This is why we can't have nice things

[abyssinia4077]

I just had 2 male PhD students from my lab group insist that Elementary (which I haven't watched) is wrong wrong wrong because Watson could never be female and it makes no sense they could even consider making a male character female and it destroys the entire point of the story of Sherlock Holmes. When I asked for why precisely it was wrong the

Comments

[eve11]

Fuck those fuckwits. They need a good beating with the clue stick.

[abyssinia4077]

I was just...baffled. I pointed out that they kept saying it wouldn't be okay because it "changed the story" but in Sherlock they already changed the story to set it on modern day London. But they just kept insisting it was wrong without giving reason.

Oy. I am...I realize my sample size is not huge, but Europe seems more sexist than the US to me, both professionally and otherwise.

[fatpie42]

Are these PhD students from Europe then

[dodger_sister]

OMG. /headdesk/ That pisses me off so much.

I countered that there are, in fact, female versions of those super heroes I was told "not in the movies."

Yeah, that's cuz jackasses like this are the ones in charge of making the movies!

[abyssinia4077]

It was just a short random conversation but I was still so flabbergasted by it. I mean, Sherlock Holmes is a story in the Western Canon that's been adapted and retold tons of times - and they're fine with changes to the setting or character backgrounds or whatever, but make one of the main characters a woman and suddenly everything is destroyed? The fuck? I never did get an answer why it is entirely unbelievable that a military-doctor-turned-detective's-assistant couldn't possibly be female.

[macadamanaity]

::facepalm::

[abyssinia4077]

Pretty much.

[aelfgyfu_mead]

I do watch Elementary, and it certainly does diverge from ACD canon: we get an eminently competent Watson who doesn't just stand back and admire Holmes as in too many of the stories and their adaptations but becomes an expert investigator in her own right. Have these people read the original texts? I seem to have missed "the main point of Watson's character." Then again, what would I know? I'm just an English professor and a medievalist!

They're idiots. I read this last night and was so ticked I couldn't even reply. Sometimes I wish I could headdesk other people.

[ext_2369643]

Sometimes I wish I could headdesk other people.

me too.