nakahara wrote:

http://thegildedbee.tumblr.com/post/148114197923/may-shepard-57circlesofhell

Interesting. I had a look at this, and then I went to the BFI website where they had the video of the interview with Mark Gatiss introducing TPLOSH and explaining why it's his favourite film. I watched it, listening very carefully, and I also read the accompanying transcript, which you can read for yourselves here. In this particular interview, the relationship between Holmes and Watson in TPLOSH is not mentioned. Mark talks about how profoundly the film affected him when he first watched it, and how it is a "brilliant, respectful homage to Conan Doyle yet an incredibly irreverent take on it." He also talked about how melancholy and also funny the film is. Then Mark says "Principally, I think, because it's, along with the Basil Rathbone films, it's the great influence on our TV series because it's precisely as reverent as Conan Doyle was himself, ie not very. But at its absolute essence, Wilder and Izzy Diamond who co-wrote the screenplay, they love Sherlock Holmes."

Now, in the Guardian article which Mark says is a "garbled mistranslation of what [he] said", you get the general idea that he loves TPLOSH, and he talks in great detail about the Russian ballerina scene and Holmes' "desperately unspoken" love for Watson, indicated by the "am I being presumptuous" conversation. But how are we to know that everything he said in the article is presented in the same way that he actually said them? The Guardian writer may have asked several different questions and then put all the answers together in whichever order they thought sounded good. Mark may have said that TPLOSH was a big influence on the series, but the writer may have paraphrased his statement into "it was a template of sorts for Stephen Moffat and me as we made our adaptation for the BBC" and then stuck it in the middle of the discussion about Holmes' sexuality. Maybe Mark wasn't talking about that aspect of TPLOSH when he said that it was a template for Sherlock? In the BFI interview, in which we can actually hear the words come from Mark's mouth without the interference of an editor, he is talking about the melancholy/humour and the reverence/irreverence of TPLOSH when he says that it a great influence on the series. The Guardian article doesn't contradict the BFI interview (and vice versa) but it does sound more Johnlocky. Journalists do have to come up with an "angle" for every story. I think it would be very easy for a writer of any newspaper (even the Guardian) to put a particular spin on someone's words, while still "quoting" them, by rearranging sentences and changing the context of what was actually said. I can understand the frustration Stephen and Mark obviously feel, which they spoke about in the With An Accent article.

Very good analysis, ukaunz, I´m impressed too.

Still, I´m with SusiGo on this: the interviews like this get authorised. If the person who was interviewed is not content with the angle the reporter has chosen for the article, if they feel misquoted, they can and should object to it right away.

Pretending these things are your quotes, then declaring them invalid years after the interview is... weird, to say the least.

Last edited by nakahara (July 29, 2016 11:22 am)

Yes, I agree. It is a fact that they keep contradicting themselves. And of course both "camps" use the respective quotes to support their own views. Nothing inherently bad about that. The problem is when people start - and I do not exclude anyone from doing this - saying that one half of the quotes is true and the other one is not. 

But this is theory. I do not think that in the show itself they can stay ambiguous forever. I am not talking about sex scenes here but about the fact that some things will have to be solved sooner or later: John living at 221B or not, John staying married to Mary or not, Sherlock being alone and unhappy or not. 

For me, with the show,I have no preference of the team clearing up matters or not.
I personally feel some fans need certain issues clarifying, though I am happy myself.

nakahara wrote:

Very good analysis, ukaunz, I´m impressed too.

Still, I´m with SusiGo on this: the interviews like this get authorised. If the person who was interviewed is not content with the angle the reporter has chosen for the article, if they feel misquoted, they can and should object to it right away.

Pretending these things are your quotes, then declaring them invalid years after the interview is... weird, to say the least.

If Moftiss would sue every time they get misquoted, neither Sherlock nor Doctor Who would still be in production because they would no longer have time for it. Just recently Steven apparently told an interviewer the he "would be very surprised if this turns out to be the last season of Sherlock", which got printed as "Moffat say this is the last season of Sherlock". Unless it seems very important at the time or comes up in another conversation (as was the case with the "last season quote"), they usually seem to just let it go.
Until quite recently, Johnlock seemed to be still mainly a source of fun, judging from this interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPOTGibC3eI (also the one in which Martin talks about the necessary lightness of touch). They still seem very relaxed about it and willing to join the fun. Now the fun seems to be over a bit and hence the insting of things not being taken out of contense. I don't know if it is because of the growing popularity of TJLC or something else, but the tone has surely changed. On both sides.


On a lighter note: I agree that the line between friendship and romance can be a thin one for some people, with soul mates on either side. I know I have never loved a romantic partner as deeply as I love the best of my friends, though I have no romantic feelings for them whatsoever. If I ever meet someone whom I love as I love my best friend and have romantic feelings for, I think I would marry that person. So for John and Sherlock there is no doubt for me that they are soul mates, and regardless of on which side of the line they find themselves, I cannot wait to see more of their journey together 

Last edited by Lola Red (July 29, 2016 1:47 pm)

For the sake of completeness - this is part 2 of the interview which is quite different in tone from part 1:

http://www.withanaccent.com/2016/07/28/sdcc-2016-sherlock-a-study-in-secrecy/

 

I'm trying to catch up.   The thing is, I don't think they have ever queerbaited.   There's an interview right at the beginning of S1 where they say they dismiss the idea of Johnlock (I'm sure that's a garbled mistranslation!).   They continually and consistently refer to it as a friendship, as do the actors. 

And some of us just have not seen this camp, gay Sherlock and bisexual John and all the sexual chemistry between them.   Again, consistently, they've shown John as attracted to women, dating only women, and eventually falling for a woman.  Sherlock is more ambiguous, but again, they seem to show him as attracted to a woman.   Even the comments by other people in the show are dismissed the moment we hear them - we know that John isn't Sherlock's lover when they take the rooms at 221B, we know that they're not sexually involved when Irene calls them a couple, or when the innkeepers suspect they are, we know that of course, John is marrying a woman and has never dated Sherlock or any man.   The writers give us the information that discounts it before we even see and hear it. 

And if there was any doubt, Mark so very clearly denied it at Mumbai.  Martin and Benedict have denied it all along.   There has been no "queerbaiting" in the sense of deliberately pretending the characters might be queer to attract queer viewers.    This is just a more emotional version of what they've been saying for years. 

SusiGo wrote:

For the sake of completeness - this is part 2 of the interview which is quite different in tone from part 1:

http://www.withanaccent.com/2016/07/28/sdcc-2016-sherlock-a-study-in-secrecy/

 

Quite frankly, I feel like we are being f**ked with.  But that's just me.
 

But putting in jokes isn't queerbaiting.   If we go right back to the beginning, I think the first was Mrs Hudson assuming they were a couple when they took the rooms ("Mrs Turner's got married ones").   There was nothing, nothing to indicate to us, the audience that they were a sexually, romantically involved couple.  We'd seen how they'd met, we'd seen all of their relationship up to that point, and they clearly weren't "together".  So right from the start, we're told that it's a misunderstanding, that they are not a couple.  And it's the same every time. 

And that's the nice thing about it - that people just assume (two men living together, two men out on a date together, etc.) but none of the people are shown to disapprove (unlike in TPLOSH).  It's no longer an insult to be considered gay, and it's something that can be mentioned out loud. 

I am sorry that people see it as queerbaiting, and I'm sorry that people are hurt by that.   But I think Moftiss have been very clear now, and I don't see how anybody could accuse them of it. 

From your link, Nakahara:

Let me get this right: the best way to respectfully offer representation to sexual & gender minority groups is by NOT representing us in relationships in a show because that would put our identity under a spotlight. And that’s not treating us like normal?

That's not what I took from it at all.  They did say that they weren't talking about Sherlock.   In Doctor Who, the couple in question are in a relationship, and the fact that it's a same sex relationship is not commented on, but just shown as completely normal. 

I do agree about Irene Adler, and I've made that point myself before.  It feels like a bit of a wasted opportunity.   I've wondered about why they wrote her as gay (only to have her fall for Sherlock), and my guess is that because she and Sherlock mirror each other so much - not exactly (but mirror images aren't the same anyway!).   He avoids sex to enhance his work, where as she uses sex to enhance her work.  He avoids attraction to anyone, whereas she is normally not attracted to men. 

Now, they didn't say that shipping Johnlock is defilement of LGBT rights at all.  They've said they're supportive of fan works.   But what I gather from the interviews is that they'd been talking seriously about representation, and some people completely twisted their words to say that they'd confirmed that Sherlock was gay and that Johnlock was canon.  

Just putting Steven Moffat's quote in here for clarity, because I really don't see "defilement of LGBT rights":
And I also think in my case, I was talking about representation, as was Bryan, in quite a serious way. What they did was scale back that conversation and make it about something extremely silly. And that’s not helping anyone.  I cared a lot about what I said on that panel. I meant it. And I don’t like it being reinterpreted as something else.

Last edited by Liberty (July 29, 2016 9:21 pm)