Sherlock Fandom - The Good, the Bad And the WTF?

[J.P.]

Yupp. ^

[Boton]

Double yup. 

 

 

[bedelia1984]

I ended up finding the concept of the day quite comical as one of the young female students in my class kept telling the boys 'this is the day when you have to show girls some respect!' and I had to keep adding 'and the rest of the year too, remember!'.

[J.P.]

Apparently it's still not over

[Arcadia]

I've often wondered about that; why the TJLC-ers didn't seem to attack Molly/Louise the way they attacked Mary/Amanda. Because she's not as obvious a threat to their theory, I guess? At any rate, this doesn't surprise me in the least, except that in it took so long to appear.

[J.P.]

Something positive for a change, even if it's a bit older

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

Love that!  Though it makes me feel just a bit lonely that they're all so young.  Thank goodness for this forum, where there are fans of all ages. 

 

[T.o.b.y]

Wait, sorry to go back to the unpleasantness for a second, but do I understand correctly that people calling themselves fans have been harassing Louise Brealey on social media because they either weren't satisfied with Molly's story arc because of "feminism" and / or upset that there was one ambiguous scene during the last episode that they see as a threat to their preferred pairing?

 

Wow. Sorry, but that's just so unreasonable and immature, I can hardly believe it. Should I dig up the social media accounts of all villain actors and complain to them about how their characters are evil and commit crimes? Mr Scott, how dare you portray Moriarty with so much charm and humor when he's a murdering psychopath?

 

Jesus. Don't those people understand anything about acting at all? It upsets me. Especially in this case because if there is one actress on the show who did a truly brilliant job and made every little scene her character appeared in worth watching just because her acting was so good, it is Louise Brealey in my opinion. Nobody deserves this kind of nonsense but it seems like a particularly nasty insult in this case.

[J.P.]

It's hard to say what the arguments were, because usually you don't see them. But knowing the rest of the "problem", I assume it could be something like the one comment I read: who will want to watch that sh*t now? (when JL is not canon).

 

But as they went as far, as complaining to the SwitchBoard about Mark for betraying the gay community, I suppose they are very creative if it comes to insults.

[J.P.]

Here is an example

http://ivyblossom.tumblr.com/post/158401784445/trained-cormorant-vulgarweed

[Arcadia]

It's a good thing the f-word exists. Otherwise I don't know how anyone on Twitter would ever manage to express themselves. :P

[gerry]

Wait, sorry to go back to the unpleasantness for a second, but do I understand correctly that people calling themselves fans have been harassing Louise Brealey on social media because they either weren't satisfied with Molly's story arc because of "feminism" and / or upset that there was one ambiguous scene during the last episode that they see as a threat to their preferred pairing?

 

I thought maybe the feminism angle was because in a recent interview LB didn't criticize Moffat for how he writes women even though she considers herself a feminist. I didn't associate it with JohnLock but I could be misunderstanding the nonsense.

[Arcadia]

I may have muddied the waters because I leaped to the conclusion the "hate" was coming from the "usual" crowd ... i.e., the conspiracy fans who feel they've been, er, betrayed. But I don't actually know that's true. Maybe it is just the feminism angle. Either way, it's tiresome.

[Van Buren Supernova]

..., it's tiresome.

Agree.

It's getting really boring to be honest.

[Boton]

I haven't followed the entire Loo thing on Twitter, but what is so frustrating to me is that we seem to have lost the ability *across the board* to discuss anything without someone having a major freak-out about not getting their way.  I've almost gotten used to it in the realm of politics, but it seems like every fandom of which I'm aware has some version of the "unless my ship happens this entire show is crap" debate. Plus, every professional discussion group I'm in has at least one issue that falls prey to "if you don't behave the way we want, we will descend on you and tear you to shreds."

 

LB did a brilliant job with Molly.  It is fine to portray (or write) a character who happens to carry a torch for someone for a long time. That's a very human thing to do, and the humanity came through so clearly in Loo's portrayal.  As a woman, I am sick to death of being told by other women that I should consume nothing but strong, unwavering portrayals of women's behavior or else I might crumple and totally lose my agency and ability to advocate for myself. That sort of thing just means that we've swapped one sort of one-dimensional portrayal of women for another.

 

And, to the extent that people are blaming LB for the lack of Johnlock....I just have no words.  I know that's a very small sliver of the fandom that go to that extent, but it scares me when people can't seem to tell the difference between fiction and fact, let alone understand the role of an actor versus the role of a writer, and the degree of absolute control that a viewer or reader has over a fictional universe - if you don't like what happened, grieve, be upset, and then let it go, but don't harrass the creators.

[bedelia1984]

I have seen people on twitter try to rally support for everyone to tweet Mark Gatiss complaints about the treatment of the LGBT community (in the form of not providing Johnlock), and it just seems so unfair. I don't like the idea that it is okay to hold him responsible for delivering Johnlock merely because he's gay, it implies that artists who are gay don't get to have the same creative freedom as everybody else- which seems counter to what the group harrassing him say they are in favour of at other times.

 

About Louise, from the limited amount I have seen, she doesn't get as much of a hard time as Mark, but I think some trolls realised they'd hit gold when they could sort of artificially combine an issue she clearly tweets about,  and advocates for (feminism) with their complaints about the show- the real reason seems to be the lack of Johnlock, but the socially acceptable cover-reason is that people hated to see Molly behave so pathetically over Sherlock because of their profound love of feminism. It seems more likely a way to get at LB and provoke a response, than to promote feminism on Sherlock, which if they wanted they should probably tweet the writers, though after TAB, I think most of us have had enough feminism on Sherlock!

[J.P.]

As if all shows in the universe had to promote anything. -_-

 

It reminds me of the drama around All.

[T.o.b.y]

I call myself a feminist as well and I love Molly and if I were an actress, I would have accepted that role immediately.

 

And not that it matters, but as a role model, Molly isn't even half bad. She manages her life all by herself, has a very demanding job that she's good at, she is both loving and wise and the show celebrates her for all the right reasons and not for her beauty. I don't see what's so un-feminist about Molly at all.

[Boton]

I don't like the current trend toward using "feminist" (and other attributes) as an argument-ender.  It is sometimes as if all someone has to say is, "I don't think Molly is a very feminist character, and she's a bad role model for women," and then the argument is done. Then the whole discussion becomes a defense of whether or not Molly meets some perceived feminist ideals.

 

I agree that Molly is a decent role model, and the trajectory the character took actually speaks very well of Moftiss.  We all know that she started off as a joke; just a quick breeze in and out of that lab to demonstrate how Sherlock is so oblivious to people he doesn't notice an obvious crush on him.  By HLV, she's speaking versions of lines that are given to Watson in ACD canon, and she has evolved into a fully-formed character with a career, a life, and hey, even a crush on Sherlock.  I defy most women (or most men, for that matter) to tell me that having a crush, even a frustrating one, isn't part of the human experience worthy of exploration.

[J.P.]

Johnlock or not, I find this idea absolutely sweet, and the fame it gained makes me smile.

https://crochetjohnandsherlock.tumblr.com/

[Carol the Dabbler]

I must say they're very nicely done.  (John even has his actual hairstyle.)

[J.P.]

And this is also a bit heartwarming

https://twitter.com/BenBatched/status/851833094705475584

[Artemis]

^ Your avatar has a scarf, I like it!  Is that new since February or am I imagining things?

[J.P.]

You are right, the scarf is new. :D

[Boton]

Just saw this today.  Seems appropriate.  (I love that William Shatner liked this, although he is in a pitched battle over Outlander right now.)

 

https://twitter.com/SamSykesSwears/status/870337061210923008

 

Edited because to early/too stupid to embed a link.