walkamongstthestars:

Alright. I walk away from Tumblr for 4 hours to go to class, and it takes me nearly the same amount of time (not exaggerating at all on that…) to go through my posts. I told myself I wouldn’t get this involved in Tumblr.

Oh well. not complaining.

Anyway, I saw a bunch of posts about the American version of Sherlock.

Honestly I remember reading the headline of an article about this maybe a month ago, and literally going “hm” and then clicking out of it. 

I know that British fans are getting rather  upset about this.

And I certainly am not going to tell you to calm down or stop complaining. Because if anyone knows me, they know I’m the American who wishes she weren’t, and is constantly fighting for the acceptance of British culture in America. 

But this isn’t exactly what I meant.

Before I launch into anything about how this violates the originals, etc, let me just say this: I am aware of the contest between the BBC production and RDJ’s movies. And I don’t care, because I like both. End of.

And apparently some people may think that America needs to take Sherlock on because Britain shouldn’t just have everything simply because stories are based there.

*Shakes head*

Now, I will admit. I never read the books. Shock. Horror. I know. I’m going to work on that now. I was never like a fanatic about Sherlock (liked the movies when they aired here) until I actually got into the BBC production. I don’t really know why. Whatever

However, I understand that the casting of the American Sherlock is… less than extraordinary. Johnny Lee Miller, while being great (although I did NOT know he was British. Shit.) as Eli Stone, in my opinion, would not be a great Sherlock. Maybe he just doesn’t seem arrogant enough. Or as much of a sciencey-wiency-deduction person… anyway. The real problem people are pointing out is having a woman play Watson.

Hah.

Some people are saying that this is because America is homophobic and can’t stand the homoerotic innuendo from the original male pairing.

Let me make this clear: You are very probably correct. I’m sorry. I really can’t defend my country in this way. It’s all too clear from our inability to make gay marriage legal across the whole country. 

I’m not saying that Lucy Liu playing Watson is a bad thing in and of itself. It’s just a bad thing because it violates the original character story.

Seeing as how Watson was a man.

From the war.

A man from the war at a time when women didn’t fight in wars.

*exhales*

Now… BBC did a very good job at adapting the series to modern times and still keeping with a lot of the original plot. Afghanistan, drugs, innuendo, etc.

But the American version appears to just want to dissect everything. And make it into.. well… a detective show.

Last time I checked we have a. lot. of. those.

And I’m not saying the series BY ITSELF wouldn’t be good. I just don’t think it can fully qualify as Sherlock Holmes. 

All of this being said, I want to make it crystal clear to people on the other side of the ocean - Not all of America is so self-absorbed that it has to butcher everything to its own suiting. I have said it before and I’ll say it again. I want America to accept British culture, and vice-versa. (Though let’s be fair, in the end the only thing British people will be doing is laughing at us, which makes sense when you think about it. America is a great country, until you think about it. Then it’s not.)

So please just, don’t hate all of us for our capitalist industries’ desires to reconfigure everything to suit our fictional “American” values. It’s not pretty and I don’t care for it. I love a lot of American television, but there’s always something so much more daring about British television. SO much more… open? It has more depth. I dunno. But you can’t really argue for America when we try to remake Doctor Who.

And well. We remake Doctor Who. And butcher it. Because we’re good at that.

Okay, as I find out more I’ll make some feeble attempts to justify it, and end up defeating myself and admitting America fails. Sorry guys. 

Thanks for reading, if you could actually bring yourself to do so,

Rachel

P.S.

I’m not saying I hate America and I want it to like, fall apart. I’m just saying that there’s… massive room for improvement. So much room. So much…*cries in a corner*