"You know what's bullshit? Being told, because you're a young girl, that you can't be a 'serious Sherlockian.'"
This went out on Twitter, Tumblr, and, very soon after, Facebook from the Baker Street Babes today.
If you have yet to run into the "serious Sherlockian" bullshit, which you will if you are even partially actively pursuing the fandom of Holmes, let me tell you this: it's been there as long as I've been a Holmes fan, well over thirty years, and I'll bet it's been there from a long time before that.
What's more is that you'll find it in most fandoms of any duration. There were Classic Trekkies who disdained the Next Generation Noobs. There are Harley riders who pooh-pooh motorcyclists who prefer more modern manufacturers of bikes. There are even people in various kink communities who claim the younger generation just isn't doing it right. It doesn't matter what you're a fan of, there will always be some old fart (not necessarily chronological old) who wants to say you just don't measure up.
I suppose it's because a fandom becomes so much a part of a person's ego that some folks just feel endangered by new ideas, or anyone who does things a little different from the way they did it when they were first in the hobby. And there are always those who feel you aren't doing something right if you aren't doing it exactly the way they enjoyed it their first time. Lovers of strict ritual will always shoot down anything that goes against their routines.
Clubs with any kind of membership barrier are the worst incarnation of this "serious Sherlockian" phenomenon, and the most bitter pill you'll find in this hobby of ours -- an institutionalization of the "serious Sherlockian" concept, locking it in for all eternity for those who don't feel their rituals are strong enough to handle openness and inclusive behaviours.
Never been a fan of it. Never will be. We all like what we like. (Unless it's Elementary, and then we might like to dislike what we dislike.) And that should remain a personal preference, not a statement of Sherlockian classification.
What an odd plea for tolerance. When I first got on the internet in 2010, I was quick to check out Sherlock Holmes online. As someone with a deep interest in chronology, I came across yours. It was witty and iconoclastic. There is merit in your unique dating of "A Study in Scarlet". I printed it out and it has an honored place on my Sherlockian shelves. I have you to thank my biggest online success, my December 14 Baker Street Blog post on "Elementary". It was your November 7 "Loving things that suck" post that laid out an intellectual challenge: to explain why I find "Elementary" is a worthy entry into the cinematic Holmes arena. I really did try to look at it with an open mind. There are areas where you and I agree, but many more where we disagree. My post was spotted by someone in the "Elementary" fandom and the link re-tweeted. The number of hits it subsequently got indicated to me that there was a large number of fans hungry for "serious Sherlockians" to take their show seriously. There was a lot of disdain for "Elementary" from "serious Sherlockians" that you might say was well-deserved, but that I perceived as more emotional than rational. I viewed the first six episodes many times, and if, in my opinion, they didn't hold up, I would have gladly said so. I have no ideological ax to grind. I am a fan of "Sherlock". I watched it eagerly in October 2010; thought "A Study in Pink" was brilliant, "The Blind Banker" much less so, and "The Great Game" infuriating--yes, in 2010, long before "Elementary" was a gleam in CBS's eye. I looked forward to "Sherlock's" second season because, for all that I find wrong with it, it is an excellent show. Cumberbatch and Freeman are excellent as Holmes and Watson.
ReplyDeleteYou write, "It’s okay to like something that sucks. It really is. Everything you like in life isn’t going to be of the first quality, even in the land of Sherlock Holmes. But if it makes you happy, that’s the important thing. And if writing about how much that same thing sucks (an activity which kinda sucks) makes someone else happy, that’s their thing. It’s a big, big world." That is a plea for tolerance, albeit one insulting to "Elementary" fans, with which sentiments I can stand behind. And this, in fact, what makes today's post odd. You carve out an exception for acceptance of the "Elementary" fan.
Don't get me wrong. I enjoy your posts; your view points and the way you express them. I enjoy your putdowns of "Elementary", even if I disagree with them. What I do not enjoy is your insults of "Elementary" fans. To say they are self-deluding as in your November 7 post, or mindless as in your December 7 post, wretches in your January 5 post, or needing help in your January 15 post, undercuts the arguments in today's post. Hate the show, not the lover of the show.
"I have you to thank my biggest online success, my December 14 Baker Street Blog post on "Elementary". It was your November 7 "Loving things that suck" post that laid out an intellectual challenge: to explain why I find "Elementary" is a worthy entry into the cinematic Holmes arena. I really did try to look at it with an open mind. There are areas where you and I agree, but many more where we disagree. My post was spotted by someone in the "Elementary" fandom and the link re-tweeted. The number of hits it subsequently got indicated to me that there was a large number of fans hungry for "serious Sherlockians" to take their show seriously."
DeleteYet, funny enough, of nine or ten individual commenters to your post the majority voiced their problems with "Elementary". What does that tell you?
I don't know if nine out of ten is the correct ratio, Kete, but your point is well taken. I'm not sure what it tells me; that there are "Sherlock" fans who want "to say" your show "just don't measure up"? That they are Sherlockians concerned that "Elementary" is bad Sherlock Holmes? That maybe so. They could be right. I know that two of those persons admitted that they had only watched the pilot, which, I think, I not the best episode of the 12 now broadcast. Maybe they would have a different opinion if they had watched more episodes. Maybe not. As I mentioned to you before, popularity of something does not make it good. But as you seem to be concerned with numbers, let me say that "Elementary" is the number one new show in the United States. It is also the number one new show in Canada. When ghostbees posted the link to my Baker Street Blog saying: "There’s this really, really, really wonderful article on CBS’s Elementary, which is the most intelligent thing I’ve ever come across and that you should all read" a month ago, which, as of today, has 1699 notes, that tells me that, like that young girl Brad quoted at the beginning of his post, "Elementary" fans want to be taken seriously. Taken as seriously as any newcomer who got turned on to Sherlock Holmes by "Sherlock", as any who were introduced to the Canon by the Downey movies, or "The Great Mouse Detective", or Jeremy Brett or Basil Rathbone. There is nothing wrong with disliking "Elementary". There is something wrong with dissing someone because they like "Elementary" "We all like what we like."
DeleteTo be a true Sherlockian you first of all have to have a regard for the canon, imo. I don't see much of that in Elementary-fans. Sherlockiana is about Sherlock Holmes, not about, "JLM is so cuuute!" or "LL kicks ass!"
DeleteI recently had a little spat with a new pastiche writer who openly admitted to not being a Sherlockian - yet she thought nothing of using the character of Sherlock Holmes to promote her own unlikely heroine. Sorry, I find that mercenary.
And that is what the show is for me, too. And by association its fans. Maybe some will turn into true Sherlockians by way of watching the show and becoming interested in the canon and that's fine. But someone who is only interested in JLM/LL and cares nothing for the way the show runners butcher the characters shouldn't wonder that people steeped in canon lore for years don't take them seriously.
Btw, I didn't say nine out of ten. I said the majority of your nine or ten individual commenters expressed problems with the show. Reading comprehension failure?
I do apologize for mistaking your "nine or ten individual commenters" as a ratio. It was indeed a "reading comprehension failure" on my part. In my defense, I can only say that I thought your point was well taken, and that stands regardless of how I read it.
DeleteNow, let's not pretend that online fandom with its mostly young and female population is one homogenous group where everyone loves everyone else. Because it is not.
ReplyDeleteThere are those who love the movies and/or the shows. There are those who abhor everything not Victorian. There are those who want to discuss only canon or this or that show/movie. There are those who love or hate fanfic. And guess what? They don't usually hang out with each other. Each BNF have their entourage and there's not much intermingling in my experience.
So, if RL-Sherlockians like to stay in their comfort zone? Let them. I was never one campaigning for female admittance to male clubs. Why go where you're not welcome? Make your own place instead.
"They didn’t want us in “their” fandom, so we made our own."
And why is that a bad thing? It's not. Not at all. Yes, change can be nice and I'm normally all for it, but there are some areas of my life where I'd prefer if everything would stay the same old, same old. Very relaxing.
People today can chose where to participate and with whom to socialise. Exclusively here or there or perhaps on both sides of the fence if they have enough energy to spare. I'm all for that.
We all have our biases. Here’s mine. In my opinion, you aren’t a “serious Sherlockian” until you have begun to read the canon. Once you’ve read one page and that page inspires a desire in you to read more--to the point that you find yourself becoming passionately fond of Holmes and Watson so that you yearn to read the next story and the next, you are a “serious Sherlockian.” Until you crack the canon, you’re just a fan of a show about Sherlock. But once you begin the canon with enthusiasm, I don’t care how old you are, how intelligent you are, or how good or bad your taste in television is, you are a “serious Sherlockian.”
ReplyDeleteJames mentioned newcomers getting turned on to Sherlock through cinema and television. Some of us got turned on to Sherlock by reading the stories. First. I was about 13 years old when I began reading the stories, and I was hooked. So, I know that a young girl can be a “serious Sherlockian” because I was--and have been for almost 30 years now. Yet, I have never sought the society of other “serious Sherlockians” until recently for fear of exactly what is being discussed here. I have been afraid that my opinions would not be taken seriously, or worse—they would be denigrated, or that because I might not know the answers to trivia questions which all “serious Sherlockians” should know, I would be dismissed. As I’ve grown older, I’ve decided to risk it. I’ve found that I enjoy talking about Sherlock with others who enjoy him, and if they dismiss my thoughts, opinions, or taste, well, that’s OK. All that matters is that in my heart, I know I’m a “serious Sherlockian,” for I’ve taken the time to get to know the original.