Alright Sherlock fandom. A big, royal fuck you.

touchfuzzy-getdizzy:

The news recently broke that Lucy Liu had been cast as Dr. Watson in CBS’ “original and unique and modern” take on the Sherlock Holmes story.

http://www.tvline.com/2012/02/lucy-liu-sherlock-holmes-elementary/

Ooh… interesting. What’s the first reaction I see to this casting?

“Nooo… they’ll probably do some stupid falling in love story. Arr.”

I beg yours? And that’s not the only reaction like that.

WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN WANTING TO HAPPEN WITH JOHN IN THE BBC SHERLOCK?

How many times have you reblogged gifs of Benedict saying in interviews going “Well it is a love story. They are in love, etc” or drawn pictures of John Watson weeping away because he thinks he’ll never get his boyfriend back? Or… or… freeze framed every single moment when the two actors are doing anything more intimate than brushing each other’s arms and using it for proof that they are a married couple.

Sorry, but if you’re gonna decide in your brain that Sherlock and Watson are in love, don’t bloody tell me that it’s sexist if they do the same thing with a female Watson.

Why do such good shows have such insane fans?

I can’t speak for the rest of the fandom (and as an English person not planning on watching this, I don’t even know whether my opinion’s worth anything), and I agree that the reaction has been rather an overreaction, but I think CBS put a lot of people’s backs up with the fact that they saw how successful BBC’s Sherlock had become and decided to do their own. No matter how good it is, people will still be irritated because it’s a copy. Thus, anything else they announce is probably not going to be received terribly well, explaining the frankly rather rude outcry.

In response to the female!Watson thing… it annoyed me too (albeit not to the point of incoherent rage), and though it took me a while to work out why, here it is:

A lot (I won’t say most, because I can’t be sure that’s true, but it probably is) of Sherlock Holmes fans - movieverse, Granadaverse, bookverse, BBCverse, whatever - have shipped Sherlock/Watson since they first got involved in the fandom. Maybe even before. They decided that, as well as a detective story, it was a love story too. And there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s their choice.

All of the interpretations of the original books, be it tv, movie or spin-off novels, have decided that it’s not a love story. They’ve toyed with it, in the case of the movie and the BBC, made jokes out of two men sharing such a close bond, but it’s always been fairly obvious that that’s what it has always been - a brotherhood.

Now enter CBS, who decide to do something really cool with it - they decide to make Watson a girl! Novel idea, could be played really well depending on how they do it. If they decide to keep the relationship platonic, then it could be an awesome example of a TV show where the main boy and the main girl aren’t madly in love, which would make a nice change.

The problem with them making Watson a girl and then making it a romance story is inequality of it. This idea that, for it to be a romantic relationship, it has to be heterosexual. It can’t be romantic if they’re both boys, and it can’t be platonic if they’re a boy and a girl. It’s gender and sexuality stereotyping. And that’s what annoys me. I’m not happy they’re making it a romance because they felt the need to change the gender of one of the people before making it a romance.

If, however, they keep the relationship platonic and still make Watson a kick-ass BAMF, I shall applaud them from the rooftops for making a strong and independent female character that is not defined based on her relationship with the male lead.

Well this is what I’m talking about too. It seems to be the sexism is on the fandom’s part, assuming that “girl” means “relationship”. Nothing of that sort has been suggested, and yet it’s the first thing everyone thinks of. But Sherlock and John in the BBC version and in the recent films “flirt”. They joke about it. I don’t want to see everyone having a hissy fit if the CBS Sherlock and Watson do the same.

02/28/2012
12:50 PM
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