Okay, for the sake of argument, let’s assume the johnlock conspiracy is true. Let’s assume Mark & Steven have been planning it from the beginning, and want it to be the biggest gay relationship reveal to date.
I know the common theory is that both Ben and Martin have known since casting, and that their “acting choices” throughout the show reflect that they have been given this information. In this meta I’m going to offer an alternative possibility.
If tjlc is true, Mofftiss has good reason not tell Martin Freeman about it. Even if Johnlock is endgame, at this point, Martin might still not know.
During the s4 CC Panel in 2016, the producers discussed withholding information from their actors in order to keep from revealing too much of the twist too soon. In this case, it was in regard to the Mary twist in HLV. Amanda Abbington was not informed that Mary would be revealed to be an assassin until the last possible moment. They kept key information about Mary’s character from Amanda for as long as they could in order to influence her performance.
Sue Vertue said [to Amanda]:
“It’s quite good though that you didn’t know number three.”
Amanda says:
“Absolutely. I would have played it differently had I known that that was the outcome in episode three. I would’ve played her with more of an edge and more…knowing. But the beauty of [me] not knowing was that you thought, oh, she’s a real mild-mannered, very sweet, charming character, and actually she was ruthless.”
Mark Gatiss says:
“…And eventually I said to him [unnamed actor], ‘pretend you know nothing.’ It is actually easier when you’re trying to disguise yourself, rather than playing the result… It’s better not to know, because then you don’t present anything, and then we don’t give anything away to the audience. There are no tells.”
Cumberbatch has to know something, given the fact that they’ve been having him play a lovesick puppy:
They clearly want to communicate Sherlock’s feelings to the audience. They want those ‘tells’. They’re clues for us. Maybe Ben doesn’t know whether or not Sherlock’s feelings are bound to be requited, but he’s clearly been told that Sherlock has some sort of romantic feelings for John. Sherlock pining over his lost love was the focal point for s3. In fact, Mofftiss might have even told him that Sherlock’s feelings wouldn’t be requited, that they will remain as unspoken subtext, same as Sherlock’s sexuality. That way, Ben expresses a specific sort of emotion that translates to, ‘what if, woulda coulda shoulda, but it’s for the best and I’ll suffer in silence long beyond my dying day’. You know, typical, self-sacrificing, pining Sherlock.
Nobody can say they were just gay jokes taken too far cuz they just ain’t funny. The Battersea scene ain’t funny, not even a little. It’s tense and stays tense afterward. The Angelo’s scene ain’t funny except in an awkward way, and neither is the goodbye on the tarmac or the waterfall scene or the hug or the end of tsot, etc. etc.
All of the iconic Johnlock scenes happen during extremely dramatically tense moments when it doesn’t make sense to make a joke or ironically romanticize them. It’s not about lightening the mood, because it always makes it heavier.
Either it’s 100% romance or it’s a friendship that makes no sense.
If it was supposed to be funny, they would flirt lightly. These boys gaze intensely at one another, like, constantly (if either of them genuinely flirted on purpose, they would both probably pass out from all the honesty). The funny scenes are when they are both so stubborn about not realizing what they are to each other. The miscommunications and fast synchronizations and Sherlock not noticing John’s sarcasm and John barely pretending not to notice Sherlock’s ridiculousness and both of them completely not noticing everyone around them staring.
If it was supposed to define a Super Friendship of Brotherly Love by using romantic tropes, it would have resolution. There is no resolution to their interactions, just ramping tension.
Just look at the Train Car Named Desire scene in TEH. They are brutally honest for a second because John thinks they will die, then they both pull back into Britishness, freaked out. If it was just a Super Friendship, they’d end it more emotionally. Instead, the emotion gets stuffed back in so they don’t confess what they almost confessed.
This is all too obvious, but I felt like I had to get out why it still feels emotionally right to read it the way we did.
So I was at my university’s library, when I saw Sherlock’s face in the shelf.. and guess what the very first article in this collection of essays is about? BBC John and Sherlock’s relationship of course! It is actually a 10 page long article that looks at their relationship in depth and concludes with:
“It seems, nevertheless, that a Holmes of the 21st century is a Holmes who must deal with 21st century sexual politics; as the homoeroticism inherent in its buddy bromance grows more and more explicit, Sherlock consistently calls attention to the flexibility of its own sexual paradigms, never quite allowing such possibilities to fade from view.”
(PS. These are not my pencil marks)
Wow.
“The series brings its queer subtexts to the surface only to disavow them; as such, its dogged preservation of heteronormative paradigms hardly constitutes adventurous television.”
a couple of months ago i was reading this book for my lgbt+ american history and literature class called The Beautiful Room is Empty by Edmund White, which is a semi-autobiographical book about a gay man growing up in the 50s and 60s (and it’s also really really good). but as i was trying to read it in peace i stumbled upon this line that just stopped me because i knew it, and i just sat there like ‘what the fuck’ before realizing why i recognized it:
“But for me, the tuxedos (which depersonalize waiters and lend distinction to friends)…”
here’s the paragraph in full
and i realized that it’s almost identical to one of sherlock’s lines in the empty hearse
and i was like oh my god MARK and it was bothering me for months because i researched it to see if maybe both sources were referencing something else altogether but i couldn’t find anything. and so finally this past sunday at the sherlocked con, i was like ‘shit i never asked mark about that book’ and i looked over and there was no one in line for an autograph from him so i went over and asked the woman next to him if i could take a few minutes to ask him a question
and she said yes and so i started telling him this whole story and it was really sweet because when i asked him if he’d read the book he was like “of course i have :)” like genuinely happy to be talking about this book and possibly to realize what i was bringing up
and i told him about how i’d recognized it and realized what it was and i was about to say ‘because it’s in the empty hearse!’ and he cut me off and said ‘it’s the line about the waiter’ and i was like ‘!!! yeah!’ and he started reciting the line with me like. saying it right behind him and i got so excited to have that finally answered, because i mean he just straight up told me that he referenced THAT quote in THAT SCENE
so um. he Did That thanks for coming to my talk
@fleurdebee: Very interesting choice of quote indeed (and I am glad you got the chance to ask Mark in person).
“… permitted me for two minutes on a stretch to imagine we were a club of lovers…”
MARK DID THAT!!!
And… that’s here though…. (why aren’t they just fucking tell the truth about their intentions … its annoying by times 😣)
But it was all a joke, right? They never intended to go there, obviously. Smh. I hate them.
I absolutely feel you, @totally-sherwholocked!!! A (silly) part of me is still like “something must have gone wrong and they must have been unable to do it so they said fuck it all to hell we’ll just mess it up” (because things like this reference aren’t just…. obvious gay jokes? You have to KNOW this book to get it and that’d be a really… obscure gay joke?) but when I see their hostility to Johnlockers and fans generally and basically all the things they messed up with s4 blah blah blah, I totally feel you. I wish it’s be the former case but it absolutely isn’t… fucking sigh. I hate this.
As far as I’m concerned, I still go with the former, because there’s too much evidence pointing to canon Johnlock being their goal. (I mean… not just the writing and references to other books/romance movies, but again, the acting, the editing, the lighting, the music… EVERYTHING from A to Z!)
But if they really didn’t intend to go there as they claim, it means two things: 1) MASSIVE, high-level (and OBSCURE, as you said!) queerbaiting; 2) they know they fucked up and did bad, so they’re trying to cover their arses and gaslight the fuck out of their audience, because they’re cowards and horrible people.
Well as for possibility 1), why the fuck would you go for obscure queerbaiting??? I mean, I don’t know why anyone’d go for queerbaiting at all, but let’s assume you’re that piece of shit who just… wants to, for whatever reason. Is that pettiness? Is that arrogance? Is that trolling on every conceivable level? So even if the hardcore fans who, despite being hurt, still want a bit of a puzzle, they’ll get burnt even on such a microscopic level? Because let’s face it, no one else ever would have caught that particular reference; we’re just lucky our group of people are mostly LGBT+ nerds of the highest order; we come in all varieties and of different backgrounds, so nerd a can write about the cinematography queering Sherlock, the other catches the music choices etc… and the lit nerds catch gems like this one up there. So, like… why? Why????
As for 2)—I’ve wondered about that before, too. I mostly try not to care anymore what they did or didn’t plan to do… yet the fact remains that there are too many things to dismiss it as coincidence (confirming #1), but when coupled with their hostily at the con towards fans or Johnlockers (… or whomever that isn’t themselves lmao) or their general arrogance… that doesn’t make sense either? I mean, if something went wrong and they couldn’t do it anymore the way they wanted to, wouldn’t I be sympathetic towards my audience who’d wanted the same? Why turn spiteful and hateful? And if they realised that their particular brand of queer Sherlock was a mistake–a careless mistake? a subconscious mistake? (I’m still behind the idea they’re subconsciously shipping ACD’s Holmes/Watson as couple and just… are too anti queer readings they don’t even realise it)–if they realised this, still, why, again, turn spiteful and hateful and resentful and negative towards your fans instead of a sincere apology??? Why the distaste? Why “I don’t need fans; I’m a fan myself”? What the hell?
I don’t believe that the queer subtext and even TEXT in BBC Sherlock was an accident. I think they knew they were putting it in, but it was
meant to stay at the subsonic, wink and a nudge level that these gentlemen from
the 20th century were used to. People who grew up under Thatcher
where it was illegal to discuss homosexuality in schools knew the benefit of
coding, shared lingo – the secret hand shake that queer people passed around to
survive under the radar of mainstream culture.
To face a 21st century audience that suddenly is
not only free to admit their queerness but start demanding representation in
media must have BLOWN THESE MEN’S MIND. What? WOT? You aren’t supposed to talk
about these things OUT LOUD.
It would be disingenuous of us to say that homophobia is
dead, in fact much of the queer persecution that seems to be ramping up as
neo-conservatives step up to power around the globe nearly BEGS for more
positive representation as push back. I can’t say if Mark Gatiss would be harassed
for being the man who turned Holmes and Watson gay, but I can’t believe he
wouldn’t hear something from angry dude bro Holmesians. You know he would, and
this is Mark’s home, his life. Being gay in a hetero world is a corner he’s
carved out for himself through some very rocky growing-up years. People might
be angry at Moffat for making Homes and Watson kiss, but I’m sure the backlash
to Moffat, the gay man in the writing duo could be INTENSE.
As it is, they made a jumbled, dream-like fourth series, and
many viewers are disgruntled, and a small segment of angry invested fans are
furious sending ugly twitter messages and haranguing the BBC, but NO ONE has
attacked him or his lovely husband, Ian Hallard on the street. No one has
camped outside their house or damaged their cars. They might have gotten bad
press and lackluster ratings, but he’s not afraid for his safety.
I can’t profess to know the motivations or the pressures
that Moffat and Gatiss face in making Sherlock, but I’m sure they are layered
and complex. I try to have some compassion for them even if I am not happy with
where they took my favorite show.
“The obsession, particularly online, with the homoerotic tension between
Sherlock and Doctor Watson… The template for us was the Billy Wilder
film The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, which deliberately
plays with the idea that Holmes might be gay. We’ve done the same
thing, deliberately played with it although it’s absolutely clearly not
the case. He’s only a brain, ‘everything else is transport’ to him and John clearly says, “I’m not gay, we’re not together” but the joke is that everyone assumes that in the 21st century
that these two blokes living together are a couple– what they wouldn’t’
have assumed in the 19th century. They’d have assumed they were bachelor
best friends and now they assume they’re lovers. That’s
obviously such fun to play with and the fact that people now assume, in a
very positive way, that they’re together is a different joke to it
being a negative connotation.” Mark Gatiss in The Gay Times, February 2012
Hmm, I’m actually not so sure about that. Because I never got this joke (and no, that’s not a generation thing. I’m round about the same age as the show creators). Honestly, to me, two blokes sharing a flat in central London in the 21st century are just two blokes sharing a flat because it’s fucking expensive. I’d never assume anything else.
Even if one of the man was depicted as obviously gay (Girlfriend? Nor really my area. – Boyfriend? I know it’s fine.) – I wouldn’t assume any kind of romatic interest between them. I can’t see a joke there either.
But when their flat sharing gets laden with innuendo? For example, their landlady asking them if they share a bedroom. Another acquaintance taking them for being on a date. Those two blokes gazing at each other as if they were about to eat each other alive. One of the man killing for the other, who, in return, protects him from being prosecuted… Well, then I’d start to assume something’s going on – because it is shown to me and hammered home.
Only, I can’t see a joke there either…
So, what Gatiss described in the above interview wasn’t what happened. They were not just showing us two blokes living together. Because then no one in the 21st century would think of them as a couple. Moffat and Gatiss had to actively insert innuendo for their viewers to catch up on their ‘joke’ in the first place. They encouraged this on many levels: text, acting choices, casting, costume, music, lighting, cinematography.
They actively implemented homoerotic (sub)text in their show – only to lament at the same time that people cought up on it? That some viewers expected something to come out of it. Because, in the 21st century, no one thought it possible that it could just be a lame joke! Because there just is no joke to it.
The viewers took the positive attitude Gatiis desrcibes a step further and expected positive representation from the writers after playing with the inherent homoeroticism of the original stories. The fandom was far more advanced than the show runners, it seems.
And why play with the
homoeroticism
it in the first place? I really can’t see where the fun might be in there, apart from cracking some cheap gay jokes that feed an outdated no-homo attitude?
What is there to play with when it’s not an issue anymore? And if it’s still an issue, I’m not sure that making fun of it ist the appropriate approach to it.
We’ve done the same thing, deliberately played with it although it’s absolutely clearly not the case.
Clearly not the case??? How can a gay man, an LGBTQ advocate be so obtuse? They have used every gay trope in the book. The result is a desperately broken gay man who is in love with his repressed flatmate. Can Mark and Steven be this stupid, this unobservant, this deep into their own form of homophobia, that they cannot see what their own creation has become? Sorry Mark, but it was never clearly not gay. It was clearly the opposite.
I agree. Sorry Gatiss but that’s bs. In Friends Joey and Chandler shared a flat and nobody expected them to get together.
You know, for a brilliant man, Gatiss can be remarkably thick. Total BS, in my book.
Here’s the thing from my perspective: there were enough tent poles in the writing (not even the acting or the direction or the cinematography, but just the writing) for people to come up with a reading that Sherlock and John had unusual, deep, possessive feelings for each other that many would not categorize as simple friendship. It’s not even the multiple lines of dialogue where others assume that Sherlock and John are a couple (including everyone cited above, together with the gay innkeepers and Dr. Frankland and Henry’s psychologist and Kitty and arguably Magnussen and ….) I find it morbidly fascinating that despite evidence in the writing itself that was more than third party characters making joking assumptions about John and Sherlock, the creators in their public statements basically chalk it all up to the “delusional fangirl” stereotype and say “play online but don’t talk about it with us, the writers.”
The Battersea conversation between John and Irene is one example of relationship implications being directly in the writing, despite some posts I’ve seen attributing Johnlock to some manifestation of acting and editing. We all know the scene by heart. John says they’re not a couple; Irene says that they are. John says he’s not infatuated with Sherlock because John is not gay, and Irene counters that she is gay, and “Look at us both [being infatuated?].”
What are we looking at, Moffat? Genuinely, I would like that answered and am confused about Moffat and Gatiss’s hostility towards discussing romantic interpretations of their writing. What was that line supposed to do if not invite us to examine the nature of both John’s and Irene’s feelings towards Sherlock and perhaps the immutability (or lack thereof) of romantic attraction? I know that script page floated around ages ago that said that John then laughs at the absurdity of the situation in response to Irene’s comment, but whether he laughs or gives that rueful huff that we get in the final version, John has no spoken answer to Irene’s comment. Was she right? Was she wrong? What was Moffat trying to convey? Was it only about Irene in that moment? Is she the only one with a bendable sexuality? That’s an ugly implication.
And then someone on their team wrote a scene episodes later where John and Sherlock are the only people at a bachelor party (when there certainly would have been comedic value in Lestrade or Anderson or relatives we’ve never met or Mycroft (like the Ritchie movies, right?) being in on this little celebration). But instead we’ve got no explanation for why there are no guests other than our assumption that Sherlock and John wanted a night alone together, and John saying he doesn’t mind touching Sherlock’s leg. Why is that line there if it doesn’t mean something? That’s 15 seconds of screen real estate that could have been spent elsewhere. I want to hear what Moffat and Gatiss say about this scene, the dialogue, the setup, etc.
These are two examples. We all could pull out at least one bit of written dialogue per episode where something in the writing itself implied “couple” or “attraction” that was not a joke made by a third party. And I really just want to ask them what they were trying to do in any of these types of scenes, because these were not jokes made by third party characters. But no interviewer will ever go beyond asking the question of whether John and Sherlock are a couple with Gatiss pulling out that stock reply about how in the 21st century, it’s cheeky to say that everyone will assume that they are together. Maybe Gatiss’s real answer is that they delighted in the ambiguity, never settling on one thing, raising issues and questions about character motivations without any definitive answers in a way that gives their writing (an illusion of) depth (a show like Mad Men played with raising different questions and not always answering them), and they never thought that anyone would seek to insert answers to these little questions that they toyed with.
I also think from my vantage point of reading and watching some of their interviews that Mark especially is not a fan of ardent fans. I know some interpreted TEH as an affectionate homage to the fandom, but I saw then and still see now his discomfort with fans reading anything into this show beyond the emotional context that they are trying to generate in any individual scene. It doesn’t matter how Sherlock survived or what John went through: what matters is that we have a little laugh at John’s successive losses of temper that send them to progressively seedier establishments in TEH: it’s a joke, it’s a show, it’s not serious beyond taking an emotional journey contained to 90 minutes. I can only see S4 as a massive repudiation of quite a lot of what ardent fans liked about the show, and I think part of it does stem from discomfort with fan expectations (and part of it from writing the season in too short a time period at the last minute).
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.
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?
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.
You can’t put such parallels in your show and then claim there was never any queer subtext and there was never any implication whatsoever that Johnlock could be a thing and we just made it up ourselves.
Exactly.
These bug me so much. These are so blatant.
Yeah, these are definitely ‘cry in the wilderness’ material. I mean, y’know, we’re sane and there’s certainly a lot of very good reasons we drew the conclusions we did. It’s fascinating that while most of these are Series 3, there’s one that’s Series 4. I was talking about this recently with TSoT in particular, how the episode creates lots of parallels between the romantic/matrimonial love between Mary and John and Sherlock and John’s partnership. I *think* it’s just that… John and Sherlock are super important to each other, and no one gets to like, *surpass* them, particularly in Sherlock’s importance to John. Think Spock and Kirk. It’s just (obviously) maybe Spock was more important than Jim’s own soul, but he wasn’t directly and indirectly compared and contrasted to Jim’s actual *girlfriends*. That’s… that’s somewhat tasteless, in a way. On the other hand, Jim never had a serious girlfriend; in the Reboot, Spock has Uhura and they don’t have soulmate angst, so it’s just a lot more *normal* relationship, and direct comparison is once again avoided even though Jim has a warm relationship with Uhura just as Sherlock does with Mary (and Molly, for that matter).
The problem in Sherlock is that ultimately, there’s this structural tension between what the narrative seems to intend and what it actually implies. This is also an issue with Mary. I remember talking with @mifletset about Mary before S4, and she said we’re supposed to like Mary and people only disagreed ‘cause they expected certain things from the narrative. It’s ironic ‘cause I’d agree nowadays, but I’d still argue that the narrative messed up. Mary teased Sherlock too much (particularly in TEH and during the wedding in TSoT) in a one-directional way Sherlock didn’t reciprocate, and he just took the whole shooting thing for granted and accepted it, and then when she died and John blamed him, Sherlock accepted that and blamed himself too, as Ivy said. I get that it’s actually true that Sherlock did like Mary and that John loved her and the surface reading of HLV happened. It’s just that it’s still *unnatural*, and not just ‘cause of shippy fangirls. It’s that the feelings were presented but not *supported* properly; saying Sherlock didn’t actually trust Mary was an attempt to make HLV make more sense, because the way he did react was… weird. The cognitive dissonance snowballs.
My point is that all these things happened for a reason that makes sense at the time (more or less), but together they fall flat. Just because you present a character as lovable doesn’t mean they *are*, particularly when they still do bad things and don’t face many consequences, or the consequences primarily fall on the main protagonists. You have to do more to balance the situation; Mary making cute faces and like, taking a shot for the protagonist the episode after nearly killing him isn’t gonna cut it. The circumstances create their own narrative subtext. Mary always being untrustworthy and vaguely threatening to John and Sherlock is… subtext. This is what it *feels* like to us (in fact, this is mostly about the structure of the scenes or the episodes, ‘cause from Mary’s POV, of course she’d be there at her own wedding or on her date with John in TEH, or even threatening Magnussen in HLV; this sort of externally forced conduit function is made explicit in TLD, when she’s *literally* an invisible spirit hovering over John and Sherlock’s intimate scene at the end). Saying she’s got to be the villain was just trying to turn the structural subtext into text. Essentially, subtext organically arises when the text denies explicitly acknowledging the consequences for the parallels being used. Subtext is a natural result of seeing enough patterns, that creates an empty space where consequences should be.
Anyway, so as I said, there’s a constant narrative mirroring that’s not even *specifically* about Mary or John and Mary (as well as with Molly and Irene). This is what Ivy was talking about with the ‘purpose of minor characters’. They serve as conduits and mirrors. Of course, I should note this isn’t *just* that, ’cause John repeatedly says or implies romantic couple type behaviors with Sherlock that are explicitly paralleled with Mary or Molly. He’s even commented on his cheekbones in THoB. As Irene said at Battersea, ‘look at us both’– and clearly Mrs Hudson has been looking, so John gets exasperated and tells her he’s ‘not gay’ in TEH, just as Mary teases John about shaving for Sherlock and leaving ‘bristly kisses’ for her, until ‘His Nibs turns up’. It’s a joke that falls away by Series 4… but it’s not a good joke, because all that mirroring tells its own story, and on top of that, Sherlock touches his own mouth when talking about John’s moustache. That’s just blatant. This is something like compulsive paralleling gone amok. So… there’s gotta be an explanation. What is it?
The fact is that a) Mary did come between John and Sherlock even if all three of them resisted it, which is more or less why she died at the end of TST; b) John did treat Sherlock like a love interest (he ‘moved on’ after his death, he felt Sherlock rescued him and he literally said he loved him as much as Mary, he wanted to keep up and look well-dressed and clean-shaven next to Sherlock and his cheekbones, he wanted to really talk about Sherlock’s issues and have emotional intimacy… all but the sexual attraction, just as Irene said in ASiB). So, essentially, all the parallelism is there to say, ‘look, it’s totally equivalent but platonic, okay’. John is like totally also married to Sherlock (and look, John is literally ‘family’ in TFP and then there’s Sherlock’s literal vow to John and Mary so it’s literally like they’re all married)
… but no homo. Except just like with Mary and her likability, it doesn’t… work. You can’t no homo that level of queer subtext. It takes up a life of its own, and possibly eats New Jersey at some point, like a huge carnivorous fungus…. Alas.
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