nakahara wrote:

Oh, come on - Angelo is just a client but Mrs. Hudson? The "surrogate mother" of Sherlock? The woman who cleans his flat, does his laundry, even makes him tea without him noticing? A woman who sees him in his most intimate moments? Such a woman knows probably much more about him than anyone else, including his own family. And she is absolutely sure that he is gay. (If she isn´t then she really is quite rude, spreading lies and distortions about her tenants - but Mrs. Hudson doesn´t seem like such a malicious creature althrough she does have some gossipy streak in her.)

She becomes his surrogate mother during the series, but when they move in in ASiP she is not yet. I find this whole scene with Mrs. Hudson strange - even if she was sure Sherlock was gay, what is she thinking? I suppose he must have told her that he´s looking for a flatmate to share the rent, and now he comes home with a man he´s obviously just met and she thinks they will share bed and board instantly? That´s not how it works.. Her history suggests she´s not the most complicated of women when it comes to relationships, so I think she is just simplifying things (much).

nakahara wrote:

So the authors wanted to portray the characters as straight and yet wanted to fire fantasies and speculations? But why did they wanted to achieve that exactly with gay references and didn´t go to some other kind of fantasy where SH would date women - the way american "Elementary" and Robert Downey Jr. "Sherlock Holmes" did? It was entirely in their power, wasn´t it?  

No no, they didn´t want to show them as straight (at least Sherlock). They wanted to show him ambiguous. And yes, I think they chose especially the gay references because they are the most popular in any fandom you can think of - people ship Harry and Draco, Lestrade and Mycroft, the Winchester-brothers with themselves, you name it. (And it kind of offers itself with our favourite male detective duo..)
 

Last edited by Zatoichi (September 14, 2014 5:32 pm)

Liberty wrote:

@A Lovely Light  I agree about the music.  Do you mean the "Sherlocked" theme? I love it!  Very romantic, passionate and a little sad.   I do like the piece Sherlock wrote for the John and Mary's wedding though, although it has quite a different feel to the one he wrote for Irene.

The very one, but the main theme of Sherlocked come every time when Irene is in a scene with Sherlock, that is way i call it Irene-theme.

The waltz is lovely, but has totally other feeling over it. Nothing grand, nothing over romantic, i cannot put my finger on the feel actually... It has something very old-fashioned over it and quite sad...
 

nakahara wrote:

Zatoichi wrote:

She becomes his surrogate mother during the series, but when they move in in ASiP she is not yet. I find this whole scene with Mrs. Hudson strange - even if she was sure Sherlock was gay, what is she thinking? I suppose he must have told her that he´s looking for a flatmate to share the rent, and now he comes home with a man he´s obviously just met and she thinks they will share bed and board instantly? That´s not how it works.. Her history suggests she´s not the most complicated of women when it comes to relationships, so I think she is just simplifying things (much).

No no, they didn´t want to show them as straight (at least Sherlock). They wanted to show him ambiguous. And yes, I think they chose especially the gay references because they are the most popular in any fandom you can think of - people ship Harry and Draco, Lestrade and Mycroft, the Wincester-brothers with themselves, you name it. (And it kind of offers itself with our favourite male detective duo..)
 

The moment Mrs. Hudson opens the door of Baker Street 221B in ASiP, Sherlock hugs her, later he hugs her again an kisses her - the thing he is unable to sincerely perform with other women (and absolutely not with former clients). Judging from that, I think she was his surrogate mother from the very beginning. The way Sherlock threw CIA agent out of the window protecting and avenging her in ASiB is very telling too.

I see nothing strange on Mrs. Hudson assessment of the situation. The young gay man she knows appears after being thrown out of his previous flat and tells her that he will bring a flat-mate and later that day he really brings a man with himself, being incredibly attentive to him, holding the door for him, being very friendly where he is usually rude... witnessing that, of course she would consider them a couple. If a young man and a woman came to her in a similar circumstances, she would consider them a couple too and no one would question her first impression of them even if it later proved untrue.

Well, he formed a close bond with John almost instantly, so I guess the same has happened with Mrs. H. I think they immediately clicked in a way, but nothing whatsoever suggest she knows him very well or even sees him in his most intimate moments.

He couldn´t be sure he´d find a flatmate, so I think he didn´t tell her he´ll bring someone but that he sets out to look for someone.

But we are in the realm of headcanons here, and you can´t really argue with tastes or headcanons - you enjoy yours and I enjoy mine, everything fine as far as I´m concerned . *hands out bisquits and tea*

nakahara wrote:

I think that the gay references in Sherlock Holmes pastiches are way older than current ships in fandom (I mentioned some of them above), so the authors included them in the show because they are the part of the canon the same way Sherlock´s deerstalker, violin, pipe and cocaine-bottle are. Making the characters ambiguos and thus fascinating was just a bonus of that.

Agreed, that´s more reasons to include them.

nakahara wrote:

 Mark says he thinks Mycroft to be gay, so that's probably a case of judging others by one's own standards.

The same can be said about the heterosexuality in this show - the straight members of an audience think Sherlock is straight because they naturally think that this is the default attribute of men - they are judging him by their own standards.

I suggested that for Mycroft because he says it jokingly, and for a gay man it seems kind of natural to make a joke about a happy announcement if he sees a friendship develop very quickly. I should have elaborated.. and hope you don´t think that straight members of the audience who don´t ship them are just not capable of thinking outside their own standards.
 

Zatoichi wrote:

 . *hands out bisquits and tea*

Munches happilly on bisquits and drinks up tea. 

Zatoichi wrote:

nakahara wrote:

 Mark says he thinks Mycroft to be gay, so that's probably a case of judging others by one's own standards.

The same can be said about the heterosexuality in this show - the straight members of an audience think Sherlock is straight because they naturally think that this is the default attribute of men - they are judging him by their own standards.

I suggested that for Mycroft because he says it jokingly, and for a gay man it seems kind of natural to make a joke about a happy announcement if he sees a friendship develop very quickly. I should have elaborated.. and hope you don´t think that straight members of the audience who don´t ship them are just not capable of thinking outside their own standards.
 

No that´s just something that occured to me when I was thinking about Irene Adler. Irene Adler of the Canon met with Sherlock during her own wedding and she was happilly married to a man called Norton. There was absolutely not a chance of a romance between them. Yet the various adaptations and various people distort her character and forcefully develop a romance between her and Sherlock, conveniently forgetting about that poor Norton guy.

I thought about why would anybody deem that neccessary and came with an answer that people absolutely need to do this if they want to prove to themselves that Sherlock is straight. Because Irene was the only woman that ever mildly interested him - albeit professionally. It´s actually much harder to prove Sherlock´s straight than the opposite.

And so it puzzled me that people still need to see him as straight althrough there are no proofs ever that he is. I couldn´t find the other conclusion for this than the idea that people simply see him as straight by default.  Not because they are homophobic but because they naturally expect that the character will resemble them.
 

You really think that?
I hope most educated, intelligent, mature adults don't care about sexuality at all..after all, it is merely transport.
I have no problem with Sherlock being asexual either, does anybody else?

Last edited by besleybean (September 14, 2014 7:18 pm)

I think having a problem with it does.

besleybean wrote:

You really think that?
I hope most educated, intelligent, mature adults don't care about sexuality at all..after all, it is merely transport.
I have no problem with Sherlock being asexual either, does anybody else?

I don't see whom and what you are referring to?


 

nakahara wrote:

And so it puzzled me that people still need to see him as straight althrough there are no proofs ever that he is. I couldn´t find the other conclusion for this than the idea that people simply see him as straight by default.  Not because they are homophobic but because they naturally expect that the character will resemble them.
 

Honestly, I don't think that is what people are doing here.  It's not a need to see them as straight, but just trying to work out their orientation based on what's in the show. 

Women whom John is attracted to:
Sarah, Mary, Jeanette, Anthea or Andrea, and were there a couple of others?

Women whom Sherlock is attracted to:
Irene

Men whom John is attracted to: nobody yet

Men whom Sherlock is attracted to: nobody yet

Of course it's possible that we could see people only attracted to women, and they could then have an attraction to a man.  But we haven't seen it yet, in four years.  So there are no proofs that they're straight, but the evidence swings towards straight rather than gay or even bi, definitely for John, less clearly for Sherlock.  And of course, the writers do have a choice in this.  It isn't accidental to show them as attracted to women. 

If I really needed the characters to resemble me, I'd see them as attracted to men!   

I don't see Sherlock as asexual, but repressed (again, because of what I see on screen, not because I'm repressed myself.  I'm ... not). 

(I do agree about Irene in the books being different.  If I remember correctly, she also managed to fool Sherlock by disguising herself as male, which was a nice touch!  But I'm talking just about the BBC show, not the book, or other adaptations).

Last edited by Liberty (September 14, 2014 8:03 pm)

My belief still is that (just like with Ianto in "Torchwood") this is not about men or about being gay or bisexual... it's about the one man for the one other man. It's about Sherlock being the one man for John, and John being the one man for Sherlock.
This explains why John repeatedly tries to have relationships with women (and we all know that they never work out) - because he has always been attracted to women and doesn't know it any other way. So it'll take time - who knows how much longer - until he fully realizes that Sherlock is the one.
The same is true for Sherlock, although for different reasons. He always thought that there's only work for him and nothing else.

Yes, Susi, when I saw that Torchwood scene for the first time, I almost couldn't believe it, because I immediately was reminded of "Sherlock".