than what she actually does in the action of the story. In that story, she doesn't actually keep pace with Holmes; she's genuinely taken in by Holmes' various deceptions -- even though she's been warned in advance to look out for him in particular. The victory she wins over Holmes is simply a matter of spotting when she's given herself away, and getting the hell outta Dodge before Holmes comes back -- having decided that she can't go up against "so formidable an opponent". Far from engaging in an intellectual battle of wits with Holmes, she's actively trying to avoid such a clash.
And as strong female characters go... well, the original Irene is way more Fatal Attraction than anything. She starts her whole blackmail scheme to ruin her ex, because she'd rather see him humiliated than let him marry someone else. (People who've been complaining about Adler being sexualized in the modern version may be forgetting that this is a story about a Victorian sex scandal.) She finally abandons her scheme for no better reason than that she's found the love of a good man, with Godfrey Norton. And her new husband -- conspicuously absent or downplayed from most of the commentary on Ms. Adler -- makes a respectable woman out of her; after the wedding, she ends up more explicitly defanged and harmless than the free agent at the end of Moffat's script."
And about the Irene in Moffat's story:
"But what of the Irene Adler who's actually in Steven Moffat's script? She's actually a good bit closer to the match-for-Sherlock ideal... Look at the bit of the episode that's actually a reasonably-direct adaptation of the short story (sans husband). Where the original Irene never keeps pace with Holmes, and doesn't win a trick against him until it's too late to do anything but flee, this Irene is ahead of the game even before she lets Holmes into her house. She's shown as able to keep up with his deductive abilities, and has the same attitude of relishing the battle of wits that he does. [...] The third round, of course, Sherlock wins; he manages to crack the phone code and prevent further blackmail. Here he's recognizing and exploiting her emotions in exactly the way she's already done his. So, not exactly a sign of one being inferior to the other... more of them being evenly matched."
or
"And that's at the heart of a lot of the criticisms being flung round here, especially by Jones. Details only admit one meaning, the most negative possible one. When Moffat's Irene identifies as gay, while still being attracted to Sherlock, no, we can't look at that in the context of the other material being emphasized in this story -- an asexual man being attracted to Irene, and indeed a straight man (John Watson) being attracted to Sherlock as well. No, it's just Pussy Galore all over again. Instead of acknowledging that Moffat is telling a very different sort of story about the flexibility of love and desire, we'll just use that fragment of the story as another more-or-less-conveniently-shaped stick to beat him with."