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seriousficI would like to describe the perfect storm of fan culture. From the west, you have nerd culture, where complaining is the ultimate form of consuming media. From the south, you have dirty hippies, who are playing a constant game of whose social consciousness is bigger by attacking anything with unfortunate connotations, according to the post-post-modern theory that the author is dead unless he offends you. From the east, you have slash, where people are rewarded for reading homosexual subtext into the teensiest of moments.
Only a homophobe could deny that he's thinking about Spock in this scene.
Now when all these come together, you have the recipe for the perfect wankfest. In a completely unrelated event, there's been a criticism of the new BBC Sherlock series going around. However, a lot of it is hard to understand if you live outside of England, so I thought I'd translate it into American English for you, the reader.
This is a city of well-maintained classical buildings (distant past) and high-tech modernism (present and future).
No one of any interest ever lived or worked in something built in the sixties, anyway.
There are no buildings from the 60s in Sherlock. This is apparently a criticism.
Once, famously, a woman got the best of you.
Now, you get the best of the woman, every time.
In three entire episodes, not once has the story been about Irene Adler. I haven't been this mad since those racists made a sequel to Lethal Weapon and there was no Murtaugh in the first five minutes. Bastards.
The man has killed his wife in a brutal stabbing, but what really rubs you wrong is his dialect.
Nothing like a death sentence to cure someone of being working class.
Everyone involved in the production of Sherlock hates the middle class.
On the other hand, people may assume you're gay. Don't worry. Don't protest. We all know you aren't.
It's homophobic to not freak out when someone assumes you're gay.
Selling drugs is dangerous; you can get out of your depth before you know it, in trouble, in debt, you'll kill your near-brother-in-law on the off-chance that you'll be able to sell something of his for a profit. Selling drugs leads to a life of crime.
Buying drugs and occasionally enjoying them, on the other hand, would be entirely fine. It would be interesting, actually. It would add to your mystique.
But of course, you're clean. Did everyone hear that? You're clean.
A TV show about crime implied that there are negative repercussions to selling drugs. Using nicotine patches is akin to doing hard drugs. A character's bad behavior in source material from a different time period can be held against him in an adaptation that entirely leaves out that aspect of the character, just like the egregious anti-Japanese propaganda in Superman Returns.
You, on the other hand. You solve problems. Lestrade and Donovan and Dimmock have tried, but your methods have been tested in the open market, proved to be the best.
No problem is ever solved collaboratively. No assistance is helpful. No other types of intelligence are acknowledged. There is no such thing as society, only individual problems, and individual problem solvers.
They should take your word as gospel.
There is a flawed, eccentric genius who solves cases no one else can in a show about a flawed, eccentric genius who solves cases no one else can.
This is not at all how he was portrayed in Sherlock Bones!
Only a homophobe could deny that he's thinking about Spock in this scene.
Now when all these come together, you have the recipe for the perfect wankfest. In a completely unrelated event, there's been a criticism of the new BBC Sherlock series going around. However, a lot of it is hard to understand if you live outside of England, so I thought I'd translate it into American English for you, the reader.
This is a city of well-maintained classical buildings (distant past) and high-tech modernism (present and future).
No one of any interest ever lived or worked in something built in the sixties, anyway.
There are no buildings from the 60s in Sherlock. This is apparently a criticism.
Once, famously, a woman got the best of you.
Now, you get the best of the woman, every time.
In three entire episodes, not once has the story been about Irene Adler. I haven't been this mad since those racists made a sequel to Lethal Weapon and there was no Murtaugh in the first five minutes. Bastards.
The man has killed his wife in a brutal stabbing, but what really rubs you wrong is his dialect.
Nothing like a death sentence to cure someone of being working class.
Everyone involved in the production of Sherlock hates the middle class.
On the other hand, people may assume you're gay. Don't worry. Don't protest. We all know you aren't.
It's homophobic to not freak out when someone assumes you're gay.
Selling drugs is dangerous; you can get out of your depth before you know it, in trouble, in debt, you'll kill your near-brother-in-law on the off-chance that you'll be able to sell something of his for a profit. Selling drugs leads to a life of crime.
Buying drugs and occasionally enjoying them, on the other hand, would be entirely fine. It would be interesting, actually. It would add to your mystique.
But of course, you're clean. Did everyone hear that? You're clean.
A TV show about crime implied that there are negative repercussions to selling drugs. Using nicotine patches is akin to doing hard drugs. A character's bad behavior in source material from a different time period can be held against him in an adaptation that entirely leaves out that aspect of the character, just like the egregious anti-Japanese propaganda in Superman Returns.
You, on the other hand. You solve problems. Lestrade and Donovan and Dimmock have tried, but your methods have been tested in the open market, proved to be the best.
No problem is ever solved collaboratively. No assistance is helpful. No other types of intelligence are acknowledged. There is no such thing as society, only individual problems, and individual problem solvers.
They should take your word as gospel.
There is a flawed, eccentric genius who solves cases no one else can in a show about a flawed, eccentric genius who solves cases no one else can.
This is not at all how he was portrayed in Sherlock Bones!
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Date: 2010-08-13 11:50 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2010-08-14 01:53 am (UTC)See? I pay attention to your past posts.
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Date: 2010-08-14 04:07 am (UTC)I think the complaint is that it's mentioned at all. It's not like the Holmes fanbase arguably has the largest amount of slashers by percentage of any fandom, ever, and there are actual academic treatises about how Sherlock and John were totally doin' it.
>There is a flawed, eccentric genius who solves cases no one else can in a show about a flawed, eccentric genius who solves cases no one else can.
Which is itself an adaptation of a series of stories about a-screw it. It's too late at night to be sardonic.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-14 05:20 am (UTC)Talk about damned if you do...
One wonders if this isn't really a reflection of what's behind a lot of slashers' complaining about homophobia... because for a lot of them when you get down to it, it's less that homophobia is inherently a bad thing and a poor way to treat our fellow human beings, and more that it gets in the way of their kink.
Thus for some, in their mind "screwing with the way I like to do my fandom" and "homophobia" become intrinsically linked. Thus when you buck the trend, homophobia is the default accusation, no matter how ridiculous it might be in that particular situation, or how far you have to twist logic to make the connection. If Holmes flipped out when people implied he was gay, reacted in some over-the-top way, it would be a Cause For Fandom. Fangirls would sit around discussing what this could possibly mean, starting fanfic challenges about the hurt that caused this reaction that Watson could comfort, or Holmes getting "converted" by Moriarty, or some such things. But what's this? He just kind of had... a non-reaction?! This... that doesn't help create slashfic at ALL! ... HOMOPHOBIA!
Or maybe I'm just thinking too hard about it, I dunno. I just know it's become a bit of a sore point for me. I imagine it would be a bit like a woman realizing that all of the guys she'd been seeing lately standing up for the cause of feminism tended to produce a lot of dominatrix porn. The advocacy suddenly takes on a shadow of insincerity.