How did classical music in movies and television become synonymous with villainy?
As soon as I saw this headline, I wondered if it would mention BBC’s Moriarty, and so it does:
Moriarty does not steal because he needs the cash.... What drives [him] is an innate hunger to consume and conquer, an insatiable greed that exists outside the acceptable bounds of even the most cutthroat capitalist society. Power is the goal, and money is only the means. But such ravenous ambition must be hidden under a respectable mask—a mask provided by classical music.
Overall, the essay makes a pretty compelling argument tracing the source of this undeniably common trope, and the reason why it resonates with audiences. Put briefly, we suspect that wealthy and sophisticated elites are eating away at our society -- that “the shiny trappings of high society—galas, gowns, orchestras—exist to disguise the brutal source of its wealth.”
But I did wonder if Moriarty fits very well into his argument, or if he might be a bit of an outlier. Two things immediately stand out to me:
1) Within BBC-verse, Moriarty isn’t alone in his love of classical music. The whole context of the Sherlock/Jim tea scene is that the hero and the villain *share* this interest. In that case, can the message really be, “classical music is evil”? I’d say rather that it’s meant to emphasize how much Sherlock and Jim have in common -- they see the world in largely the same terms, but one of them works toward justice and the other works toward chaos. If anything, the point is how modest the difference is between those two outcomes.
But then, it’s fair to point out that Sherlock isn’t a typical hero. Especially in the earlier series, there’s meant to be something a bit terrifying about his single-mindedness, his emotional remove, his attitude of amorality, etc. So maybe that actually supports this author’s argument that classical music is connected in the popular imagination with antisocial tendencies.
So, on to my second observation:
2) This Moriarty isn’t just into classical music -- he also loves soul, rock, and even disco. I wonder how that complicates the author’s argument. Is Moriarty really the representative of elitist sophistication, if he also has a Bee Gees ring tone? But then, what *are* we to make of Moriarty?
Maybe we’re meant to read something a little untrustworthy and even dangerous in Moriarty’s eclectic tastes: maybe a “normal” person would choose a team -- pop, rock, classical -- and stay there. It does seem to play into Moriarty’s anarchic, chaotic nature that he takes pleasure in every musical genre.
That, also, is another way that he gives us a window into the person Sherlock *could* be. Sherlock keeps himself tightly under control -- he sedately plays his violin to express his roiling emotions, but we know that he secretly yearns to dance, if only he could find an excuse for it. (Moriarty needs no excuse.)
So in that sense, Moriarty’s musical tastes could be both a bit sinister and also a symbol of liberation.
I guess, while I agree that the show is indulging in a well-worn trope by setting Moriarty’s heist to The Theiving Magpie, I do think there is a bit more going on than the standard “aesthetic sophistication = evil” cliche. Or am I just reading into it because I love Sherlock?
What do you think?
