Plenty to say about Sherlock, and plenty is already being said. It was proper, everyone watched it, everyone's talking about it, "water cooler" etc etc telly. The first two episodes aired while I was on holiday and I didn't even know that they were going to be on; by the time I got home it was wall to wall on Twitter (people discuss things in places other than Twitter? I wouldn't know as am currently working in an empty office.) We're (almost) all agreed: it was clever and funny and brilliantly performed, and maybe we're not sure about the visible text messages and the blogging storyline (in a word: NO) but Benedict Cumberbatch is an extraordinarily-named genius who has made Holmes his own and I wonder if he turned down Doctor Who (that bit's just me).One thing I have found interesting is the hormonal outpouring from female viewers including me: I've seen Cumberbatch in plenty of stuff before and surely he was never sexy (I mean, Stuart: A Life Backwards? Thanks no) only now suddenly he is wearing a long coat (see also Doctor Who - men, if you know what's good for you, buy a long coat) and his eyes look kind of oh yes, and he's got a very funny script and a decisive don't-give-a-toss demeanor and he's clever and YES I WOULD. But in addition, I don't know if it's the presence of a gay co-creator but there's so much man-on-man flirting going on: Holmes and Watson, Holmes and Lestrade, Holmes and Moriarty, Holmes and everybody basically. And we love it. By which I mean the ladies love it. There's a whole other piece to be written about how, in the era of the internet and slashfic a previously unknown well of female interest in men getting it on with other men has emerged (I just typoed 'me getting it on with other men', which is a whole other other piece) but I have a deadline so I can't write it right now (magazine editors: you know where to find me and my rates are very competitive). I'm not surprised to see this coming from Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat - both having done time in RTD-era Doctor Who which was the first bit of mainstream family telly to crank up the gay flirting and win. (Ironically, given the context, in Moffat-era Doctor Who the gay flirting has been excised, and Gatiss wrote the one really duff episode of the most recent season, the WW2 dalek one, and I wonder if he feels like his wings have been clipped.) I'm mentioning Doctor Who a lot, which is because Sherlock is really Doctor Who for grown-ups: in an updated version of a popular old classic, a mysterious, socially removed, insouciant but charming supergenius and his prosaic sidekick solve crimes involving monstrous villains and a hypereal version of the world. I guess it's not surprising that I adored it.
Any downside? Sadly yes. Sherlock's representation of women is awful. It's maybe unfortunate for Moffat and Gatiss that I watched it so soon after hearing about the Bechdel test. The Bechdel test? Why yes, it's a formula for figuring out whether the films have the most basic characterisation of women. Basically it works like this:
1. Is there more than one woman in it?
2. Do the women have names?
3. Do they talk to each other?
4. Do they talk to each other about anything other than men?
Try to think of some films that pass this test. Er... (I came up with Juno and all of the work of Mike Leigh, but it's much harder when you move past independent movies into the world of mainstream.)
TV is way ahead of the curve on this, with the likes of Mad Men or The West Wing proving that it is entirely possible to have a fantastic show with a wealth of intelligent female characters who have more on their minds than who they are or aren't shagging and what the men are up to. Sadly Sherlock isn't one of them. There are plenty of female characters, yes, but they never speak to each other, and if you think for a minute about why they don't speak to each other you'll realise it's because they'd have nothing to say, as they aren't really characters at all, just a bunch of girlfriends, victims and idiots whose lives revolve around the men. So Sarah, who exists to be Watson's girlfriend, and gets captured and shrieks; and Molly, who has a simpering crush on Holmes that renders her incapable of using the brain you assume she must have to be a qualified pathologist; and the policewoman who slags Holmes off but doesn't appear to have much by way of a job to do; and Mrs Hudson, who is Una Stubbs and therefore wonderful and very funny but a bit thick and makes the tea. And lots of dead people, and one criminal mastermind in episode two who actually isn't that much of a mastermind because she's just following orders from Moriarty.
Ah, Moriarty. When the envelope turned up in episode three with a woman's handwriting on it, I had high hopes that Moriarty would be a woman; making Holmes's evil nemesis female would have been a nice 21st century touch. Making Molly Moriarty, for example, would have been an excellent about-turn for her frankly insulting characterisation (oh no I'm going to cry because Holmes thinks I've put on weight!) But no, this is boys' games in a boys' world, and the girls are incidental. Which is not to say that Moriarty wasn't fantastic: like the rest of the male characters, he was bright, witty, sharp and very hot. In fact, the irony is that while female viewers have got the total horn watching all the sexy men running around being clever and cool, (straight) male viewers have some eye candy here and there, but nobody who is any fun or actually does anything (seriously: 'girl in car who looks at her phone a lot'?). So in a way, we women have the better deal. But in another way, we really don't.
Perhaps I'm being unfair, picking holes in something that is so much better than the British TV norm, but I don't mind a lazy attitude to women as much in something that's crap, because it's crap across the board; this is good, and so it should know better. End of mini-series report, then: brilliant as far as it goes, but when you get the recommission, if the women could actually talk to each other next time, that would be great.
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11 comments:
How perfect would it have been for a modern take on Sherlock, had the show's creators/writers made Sherlock's nemesis "Molly" Moriarty. I had the same high hopes when I saw that it was a woman's handwriting on the envelope but sadly, it wasn't to be.
The writers need to get more of a male-female balance with some decent female characters or by fleshing out the ones they have already and, as you suggest, getting them to interact more. They could start by explaining why the whingeing female police office has it in for Sherlock.
Yes - as long as it isn't "I want to shag Sherlock but he won't shag me" or "I did shag Sherlock and now he's not interested"...
If the reason the female police officer doesn't like Sherlock turns out to be because he won't shag her or they had a fling/one night stand and no more and she can't deal with it, I may stop watching. I think I'd prefer they kept the female characters to the margins, if that's the direction in which they went!
THANK YOU for the intro to the Bechdel Rule. There's a marvellous wiki page on TV Tropes that lets you add films that 'pass'.
I hope Molly turns out to be the sniper.
It's not surprising that the portrayal of women in Sherlock is so poor. Even bringing it into the Twenty-first Century cannot hide the fact it is based on the work of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He was very Victorian and despite the window-dressing Holmes and Watson,his greatest creations have to be the same.
I am disappointed that they have unmasked Moriaty so quickly. As you said, as the writing on the Bohemian stationary was very feminine, and there were so many references to things Czech, I was hoping the villain would be Irene Addler.
As I've said elsewhere, Moff has been called on bad writing for women before. I never really noticed it much, and tbh really I only know him from his DW script (never did watch any of his other stuff) However, now you've mentioned it and your introduction of the Bechdel Rule, I really can see what you mean. I too would have liked to have seen Moriarty perhaps being a woman, to give the whole thing a good old twist.
Mind you, there is always the view that Moriarty isn't REALLY Moriarty, but just a puppet for the real villian...
Sadly, Sherlock not on my shores (yes people discuss on Twitter-very frustrating if you can't see said show.
But do feel compelled to point out there was plenty of Aaron Sorkin mysogeny on West Wing-I remember Donna having yesterday's panties falling out of her pant leg, and another time when CJ had to run around in her panties after sitting in something-and other similiar incidents...
Shows with female Moriartys: Sherlock Holmes, the Early Years.
People who have written enough articles about slash and how verbal man-on-man erotica is the flipside of men's tedious visual obsession with lesbians for these articles to be subject of satire from friends: I dare say more than one, but I am one.
Steven Moffat also wrote Press Gang (Lynda Day) and Coupling - he definitely knows how to write for women. My friend Liz can expand on this far better than I can (having, for a start, the Press Gang boxset).
Perhaps after the audience has clearly lapped up everything they've changed so far, Moff and Gatiss won't have any problem with doing the odd gender swap in the next series. (Next series! *jumps up and down in excitement*)
I enjoyed episodes 1 and 3 enormously, though I agree with all points made re the female characters. I was less troubled by it here, mind, than I was in the most recent Doctor Who series - Amy, supposedly a lead character, wasn't much more than a cipher throughout. A cipher in short skirts.
On the subject of Cumberbatch - I have thought him quite lovely for a good few years, but this migrated into thinking him completely delicious when I saw After the Dance at the National a couple of months ago. No long coat. Just loveliness.
Nope you're not being unfair at all. I really enjoyed episodes 1 and 3. At the same time I can't love it (even though I can lurve the characters in a fannish way) because because what they changed quite happily to fit with modern times and what they left similar to the original books (women's roles, that crazy Chinese gangsters episode which could not have been more stereotypical). They seem to be happy making general time changes (blogs for diaries - gaaaaaahhhhh)but when it came to adding in modern attitudes, well it was back to BBC basics from the 50s.
As for the slash aspect I'm on the fence, but my view is coloured by seeing Moffat and Comberbatch explaining just how not gay Sherlock Holmes is. When I saw the first episode I was giddy with it and the end with the swimming pool comment, lovely, but when I think about it now it seems that after every instance of slashariffic potential someone will go on to remind viewers that they're definately NOT gay. And fine, if they're not gay, they're not gay, at the same time is it important that viewers be constantly reminded of that? That 'People do little else' comment right at the end, coupled with Moffat's comments in the article, seemed like a bit audience aimed - 'Oh silly people, do not even think it' but probably reading too much into it.
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