With our most sincere apologies, I’d like to let all you listeners at home know that we’ll be posting our next podcast not sometime in May but sometime in June. I’ve been moving apartments so that’s caused a bit of a delay in production. We’ll be back in a few weeks with our episode on genderswap. Stay tuned!

-Corinna

In the Privilege episode I stated that Sherlock’s coat is “between two and three thousand pounds,” but I was overestimating; it’s “only” 1,350.

But that’s not the most expensive thing he wears. His watch is £7,332!

Other fun facts: his dressing gowns are in the 200-300 range, and the Purple Shirt of Sex is 460.

All this info found on Wear Sherlock (which also includes the American dollar amounts). If you browse the John tag for comparison, you will see that although his clothes are still pricey, they aren’t quite in the range of Sherlock’s. I would assume the costume designer made a deliberate choice to make Sherlock’s wardrobe more upscale.

Our next podcast, which will air early next month, will be on the topic of GENDERSWAPS! And although this will include srs business discussion on gender issues, we also want to talk about sexy fancastings. ;D

So, who are your favorite casting choices for a genderswapped Sherlock Holmes cast?

mallamun:

I’m way behind the times, but I’m shocked I didn’t catch wind of this while it was happening.

So, first of all… Most of the Sherlock Holmes stories have expired into the public domain. In the U.K. and Canada, they’ve all outlived their copyright years. In America, however, a few stories remain in copyright… though under whose name is often misunderstood.

In the 1950ies, the copyrights were controlled by a man named Sheldon Reynolds, who produced the Ron Howard version of Sherlock Holmes.

Andrea Plunket was Sheldon Reynold’s wife, and after they became divorced in 1990, she fought to maintain ownership of the copyrights to Conan Doyle’s works. Her claims were rejected in court, but Plunket continued to operate as though she owned the copyrights anyway. This eventually resulted in a lawsuit by the Doyle family—or, Conan Doyle Estate Ltd.—which Plunket lost. However, she has not paid the Doyle heirs any damages—in fact, she went back to court to plead that she is not financially capable of paying the $135,000 [$185,000 in other sources] sum.

The court agrees, though the matter of her finances are wrought with oddity, as Ms. Plunket was once a millionaire. She reportedly gave up her entire fortune in the 80ies after her run as Claus von Bulow’s mistress, who was famously acquitted of poisoning his own wife with insulin. Plunket has stated in some interviews that seeing such a horrendous act committed in the name of money left a bad taste in her mouth. She has said in others that she never thought von Bulow was guilty. The Doyle heirs claim that Plunket is hiding the true extent of her fortunes. Plunket claims that she is merely the steward of her current business, a B&B called Pannonia Farms. Who knows.

Point is that a certain Guy Ritchie film made a big smash at the box office, and shortly after, the film’s star—Robert Downey Jr.—appeared on Letterman to talk about the movie and dropped the words “butch homosexual”. This, admit waxing poetic about the Holmes and Watson “bromance”.

Cue Andrea Plunket.

She actually went on record, threatening to withdraw permission for the sequel’s creation if ”that is a theme they [the creators] wish to bring out in the future.” Her full statement is actually pretty cutting, and looks like it belongs inside a dripping speech bubble. Dripping with homophobia, that is.

“I hope this is just an example of Mr. Downey’s black sense of humour. It would be drastic, but I would withdraw permission for more films to be made if they feel that is a theme they wish to bring out in the future.” She’s careful to tack on the disclaimer: “I am not hostile to homosexuals, but I am to anyone who is not true to the spirit of the books.”

Funny thing is, according to a Warner Bro.’s spokesperson, neither Ms. Plunket nor the Doyle heirs were paid any money for the movie’s creation. The Conan Doyle Estate Ltd. is capable of placing their official trademark approval on Sherlock Holmes projects, but since all the stories are out of copyright in the U.K. and Canada, it doesn’t seem like they have too much ground to stand on if they want to go head-to-head with a Hollywood studio to collect royalties on their common-law claims. Of course, the production of Sherlock Holmes artwork is one thing; claiming to own the copyrights is another, hence the aggressive legal action against Andrea Plunket.

What upsets me the most about this tangled web of nonsense is that any person, whether they own a thread of Sherlock Holmes’ coattails or not, would use the Sherlock Holmes legacy as a disguise for their own homophobia. Really, of all things. I’ve already explained in detail here why the manic push-back against a queer interpretation of this material is so entirely without grounds and quite frankly silly. (Hint: ACD was completely aware of the popular “bachelor genre” he skirted and what its audience was; he was personally acquainted with some of the progenitors of queer culture as we know it; hell, one of his own relatives wrote slash fiction based on his works! “Shipping” Holmes and Watson as nothing new, even in Doyle’s time.) To be clear, I’m saying “push-back against a queer interpretation.” Doyle likely didn’t intend for there to be romantic friction, but in terms of this being a valid way to enjoy the material, and well within the spirit of the books, you don’t need to look far to see its deep cultural roots.

Hell, you don’t need to look far to see it referenced overtly or covertly in popular Sherlock Holmes media—especially now, in modern day, when references to queerness (though not direct, protagonist-oriented treatments of it) are deemed acceptable for public consumption. Until they tucked tail in the second season, BBC’s Sherlock, for example, strolled onto the screen with uncanny knowledge about popular gay male underwear brands, at least two long-standing friends who “knew” from off-camera experience that their friend was gay, and, well, then there’s this:

Watson: Do you have a boyfriend? Which is fine, by the way.
Holmes: I know it’s fine.
…
Watson: I’m just saying, it’s all fine.
Holmes: Thank you.

Meanwhile, in the Guy Ritchie films:

“Lie with me, Watson.”

I swear they were just mocking the Plunkets of that world at that point.

Bottom line: queerness has been an inextricable part of the Sherlock Holmes fandom and franchise since the stories were written, and to pretend otherwise—much less to self-righteously, angrily insist otherwise—is certainly nothing more than a thinly veiled expression of deep-seeded homophobia. The canon material—not to mention the canon author, who was frequently quoted as “not giving a fuck what you do with my characters”—is so generous as to allow for heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, and asexual interpretations of the protagonist. Really, there isn’t an angle that hasn’t been worked by somebody, somewhere.

To pretend for a second that those who read the relationship between Holmes and Watson as a queer one are not legitimate members of this century-old fandom, are not allowed their fair share of artistic derivatives, and are not operating within the “spirit of the books”, is to utterly, utterly delude oneself.

In short: fuck you, Plunket.

—

Sources:

Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Greedy Homophobic Socialite @ Change.org

Judge rules Arthur Conan Doyle Heirs Can’t recoup legal fees @ Nydailynews.com

Notes on the ownership of the Sherlock Holmes stories @ Sherlockian.net

Conan Doyle Estate Ltd. @ Conandoyleestate.co.uk

Sheldon Reynolds (producer) @ Wikipedia.org

Andrea Plunket @ Imdb.org

Andrea Reynolds @ People.com

Robert Downey Jr hints Sherlock Holmes was gay @ Telegraph.co.uk

(via onetrueharem)

Because we said we’d include a link to it, please check out White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh if you haven’t read it before. It lays important groundwork for discussions of privilege.

Apologies for the delay!

In today’s episode, we’ll be going beyond our normal gender and sexuality framework to talk about power and privilege as a whole. We’ll be focusing specifically on the BBC series, as it most closely reflects issues of privilege as we see them in the modern day, but we’ll bring in Doyle Canon for points of comparison.

Among the topics we discuss:

• Where John and Sherlock have privilege, where they lack it, and how this affects their relationships to each other and the rest of the cast.
• Neurodivergence and neurodiversity in the Sherlock universe.
• Sherlock and Sally as foils to one another, especially in light of intersectionality.
• Moriarty’s relationship to privilege and how it plays into his characterization as a villain.
• Our burning hatred of Sebastian Wilkes.

Guest-starring out friend Steve! (Who is @thoros-abernathy on tumblr.)

The link to download episode 02 is located here. We hope to have it up on ourmedia soon. Enjoy!

Yeah not sure if we’re actually going to get the episode up tonight, since we’re having issues with OurMedia. This is what happens when you try to podcast on a budget of $0, folks.

-Lina

I was wrong, we’re going to air episode two on MONDAY, April 2. Turns out our schedules were very uncooperative this week.

Just a reminder, we’ll be talking about power and privilege! I’m excited about what we’ve recorded so far; It makes for some really interesting discussion. For example, considering Sherlock and Sally, the privileges they each have are pretty much diametrically opposed to one another; i.e. what one has the other lacks and vice versa. Stay tuned. :D