Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Sherlock Holmes Checks His Privilege

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Sherlock Holmes from Screen to Stage

Part of the book series: Adaptation in Theatre and Performance ((ATP))

  • 566 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter uses the reception of the Sherlock episode ‘The Abominable Bride’ to begin an investigation into the complexities and pitfalls of representing Sherlock Holmes in contemporary entertainment. Variously regarded as the epitome of white male privilege, or else a victim of addiction or psychological or neurological conditions, contemporary debates about the character inform audiences’ interpretation of Holmes on stage. The chapter traces a history of femmes fatales in Sherlockian theatre, and analyses modern productions that challenge this stereotype.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Bibliography

  • Aaron, Michele, Death and the Moving Image: Ideology, Iconography and I. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015. Ebook.

    Google Scholar 

  • Agane, Ayaan. “Conflations of ‘Queerness’ in 21st Century Adaptations.” In Gender and the Modern Sherlock Holmes: Essays on Film and Television Adaptations since 2009, edited by Nadine Farghaly, 160–173. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alberto, Maria. “‘Of dubious and questionable memory’: The Collision of Gender and Canon in Creating Sherlock’s Postfeminist Femme Fatale.” In Gender and the Modern Sherlock Holmes: Essays on Film and Television Adaptations since 2009, edited by Nadine Farghaly, 66–84. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015.

    Google Scholar 

  • Altschuler, Eric L. “Asperger’s in the Holmes Family.” Journal of Autism and Developmental Discord 43 (2013): 2238–2239.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baron-Cohen, Simon. The Essential Difference: Men, Woman and the Extreme Male Brain. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2004.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beale, Lewis. “Sherlock Holmes’ appeal is elementary, even after more than a century,” Newsday. 2015. Accessed Sept 16, 2016. http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/books/sherlock-holmes-appeal-is-elementary-even-after-more-than-a-century-1.10593014.

  • Botts, Amber. “(No) Sex and Sherlock: Asexuality, Victorian Abstinence and the Art of Ambiguity.” In Who is Sherlock?: Essays on Identity in Modern Holmes Adaptations, edited by Lynette Porter , 3294–3602. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2016. Kindle edition.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conan Doyle, Arthur. The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2009.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cook, Josh. “What the Sherlock archetype teaches us about ourselves,” Huffington Post. 2015. Accessed May 25, 2016. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-cook/sherlock-holmes-archetype_b_6904120.html.

  • Ehrbar, Ned. “TIFF: Benedict Cumberbatch is sick of people calling his characters autistic,” Metro. 2014. Accessed Apr 19, 2016. http://www.metro.us/entertainment/tiff-benedict-cumberbatch-is-sick-of-people-calling-his-characters-autistic/tmWnig—48TBOTRdxFl6k/.

  • Fratz , Deborah M. “A High-Functioning Sociopath Married to His Work: On Hegemonic Masculinity in the BBC’s Sherlock.” In Who is Sherlock?: Essays on Identity in Modern Holmes Adaptations, edited by Lynette Porter , 1606–1855. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2016. Kindle edition.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hills, Matt. “Sherlock’s Epistemological Economy and the Value of ‘Fan’ Knowledge: How Producer-fans Play the (Great) Game of Fandom.” In Sherlock and Transmedia Fandom: Essays on the BBC Series, edited by Louisa Ellen Stein and Kristina Busse, 365–571. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2012. Kindle edition.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jencson, Linda J. “Chosen Families, TV and Tradition: Queering Relations in the BBC’s Sherlock.” In Who is Sherlock?: Essays on Identity in Modern Holmes Adaptations, edited by Lynette Porter , 2720–3030. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2016. Kindle edition.

    Google Scholar 

  • Katzir , Lindsay. “I Am Sherlocked: Adapting Victorian Gender and Sexuality in ‘A Scandal in Belgravia’.” In Gender and the Modern Sherlock Holmes: Essays on Film and Television Adaptations since 2009, edited by Nadine Farghaly, 97–117. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lane, Kathryn E. “‘Now, Watson, the fair sex is your department’: The BBC’s Sherlock and Interpersonal Relationships.” In Gender and the Modern Sherlock Holmes: Essays on Film and Television Adaptations since 2009, edited by Nadine Farghaly, 223–244. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marcus, Rafaella. “Sherlock and The Adventure of the Key Feminism Fails,” Exeunt Magazine. 2016. Accessed Sept 20, 2016. http://exeuntmagazine.com/features/sherlock-and-the-adventure-of-the-key-feminism-fails/.

  • Marowitz, Charles. Sherlock’s Last Case. New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1984.

    Google Scholar 

  • McClain, Kathryn and Grace Cripps. “The BBC’s Sherlock: A ‘Sociopathic’ Master of the Social Game.” In Who is Sherlock?: Essays on Identity in Modern Holmes Adaptations, edited by Lynette Porter , 1861–2162. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2016. Kindle edition.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller , Zea “The Veneration of Violation in Sherlock.” In Gender and the Modern Sherlock Holmes: Essays on Film and Television Adaptations since 2009, edited by Nadine Farghaly, 202–222. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moran, Caitlin Keefe. “Who Gets to Time Travel?.” The Learned Fangirl. 2016. Accessed Sept 5 2016. http://thelearnedfangirl.com/2016/08/timetravel/.

  • Mueller, Hannah. “A Questionable Bromance: Queer Subtext, Fan Service and the Dangers of Queerbaiting in Guy Ritchie ’s Sherlock Holmes and A Game of Shadows .” In Gender and the Modern Sherlock Holmes: Essays on Film and Television Adaptations since 2009, edited by Nadine Farghaly, 174–191. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ostrom , Howard. “Original Baker Street Babes: Female Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson Performers,” No Place Like Holmes. 2016. Accessed Sept 26, 2016. http://www.nplh.co.uk/the-original-baker-street-babes.html.

  • Polasek, Ashley D. “Surveying the Post-Millennial Sherlock Holmes: A Case for the Great Detective as a Man of Our Times.” Adaptation 6, no. 3 (2013): 384–393.

    Google Scholar 

  • Primorac , Antonija. “The Naked Truth: The Postfeminist Afterlives of Irene Adler .” Neo-Victorian Studies 6, no. 2 (2013): 89–113.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rogers, Amanda and Ashley Thorpe. “A Controversial Company: Debating the Casting of the RSC’s The Orphan of Zhao.” Contemporary Theatre Review 24, no. 4 (2014): 428–435.

    Google Scholar 

  • Silver, Laura. “People are pissed off that ‘Sherlock’ just mansplained feminism,” Buzzfeed. 2016. Accessed Sept 10 2016. http://www.buzzfeed.com/laurasilver/people-are-pissed-off-that-sherlock-mansplained-feminism.

  • Smith, Alyxis. “Fan Fiction as an Argument: Arguing for Johnlock through the Roles of Women and Explicit Sex Scenes in Sherlock Fan Fiction.” In Who is Sherlock?: Essays on Identity in Modern Holmes Adaptations, edited by Lynette Porter , 3038–3289. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2016. Kindle edition.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stivea, Rebecca. “‘We solve crimes, I blog about it, he forgets his pants.’ Balancing Traditional and Non-Traditional Sherlockians in a Modern World.” In The One Fixed Point in a Changing Age, edited by Kristina Manente, Maria Fleischhack, Sarah Roy and Taylor Blumenberg, 239–252. Indianapolis, IN: Gasogene, 2014.

    Google Scholar 

  • Strosser, Charla R. “Sherlock and the Case of the Feminist Fans.” In Who is Sherlock?: Essays on Identity in Modern Holmes Adaptations, edited by Lynette Porter , 3517–3782. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2016. Kindle edition.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tomalin, Claire. The Invisible Woman. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turner, Benedick. “There’s a Name Everyone Says: Irene Adler and Jim Moriarty in Sherlock.” In Gender and the Modern Sherlock Holmes: Essays on Film and Television Adaptations since 2009, edited by Nadine Farghaly, 21–39. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turner, Laura. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes . Unpublished manuscript, 2014.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes. Unpublished manuscript, 2015.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vanacker , Sabine. “Sherlock’s Progress through History: Feminist Revisions of Holmes.” In Sherlock Holmes and Conan Doyle : Multi-Media Afterlives, edited by Sabine Vanacker and Catherine Wynne , 93–108. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2013.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vincent, Alice, “Sherlock’s suffragette ‘mansplaining’ irks Abominable Bride viewers,” Daily Telegraph. 2016. Accessed Jan 7, 2016. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/12078074/Sherlocks-suffragette-mansplaining-irks-Abominable-Bride-viewers.html.

  • Walker, Joseph S. “The Woman and the Napoleon of Crime: Moriarty , Adler , Elementary.” In Gender and the Modern Sherlock Holmes: Essays on Film and Television Adaptations since 2009, edited by Nadine Farghaly, 118–132. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Theatre, Film and Television, University of York, Heslington, UK

    Benjamin Poore

Authors
  1. Benjamin Poore
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Benjamin Poore .

Copyright information

© 2017 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Poore, B. (2017). Sherlock Holmes Checks His Privilege. In: Sherlock Holmes from Screen to Stage. Adaptation in Theatre and Performance. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-46963-2_8

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation