Whatever, at This Point

But seeing as all of these scenes (and more) were deliberately written this way, they either had to be part of a specific narrative arc leading towards a romance between Sherlock and John, OR IT’S THE WORST QUEERBAITING IN THE HISTORY OF TELEVISION.

Yeah, I have a lot of questions…

After near 8 years on Tumblr under various urls, mainly in the BBC Sherlock fandom, I am still seeing daily posts justifying why fans read Sherlock and John as a romantic couple. It saddens me, and pisses me off. It reminds me how the hetero world has fucked with all our perceptions, the male dominated, female assisted ‘normitivity’ enforced on us all since birth in order to conform to a standard and values we didn’t sign up for. A few weeks ago, a show was on TV, I wasn’t watching it, but several of my family were. A newly widowed President, Keifer Sutherland, was having an impromptu snack in a kitchen late at night with a female advisor. She mentioned that she too had lost her spouse. Everyone in the room watching the show, picked up on the line of dialogue and KNEW she was being written as the new ‘love interest’ and these two characters would be together in the show. One line! And here we are still unsure, debating, and feeling the need to justify the fact that in July 2010 Sherlock told John that women were not his area, he didn’t have a boyfriend, he was flattered by John’s interest, and later in the show when John asked him to dinner Sherlock accepted with a sexy ‘starving’. 

I KNEW, just as my family knew what was occurring in the kitchen scene of Designated Survivor, that the Angelo’s scene was a date foreshadowing the journey the two men were embarking upon. The fact that, in hindsight, it was queer baiting is another issue, one which I have spoken about at length as have many of us. Right now I am just focused on the issue of confidence in our own perception. It does not matter one iota what the writers or cast say in retrospect. I know, we know, what we saw and heard. Yes, in a fucked up homophobic world, scenes of same sex flirtation can be written off as a joke, denied or even used as a point of ridicule for those that bought into the scene as a plot point, but we have to have the confidence to stand behind our own interpretation of a blatantly obvious and well used vehicle in film/TV. If we waiver, if we feel unsure in our own take on things, if we have a strong urge to justify, then we allow doubt to creep in through the insecure cracks and spread like wildfire. We know, what we saw in BBC Sherlock.

“Queerbaiting” is the practice of some television shows and movies to attract queer fans by hinting at potential queer relationships or actually promising them (but not delivering). There is some debate even amongst fans about whether queerbaiting is actually a thing. Outside of fandom, many believe queer fans are reading too much into on-screen interactions.

However, writers, producers, and executives nowadays do recognize the existence of a queer fan base, and they want to appeal to that demographic, because it’s large enough to make a real difference to their viewership numbers. Some movies and shows do include queer relationships or queer characters, but even if they do, they might not give those characters or relationship arcs the screen time they deserve. Not to mention that many studios and networks don’t want to include queer characters to start with. Therefore, the film and television world has concocted a “cunning plan” to attract queer viewers: subtext, subtext, and more subtext.

Angie Harmon from Rizzoli & Isles has admitted that they insert tension and lingering touches specifically to appeal to the lesbian demographic. “Sometimes we’ll do a take for that demo,” Harmon says to TV Guide. “I’ll brush by [Maura’s] blouse or maybe linger for a moment.”

So the fans aren’t making it up, queer subtext in film and television is very deliberate—and also very common.

Of course gay subtext is far from novel. It has always been around. Often it was inserted by queer content creators, trying to get as much past the censors or the network as they could get away with. Not even a decade ago, fans were largely content with gay subtext in the media since they didn’t expect queer relationships to be portrayed in most movies or shows they watched. The subtext made them feel like the creators would have loved to portray the characters as queer—if not for the evil studio and movie execs. Writers and producers would therefore be lauded for secretly inserting queer characters into canon. Livejournal was full of discussions and debates on why a certain pairing was actually canon, based on the subtext.

But times have changed. Now there are a number of successful shows and movies with openly queer characters—but not nearly enough to balance the books and in many television and movie franchises, queer relationships are still treated as absolutely taboo. However, the increasing number of on-screen queer romances sends the clear message that we can and should expect more.

Sub-text is no longer enough for today’s queer community—how can it be, when we could be enjoying the real deal instead? And because some shows have given us queer romances, subtext is also viewed in a new light: it’s viewed as a promise.

In the BBC’s Sherlock series, it’s a recurring joke that everyone mistakes John for Sherlock’s boyfriend. Without additional subtext and context, it looks like the very idea of these two men being in a relationship is being treated as a joke—but there is context of course. Mark Gatiss, one of the co-producers of the show, is openly gay and in 2012 he had this to say to the Gay Times on the subject of introducing a gay couple in a television show:

“One of my favorite stories is [the episode] ‘Gridlock’: there’s an elderly couple of ladies who are together, and it just sort of passes by, and that’s the way–softly, softly. That’s how the revolution happens, as it were: you just become aware that people are incidentally gay. I think when the day comes that you have a big detective show where the first half hour was this man at work, and he’s a maverick, and all the usual things… and then we went home and his boyfriend says, ‘Are you alright?’, [and] it was just a thing… then something would have genuinely changed.”

The sheer amount of gay subtext inSherlock can in no way be an accident and is almost certainly due to Mark Gatiss (his co-producer, Steven Moffat, routinely responds with bafflement when confronted with the John/Sherlock ship).

Before BBC shows like Torchwood (a sci-fi show with a pansexual main character) or In the Flesh (a zombie show with a bisexual main character), I believe queer fans might have been more than happy to declare John/Sherlock actually canon. Now our expectations are higher. By not following through on all the hints and build-up to John/Sherlock, the show has managed to alienate and lose a large portion of their queer fan base, because these fans truly believed their favored pairing would become canon.

Queer fans have also started to abandon Teen Wolf for similar reasons: subtext between two main characters was inserted into the show, but there was no follow-through.

Fandom is currently at a crossroads on how to react to queer subtext. On the one hand, all these lingering touches and heartfelt lines are turned into gifs and form the basis of tens of thousands of fanfics—we all prove that queerbaiting works. On the other hand, fandom has started to become vocal about its dislike for such tactics, because it feels like a slap in the face to purposefully raise hopes only to dash them later down the line when it’s revealed that we’ll get to see yet more heterosexual romances on screen instead.

Giving up hope is leading an increasing number of fans back into the mid noughties mindset of “I don’t expect it to be canon—I’m not delusional!“, while others continue to trust creators to make good on their “promises.” But both play directly into the hands of queerbaiters.

By being aware that the subtext is intentional and that the aim is to lure us in without giving us back anything concrete, I believe fandom can react more constructively. We can be more wary of queerbaiting and discuss it openly in fandom without descending into arguments about whether it is intentional or not (because it almost always is). It is perfectly possible for creators to claim that they believe the relationship between two characters to be strictly “friendly,” while also purposefully shooting scenes to lure in queer viewers. We should be critical of the tactics used and confront showrunners on their use of subtext to gain our viewership. After all, we have nothing to be ashamed of and everything to gain by expecting and demanding more representation.

😲THIS SHIT IS REAL AND I WILL NOT HAVE HETERO PEOPLE TELL ME FUCKING OTHERWISE!😲

I’M HET BTW..PRETTY MUCH.😐

Article found here:

But seeing as all of these scenes (and more) were deliberately written this way, they either had to be part of a specific narrative arc leading towards a romance between Sherlock and John, OR IT’S THE WORST QUEERBAITING IN THE HISTORY OF TELEVISION.

Hey Nonny,

I honestly haven’t really been IN a lot of fandoms. I’ve been a fan of a lot things, but never as deep in it as I have been with Sherlock. And I’ve personally never seen TPTB fuck a show up so royally before. Like, not only did johnlock not happen but S4 was fucking awful. And with no resolution S3 was shit too.

We lost a lot of great people post S3. I think those were the smart ones with good hindsight.

BUT as far as the fandom goes, you just need to know where to look. The fandom itself has kind of split off into groups.

Those who actually liked S4, which I’m not the least bit interested.

There’s people who still believe Johnlock is going to happen and think that S4 was fake in one way or another. Even those groups are split among each other. The E/M/P folks and then there’s the John’s alibi/blog folks.

Then there’s those of us who are enjoying the fandom still, the fan art and fan fiction. There are fans of ACD canon, Granada Holmes and many other versions. The Sherlock Holmes fandom isn’t going anywhere, even if it isn’t as huge on tumblr as it once was.

There’s that momentary hesitation in John, just for a second. He looks down. He’s weighing up how much of his soul Sherlock is worthy of, how much he’s prepared to let Sherlock see. And then he says it anyway, “please, God, let me live.” It’s not bravado, it’s not posturing. It’s real. It’s fear. John lets Sherlock see his fear.

But John is a soldier. More than that John is an officer on the outside looking in, he has to balance on this thin little precipice, he has to guard his weaknesses to keep his authority. So this is John offering up his throat.

And Sherlock’s mind takes a moment to latch onto that. His own thoughts are still whirring away, looking for a different conclusion. And then he sees it. And he stills.

Tiny exchange. So insignificant. But I think this scene defines their whole relationship.

So it’s been almost a year since Sherlock Series 4 came out. In some ways it feels like a loooong year, and in other ways, I can’t believe it’s already drawing to a close. Do you Sherlock fans remember how excited everyone was last year? Many of us were smarting from some very disappointing elections, and really looking forward to some good news from the Sherlock universe. A number of beloved celebrities had passed on recently, David Bowie, and Alan Rickman, and we didn’t know Carrie Fisher was right behind, but things felt a bit glum.

We were on FIRE here on Tumblr trying to predict what would happen with S4, and so many were banking on an actual relationship between Sherlock and John to be revealed. The time felt ripe with several countries recently voting gay marriage as legal. With all the teaser trailers asking who does Sherlock love, and hints about “making history” and “ground breaking” cinema to come, it felt like time for the first openly-gay Holmes and Watson to step into the spotlight. People were so excited, the fandom was probably creating its own light source glowing gently in the dark night with the collective angst, hope, squee and general nervous energy.

Then Series 4 rolled out, and a collective jaw dropping occurred. This really wasn’t what many of us were expecting. There are still fans out there who enjoyed S4, liked the excellent acting, and camera work, enjoyed the silly fun of it, but many of us were crushed. We had held out so long, hoping for some character development, some plot hole resolution, some satisfying time with our favorite crime-solving duo, and some serious representation for the LGBTQ community as the show has woven queer culture into its fabric since day one. With all these built-up expectations, we all tuned in at the start of January with a collective breath holding …

What we actually got with Series 4 was a mishmash of crazy images, things that can only be read as dream sequences to make any sense, characters that no long seemed like the people we knew and loved, and an homage to the last few decades of horror films all remixed and thrown together with a thin veneer of Sherlock pasted over top. We walked into topsy-turvy world so incomprehensible that many shifted over to a “tin hat” club deciding that S4 had to be a joke, or a trick, a ruse for the casual fans before the REAL series 4 was revealed. How could all the people who collectively make Sherlock have agreed to this shambling mess of a show?

I can’t answer how everyone agreed to make series 4, all I know is that they did. They not only completely ditched any story they’d been telling with the first three series, but then proceeded to deconstruct the very nature of the Holmes and Watson world. They took the ultimate “buddy story,” the detective and his faithful doctor, two of them against the world, to wrench Sherlock and John apart - mocking and destroying the character of John repeatedly while Sherlock and Mary cozied up as new buddies-in-sleuthing. Suddenly a baby was part of the mix, then a ghost, then a mad sister running the whole show behind the scenes.  It was crazy-making trying to keep up with it all, and ultimately rather boring. A series of behavioral experiments in a cage on an island facility held none of the clever detective work, none of the fun storytelling, and none of the relationship building that have pulled people into the Sherlock Holmes stories for over a hundred years.

Moffat and Gatiss, two privileged men who had control of the BBC Sherlock franchise, decided to have fun, insane wish fulfillment, adding in helicopter chase scenes, explosions, Mycroft in silly costumes, bleeding portraits, and Shutter Island sequences because they were bored with what made Sherlock Holmes a household name. How could they though? I still ask myself this. Did they hate Sherlock Holmes and all that he stood for so much that they needed to leach their version of anything that made it beloved and iconic? They turned Sherlock into a maudlin junkie who could barely solve his way out of a paper bag. They morphed John into a rage-filled alcoholic who abandons his child to nameless friends and beats his best friend as he lies bleeding on a morgue floor. They made sure to code all their villains as queer, a ghastly repeat of a wrong that has been wounding the LGBTQ community since film was invented. They made ex-assassin Mary into some angelic visitor who now owned the spirit of the Holmes and Watson mythos, narrating the last gasp of the series, a montage of cases and moments that LOOKED like the show we wanted to be watching all along. It was like seeing a window to the mirror universe where everything is going well while you’re trapped in the shadowy evil version of the space-time continuum.

We were all so full of hope a year ago, only to have our hearts ripped out and stomped on by Moffitss. It truly could have been a groundbreaking story that people would be talking about for years.

Instead we got a huge mess that many fans and critics hated. The casual audience has already forgotten about and the stars don’t even want to talk about anymore.

@alexxphoenix42 summed it up so well for me, which is amazing to me because it was all a blurry mess in my experience. I was in a very bad place last January for several reasons, and I was going to make myself go to the theatre to see the last ep 2 days after it aired because I love this franchise so much, even though I wasn’t really physically able to. But instead I ate the price of the ticket, because I couldn’t make myself watch that again (doesn’t help that I don’t like horror).

My point in reblogging this is that as I read it, I could hear naysayers muttering about how it’s just a television show and that we all need to calm down. Maybe. And goth knows there have been enough words said about that, but here are a few more. Falling for Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman in this series has led me personally to some really amazing good things in my life. Like so many others, I’ve met amazing people, I’ve read and seen amazing works of creativity, and I’ve been inspired to do my own creating. I never would have gone to London if Mr C hadn’t been in Hamlet–which I wouldn’t have cared about without Sherlock. Which, in addition to being my first trek outside the US, brought @leslierae1414 and me even closer than we had been. 

This little show has been wound into my daily life experience for years now, and it has enhanced it, and I am grateful to it. I think there is an intense power in fiction that sneaks ideas and emotions into us so much more easily than any other means of communication, and I think mocking that is to mock the human experience since the time we first managed to communicate with each other.

Ok I honestly don’t have the energy to do a proper rant, but ughh it annoys me so much how they had no respect whatsoever for John. Clearly he wasn’t special enough for them… It makes me so angry!

loveasmartarse said:  UGH. I was so convinced at the time those middle ones had be a fake scene because how could Sherlock even go along with that nasty stuff. But oh no Mofftiss can’t stand John and wanted Sherlock and Mary to be a little nasty couple. God I hate them.                                   

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I’m in total agreement with what you all are saying here. John and Martin both deserved more respect and not to play second fiddle on his own show to Mofftiss new bestie AA.

His character didn’t deserve to be drug through the mud the way he was. He’s an army doctor who started off as intelligent and strong and they turned him into the bumbling useless Watson of older adaptations. It’s really sad. They had one of the best John’s, in my opinion, and decided to destroy his character to where he was no longer recognizable.

And same @loveasmartarse I too thought that those scenes with the dog couldn’t possible be real. But I guess it shouldn’t have been a shock after those promo photos of just Ben with the dog came out. They were pushing the adventures of Mary and Sherlock hard in TST. I don’t know about you, but I can’t imagine who I’d rather spend my time with than the woman who lied to my best friend (love of my life) verbally abused and treated him awful and then shot me in the chest. Match made in heaven.

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