Hello there! I wanted to ask you why you don't want that BBC Sherlock fans interact with your Art? I'm a BBC fan, but I'm a fan of canon and other Sherlock interpretations too. Furthermore, I don't want to offend you, so maybe I can understand.
ok so disclaimer at the start: im not. mad at you for sending this ask; if i sound angry explaining this its because the show breaks my heart and the things eggs benedict has said in interviews make my blood boil but like i do want to give u a fair explanation
also. PLEASE if anyone wants to re/blog this just dont. i dont want this to take off in any way i just. want to explain why the show makes me uncomfortable.
i did kind of explain in the tags on this post: [link] but i think i need to fix my theme bc i dont think it shows tags on desktop so i'll explain again. i actually have. a lot to say about it and im gonna put a longer explanation under a cut but basically:
TLDR; i think both the show and its stars are really ableist homophobic and racist (mr cummerbund is especially monstrously ableist and even if you dont read the rest of the post i do highly recommend you look up what hes said about autistic people before continuing to support the show) and i just. dont want ppl who like it interacting with me
but i also think the show itself really is. the antithesis to the original stories on all fronts and just utterly lacks the humanity and compassion the og stories were full of and changed the public perception of the character of sherlock holmes significantly for the worse.
sherlock holmes was never meant to be an asshole and is in fact consistently an incredibly sweet kind and sincere person full of compassion and consideration for others in the stories and it just breaks my heart that the b/b/c version threw everything good about the books out and made everyone think holmes was an asshole who doesnt give a shit about others when thats Never who he was in the first place.
and then all the gay baiting pisses me off bc holmes is really heavily coded as gay in the og stories imo but its hard to talk about it bc the concepts been ruined for a lot of ppl bc of the show.
and thats basically it.
and this is already. Really long but longer explanation under cut:
huge warning for ableism and homophobia here but i really REALLY hate mr eggs benedict whose name i refuse to say correctly. hes said a lot of really vile things in interviews including this idiotic shit about alan turing:
and this NIGHTMARISHLY ableist mess about autistic people:
both of which are from this interview: [link]
and THIS also equally nightmarishly ableist mess AGAIN about autistic people:
which is from THIS interview: [link]
i shouldnt have to explain why this is fucking horrible. as a gay man and as someone whos both autistic and adhd i find his comments like. legitimately monstrous for a lot of obvious reasons.
i shouldnt have to explain why its horrible to say that alan turing “wasnt camp” so it’s ok to not address the fact he was gay. i shouldnt have to explain why its horrible to compare autistic people to frankensteins monster or say that we’re “all about bodily functions” or that autistic ppl are permanent mental one year olds or that someone who’s brilliant can’t possibly be autistic because it’d give us “false hope.” (and calling sherlock a sociopath is a whole other can of worms idk if i can even begin to unpack)
all of this is legitimately horrible and evil on its own and if you cant understand that i really REALLY dont want u interacting with me at all and would prefer you just block me right now.
but its also really hurtful because it's really obvious to me from the og stories that holmes is both autistic and adhd. he’s actually one of the most textbook accurate complex and human depictions of someone whos autistic and adhd ive ever seen in my entire life and it just. Really hurts that the show deliberately refuses to acknowledge it and tries to take away representation we genuinely already HAVE in the books because it would give us “false hope.”
you Cannot replicate holmes as a character and his thought process without recognizing he’s both adhd and autistic. holmes has nonverbal episodes, he has intense hyperfocus and special interests (watson actually describes his interests in stuff like violins and criminology as him having made a “special study” of each and holmes describes his interest in criminology as his “special subject” at one point)
his thought process as described in the books also very much mirrors adhd “ive connected so many dots so quickly that i cant even really explain how i got here and nobody knows what im talking about because there was only one passenger on this runaway train of thought and its me and i wasnt even fully aware of the whole ride either” where like, he’ll make observations in an instant n then have to walk back and figure out how to explain things again (for example he does that a lot in the og book version of a study in scarlet)
and he does tend to take things literally quite a bit. there’s a few times in the stories (like the gloria scott and when watson gives holmes his brothers pocket watch in the sign of the four) where people will ask him to use his observational skills on them and he’ll do it to the best of his ability because he took their request completely literally n did exactly what they asked, without recognizing some of the things he was observing might be too personal or might be upsetting (and when he recognizes that he Has said something that upset them he genuinely apologizes and tries to make up for it and walks them through how he knew these things because he genuinely did not mean to upset them and actually cares about how they feel)
and this isnt even like. everything that makes it incredibly and unambiguously clear hes autistic and adhd. but this post is like so fucking long already but basically. i dont think there’s any room for doubt that he’s autistic and adhd in the og stories and its such a pervasive obvious and intrinsic part of his character that if someone can’t recognize it its usually because theyve got some incredibly awful ableist hangups about autistic and adhd people and dont think we’re human beings (like mr fucking cumberpatch)
and this isnt even getting into the horrible misogyny lesbophobia and biphobia with irene adler, the racism in episodes like the blind banker, the racist and misogynistic comments ma/rtin free/man made about lucy li/u, and all the other horrible shit associated with that show.
there’s quite a few things in some of the og stories that havent aged well bc they were written in the 1800s and i fucking hate it but like. theres still a lot of good in them and its INFURIATING and heartbreaking to me that the b/b/c had every opportunity to update the stories for the present day but they refused to and actually KEPT some of the things that hadnt aged well while simultaneously tossing out basically everything good about them.
there’s a lot about that show that i will never forgive and i could go on but im gonna. stop here bc this post is a mile long and i should maybe just make a 5 hour long video essay about it but whatever.
basically. i think if you can read all this and know all this about the show and still like it i would really rather you just. leave me alone
and since a lot of this is present in the show itself i dont really, fully believe that ppl just arent aware of the problems with it even if they hadnt read mar/tin free/man and eggs benedicts monstrous comments in interviews. like yeah yeah you can enjoy things critically but after a certain point it just. crosses a line and for me personally this show really does and i would really rather ppl who like the show just. not interact with me.
