Sherlock Is gay
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violethuntress:
Why aren’t more people talking about this? Why did I never notice this quotation before? It seems legit, right?
I actually do wonder, in a non-rhetorical sort of way, what conclusion they came to. Because the next episode after series 1 is ASiB, and, well, it’s definitely not obvious from that episode either, even though the episode brings up more explicitly than any other.
Anyway, interesting quote that I didn’t know existed. Very curious as to what they came up with. They can let us know any time…preferable within the show!
quirkysubject:
It’s funny, because I came away from S1 (and ASiP in particularly) with the firm impression that Sherlock was meant to be read as gay (and celibate). And nothing I saw in S2 made me question that impression.
So I really don’t know what to say about this quote. Was ASiB supposed to confirm his attraction to women (straight or bi/pan)? But she was ‘the’ woman (like Sherlock is ‘the’ man for John), implying that that was exceptional. And she herself was used as an example for how even if you are gay, you can still experience the occasional attraction to people of the opposite sex (which I though mirrored Sherlock).
One should also consider BC’s “Sherlock was a virgin until that one night in Karachi”-headcanon, which doesn’t exactly scream ‘I’m playing a gay man’ either.
Anyway, just goes to show that creators are crap at meta ;)
violethuntress:
Ha, this is exactly what I was thinking. (And exactly, exactly the impression I got from S1).
If they “didn’t know” until after S1 whether or not Sherlock “was gay,” and then they DID “work it out” as reported, was ASiB meant to be read as “see! we decided Sherlock is het! But he’s just more interested in work than sex!” Or the opposite, as QS just explained.
Confounding!
Ivy blossom:
This makes some degree of sense to me. Sherlock is much more ambiguous in series 1, though not because he could genuinely go either way. He was ambiguous because he clearly had no interest in relationships that would involve him as a participant. He’s even clear on what it would mean for a living, breathing person to be his friend at that point.
People seem to be nothing more than tools to Sherlock in series 1. His body is transport and human beings are utilities, either generating evidence or helping him to parse that evidence, or giving him a place to stay, or helping him with the rent, or whatever else. At that point he really is much closer to Mycroft (and Moriarty) in his attitude towards “normal” people. There was room at that point for the question to be unanswered, because to Sherlock is really didn’t matter.
The fact that it wasn’t immediately obvious that Sherlock was supposed to be straight made it very easy at the time to read him as gay, even in series 1 ep 1. We’re so used to everyone being relentlessly straight that the absence of those cues suggests it. Which is pretty sad, but there it is.
Though if they didn’t already have an idea, it’s interesting that we have the scene where he says girlfriends aren’t his area, but no, he doesn’t have a boyfriend. Couldn’t he have said, “not my area either” to the boyfriend question, if they hadn’t been sure? Sherlock could have just said no to both questions, really. Girlfriend? No. Boyfriend? No. That would have been more ambiguous, I think, and factually accurate. Then he really isn’t answering the underlying question (straight or gay) that John is digging for, which would make sense, since John isn’t outright asking it. I know Steven Moffat wrote that ep, and it’s pretty clear that he had a preference for gay!Sherlock. So maybe that’s why it is as it is.
Based on the pilot, it’s pretty clear that there wasn’t much question about John’s take. John’s way more obviously in love with Sherlock in the pilot version of ASIP than the aired version. So presumably they were always going to have John fall in love with Sherlock, in defiance not only of his own sexual orientation, but whatever Sherlock’s was going to end up being. Poor John!
It makes sense that Scandal could have been written with a new certainty about Sherlock’s orientation in this franchise, since that question is at the core of it, and it’s answered, though too subtly for some. I like the deftness of the answer, which retains Sherlock’s indifference to romantic relationships but has him obsess about them at the same time. Anything that suggests that Sherlock falls in love with Irene in Scandal is only coasting on basic audience expectations of what happens when a sexy lady appears on screen, as far as I can tell. I love that. Series three is a demonstration of what happens when Sherlock confronts his real actual feelings for another person, which puts the Irene situation into sharp relief. Sherlock was not this raw confronting Irene.
I presume they’d made their decision before I ever saw any of these characters for the first time. I’m glad they definitely know the answer now!
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