Gender and the Modern Sherlock Holmes: Essays on Film and Television Adaptations Since 2009

302 Pages·2015·2.42 MB·English

by  Nadine Farghaly

ALSO EDITED BY NADINE FARGHALY
Unraveling Resident Evil: Essays on the Complex Universe of the Games and
Films (McFarland, 2014)
EDITED BY NADINE FARGHALY AND EDEN LEONE
The Sexy Science of The Big Bang Theory: Essays on Gender in the Series
(McFarland, 2015)
Gender and the Modern Sherlock
Holmes
Essays on Film and Television Adaptations Since 2009
EDITED BY
NADINE FARGHALY
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE
BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE
e-ISBN: 978-1-4766-2281-1
© 2015 Nadine Farghaly. All rights reserved No part of this book may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage
and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Front cover: Rachel McAdams as Irene Adler (Warner Bros./Photofest)
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
  Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
For the families we choose ourselves
Acknowledgments
So many people were involved in this project, both helping with the actual work
and providing whatever support I needed. I want to thank all the people who
were not only wonderful peer-review readers, but also dear friends who
supported me throughout this endeavor and never stopped believing that it would
be a success, especially Eden. All my love to my mother and my sisters for their
incredible support and belief in me. Cheers and my love to all my friends who let
me rant and wail to my heart’s content before they tried to help me fix whatever
crisis I had (whether imagined or real). Thank you all so much.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Nadine Farghaly
The Evolution of Sherlock Holmes: An Examination of a Timeless Figure
Amid Changing Times
Greg Freeman
There’s a Name Everyone Says: Irene Adler and Jim Moriarty in Sherlock
Benedick Turner
Return of “the woman”: Irene Adler in Contemporary Adaptations
Rhonda Lynette Harris Taylor
“Of dubious and questionable memory”: The Collision of Gender and
Canon in Creating Sherlock’s Postfeminist Femme Fatale
Maria Alberto
“Feeling Exposed?”Irene Adler and the Self-Reflective Disguise
Katharine McCain
I Am Sherlocked: Adapting Victorian Gender and Sexuality in “A Scandal
in Belgravia”
Lindsay Katzir
The Woman and the Napoleon of Crime: Moriarty, Adler, Elementary
Joseph S. Walker
Joan for John: An Elementary Choice
Elizabeth Welch
Joan Watson: Mascot, Companion and Investigator
Lucy Baker
Conflations of “Queerness” in 21st Century Adaptations
Ayaan Agane
A Questionable Bromance: Queer Subtext, Fan Service and the Dangers of
Queerbaiting in Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes and A Game of Shadows
Hannah Mueller
Sherlocked: Homosociality and (A)Sexuality
Karma Waltonen
The Veneration of Violation in Sherlock
Zea Miller
“Now, Watson, the fair sex is your department”: The BBC’s Sherlock and
Interpersonal Relationships
Kathryn E. Lane
About the Contributors
List of Names and Terms
Introduction
NADINE FARGHALY
“I’ve found it! I’ve found it” are the first words spoken by Sherlock Holmes in A
Study in Scarlet (Conan Doyle). These words not only embody the formidable
personality of Sherlock Holmes, but also set the stage for the journey readers
undertake when picking up the memoirs of his companion, Dr. John Watson.
This curious, driven, and arrogant detective, a creation of Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle, has captured readers’ imaginations for 187 years and gone beyond Conan
Doyle’s printed words to encompass numerous adaptations that include board,
console and computer games, graphic novels, cookbooks, novels, plays, music,
and movies. Television series such as Elementary and Sherlock have taken the
Holmes and Watson characters to a whole new level in their portrayal of the
enigmatic detective and his trusted friend.
More than seventy actors have played the part of Sherlock Holmes in more than
two hundred movies (Fox). Among the actors who have assumed the mantel of
Sherlock are Sir Ian McKellen, Charlton Heston, Jeremy Brett, Christopher Lee,
Roger Moore, Basil Rathbone, and Frank Langella. While the duo have never
really been forgotten, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson have never garnered as
much attention as they do now.
Conan Doyle’s character has been Japanese, French, Russian, Finnish and many
other nationalities, but this volume focuses on director Guy Ritchie’s adaptations
Sherlock Holmes (2009) and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011);
CBS’s Elementary (2012–present); and the BBC’s Sherlock (2010–present).
While Ritchie’s movies place Holmes and Watson in their original Victorian
setting, both Elementary and Sherlock place the duo in contemporary times;
Elementary in New York and Sherlock in London. And although there are some
similarities between these two television adaptations, the ways in which they
differ are more prominent. Elementary showcases a sexually active, recovering
drug addict who recuperates in one of his father’s brownstone properties. Here
he works with a sober companion, Joan Watson, paid by his father. Although
this is not the first time that the gender of one of these characters has been
changed, it is the first time that one of them has been successfully received as a
woman, actress Lucy Liu playing Dr. Watson. While critics may have had their
doubts in the beginning, Dr. Joan Watson has transformed the role of Holmes’
sidekick to equal partner. For example, Watson functioned as an advisor to the
New York Police Department when Sherlock relocated for six months to the
UK. Although the creators are playing with the chemistry of Joan and Sherlock,
they have yet to take their relationship from a friendly, professional, and platonic
one into a romantic one. A fact that in no way diminishes the show’s success, on
the contrary, Liu’s portrayal of Watson as a professional partner and companion
is a nice change from the idea that men and women cannot work together
without having romantic feelings as is so often the case.
Across the pond, the BBC’s Sherlock has attracted attention because of its sexual
undertones. The relationship between John and Sherlock has never been as
blatantly homosexual as it is here, as shown by the frequent comments from
Mrs. Hudson regarding Holmes and Watson’s living arrangements. Martin
Freeman, the actor who plays John Watson in Sherlock, has commented,
[It’s about the relationship] and how it develops and how it changes and the
things that wind each other up, the things that they genuinely sort of love
about each other as well. It’s the gayest story in the history of television….
People certainly run with that which I’m quite happy with! But we all saw it
as a love story. Not just a love story, but those two people who do love each
other—a slightly dysfunctional relationship sometimes, but a relationship
that works. They get results [Wightman].
Although never really proven in the show itself, the relationship is more than just
subtext; it has become canon for Sherlock. The deep affection between these two
characters is genuine and palpable. It is no surprise that fans everywhere happily
jumped on the bandwagon and started shipping like never before in the Sherlock
Holmes universe.
The 21st century popularity of Sherlock Holmes is something Arthur Conan
Doyle may not have envisioned. Conan Doyle created a character that still
entices his audience even though he was conceptualized during the Victorian era.
Sherlock Holmes is a brilliant, if flawed, detective who appears in four novels
and 56 short stories, of which he narrates two. The popularity of this sleuth and
his partner in crime, Dr. John H. Watson, has never been more interesting than it