Does a creator's intent matter?

Let's talk about writer Arthur Conan Doyle and film-maker Ed Wood for a moment.

I use Ed Wood in this instance, because while there are writers of his ability out there, they don't tend to attain the fame that he did. But Ed Wood and Arthur Conan Doyle were both creators who attained prominence for their creations, so I think he will suffice for the point I'm going to explore.

Ed Wood made a little sci-fi/horror movie called Plan Nine from Outer Space. I say "sci-fi/horror" because that was Wood's intention. What he actually created was a comedy that audiences have enjoyed for decades now as just that . . . a comedy. Which it wasn't made as.

So if a goodly number of people start enjoying Holmes and Watson as a gay couple, is it any more problematic than the legion of fans who enjoy Plan Nine from Outer Space as a comedy?

As long as I've been a Sherlockian, I've seen folks trying to claim authoritatively what Conan Doyle thought about this or that. Sometimes it seems on target, sometimes it seems like they're stretching some quote out-of-context to suit their purposes. In the end, though, all everyone is working from is the same set of words as everyone else and interpreting those words as their individual mind will. Piling on the words to have Doyle corroborate himself always gives us the best picture, but even at that . . . who really knows what's going on in anyone's head?

What we do have, however, is the product Doyle produced and handed over to the public for their entertainment, to enjoy as they chose. Just like Mr. Ed Wood.

Because of the quality of that product, as well as the fact Doyle is more "historical," having died longer ago, we tend to take Doyle a little more seriously. People raise the question of his intent and seem to think that should govern how we view his characters . . . out of respect for the dead or somesuch silly notion that gatekeepers enjoy trotting out in their seriousness.

But let's be honest. The only thing they're defending is their own worldview, and trotting out one more "how you should behave" to try to justify it. You know those people. (Heck, I'm doing it here.)

Conan Doyle was no Ed Wood, of course. Wood was a shlock film-maker who didn't make his horror movie horrific enough. Doyle was a great writer!

But step back and look at on part of Doyle's work: John Watson's marriage.

It's on again, off again. Mary Morstan never really returns as a character. A wife seems to die, then Watson seems to leave Holmes for a wife eight years later. Conan Doyle is horrible at writing an ongoing male-female relationship in the Canon of Holmes. One might argue that they are mystery stories, not "Watson's romance" stories, but at that point you're actually just flinging the barn doors wide open. If Doyle's point wasn't Watson's romance and he didn't care about it, an interpretation of a monogamous, Mary-faithful Watson suddenly has equal footing with an interpretation of closeted Victorian John who was in love with Sherlock. If the writer's intent isn't clear in the text itself . . . the interpretation of which can change over time . . . the reader can enjoy it however they choose.

Which is what audiences do.

Nobody is going to propose that you should properly enjoy Ed Wood's Plan Nine from Outer Space as a frightening horror movie because that has to be what Wood intended. And a big part of the Sherlockian game from its earliest days was the fact that Sherlockians were not enjoying the Canon as Doyle or his offspring intended.

Because in both cases, that's where fans found the fun was. And if a new generation of Sherlockians finds the fun somewhere new in those same stories, that'll be where the fun is then. It'll be their world eventually, they get to do that.

All we can do is enjoy what we enjoy and let others do the same.*

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* This view may have evolved since earlier postings in this same blog about a certain American television show, which, quite honestly, the writer did not think anyone enjoyed. Still learning such things.