Sherlocked Out

I hate to be the party pooper at the big Sherlock Love-in, but the Great Detective isn't looking so great at the moment. Or rather, his writers aren't. The original stories are not known for their fairer treatment of the fairer sex, largely painting women as either frantic and emotional or cold and calculating, with only occasional whisps of character. It is notable, then, when Irene Adler is referred to in the books as 'the woman', since to Holmes she was the only one worth really bothering with. To Watson, Mary Morstan is surprising and attractive, “with a firm step and an outward composure of manner”, and swiftly becomes his wife. Both these characters have made their mark on the BBC’s Sherlock fans, but in ways completely different to their original counterparts.

Of course, adaptations don't have to stick to the original, but this means that all Holmesian retellings I've seen have drawn up a romantic subplot between Holmes and Irene Adler, despite the fact that in the original A Scandal in Bohemia, the two barely speak. They are barely ever in the same room, and when they are, one of them is disguised. Adler never gets naked, as Moffat, Gatiss and Thompson (Sherlock’s writers) had her do in episode one, series two, and Holmes speaks of her almost exclusively in terms of intellectual admiration. Wary of readers angling for gooey subtext, Conan Doyle spells it out: “it was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler”- and she had no remotely squishy emotions for him either, as demonstrated by her marrying another man.

It's possible a relationship of mutual admiration, and not pure lust, may be difficult to portray on-screen, except that it's not. That's the relationship held between Holmes and Moriarty in most versions, and is taken directly from Conan Doyle's stories. Mutual admiration, with or without understanding, is fine between men, but for some strange reason, for a man to admire a woman's intelligence and to regard her as an intellectual equal was possible in the popular entertainment of the late 19th century, but not today. Today, we need to see some side-boob, because that's how women wield power and gain respect on TV.

Irene Adler has probably been brought to your attention before- if memory serves, the Daily Fail had a field day when that episode aired. Mary Morstan's treatment by the BBC, arguably, was worse. Readers of the original stories will remember that the Sign of the Four- the novel after which episode 2 of series 3, the Sign of Three, is named- is Morstan's story. She is a client of Holmes, instantly liked by Watson, and the recipient of mysterious packages from abroad. In Sherlock, she is a romantic interest who appears from nowhere- a clever one, a very likeable one, a fantastically played one by Amanda Abbington, but one whose origins, in this episode at least, are completely inconsequential.

The fact that The Sign of the Four, Morstan's story, is so easily shifted into the Sign of Three, the story of how Morstan got married, got the Boys back together and talked jolly sternly to a man about to kill himself, is possibly sadder than Adler having to get her kit off the first time we meet her. The BBC's Morstan even tells us that she has no family- no family? Who has no family? Only someone with a really interesting, potentially dramatic story would have no family, and this is the perfect time to tell- oh, oh no. Now she's discussing seating arrangements with Holmes, that's fine. She also tells us she has lots of friends, but doesn't talk to any of them at her own wedding.  

We are of course told about Morstan’s story in the final episode of the series, and man is it a good one. An exciting one. With murder and international intrigue and secrecy and a woman holding a gun- a woman holding a gun!! Oh, I cannot wait to hear just a teeny weeny bit of this story, even what her real name- oh, oh no. Now she’s fainting so the Boys can go Save The Day. That’s fine.

For Moffat et al. to give reference to the The Sign of The Four's murderer, a poison-dart-blowing dwarf, they must have read the original story. One of the earlier stories, it is full of casual Victorian racism, which of course is hard to adapt for a 21st century audience. What choice, then, but to keep in one of the archaic and potentially offensive details instead of a character's entire back-story? We then need to take a further character from that un-told story and connect him not to the woman, no, but to the man she's marrying. Major Sholto is taken from Morstan's history and added into Watson's, and is then given more of a back-story than the blushing bride. In Sherlock, Morstan is without family, without friends and without history, while in her original incarnation written over a hundred years ago, she has all three. At least she isn't without clothes.

Admittedly, Moffat and co. have given us a woman who is clever, witty, packing heat and who still manages to be in love. She is so very complex, so very likeable, and still manages to get pushed to one side. Why half the party at the big Holmes Family Christmas had to be drugged is beyond me, and why some chap we met in an opium den gets to stay awake and in on everything while a pregnant woman is doped up and abandoned despite her impressive intellect and history with firearms just feels like lazy scripting.
I know this has all happened before, I know this is but a drop in the great wide awful ocean of how women are portrayed on-screen, but for a man writing over a hundred years ago to treat even these two minor female characters better than an internationally acclaimed, modern-day British series, is pretty baffling. Other remarkable women appear in Conan Doyle's stories- ones who are admired by Holmes for their youth and beauty, some whom he pointedly mistrusts and dislikes, others who present him with intriguing cases, even one who, upon realising she has a stalker, quickly turns her bike around and starts pedalling towards the guy. Whether or not Violet Hunter, Helen Stoner or the intrepid cyclist Violet Smith will appear in later series of the BBC's Sherlock remains to be seen, and we can only hope they are allowed to keep their clothes on long enough to tell us their stories.