BBC’s Sherlock has just started running its second season in the US on PBS, and viewers are flocking to watch, particularly after last week’s somewhat controversial Irene Adler storyline. Created by Steven Moffat of Doctor Who fame, the show is brilliant, but shows many of the fatal flaws Moffat’s demonstrated in Who, especially with regards to women. Moffat infamously has trouble grasping social justice-rooted critiques of his work and doesn’t seem to understand why people get so riled up about the women of Who.
Sherlock is, in a way, ideally suited to Moffat’s personality and writing abilities. The creator doesn’t seem to understand women, has trouble crafting female characters, and is utterly baffled when audiences express unease or discomfort with the depiction of women in his work. Doyle’s classic, even updated, is very much a man’s world, revolving around the central relationship of Holmes and Watson. Other people may come and go from the story, but they’re the leads.
In Sherlock, the man who has trouble writing female characters had an ideal fix to his problem: a world where women aren’t expected, wanted, or needed. He could have made a calculated choice to add more female characters—Lucy Liu will be playing Watson in a CBS adaptation, for example—but he didn’t. Evidently Moffat has gone from cavalierly ruining female characters to avoiding them altogether, figuring this is the wiser course of action.
Well, almost avoiding them, at any rate, and therein lies the rub, because even with only a handful of women, Moffat still manages to make a bollocks of it.
Mrs. Hudson is a cardboard cutout who flutters at the edge of the scenery much like she does in the books, there simply because “the boys” need a housekeeper and occasional foil. The sandwich shop downstairs seems to get more screen time than she does, and despite her periodic battle cry of “I’m not your housekeeper,” she very much is, ushering guests upstairs, brewing endless cuppas, and threatening to tidy up ‘round the flat. Every now and then she’s allowed to have a stroke of brilliance that betrays a steel core, but then she subsides again into listlessness.
With Irene Adler, Moffat did even worse; in adapting the text, he made the character weaker, not stronger, which was quite a feat considering she wasn’t exactly a masterpiece of female liberation in the first place. The new Irene Adler doesn’t outsmart Sherlock: She besexes, befuddles, and bemuses him. He becomes obsessed with her beyond the point of rational thought, and very rarely does she have an opportunity to display the keen critical mind she had in the books. Probably because she doesn’t really have one.
Instead of being a smart woman who plans every move with deliberation and care, Adler became a muddled mess, flailing about the screen. Equally infatuated with Sherlock as he was with her, she teased and confused Sherlock in a way that was strikingly telling of Moffat’s attitudes about women; Irene Adler became a distraction with her wicked and wanton ways, clouding Sherlock’s mind with texts and flirtations. She almost became his ruin, until cold male logic and reason were able to overrule her feminine softness and lack of control.
Adler is also, of course, a sex worker, which adds another layer of complexity to Moffat’s depiction. Telling again that she should be a dominatrix, skilled in the art of power, control, and intense physical intimacy; the scene where she beats Sherlock across the face with a riding crop is a titillating glimpse of what Moffat thinks her working life must be like. The fact that she’s really the only woman of note in the series means she occupies an outsized role, and this, apparently, is how Moffat wishes to depict women.
It’s difficult to view Sherlock without considering Moffat’s record on women, and the handling of women in the show itself doesn’t speak well of him. It’s a great pity, because overall, the show is excellent; the artful cinematography, music, and editing are stellar, and really make it stand out artistically from other shows currently airing. As a work of art, Sherlock is nothing short of hauntingly beautiful at times, which is adventurous and somewhat daring for a television series. There’s a reason the budget is on a cinematographic scale.
And the relationship between Watson and Holmes is fascinating. The portrait of two men growing into themselves and getting to know each other is complex, intimate, and layered, illustrating that Moffat and his writing team are capable of truly incredible character development when they feel driven to pursue it. Having a woman (or even more than one) on the writing team would probably be beneficial if the series truly wanted to explore women more fully and deeply, which it doesn’t seem to want to do, even though the modern world of criminal investigation, and crime, is an equal opportunity environment.
Women may not be as heavily represented as men, but they are still present and highly active. In a series that’s been updated to accommodate modern times, with the latest of technology, society, and culture, the lack of women on Sherlock stands out. It’s striking that Moriarty appears to be far more cunning than Adler; think of how much more novel and intriguing the show would be if their roles were switched, and Moriarty was a woman leading a crime syndicate while Adler was a male sex worker struggling to protect himself.
In creating a show with partnered leads who aren’t in a romantic relationship or constantly dogged by romantic tension, Moffat has done something that is again interesting and exciting. However, it’s clouded by the thought that this seems to be his idealised working model; two men, pillars of logic and calm and function, going up alone against a world filled with women-as-furniture, disposable girlfriends, or evil temptresses out for blood.
Much like his writing team, it would seem.
Front page photo: Martin Freedman and Benedict Cumberbatch filming the second Sherlock season, by Mark Carline, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
I agreed completely until you called the Irene Adler character “a sexworker”. Professional domination may be arousing for the client but does not include sex or sexual services. I understand this may be the way Moffat chose to portray the character (and is probably the uninformed perception of the viewing public anyway) but for the most part genuine Pro-Dommes (few in BDSM circles use the term “Dominatrix”) are offended by the connection, although they are not against those who *choose* to become sexworkers.
Steven Moffat’s writing is true to Conan Doyle’s view of women in Victorian times. Anything else would be hypocrisy.
If you don’t like it, don’t watch it!
First I would like to point out that this is totally stupid. Steven Moffat is a marvellous writer who has created two brilliant shows.
With regards to doctor who there has always been the doctor with a companion and Amy ponds character as well as River Song and brilliant additions.
With regards to Sherlock the show is about Sherlock Holmes and John Watson not Joan Watson like CBS version, the show is about a brilliantly minded ‘man’ I love what they did with Irene Adler it was very well written and gripping to watch I wish people would seriously stop with the moaning.
Wow. Talk about missing the point of not only the series, but even the original characters from the books. You do realise that the whole point of Mrs Hudson claiming to not be a housekeeper is that it’s funny because she is, right? You understand the concept of a joke?
I, for one, agree with every word you posted in this article. Cheers!
There are so few shows that really explore realtionships between two men with quality writing….can’t you let us have this one?
It was nice reading your opinion, but I have to dissagree with how you talk about the women in the Sherlock canon, they were written just as well as the men in the books, and there were many who Sherlock and John admitted to admiring and not just for their looks, I think to place Conan Doyles work next to others of his time and to some modern works, he did justice to all charactrrs and didn’t downplay the women to make the men feel lile they were better or stronger, it is a shame if you have missed that, especially in Irene’s case as she was in my opinion an amazing character, equal to Holmes.
The Moffat version does hee little justice, if Irene wasn’t a canon character I’d just sigh and be annoyed of yeat again such a female character whose role revolves around sex and making the man look good, but NO, because she is canon and originally scuh a strong person and then she was reduced to what ever you wish to call that in bbc Sherlock, it just made me sad and dissapointed in the writer who can otherwise do some pretty clever takes on the original stories.
But I completely agree that the show is visually stunning amd an experience all on its own. But again I disagree (sorry :’) ) when you say that the relationship between John and Sherlock is complex and layered and so on, I have not yet seen such depth between the two, and I wish they work on this in the coming season. For me having read the books and grown up with the canon stories, it helped to visualise how good friends they could be, but if I only focused on the relationship on screen I felt something missing in dialogue and scenes and actions, though the chemistry between the actors themselves compensated for that immensely. But for example, the last episode, though I felt their pain and it was brilliantly done, it felt like I had missed some episodes before the last one, I felt nothing in the episodes leading to this was quite deep enough outside of the adventures and light banter to truly warrant such deep feelings and affection as to call them brothers in soul. I felt the true John spoke those words at Sherlock’a grave, but the previous episodes Johns wasn’t quite the same loyal loving doctor.
Anyway I digress and nitpicI, my point the show is heat but could be amazing