mild-lunacy:

impossibleleaf:

I just want to point out something. A joke is only funny when it isn’t used ad nauseam.

So, basically, when can we say this isn’t a joke but that there’s serious intent? How many times before we can rightfully say: this isn’t a joke, this is a pattern. This isn’t a bonus, this is the heart of the text?

10? 15? 20? One per episode? Twice per episode?

(Brace yourself)

Keep reading

I think this is helpful list, seeing all of the direct references to John and Sherlock maybe having a relationship on the show in one place, but a lot of these are *references* rather than jokes. Some of it is teasing, or people being nosy and trying to be hurtful rather than cute. Sometimes it’s just (intended as) cute. 

These are just humor about their relationship and/or the ‘gay jokes’ Mofftiss have referred to being intentional:

• You, ripping my clothes off in a darkened swimming pool. People might talk.
• We’re going out tonight. Actually, I’ve got a date. That’s what I was suggesting.
• My friends are so wrong about you. You’re a great boyfriend. And Sherlock Holmes is a very lucky man.
• Sorry we couldn’t do a double room for you boys.  (…) Is yours a snorer?
• This is his PA! (…) Well, live-in PA.
• Am I…pretty? This.

What do they have in common? They more or less poke fun at the fact that people think John and Sherlock are together or they seem to be together circumstantially, but it’s not true. That’s a classic ‘gay joke’, and the scene in question is usually cute, genuinely funny and enjoyable, so you (probably?) wouldn’t see a lot of people complain if there’s more of it (especially shippers). The type of humor is common on sitcoms and such. This type of thing can happen five times an ep and it would still not be cumulatively ‘really’ gay, because that ‘no homo’ is part of its very nature, even if the speaker isn’t aware of it. For example, I assume that the innkeeper (like Angelo or Mrs Hudson) wasn’t kidding around, but the framing suggests strongly the joke’s on them without making the gayness an issue. Then John jokes about how ‘people talk’ to dispel the tension at the Pool ‘cause John and Sherlock always have an inappropriate sense of humor. It’s just humor based on an ongoing misunderstanding. It makes sense to repeat that kind of joke ‘cause that’s the very nature of a ‘running gag’.

If the only stuff on the show was of this sort, you could certainly still say it got old eventually, but if that was all… it’s not really a smoking gun for Johnlock or even queerbaiting. It’s debatably okay to have a couple that could be together, but they’re not, and to use that for ongoing comic relief– that’s not unusual for male/female leads, whether or not they’re eventually together on the show. That’s more or less how romantic comedies work, but sometimes it’s just misunderstanding humor. It depends on the context, and other factors. Anyway, all of the above scenes are genuinely inoffensive and enjoyable, in my opinion.

Of course, we do have other kinds of scenes. There’s stuff that’s a little more homophobic or just problematic, because the person saying it isn’t finding it genuinely funny. It’s not humor. It’s sarcasm at most, but really the speaker is trying to tease or make the other person uncomfortable, to provoke either John or Sherlock into some emotional response because they have an agenda. Some examples:

• Might we expect a happy announcement by the end of the week?
• You’re still hanging around him (…) Opposites attract, I suppose. (Donovan)
• And somebody loves you.
• John’s blog is HILARIOUS. I think he likes you more than I do. Let’s have dinner.
• You and John Watson, just platonic? (…) Sooner or later, you’re gonna need someone on your side to set the record straight.
• Sherlock was not my boyfriend. (…) You really have moved on. The whole scene for the counter’s sake. I AM NOT GAY.
• But look how you care about John Watson. Your damsel in distress.
• Why don’t you two just elope, for God’s sake?

Is this queerbaiting…? That’s more debatable, though I think it’s starting to feel cumulative at this point. It’s a little weird that queerness is seen as okay and a source of casual humor or encouragement, so it’s used positively (sort of the opposite of heteronormativity), but it’s also something other characters use negatively, as a form of attack. Usually, John or Sherlock react negatively to this, in a way they don’t to the actual gay jokes, which both of them take in stride (Sherlock more than John, but even so). I considered breaking up the TEH scene with Mrs Hudson, but for the most part I think John reacts as if it’s a taunt because he’s still grieving and feeling understandably sensitive. When it’s Moriarty at the end of TAB, they both dismiss his insinuations as ‘offensive’, ‘cause he doesn’t understand their feelings, not because he does. Regardless, he doesn’t get to speak about it.

I think you could argue either way as to whether the pattern up to this point is problematic. You could probably say that it’s the natural flipside of the other kind of humor. If the world BBC Sherlock is in isn’t heteronormative (as the ‘Harry Watson’ conversation suggests in ASiP), then I suppose John’s relationship with Sherlock is bound to be used against them. The main reason this doesn’t usually happen in stories is that we always assume people of the same sex who’re obviously very close aren’t involved, more or less. 

I’m not sure if this is queerbaiting, but it’s certainly main character baiting. All these examples, however, are centered on the antagonists and/or characters frequently acting as antagonists (such as Mycroft) once again misunderstanding and/or twisting John and Sherlock’s relationship. That’s kind of the point of these statements; you’re not supposed to be like ‘oh yeah, Moriarty and Mycroft see the truth!’, I think. Pretty sure that’s not the Authorial Intent, anyway. You could argue that Irene is supposed to see the truth due to her canonical insight into what ‘people like’, but Irene is unique. Her whole game and/or mindfuck in ASIB is in a class of its own, in my opinion. Regardless of whether it’s true or false, it’s canon that Irene’s trying to manipulative Sherlock in the episode, so I would include the stuff she said to Sherlock under ‘take with a huge grain of salt’. Irene told Sherlock at the end of ASiB that it was just a game, and I think she wasn’t lying. The stuff she said to John is different, and much more seemingly genuine.

This brings me to the third category. That’s really the doozy, and it’s what supports canon Johnlock as a reading and queerbaiting as a critique. At the same time… it’s also the most genuinely ambiguous thing, because these are the statements that aren’t jokes at all, not sarcasm or manipulation in any way. This is just when we see characters talking about John and Sherlock’s relationship and/or their own feelings about it. Like… it speaks for itself:

• I consider myself married to my work (the whole scene, let’s be kind for the counting)
• Battersea scene, the whole of it for the sake of the counter. I’m not actually gay. Well, I am.
• There’s stuff that you wanted to say, but didn’t say. Say it now.
• Neither of us were the first, you know?
• That he has overlooked in his obsession with me.
• Today you sit between the woman you made your wife and the man you have saved- in short, the two people who love you most in all this world.
• John, there’s something I should say. I’ve meant to say, always and then never have (the whole tarmac scene basically).
• You know… he’s a romantic
• What you’re going to do to save the man we both love.

Alone, this is not really damning, or rather it’s not really beyond the pale for the tales of epic friendship we’ve got (Steve and Bucky, Jim and Spock, and classic Holmes and Watson). These two characters love each other very much, and that’s simply canon. Needless to say, them saying so isn’t queerbaiting in and of itself, necessarily.

Sometimes (not as often as many people think) they walk right up to the edge and kind of waltz over it. The Battersea scene, the tarmac scene and the Watson domestic in HLV… it’s genuinely ambiguous. I’m not here to tell you that we made it all up. I just think it’s useful to think about what exactly we’re talking about when we’re talking about canon Johnlock and or The Ambiguously Gay Duo on BBC Sherlock.

It’s a subtle thing. I agree it’s cumulative, but at the same time, I don’t want to lump in Mycroft or Moriarty’s taunting with Sherlock saying John is obsessed and admitting he loves him. I mean, that’s kind of an unholy brew, right there.  I definitely think that it’s important to realize that John and Sherlock’s actual feelings are obviously neither a joke nor meant humorously. Neither are they baited, in the sense that they’re not ‘really’ there. They love each other. This isn’t up for debate. And they both love Mary, which is also probably not up for debate at this point, so they have a few conversations about how all that works out, and the difference between platonic and romantic love.

Do you have to agree with John that he’s ‘not gay’ and that makes his love platonic? Well, Irene didn’t. And then we have both of them endlessly hinting they have more to say, which… we don’t actually know if they end up ever saying. In my opinion, I think the implication is that they finally say it after TLD, off-screen, because it’s private. By the end, it all kind of lumps itself together, and I realize it feels like a letdown– to me too, to a degree. I don’t think the show is malicious, though. You could certainly use these points to show that they went too far, possibly because you can’t really use all these romantic tropes and assumptions positively and have the characters face blowback and have them be in platonic love… and still choose not to follow through. That’s just counterintuitive storytelling, in the end.