Is Sherlock Sexist?
Summarise Jane Jones Objections to the Portrayal of women
in Sherlock.
Jane jones believes the way Steven Moffatt has changed
Sherlock makes it sexist. She refers to the episode ‘A scandal in Bohemia’ where we are first
introduced to Irene Adler and tells us how his adaptation of her makes her into
a damsel in distress.
In the book written by Arthur Conan Doyle he portrays Irene
Adler as ‘the woman’ an American adventuress who out smarted Sherlock and got
away with it. However in the Series produced by Steven Moffatt Irene is
portrayed as a dominatrix who tries to get the better of Sherlock but fails and
in the end has to be rescued by him.
What upset Jane most was not the fact that Irene had been
changed into this professional prostitute but the fact that she didn’t out
smart Sherlock like she did in the books and she had to be rescued by the hero
Sherlock. She thought that this new storyline discarded women to be seen as
weak, unintelligent and always depending on the men to rescue and save them
from danger.
Do you agree with her or not? Compare to portrayals of
gender in Dr Who and Misfits.
I think in any drama there is always a hero and a antagonist
and in this specific programme Sherlock is seen a hero a super smart hero in
fact in this he is seen as almost super human the smartest individual in the
programme even his government worker brother asks him for help along with the
police who are all seen as average intelligence or stupid in some cases.
There are in effect us the viewers they ask the questions
that we the public are wondering. So to make another character come in and
challenge Sherlock’s intelligence and outsmart him doesn’t make him seem so
special and it sort of ruins the whole plot of Sherlock.
I do however believe that the ending in which Sherlock
swoops in and saves Irene is unneeded for a better ending would be her getting
out of that situation herself. I think she should still be seen as the girl who
almost outsmarted Sherlock as this also enables her to improve her methods and
maybe in time attempt to outsmart him again.
In comparison to Dr who its very different as all of the
women assistants that help the doctor out are different in personal quality’s
for example Amy could be seen as a stereotypical princess who repeatedly needs
saving and rescuing from the doctor but this is one assistant out of the many
that have been with doctor who over the years for example Ace was a fiery loud
teenage character that would assist the doctor and help him in a pose to him rescuing
her. The same can be said about Martha, who travels the world to tell people
about he doctor and Clara who enters the doctor’s time stream to save him.
These assistants vary and although they each die or disperse from the doctor
this is because the doctor is the main character and is supposed to always come
out on top.
In comparison to misfits which is created solely on stereotypes
of youth its hard to say whether it is sexist because no one is more important
than the next everyone has different powers but none just yet are more powerful
than the other. The women in misfits and men are represented differently
according to common stereotypes as this links into their person powers for
example Alisha is over confident and sex obsessed and her power is seduction to
whoever touches her, Simon is isolated from the group and very quite and weird
his power is invisibility. I don’t think there are any sexist elements to this programme
as it has tried to equalise men and women in this.
