okay so i’m going to start posting my stories from the con this weekend because a lot happened and i’m antsy to yell about it. so. i want to tell you this thing wanda ventham said. on friday night, there was a drinks reception and everyone sat in groups around the room, and the cast and crew members attending cycled through so we could all talk to them
when wanda was with us, we started talking about s4 specifically and she asked us if we’d all seen all of it, and we were all like “oh yeah” and then she asked “and did you know what it was about?”
everyone said “yeah!” and THEN she was like “but did you know what it was about?” a little bit more slowly and deliberately and at this point everyone’s a little confused and no one’s really answering and i’m leaning so far forward i’m about to fall onto the floor
but then she was just said “oh i really can’t say much more, mark’s right over there” and i’m internally like UH and then she just changed topics to talk about being surprised to find out she had a daughter and i was like UHH and it’s been five days and i’m still. winded
What..
My running theory is that she knows it was mofftiss’s middle finger to the fans and her and Ben and Timothy and Martin shit talk about it all the time but not within earshot of mark or steven
Honestly Wanda….it doesn’t mean anything to anyone, even to hard core fans, if the “something” can’t be figured out. OR the “something” has to actually be there to find. In s4, I’m afraid, it’s missing.
Welcome to another Sherlock Challenge! The prompt for June is happy birthday.
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There is a reason behind this month’s prompt – or actually two reasons.
June is the month of my, Sherlock Challenge admin, birthday (yay). In case anyone wanted to buy me gift, you can find my Amazon wishlist here 😉
June is also the month of Sherlock Challenge tumblr birthday! The first post on the blog was on 12th June 2016, with the first challenge starting in July 2016. How the time flies! I will have small surprise for you chaps on July 1st 🙂
Happy birthday, to both Admin and #SherlockChallenge!
The Sherlocked con has me seeing several people vocally, publicly express their frustrations both with the event and also the folks putting it on, how they’re doing that. And it’s not that I always disagree. It’s more that the best parts of fandom (the parts I’m most at home with) tend to take a live-and-let-live approach. If pro-Mofftiss and anti-Mofftiss were ships, this behavior would have me feeling more than a bit …. ehhhh?
Only they’re not ships, they’re existing people who have taken specific actions that has RL consequences, so I’m not sure the standards are quite the same.
Still, I do worry we’re keeping people from enjoying a show they can like in a way we once did. Which still leaves me feeling more than a bit uncomfortable.
So: any thoughts? How can you dislike a show (passionately!), even hate the creators, and still be respectful while doing it?
Oof. I’ve been staying clear of a lot of social media specifically because of how I feel in response to others expressing their distaste.
There is a huge differences between “This isn’t what I like” and “This is shit.”
When it comes to ships, I trust my fellow fans to use language consistent with the former. But since series 4, a lot of these same folks have been yelling “THIS IS SHIT” and it hurts to hear. It hurts my squee. It hurts too much to talk about.
Admitting I am still a fan of Sherlock feels like making myself vulnerable to the virulence behind of those more bitterly disappointed. My position doesn’t invalidate that disappointment, and I don’t want to force anyone continue loving something they have abandoned or grown out of. In the end, we don’t have to agree, but it’s appreciated when unhappy fans still leave space for my experience and enjoyment to exist.
I wonder if it’s helpful to draw a division between subjective/objective on the one hand and vitriol on the other? Let me try to unpack that a bit.
I believe objectively a lot about S4 is bad. Quite a lot is good, too; and a lot of people in fandom will disagree with me in that assessment – both in how good/bad it was, but also where certain parts fall along that line. For instance, that movie night-cum-clown horror show scene at the beginning of TFP? Loved it, thought it was really clever and well-done – but a friend who’s actually much more positive about S4 generally than I am, thought it was objectively clunky, just not very well written at all. (This isn’t about whether we liked it, it’s about whether we thought it was good …. cinema? whatever the TV analog is? – though since we’re talking aesthetics and art here, that line can get a bit murky at times.)
My point is: people can have disagreements over the show’s quality and all kinds of objective differences of opinions. I think they have to do it in the right spaces, and when people are more interested in squeeing, luxuriating in the things they did like, they need to realize that’s not directed at them. Squeeage is very subjective to me. It’s this-is-how-I-experienced-the-thing, not this-is-how-the-thing-is or this-is-how-you-should-experience-it. Which is fine, it’s great, subjective is no better or worse than objective. But it is different, and I think fandom is better off when we all make room for the first two (though the third, maybe we’re all better off avoiding?). The trick is context and making space for both, and I don’t think Tumblr really makes that easy.
Then there’s the vitriol thing. Let me be clear: even if you think Sherlock is crap, even if you think it’s so ridiculously crap that anyone who still enjoys it or isn’t burning Mofftiss in effigy is either a horrible person or has ridiculously low standards? Putting that out in such angry terms in mixed company is a really dangerous, tricky, and almost inevitably harmful thing to do. It keeps other people from enjoying the show or the fanworks, and just as a matter of neighborliness that seems unacceptable to me.
Think of it this way. Say someone puts a really controversial painting in a museum. Maybe it’s comething offensive like the piss christ. Maybe you think it’s just really bad quality and you find it ofensive it’s hung next to what you consider quality art. That’s your right. You’re free to talk about that with other patrons who want to have that discussion (though equally, everyone else is free to enjoy the painting without having to talk to you). But if you start yelling about how friggin’ awful it is (but in the best GOTG tradition you didn’t say friggin’), if you’re ruining the atmosphere for everyone and maybe other patrons are having to back off because they just don’t want to be around you? That’s not okay IMO. Even if you’re right. And ditto for fandom.
I’m blathering on a bit, but wat I really want to say (and to @pipmer as well – your comments are very much in mind, too!) is I hear where you’re coming from. I know it can be difficult, but lease know I approve of your right to get excited about a show you still enjoy.
Yeah, I honestly have no idea, anymore, what show they thought they were making . Two bro’s hanging out, solving crimes, and repeatedly hurting one another in one way or another, forever, with zero redemption, I guess?
I’ve been doing mental gymnastics to try to take them at their word and see the show this way but I can’t because it does not make any sense.
Keep in mind it sounds like they were making a lot of it up on the fly, which is sometimes a Very Bad Thing. At one point they may have been making the show we thought we were watching. I believe to some extend they’ve changed their tune over the years.
@ellipsisaspired, I agree, that is exactly what it feels like to me too. It’s lazy, shitty writing, imo, but fair enough. It’s their show, if they’re okay with that approach, then ¯_(ツ)_/¯.
However, what I don’t appreciate is the repeated suggestions by tptb that anyone who read any of the show’s content ( and now apparently going so far as to say, any of the show’s post-ASiP’s ‘of course we won’t be needing two rooms’ comment) as anything other than two straight dudes sharing a flat, is somehow delusional, and their desiring answers from the writers is an irritant, and demanding answers is an act of bullying.
What is an act of bullying, imo, is what I saw a lot of queer johnlock fans subjected to on twitter, tumblr, and even by their own families post-S4, and the rude way the BBC coldly dismissed their concerns about the queerbaiting not only in the show itself, but specifically in the BBC’s S4 promo materials. Yes there were a few fans who probably took things too far in the heat of the moment, but the majority of the people I saw writing to the BBC or even posing questions of the content creators at the con this weekend were respectful and articulate.
But you know, Sue pretty much said it here. They want to cater to the 99% of their audience who doesn’t care about a queer Holmes, who doesn’t see the queer subtext, who are more than happy to laugh at all their ‘gay jokes’. We’re small potatoes and don’t matter. They still manage to keep us hooked with all the gay ‘jokes’, queer text and subtext, and promotional teasing, but in the end we really don’t matter, and we should learn our place and not raise a fuss. Sit back and be queerbaited without a peep of objection.
Sorry, I’m bitter tonight. It will be better in the morning, but whew am I ever furious right now.
“Learn Our Place”. BULLSHIT.
Just because a group of people may be in a minority DOES NOT MEAN
that they should let themselves be steamrolled over, used and abused!! That is NOT right.
What they did is not appropriate. It is NOT right to queerbait a group of people and then yank it away so as to sell it to a larger audience. It is NOT right to use people like that!! It is harmful, damaging to people and WRONG.
Well the comments from the US con CONFIRMED that the creators were queerbaiting. They state they had no intention of writing a romance, yet their product proved otherwise. They clearly were WELL AWARE of the growing johnlock fandom by s2, and could have redirected the show very easily in s3. However they chose to give us a clearly gay Sherlock and a pining, regretful bi John. S3 was overt, convinced many casuals that Sherlock was gay and in love with John, and set up expectations of John’s marriage breaking down and the possible romance of the two leads. If people didn’t see this in s3 it was a choice not to see it.
Sadly we are not at a point in our LGBTQ visibility as to where the uproar would be heard via the media (we tried) it appears that the LGBTQ press and advocacy agencies have a prejudice against fandoms. Nothing new there, we have battled that constantly for decades. The BBC closed ranks and defended their show, ignorant of any of the facts and refusing to consider our complaint. As a publicly funded organisation, I say Shame on You BBC!
However, for our own sanity, our wellbeing, we need to move on. It’s a confirmed reality what the creators did in this show, and we learn from it and try to prevent it occuring in the future. Extensive post mortems on the dichotomy of what was delivered on screen versus what the creators have said is futile. They have chosen to opt for revisionist history of their show. End of. We need to see academic papers on why the creators could still deliver a clearly queerbaiting top drama show and get away with it, we need discussion forums in the LGBTQ Community to examine this issue. And we need fandom studies to carry on with the question of female fandom visibility and worth.
I firmly believe Ben played Sherlock as gay and in love with John. I also firmly believe, and praise, Martin Freeman for giving us a John in love, confused and repressed due to how the character was written, but still desperately in love and craving physical intimacy with Sherlock. THAT my friends must have been a tough endeavour to carry off under the nose of the showrunner. I believe Martin is as disgusted as we are over s4. I believe any further Sherlock projects will be a hard sell to Martin, and thus Ben. They remain my heros, for their portrayals of Sherlock and John they desearve all our respect.
I have said this before, but– I have never seen greater indication that the show’s writers/producers and their actors were never on the same page. Their poor communication skills rival their Sherlock and John’s.
There have been quotes from the beginning about Benedict asking for backstory information..something any decent actor will do (and he is a fantastic actor), and having it be denied him. Or belittled that he should need to ask. And the fiasco regarding having Amanda play Mary while being deliberately misled.
The result: the actors formed their own headcanon as best they could. And it was accurate. But the script seemed to never be in synch with it as it morphed and they struggled to make it coherent.
I can’t imagine working with such poor feedback. Or such a random process. Or having the author change my entire backstory ( not just Mary’s but Sherlock’s as well)
Yes…I write on the fly, because I am a lazy writer and I am a complete amateur. I don’t plan things through well because, frankly, it is my hobby, not my dayjob, nor am I the presumably well-paid lead writer on a show that is watched by the world. People warned me about these guys, and I didn’t know better.
But I will always love this show because of the actors and the character’s hearts…no matter what ridiculous curves they were thrown.
It’s an excellent sandbox for fic writers. Pick and choose from it as you will to move the creative process forward. But I never imagined two men who loved Holmes and Watson as much as I did would stray this far for little reason except adding action scenes, physical abuse, and cheap repressed-memory drama.
Great comment!
The queerest thing (ah!) about the whole thing is that, if they’ve never intended to turn subtext into text, then we have screenwriters with split personalities.
The problem about Sherlock’s handling of this is the exact opposite of Doctor Who where:
Moffat insured that Jenny and Vastra were the ‘real’ Dr. Waston and Sherlock Holmes, two married lesbians;
Moffat created a lesbian companion telling everyone who wants to listen, ‘It’s not a matter of being praised, the correct thing to say should be What took you so long?”’
Gatiss who supposedly tries to bring more LGBT representation and who told people again and again how TPLoSH shaped his writing and how he’s always realized that Sherlock was in love with Watson but it remained desperatedly unspoken.
We also have appaently Moffat telling us rebooting a story should only be done if you want to correct an injustice.
We’re at a crossroad where we need to seriously consider that they have double-standards. Like, serious double-standard, mythomania and split personality.
For how great Ben and Martin are, they can’t get away with rewriting the script. Mofftiss let them play their characters like that.
I do believe there is hubris at work, every author literally plays God when they write so that’s nothing new. But this time I don’t think they should get away with that.
It’s okay to move on, I understand perfectly. We should move on.
But as long as authors get away with this, as long as we let them, it will inevitably happen again because this is a scam and they will always be able to walk away.
I so agree. Like someone mentioned yesterday, they turned the whole atmosphere surrounding the show toxic for Queer people, young and old, and it’s also true, that those two are working on another project together. My stomach turns just thinking about what they might butcher next. It may sound petty, but I don’t want them hired as writers, or entrusted with any more show running. They simply can’t be trusted.
I am writing about this academically, presenting a version next month, still working through all this. My head spins.
Sherlock: and then as I was offering to help her, she shot me. Right in my gay sensitive heart.
Rosie: whatthefuck ?
Sherlock: oh don’t be she shot me n*cely
Rosie: but how ?
Sherlock: I don’t know ask Mark Gatiss i did not write this fucking show
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