BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » Johnlock: The Official Debate

mrshouse · July 28, 2016 8:25 pm

Liberty wrote:
I think it's probably good that they've stated this explictly, before S4

Why, Liberty?

Okay, my two cents on this:
- pity, you guys. Pity you probably won't take this wonderful chance to portray a love story more epic than a lot I've seen so far. Epic because of a perfect couple of actors on screen you happened to detect, but also pity because you think the most boring choice of love interest is a better addition than taking a chance.
- pity because I always thought that it was only one actress being very ill-tempered with fans, you've obviously learned well from her.
- pity, because I think a lot of fans can very well live with ambiguity but react not so well to being told that everything is wrong they see in a work of art. Don't put it there first place.
- For myself: I care less and less.

ewige · July 28, 2016 9:55 pm

I like GimmeCat's point from before about soulmates. Openly gay is maybe somebody who's considering/looking for a same-sex relationship, while with soulmates it just happens regardless of the sex...

Lola Red · July 28, 2016 10:12 pm

What speaks most to me from that interview is a sense of frustration. Martin once said in an interview shortly after season 3 aired that all interpretations are fine and fun, as long as they are handled with a lightness of touch and not become a doctrine. I think that is a good thing to keep in mind.
I have not seen Mark or Steven be nasty to fans (if Mark was in his Tweeds I must have missed them), I rather see them saying “tell whatever stories you like with these characters, but let us tell ours, too.”
I can kind of understand the frustration. Steven (who brought the world Captain Jack, Madame Vastra, Jenny and River Song) tried to make a very important point; and it got reduced to “Johnlock confirmed”. There is some irony in that. How many people claim that they support Johnlock not only as a personal fantasy, but also as a way to strengthen the LGBT community? Yet the cries of “Johnlock confirmed” have almost completely drowned out the much more important point that Steven tried to make about representation of different sexualities in the media. I have to admit that I was annoyed by the way people responded to Steven’s interview (mainly on tumblr, I should really learn to stay away from there, but I was hoping for comic con news). Why does a ship between fictional characters seem to be more important than a real life issue?

I just want to add that I do not mean to attack Johnlockers in general, but keep it light, keep it fun, there is enough serious stuff out there in the real world

GimmeCat · July 29, 2016 1:04 am

I'm not as concerned about the recent interview as Mark's dismissal of the old and oft-quoted TPLOSH one. That... That just throws me for a loop, quite honestly. I cannot wrap my head around it.

mrshouse · July 29, 2016 4:43 am

@Lola, no, actually for me it's the other way round: I'm so ridiculously busy with real life that this show and being in fandom was always such a nice thing to distract myself a bit. And from what I've read here and from what I know about some I'm closer with this is similar. We have a lot of users here who are busy and successful in their lives. So that is not it.
I stand by what I said, that slowly but surely I care less and less. But in this particular piece the wording just wasn't nice. And that felt like acting a bit prissy to me.
Vhanja has drawn the comparison with Harry Potter a couple of times and I thought about this. I think it's a bit different. Rowling never for once alluded to Hermione and Harry being maybe on romantic terms, not one time. For me it was clear from the third book on that Hermione and Ron were meant to be. And another big difference: she found a wonderful way to show a best friend who is simply happy for them.

Lola Red · July 29, 2016 5:21 am

mrshouse: Sorry, I did not intend for my post to read anything like "Johnlockers should get a life". If that is the case, I sincerely apologise. I meant it more as you also put it: fandom should be a playground, where we can have fun and charge up your batteries for all the real stuff out there. I was just concerned with the tendency to confuse the one with the other. And I want to stress that I am not talking about this forum here when I say that - as far as the internet goes, this is one of the most well-balanced places I know - but more about tumblr and the like, where I found the reactions to the last few days very disproportionate. Which reminds me to just stay here and not concern myself with other corners of the fandom - see my own fandom should be fun comment.

Schmiezi · July 29, 2016 6:18 am

I think the saddest thing about
that article is that it will end the debate for now. It is a shame because to me, it has never been about who is right and who is wrong but about intellectual challenges. Now, everything will be reduced to "But they said ..." That is neither interesting nor intellectually satisfying.

Personally, I always paid more attention to what could be seen on screen than what was said about the show behind the scenes, and I will continue to do so with S4.

Liberty · July 29, 2016 6:21 am

Mrshouse, (answering your question about why I think it's good that they've stated this) I do think it's good that they're open and honest. I get the impression that people were feeling misled, there was talk about queerbaiting and so on, and at least this way people know.   I did worry about the fact that so many of the young people in the video I watched were so invested in Johnlock happening, and I was also worrying that they were using something imaginary to represent them to find themselves. Of course, they are fictional characters but they are not LGBT characters (I still think Sherlock is a little ambiguous, but he's certainly not openly anything, so not really a good figure to latch on to for representation or a role model).    And it also bothered me, because the message of the show so far if you were reading it as Johnlock seemed to be that you should keep your sexual sexual orientation secret. Sorry, this is turning into a long explanation, but that bothered me. For those people, I would love for them to happily ship John and Sherlock, to continue to be part of their community, but to find better real or fictional LGBT role models for themselves. I hope this doesn't sound patronising. It's not meant to.   It just really bothered me that people were hanging on the illusion of people being gay to define themselves.

And yes, I've dipped a toe in tumblr recently, because of following setlock and SDCC. I think it was leading people astray (not tumblr itself, obviously, but some people on it).   I kept seeing that Moffat had said that Johnlock was confirmed, and that he'd said that Sherlock was gay, when he'd said nothing of the sort.   Even the grumpy bi/camp gay thing was not a joke on a tumblr. It was being presented as if it was confirmation of Johnlock. It seemed like just about every comment any member of the team made was supposedly about Johnlock. Then on top of that, (bear in mind that I wasn't reading through all of tumblr, so my impression isn't meant to be accurate - it's just my impression), it seemed that people who were part of the community but who doubted that it would happen were being looked down on.    It seemed to me that it was getting so it wasn't pleasant for the community (at least those who had doubts). They had to "believe" in something to be part of it, even though if they'd actually looked at what Moftiss was saying it was clear that tumblr was leading them astray.

And yes, I have some unpleasant comments about Moftiss since the interview.   But they haven't misled over this at all, they've been quite clear all along that it's a friendship. But whenever they say something that doesn't fit with Johnlock people say they are lying, even if it's sincerely expressed and in the context of an issue that's important to them (Mark at Mumbai).   If they say anything that can possibly be twisted to "confirm" Johnlock, it is.   I completely understand their frustration when they try to talk about gay rights and representation and everything they say just becomes "Johnlock".

So I think it was maybe necessary for them to be so blunt now, before S4 airs. It gives time for people to come to terms with it, if they were invested in it, and just enjoy the show. I came late to the party, but I gather that before S3, there was no TJLC. People were happily shipping the couple, but there wasn't this conviction that hundreds of parts of the script, acting, cinematography, etc., were showing us it.   People still loved the show and the characters then.

(This is not all directed at you, Mrshouse! I just started answering your question and rambled).

Last edited by Liberty (July 29, 2016 6:46 am)

Liberty · July 29, 2016 6:40 am

GimmeCat wrote:
I'm not as concerned about the recent interview as Mark's dismissal of the old and oft-quoted TPLOSH one. That... That just throws me for a loop, quite honestly. I cannot wrap my head around it.

I don't think he meant he didn't like the film. I posted in the other thread, that I was sure I'd seen him interviewed about it, and I did find one here https://youtu.be/otYRcTrK1d0 . He loves the film! It just seems that what he says in the Guardian article are maybe not direct quotes, and the writer hasn't accurately summarised what he said either. But there's still this interview where we can hear him speaking directly, so no need to dismiss TPLOSH. It's clearly an influence. The bits that were "garbled misinterpretations" are perhaps the bits that are in the Guardian article but not in that video.

(Loved the comment about Woody Allen not liking Billy Wilder, and Mark's response being "Nobody's perfect"!).

Last edited by Liberty (July 29, 2016 6:43 am)

Vhanja · July 29, 2016 6:47 am

See, that’s just it, mrshouse – the Harry/Hermione shippers did see signs of them ending up together. They did analyze the books, wrote metas and concluded with this being what was going to happen. And when JKR said it wouldn’t, they used a similar argument that you do now – that it’s sad that they didn’t go for the two people that actually fitted together the most, and that she instead went for the boring and obvious pairing (Ron and Hermione).

I get that people might be disappointed. Even though I never thought myself it would happen, I still had a very small glint of hope. And I did feel a little pang of disappointment while reading the article. But as others have stated in this thread – keep it light, keep it entertaining. I fully agree with what Martin has said – it’s all fine when it’s done for fun, but as soon as someone cross the line of “I know better than them how this show should have been”, that’s when it’s not fun anymore.

And I don’t think Moftiss owe us or the gay community anything. Why should they? Moftiss, Moffat in particular, has always been very respectful and positive about fan works, he’s just always said “that’s not our show”. Why can’t we extend the same courtesy back to them? It’s their show, their version, and they don’t owe us anything. It’s fine to be disappointed, it’s fine to want to dream, read, draw or write our own versions that we would’ve preferred, but I don’t like it when people start showing anger or bitterness towards Moftiss as if we are entitled to something from them.

Liberty · July 29, 2016 7:07 am

And Steven has confirmed that when he was talking about representation, he had Doctor Who in mind, where he showed a couple who were incidentally gay, and had them kiss in the big episode to introduce the new Doctor in a children's show.   He is doing his bit for children growing up.   He just (apparently) doesn't see these characters, whom he's "known" since childhood himself, as a gay couple, and has never claimed to.

It has also bothered me a little that the insistence that they are all showing Johnlock is a little bit of a insult to their writing and acting. You can see Martin's frustration in interviews (funnily enough, reposted on tumblr as evidence of Johnlock!) at the implications that he's acting something he's not ("I don't know ... I'm just in it").

This is a different thing from people having their own interpretations. I think it's still fine to know the writers' intentions and go on to have a different interpretation yourself, of course!    The problem is with insisting that they intend Johnlock but are lying, not with saying "this could be interpreted as Johnlock".

GimmeCat · July 29, 2016 7:19 am

It kinda feels as if this whole thing is reaching a fever pitch. The fandom is bubbling up way too much about it, and tempers are flaring, and the cast and crew have been working so hard lately, they're probably stressed to hell and back. And now they've said a few comments that were taken badly and are getting a whole lot of flak for it on social media, which is probably making them even more stressed and snippy.

I do occasionally wonder/worry if this sort of thing affects the writing process. As they start properly writing s5, is any of this going to be playing in their minds? Are they going to be handling certain subjects differently than they would in a calmer, more freely creative mood? Because they know what awaits them from the tiniest slip-up. And whether or not any Johnlock subtext was intentional or not, I've really, really enjoyed it so far. I'd hate for that to be squashed, as a matter of them thinking, "we can't give them any more ammo against us."

Quite frankly, it must be hellish to work on such a popular show. The responsibility has grown beyond all reasonable expectations.

Last edited by GimmeCat (July 29, 2016 7:20 am)

ewige · July 29, 2016 7:30 am

GimmeCat wrote:
And whether or not any Johnlock subtext was intentional or not, I've really, really enjoyed it so far. I'd hate for that to be squashed, as a matter of them thinking, "we can't give them any more ammo against us."

I think they know what they are doing and what their writing is doing to the fans. I think they'd known that since season one and still gave us shippers so much to work with.

Vhanja · July 29, 2016 7:30 am

I agree, GimmeCat. I do hope this won’t influence them. That they feel they have to hold back or avoid certain things because they don’t want to fuel the fire or add to the arguments against them about “queerbaiting” “teasing”, “showing us a love interest they won’t follow up” etc etc. That would limit their creativity and the quality of the show.

However, they do seem to be strong and secure in their own convictions and vision of the show, I hope they remain that way.

Schmiezi · July 29, 2016 7:37 am

ewige wrote:
GimmeCat wrote:
And whether or not any Johnlock subtext was intentional or not, I've really, really enjoyed it so far. I'd hate for that to be squashed, as a matter of them thinking, "we can't give them any more ammo against us."
I think they know what they are doing and what their writing is doing to the fans. I think they'd known that since season one and still gave us shippers so much to work with.

I agree with you, and I am sure that S4 and S5 will included scenes you can interpret either way.

Vhanja · July 29, 2016 7:42 am

I hope they do.

ewige · July 29, 2016 8:05 am

Me too

Any anyway, what's the difference between love and friendship? Both can end up in bed but don't have to. And even if TPTB show us "only" friendship between Sherlock and John, it runs so deep that there's no much difference to love in my opinion (apart from the label Mofftiss want to stick on it).

Last edited by ewige (July 29, 2016 8:06 am)

besleybean · July 29, 2016 8:13 am

Well I'm not exactly best qualified for this particular discussion, but closest, best friends are different to two people in a relationship.
I mean they either have sex or they don't.
The love can be the same, but that is completely different to both attraction and sexual behaviour.

nakahara · July 29, 2016 8:15 am

“It’s worth saying – because we never get the opportunity to actually say it. The whole notion, the idea of them possibly being a couple is inspired by the joke in the Billy Wilder film The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, our favorite version. And we thought that was a good idea to run with that. In the 21st century it wouldn’t be an issue. People would just assume. Maybe we’ve done it too many times I don’t know. That’s all it is.

But we’ve explicitly said this is not going to happen – there is no game plan – no matter how much we lie about other things, that this show is going to culminate in Martin and Benedict going off into the sunset together. They are not going to do it. ”

LOL! Did they just openly confessed they were deliberately queerbaiting the fans? Wow, that´s just... I can´t find words! I always suspected that was the case but to have it admitted in such a dismissive manner is something else entirely. LOL.

Well, no big deal. For me, nothing will change because I never trusted Mofftiss much and shipping Johnlock is a source of great fun for me, whether it will openly appear on screen or not.

Still, I am very puzzled by the authors of the show. Writing the show, costumes, sets, leading the actors, supervising the project... that all has to be a great deal of work. Certainly you want this amount of work to have a positive impact when it will be finally broadcasted to people. And yet when everything is almost finished, you alienate the large segments of your audience with such comments, when you could equally be still about the subject and let people have their illusions intact? Reducing even many of the sweet fans who always supported Mofftiss into tears?

http://cupidford.tumblr.com/post/148102368590/more-i-can-barely-read-get-through-a-few-posts

PR disaster, IMHO. Perhaps the authors should be locked in the cellar right next to the actors with leaked tongues, I wonder?

Well, some journalists had said it better than me so let me just cite them:

Looking back over the past six years of Sherlock, you can see how Moffat and Gatiss may have unintentionally brought this situation on themselves.

From the very first episode, Sherlock included jokes and references to the idea of John and Sherlock as a couple. Depending on who you ask, this is either a harmless joke, a frustrating and potentially homophobic example of queerbaiting, or proof that the Johnlock Conspiracy is real.

Sherlock's promotional strategy has always encouraged fans to analyze the show for clues between seasons, offering a "never say never" attitude to unexpected plot twists. Season 3 opened with a montage of fake-outs including a Sherlock/Moriarty kiss. Season 4 may or may not bring Moriarty back from the dead. And for no apparent reason, the last Christmas special was set during the Victorian era.

As Gatiss admitted in the With An Accent interview, he and Moffat have often lied about upcoming episodes. It's a key aspect of how they avoid spoiling plot twists during interviews: Just lie.

The end result is a show that arguably includes gay subtext, with an audience that loves to devise complex fan theories, and showrunners whose interview quotes can't be trusted.

http://www.dailydot.com/parsec/sherlock-not-gay-steven-moffat-mark-gatiss/

Don´t accuse the fans of having the bad attitude to this, please – it´s the approach of the authors themselves, nicely summed up in the above-mentioned quotes, that brought this on them.

besleybean · July 29, 2016 8:18 am

I have no bad attitude towards either BBC Sherlock, or the team.
I love the show and I love what they do with it.