Helena Wayne is making a point about Wonder Woman's current incarnation in DC Comics, but it resonated so well with what I've been thinking about Elementary for the last two years that it seemed worth repeating here. The big difference between the gripe Helena Wayne and others have against the new Wonder Woman and the one myself and others have against the Sherlock that Elementary gives us is that their protest is based on the ways the new version reinforces sexism, when Wonder Woman is such a terrific symbol against that very thing.
To me, Elementary has always seemed to have an anti-intellectual streak running wide and deep throughout it, when Sherlock Holmes has always been such a powerful symbol for the good great minds do for our culture. Not the same issue as the Wonder Woman one, and yet it is.
Our culturally iconic characters are with us for a reason, and to see them twisted to symbolize something a bit different than what they do for us is hard. You can dismiss it as "oh, those silly geeks are just over-attached to their fictions," but it's just the same as someone mis-interpreting the Declaration of Independence or the Bible toward ends that you know those words were not written to inspire.
The thing about our best legends, though, is that they survive a few bad interpretations along the way. Those stories will be told and retold, again and again. And sure, they might get told the wrong way once or twice due to some situation the teller came from, apart from the heart of the thing. But count on it, the story will be told again, and told the way it should be on that future occasion.
Legends live on because of what's at their core. I'm seeing that these days with another quick-thinking hero who got lost for a bit but is making a comeback. And I'm sure it will be that way with all the truly greats eventually.
And Sherlock Holmes, of course, is a truly great.
One of the lovely things about our connected world is that sometimes someone else will speak your thoughts for you . . . Amen Brother!
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