fjaffsfdj i love the argument that the real ~~intellectuals~~ who read the books know better than to fall for this homoséxüál bs because hunty…have u ever actually laid eyes on a gotdamn sherlock holmes story, that shit is sometimes gayer than the beeb cone version
H.G. Cocks –ok let’s get this out of the way. His name is Harry Cocks.
Yes. For realsies.
H.G. Cocks’ book, Nameless Offences: Homosexual Desire in the 19th Century, explores what he describes as a paradox:
why, and how, in an age when homosexuality was increasingly visible via the operations of the criminal law and through the development of press and print, did it become identified as secret, unknowable and even indescribable?
He argues that homosexuality was at once both unnameable and yet incredibly commonplace; part of this everyone’s doing it but no one’s talking about it attitude may have come from the reality that ‘silence on the topic equalled discretion and above all safety’ when the act of loving who you loved could literally result in your death.
Before the nineteenth century, a ‘sodomite’ was understood to be someone who engaged in forbidden acts, not a class of individuals with a unique identity; ‘the homosexual’ wasn’t understood to be a type of person, rather, they were a person who engaged in certain acts. Some scholars like Michel Foucault believed that this changed in the nineteenth century, when sexual desires began to be attached to personal identity, psychology, personality, and even physical anatomy. Much of this change was due to scientists and psychologists generating new ideas and collecting data in order to study sexual behaviour that could be ‘mapped, measured and understood using scientific techniques.’ Now things were placed along a spectrum of what was ‘normal and not normal’, and the homosexual as a distinct type of person was thus ‘invented’, according to Foucault and others.
Cocks suggests instead that we shouldn’t necessarily assume that ‘there is such a thing as sexual identity in the nineteenth century, merely that there were many different ways of understanding homosexual behaviour.’ Clearly, criminal cases and court records coloured the way that early sexologists and other researchers conceptualised homosexuality, as homosexual acts were illegal; this no doubt influenced the way that the people who engaged in these acts were understood and treated.
What does this mean re: the original ACD stories??
As we know, Arthur Conan Doyle created Sherlock Holmes during the nineteenth century in the (late)Victorian era. Cocks acknowledges that now scholars are busy investigating the ‘hidden meanings and evasions of Victorian literature.’ He goes on to say:
‘Queer theory in particular has encouraged practices of reading which seek to draw out the homosexual undercurrent in texts which, because of their historical location, could not explicitly identify or name their desire. […] [Secrecy about sex] afforded abundant opportunities to develop an elaborate discourse - richly ambiguous, subtly coded…’
‘The homosexual’ become closely associated with this ambiguity and coding, as well as secrecy. Their sexuality belonged in a secret place (’the closet’) and making an effort to conceal this helped to ensure the boundaries between public and private stayed firm. However, Cocks suggests that homosexuality was not always so secret and states that he seeks to explore when it was more directly identified. Often this was in legal cases or newspaper articles, but not always…
In fact, some scholars have pointed out that ‘journalists looking for a language with which to describe urban sexual depravity in the 1880s used many of the melodramatic conventions associated with popular literature.’
For example, the ‘sodomite and his nemesis, the blackmailer’ were often connected to an urban, criminal world. In this world, blackmailers often worked with journalists to investigate sex scandals; this world was highly associated with controlling information and public speech.
In other words, the blackmailer ‘attacks people who are different and preys on their secrets.’
anyways. i forgot the other day one of my favorite examples of sherlock holmes being the Tiniest Smol He Can Be in canon:
in the norwood builder, the case after the empty house, watson’s like ‘holmes had been back for a while and i had managed to sell my practice and move back in’ but then he reveals. holmes knew that watson could only move back once he sold his practice. and so a guy named verner approached watson about his practice and paid him like way more than necessary and watson was just like wow what a nice guy but then it turned out verner was holmes’ cousin and holmes set the whole thing up so like literally, holmes talked to his distant cousin and was like. look. i need you to do a favor for me so i don’t look like a loser. my…. very good pal wants to move back in but he’s gotta sell his practice first so like. you’re a doctor (or better yet you can pretend to be a doctor) and so take this money and give watson as much money as he wants and then he can move back in. thanks pal. just imagine. that really happened. in canon. holmes was that ‘watson must move in immediately.’
Somebody asked me earlier what exactly Sir Eustace did to merit Lady Carmichael deciding to kill him, and I offered up the death and character of the canonical Sir Eustace, Sir Eustace Brackenstall from The Adventure of the Abbey Grange, as a possible explanation of what wasn’t made clear in TAB. While skimming for the quote I wanted, though, I started thinking in more depth about the story as potential inspiration for TAB and what it might mean in terms of Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat’s representation of women and of Sherlock and his relationship with John.
For anyone who hasn’t read it, The Adventure of the Abbey Grange is about a case in which a woman’s abusive husband initially appears to have been killed in combat with armed robbers, but it turns out that he was in fact killed by the man she was really in love with who attacked him after finding the two of them together. Sir Eustace Brackenstall is referred to throughout the story simply as ‘Sir Eustace’, and the accounts of his abuse of his wife are as follows, given first by her, then by her maid, and finally by her husband’s killer:
‘I suppose that it is no use my attempting to conceal that our marriage has not been a happy one. I fear that all our neighbours would tell you that, even if I were to attempt to deny it. Perhaps the fault may be partly mine. I was brought up in the freer, less conventional atmosphere of South Australia, and this English life, with its proprieties and its primness, is not congenial to me. But the main reason lies in the one fact, which is notorious to everyone, and that is that Sir Eustace was a confirmed drunkard. To be with such a man for an hour is unpleasant. Can you imagine what it means for a sensitive and high-spirited woman to be tied to him for day and night? It is a sacrilege, a crime, a villainy to hold that such a marriage is binding. I say that these monstrous laws of yours will bring a curse upon the land - God will not let such wickedness endure.’
‘I heard him call my mistress a name, and I told him that he would not dare to speak so if her brother had been there. Then it was that he threw it at me. He might have thrown a dozen if he had but left my bonny bird alone. He was forever ill-treating her, and she too proud to complain. She will not even tell me all that he has done to her. She never told me of those marks on her arm that you saw this morning, but I know very well that they come from a stab with a hatpin.’
‘Well, gentlemen, I was standing with her just inside the window, in all innocence, as God is my judge, when he rushed like a madman into the room, called her the vilest name that a man could use to a woman, and welted her across the face with the stick he had in his hand.’
Although we never see Sir Eustace in TAB exhibit abusive behaviour towards Lady Carmichael (though he does speak disparagingly of her to Sherlock and John) and although there are no signs of physical abuse on her face, the fact that she was prepared to resort to murder to rid herself of him retains marital abuse as a distinctly possible motivator and therefore The Adventure of the Abbey Grange as a distinctly possible source of inspiration.
This is interesting to me for two reasons.
Firstly, in TAB Lady Carmichael kills Sir Eustace herself rather than relying on another man to kill him for her. In fact, the entire narrative of “the abominable bride” is one of women killing their (again, presumably abusive and/or deeply misogynistic) husbands. I know that many people have taken an issue with this, seeing it as equating the suffrage movement with murderous cultism, but I would argue that it really is one of the best decisions the writers have made in terms of the portrayal of women in the programme.
For one thing, as Sherlock is with the brides in TAB, Holmes is deeply sympathetic towards Sir Eustace’s killer, Captain Crocker. When he identifies him as the killer, he refrains from going to the police immediately, telling Watson that “Once that warrant was made out, nothing on earth would save him. Once or twice in my career I feel that I have done more real harm by my discovery of the criminal than ever he had done by his crime. I have learned caution now, and I had rather play tricks with the law of England than with my own conscience. Let us know a little more before we act.“ He carries this attitude through until the end of the story:
‘“[…] Well, it is a great responsibility that I take upon myself, but I have given Hopkins an excellent hint and if he can’t avail himself of it I can do no more. See here, Captain Crocker, we’ll do this in due form of law. You are the prisoner. Watson, you are a British jury, and I never met a man who was more eminently fitted to represent one. I am the judge. Now, gentleman of the jury, you have heard the evidence. Do you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty?”
“Not guilty, my lord,” said I.
“VOX POPULI, VOX DEI. You are acquitted, Captain Crocker. So long as the law does not find some other victim you are safe from me. Come back to this lady in a year, and may her future and yours justify us in the judgment which we have pronounced this night!“’
In Holmes’ eyes in this case, and in Sherlock’s in TAB, to kill and to be guilty are not always one and the same.
For another, I see the writers allowing women to kill in TAB as their attempt to right the wrongs they have previously done to women of the canon. I can remember being outraged by the end of ASiB the first time I watched it - how could Steven Moffat take Holmes’ most competent female adversary and place her at Sherlock’s mercy and twist her role as the woman who beat him into a sexual innuendo while denying her her actual victory? As if that wasn’t bad enough, he then went on to write justified killing in
The Adventure of Charles Augustus Magnussen (similarly to in The Adventure of the Abbey Grange, Holmes says of Milverton’s killer: “My sympathies are with the criminals rather than with the victim, and I will not handle this case”) out of a woman’s hands in HLV, and to make matters worse, this interview came out shortly afterwards, in which he and Mark Gatiss had this to say on the matter:
Moffat: Also, if you read [The Adventure Of] Charles Augustus Milverton, Dr. Watson in the opening paragraph tells you that he’s about to tell you a porkie. He says, ‘I even now must be very reticent.’ I think what Doyle is hinting at is that Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson sat in Baker Street and said, ‘Right, we’re going to have to go and kill him, aren’t we? That’s the only way we can do this.’ So they break in, kill him, and then Dr. Watson writes up a version of the story that puts the murder [on someone else].
Gatiss: They’re hiding in their burglar masks behind the curtain, and this random woman comes and shoots Milverton in the face and then grinds her heel into his face. It’s odd, isn’t it? So I mean really, it’s just an extrapolation of saying, ‘Well, he probably did it, I think.’
I did not, therefore, see the brides in TAB as an attempt by the writers to vilify feminists, but as their way of saying “okay, you were right, we haven’t treated female antagonists fairly in our adaptation, so here is our apology” - Sherlock’s speech on the injustice faced by women and confession of his own unfair treatment of them speaks as much for the writers as it does for him. This is also neatly supported by the continual references to the brides as an army - a term which, as I’ve said before, carries positive connotations within the programme due to John’s career: to be a soldier is, at least in this world, to say that killing is justified.
Secondly, an aspect of The Adventure of the Abbey Grange bears strong resemblance to an aspect of The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot, which in turn bears strong resemblance to an aspect of The Adventure of the Three Garridebs, the story in which ‘the depth of loyalty and love’ Holmes felt for Watson is made the most blatantly clear.
Having explained the series of events which led up to him killing Sir Eustace, Captain Crocker asks “Was I wrong? Well, then, what would either of you gentlemen have done, if you had been in my position?” Similarly, in The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot - another story in which one man kills another in defence of a beloved woman - Leon Sterndale concludes his confession with “Perhaps, if you loved a woman, you would have done as much yourself.” In this case, Holmes concedes: “I have never loved, Watson, but if I did and if the woman I loved had met such an end, I might act even as our lawless lion-hunter has done. Who knows?”
While Victorian propriety forced him to paint his hypothetical lover as a woman, The Adventure of the Three Garridebs suggests that it is not with “the fair sex” that Holmes’ romantic interests lie - after Watson is shot and Holmes is sure that his wounds are not serious, he turns to his assailant and says: "By the Lord, it is as well for you. If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room alive.“ It makes perfect sense, then, that Holmes would empathise with men who kill to defend those they love when he would be prepared to do exactly the same.
The circumstances in TAB are, of course, different - the brides are women killing in self-defence rather than on behalf of lovers - but the principle remains the same. Sherlock describes them as “ready to rise up in the best of causes, to put right an injustice as old as humanity itself” - and, particularly bearing the relevance of Oscar Wilde’s trial to the TAB narrative (and the meaning that gives to the line “I feel that I have done more real harm by my discovery of the criminal than ever he had done by his crime”) in mind, could that not describe the battle against homophobia as well as the battle against misogyny? After all, this wouldn’t be the first time Sherlock has shown signs of empathy with a woman he seemed to see something of himself in.
Not for the first time, several viewers and journalists have described the latest episode as fan service. Well, if fan service means an improvement in the representation of women and another step in the journey to free Sherlock Holmes and John Watson from the shackles of the late 19th and early 20th century, then long live fan service.
me, wearing a trenchcoat filled with all my copies of the holmes canon, opening it up to reveal all of them: hey kids you wanna talk about original canon
*chin hands* tell me how small he is
OH MAN i wrote mini meta about this once and then was gonna write a big long meta and never finished it but. my god. as small as you can possibly imagine. smaller than that. the tiniest. allow me to regale you with some ACTUAL CANON QUOTES
“He seized me by the coat-sleeve in his eagerness, and drew me over to the table at which he had been working.” (A Study in Scarlet)
“'Ha! ha!’ he cried, clapping his hands, and looking as delighted as a child with a new toy. ‘What do you think of that?’” (A Study in Scarlet)
“His eyes fairly glittered as he spoke, and he put his hand over his heart and bowed as if to some applauding crowd conjured up by his imagination.” (A Study in Scarlet)
“Sherlock Holmes seemed delighted at the idea of sharing his rooms with me. ‘I have my eye on a suite in Baker Street… which would suit us down to the ground…’” (A Study in Scarlet)
“'Oh, that’s all right,’ he cried with a merry laugh. ‘I think we may consider the thing as settled - that is if the rooms are agreeable to you.’” (A Study in Scarlet)
^those are all JUST FROM THEIR FIRST MEETING some other greatest hits i could go on for days tho:
“I have no time for trifles,” he answered,
brusquely; then with a smile, “Excuse my rudeness.
You broke the thread of my thoughts; but
perhaps it is as well…’” (A Study in Scarlet)
“’How sweet the morning air is! See how that one little cloud floats like a pink feather from some gigantic flamingo.’” (The Sign of Four) (THE GAYEST THING I’VE EVER READ AND HAD FORGOTTEN JESUS)
A thing Holmes says after making a huge dinner and knowing that John is probably going to marry Mary: “‘Watson, you have never yet recognized my merits as a housekeeper.’” (The Sign of Four)
look i can’t. keep doing this. he’s too small. i suffer. one time he called criminals that might recognize his address dunderheads. one time he said ‘Pshaw!’ out loud. one time he was in the middle of a case, spotted a rose, took it in his hand, and started monologuing about how flowers are beautiful and are symbolic of the hope there is in the world. several times he and watson looked at each other and started giggling. the time watson brought a medical patient by he was like ‘here lay on the couch have a drink and take your time please don’t rush yourself’ he is……….. so soft. all of the time. in hound of the baskervilles he somehow stays clean shaven while living in a rock hut and has the boy that brings him food also bring him fresh clean shirts so he can stay neat and tidy….. living in a rock hut. my gay son.
