Little C: Why Are We So Obsessed With Sherlock Holmes?
Dear readers,
I, like many of you, am I hardcore fan of the BBC series Sherlock. I think the writing is slick and imaginative, and Martin Freeman and Benedict "Cheekbones" Cumberbatch have some magical chemistry. The wait for season 3 in our household was agonizing.
Having said that I'm just about over our cultural obsession with the Sherlock story. The American knock off of Sherlock (Elementary) was at best abysmal. Right now it looks like it will get a fourth season not because it deserves it, but because CBS needs the syndication numbers. The books and movie references of late have piled so high that today, when a trailer was released for a movie starring Sir Ian McKellen (Of nerd royalty) as an aged version of the detective I sighed in irritation. My adoration for this man runs deeper than my love for some of my family members, but I'm feeling worn out just from reading the logline.
I know in a few years the Sherlock trend will die down a bit and I will no longer feel like rolling my eyes at the newest "Brilliant-but-Damaged" lead character who has managed to rise to the top of their field despite having the social skills of a rabid gopher. But I'm afraid I'm always going to feel like that's lazy writing.
When writers make characters, they're like our children. More so in our case as Christy feels the need to orphan every other person we create when we write. So I understand the impulse to have the rules not apply to a main character. Harry Potter never seemed to get expelled, House managed to get away with being what my father called "An unethical little twerp" without being fired and discredited even as that happed to doctors around him, Olivia Pope has yet to be thrown into an unidentified government prison in a foreign country that most American's couldn't find on a globe. And this is fine. We don't always want realistic consequences in the worlds we create.
My point is to keep all the characters in the same playing field, even if it's not even. If you make a side character suffer consequences for something your main character does on the regular... And this happens all the time... That's when I tend to lose interest in a show. Or a book. Or a movie.
Which brings me back to Sherlock Holmes. He's an iconic character, in some ways because he's clever enough to weasel out of serious consequences. That's part of why the world is so in love with him. He's able to get away with doing what he does when most normal people would be torn apart. He was in many ways the original super hero.
So here I am. Having talked myself back around to being excited to see the Ian McKellen film. My irritation at the abuse of "Brilliant-but-Damaged" is still alive, but for now at least, Sherlock gets a pass.
Happy Wednesday,
Little C
I, like many of you, am I hardcore fan of the BBC series Sherlock. I think the writing is slick and imaginative, and Martin Freeman and Benedict "Cheekbones" Cumberbatch have some magical chemistry. The wait for season 3 in our household was agonizing.
Having said that I'm just about over our cultural obsession with the Sherlock story. The American knock off of Sherlock (Elementary) was at best abysmal. Right now it looks like it will get a fourth season not because it deserves it, but because CBS needs the syndication numbers. The books and movie references of late have piled so high that today, when a trailer was released for a movie starring Sir Ian McKellen (Of nerd royalty) as an aged version of the detective I sighed in irritation. My adoration for this man runs deeper than my love for some of my family members, but I'm feeling worn out just from reading the logline.
I know in a few years the Sherlock trend will die down a bit and I will no longer feel like rolling my eyes at the newest "Brilliant-but-Damaged" lead character who has managed to rise to the top of their field despite having the social skills of a rabid gopher. But I'm afraid I'm always going to feel like that's lazy writing.
When writers make characters, they're like our children. More so in our case as Christy feels the need to orphan every other person we create when we write. So I understand the impulse to have the rules not apply to a main character. Harry Potter never seemed to get expelled, House managed to get away with being what my father called "An unethical little twerp" without being fired and discredited even as that happed to doctors around him, Olivia Pope has yet to be thrown into an unidentified government prison in a foreign country that most American's couldn't find on a globe. And this is fine. We don't always want realistic consequences in the worlds we create.
My point is to keep all the characters in the same playing field, even if it's not even. If you make a side character suffer consequences for something your main character does on the regular... And this happens all the time... That's when I tend to lose interest in a show. Or a book. Or a movie.
Which brings me back to Sherlock Holmes. He's an iconic character, in some ways because he's clever enough to weasel out of serious consequences. That's part of why the world is so in love with him. He's able to get away with doing what he does when most normal people would be torn apart. He was in many ways the original super hero.
Especially when being played by Iron Man
So here I am. Having talked myself back around to being excited to see the Ian McKellen film. My irritation at the abuse of "Brilliant-but-Damaged" is still alive, but for now at least, Sherlock gets a pass.
Happy Wednesday,
Little C
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