fandeadgloves:

thejohnlockhell:

“being mary watson was the only life worth living” the fact that this is an actual line makes me furious

I remember when TAB came out and several people on my dash were less than happy with the message of the episode. Sure, it used a fantastic tale of murder suicide to talk about the beginning of the feminist movement and the lack of value ACD placed of female characters. That sounds good right? The show runners touted it as a feminist episode. Except our main characters remain male.

John is deliberately a period-appropriate sexist.

The main dialogue explaining everything comes from Sherlock and Mycroft. Mycroft states that we must let the women win. Why thank you Mycroft you will allow it? Is that a royal ‘we’ or do you speak for all men? You are too kind. Cue my fucking curtsy. The whole thing smacks of classic British Imperialism’s idea of moral justice. The white men will bring us freedom, culture, and justice. The ending reveal with Sherlock was Mansplaining at it’s finest.

Every great cause has martyrs; every war has suicide missions – and make no mistake, this is war. One half of the human race at war with the other.

The invisible army hovering at our elbow, attending to our homes, raising our children, ignored, patronized, disregarded, not allowed so much as a vote.

… but an army nonetheless, ready to rise up in the best of causes, to put right an injustice as old as humanity itself. So, you see, Watson, Mycroft was right. This is a war we must lose.

Thanks Sherlock for letting us know.

For some TJLC fans the only reason this episode was acceptable was as a metaphor for the modern LGBT agenda. It’s okay that Mofftiss were so clueless to womens’ right to star in their own narrative if it was overlooked in their quest to make a statement about modern civil rights. A tiny miss-step in their endless exuberance. 

Except if it isn’t a story about LGBT representation then all the times the female character’s were used as tools of the male narrative become unforgivable to people who felt they were fans of the show. The show they thought they were watching isn’t there. It isn’t just about the lack of LGBT representation it’s also about the unforgivable use of female characters. As Moffat explains about Molly in the last episode, 

“I can’t see why you’d have to play that out. She forgives him, of course, and our newly grown-up Sherlock is more careful with her feelings in the future. In the end of that scene, she’s a bit wounded by it all, but he’s absolutely devastated. He smashes up the coffin, he’s in pieces, he’s more upset than she is, and that’s a huge step in Sherlock’s development.

“The question is: Did Sherlock survive that scene? She probably had a drink and went and shagged someone, I dunno. Molly was fine.”

In short her feelings aren’t as real, as deep, or as important as Sherlock’s. They never were. Nothing new. Just as Leia once comforted Luke about one dead guy he just met, it seems as far as popular fiction is concerned, we haven’t moved forward since the late 70′s.