@cupidford talked about that she was going to put a rose at the Eros statue at Piccadilly Circus on January 29 for John and Sherlock. Maybe people who are in London want to join in!
Maybe we could also leave messages against queerbaiting and for John and Sherlock on pink fabric stripes that we leave anywhere we want.
Whatever you feel doing like in remembrance and protest on the 29th, make sure to take to social media (esp. twitter) and the hashtags #norbury #bbcqueerbaiting and/or #sherlock.
I’ve been thinking about the blithe and dismissive BBC response all evening. I think we need to fight back. I think that we need to mount our own resistance.
I see two main routes:
1. Complain again to the BBC and to Masterpiece including complaints about how our initial comments were treated. I think we should seek the support off established pressure groups to ensure we cannot be dismissed again. I would suggest that we contact LGBT and feminist campaign groups and describe our treatment and ask them to support our complaints and echo them to the BC as well. I think we need a follow up complaint based on queerbaiting (queer villains and heroes “defending” their straightness leading to stereotypes being perpetuated) and feminism (both in the show and in the way our complaints were handled). My suggestions would be Stonewall and the Women’s Equality Party. Any suggestions for some more?
2. We should send those complaints (with a bunch of gifs in to make them readable and amusing) to likely sympathetic media. My first suggestions would be jezebel and sites that accept submissions like HuffPo or Buzzfeed. When I submit press releases in my day job we make them easy to pick up by a) making the article the sort of thing they like to start with (you give them references in notes at the bottom and you make the text fun and click-baity) and b) offering personal stories. One way to do this is give people a few questions to answer another is to give some contact details of people who wouldn’t mind being interviewed for the piece.
In terms of how we accomplish that I’d propose that we use peer review (I’m a scientist – I can’t help myself!). We throw a queer baiting and a misogyny complaint post around on tumblr and when we think they look good we try to contact campaigning groups and media organisations.
I’m tagging those below who were interested in the #Norbury project to see what they think. My thoughts are that lots of approaches are needed and that lots of different people’s energy and creativity will be needed to make sure that our voices aren’t dismissed. We are not silly girls, we are nasty women and I think we deserve to be heard.
I’m all into it! I have already sent them an answer for that response, quoting some of the times BBC itself promoted the show using the idea of Johnlock, and explaining why that’s queerbaiting and offensive for the LGBT community. I think we should totally circulate a post about that and submit it to Buzzfeed. Everyone with contacts for people that work in the great media, please help us!
Eurus traumatized Sherlock so badly that he completely re-wrote all of his memories about her. Got rid of her completely. That is a level of trauma that you just don’t see every day.
In the present, he finds out by degrees (horrifying examples) just how evil she is. Situations in which he’s forced to choose one life over another, emotionally damage one of his few friends. He finds out that in a fit of jealousy she drowned his best friend and set fire to the ancestral home. Finds out that as a child she cut her arm open to see how the muscles worked. Finds out that she mutilated a guard during a rape so that the sex wasn’t able to be distinguished.
But as soon as he finds out that all she wanted was a hug and for him to show her attention …. Ah well. All’s good. Here’s a hug and I’ll be round regularly to play violin with you.
What the ever loving fuck???? How in the fuck is that scene in which he hugs her and rocks her a sign of his emotional growth? Simple answer: it isn’t. Long answer: it’s what an abuse victim would do in order to stop the abuser from causing anymore harm. Culverton was the epitome of evil because he built a murder hospital and was a serial killer. But all his sister needs is a hug and some attention? Because if she could orchestrate everything that she had, he would have to mollify her in whatever way possible just to keep her in check.
That’s not emotional growth. That’s being trapped in the abuse cycle.
It’s the “Ironic Process Theory”, where you tell someone not to picture an object, the first thing they do is picture the object. You just can’t help it.
The BBC – whether intentional or not – is doing this right now with their Sherlock complaints.
They are addressing every complaint the same way: by telling the complainer that Sherlock and John are not in love, even if that has nothing to do with their complaint as a whole.
Every person who complained is now thinking about Sherlock and John as a romantic pairing and whether that has any basis in the show.
“Don’t picture a white bear.”
“Sherlock and John have never, ever been portrayed romantically in any way, in any moment, in 13 episodes.”
What are they waiting for then? Do they expect us to burn the BBC buildings or something? Give us the fkn thing for gods sake. Maybe we should be accelerating the game, you know, there’s a change.org petition, we’re making the #OperationNorbury now to collect Johnlock & queerbaiting evidence. I honestly think they need us to make TV history, they were relying on us, in that we are clever, that we would be upset and we would do clever artistic things. They’re expecting US to make TV history, they’re trying to remake that ACD moment in real history when people dressed in mourning after Sherlock’s death (after The Final Problem… do you ever wonder why they chose to keep the original title? maybe this is the answer. There’s nothing new under the sun), but they’re searching for a more active response by killing our beloved show. We need to work harder and faster with this massive reaction, we need to be louder in every social network but never violent, always cleverer.
I just sent a letter to this gay press outlet. I know there is a US version, so for those of you in the US, just google the paper and go to the contact page. In the past they have been responsive to issues on queer baiting. If they get enough emails they may run a piece on this.
@PinkNews is their Twitter account.
Also, adding these from being mutuals either on Twitter and/or here.
in the interest of my own mental well-being, i would rather spend the psychological and cognitive energy that would be required to “play a game” on preparing myself for the disappointing possibility that there’s nothing else forthcoming, that’s just how my defensive pessimism rolls
a.) this doesn’t make me dumb, ignorant, or lazy, or less of a fan
b.) this doesn’t mean i deride anyone who has more energy and cognitive bandwidth for this stuff than i do and i love yall and wish you luck
I have, and at first I was very pissed, but the more I think about it… #SomethingsFucky. That’s just not how you answer complaints, not that rude and abrasive, and it’s beyond bizarre that they sent out a form letter saying “Sherlock and John are not and have never been gay” to EVERYONE who complained, including those who never mentioned Johnlock in the first place. People sent in “that episode sucked” and got back “they’re not gay” and that’s just ???
I’m still asking myself 100 times a day whether this is incompetence or conspiracy, debating what I think, but no matter what, we should protest. If this is part of a plan, us protesting is part of it, and if it’s not, then they deserve all the flames we can send them.
A group of people in the fandom are starting a web based protest of sorts #operation norbury
It’s a blog on tumblr and a website that will outline queerbaiting on BBC Sherlock and discuss queer readings within canon(among other things). (I can’t link as I’m on mobile, but check out the tag on my blog to see everything about it)
Sherlock Fandom Archive 