writinginthewild-blog

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She takes down my beloved Hamilton so well it doesn’t even hurt that much.

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Reading in the Wild: A Study in Charlotte + What Watsons Are For

So Watson has gone through many incarnations over the years, as the incomparable Kate Beaton demonstrates in this comic.

(Kate Beaton is, in my humble opinion, a veritable goddess of irreverent literary criticism. Check out her work here.)

Watsons have had almost every personality out there: stupid, smart, sexy, troubled, optimistic, average, extraordinary (though never as Extraordinary (TM) as Sherlock, The Special One - hello Stephen Moffat). And I think that’s mainly because, as characters, Watsons have traditionally been the audience surrogate in the story. That is, Watsons will ask the questions the audience wants to ask, except - unlike the audience - Watsons can have their questions answered.

I mean.

There are exceptions.

i swear Martin Freeman spends most of the series looking mildly disappointed and/or deeply confused, which is pretty much how I’d summarize my own response to the series. So - to be fair -  this Watson is, technically, doing his job.

Anyway, generally, this means that how Watson sees Sherlock is typically, though not always, how the writers want the audience to see Sherlock. Watson’s fondness for Sherlock becomes our own, and this heightens our investment not only in the mystery being solved, but also in the person solving it. Just as importantly, Sherlock’s (often reserved) reciprocal shows of fondness  - his affirmation of Watson’s intelligence, dedication, and medical expertise, as well as his/her interest in helping Watson to understand his work - generates an emotional connection between Sherlock and the audience, making the work he does feel not only possible, but accessible. That, after all, is half the fun of procedurals - letting the audience try out the techniques they’re seeing on screen.

[Insert long and unnecessary tangent about Moffat’s Cult of Personality problem, on which I’m hardly an expert and scarcely care about anyway.]

In other words, while a good Watson does help us see what is extraordinary about Sherlock - his deductive reasoning, his interest in setting things right, his vast knowledge of the everything - one of his/her most important jobs is helping us see what is ordinary about Sherlock: his flaws, his fears, and his friendships. These are the qualities other characters can’t see; these are the qualities only someone close to Sherlock could see with any clarity. At the very least, Watson renders Sherlock accessible to us; at his/her best, Watson makes Sherlock better.

Like, you know, a best friend does.

Of course, this is not limited by gender, race, sexual orientation, or any other socially-constructed category you can think of. This is why Watson can, contrary to popular belief, be a woman. Or a woman of color, like Lucy Liu.  The Holmes/Watson dynamic is not, at its core, about what the characters look like, how smart they sound, or how posh their accents are. The dynamic works because they see each other as valuable as people, not props, because they affirm and challenge each other in unique ways, all while solving mysteries in a distinctly Holmesian fashion.

[Note: This is not to say that gender doesn’t matter, or that writers don’t have to do a LOT of work to make sure they gender-flip well, but for the sake of focus, I’ll save that conversation for my inevitable Elementary series later. A female Watson does come with its own set of rhetorical complications, but since they don’t factor into A Study in Charlotte, I’ll set that aside for now.]

What Watsons Are For: A Summary

So, to recap: what are Watsons for?

(1) Watson stands in for the audience, asking the questions we all want to ask. He helps us understand the deductive process at the core of the Holmesian story, without leaving us confused or lost.

(2) In adaptations, Watson helps us understand how the writers understand who Sherlock is. How Watson sees Sherlock often provides key insights on how the writers understand this classic character, including how they will deviate or revise the original stories.

(3) Watson allows the audience to understand what makes Sherlock ordinary and extraordinary. He is uniquely positioned to understand why Sherlock is special, and why he is flawed.

(4) Watson allows the audience to feel connected to and affirmed by Sherlock, who, at least in the original stories, does, at some level, believe in the potential of ordinary people to see as he does - even if they do need his guidance and explanations. 

Coming Up Next: A Study in Charlotte + It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s a Gender-Flipped Sherlock!

Now that we’ve established what a Watson should or can do, we’ll turn our attention to Sherlock himself - or, more specifically to A Study in Charlotte, herself. In the next segment of this series, we’ll talk about gender-flipping: What happens to this Watson/Holmes dynamic when you gender-flip Holmes? What sort of rhetorical consequences does this have?

For all that and more, stay tuned.

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I love Harry Potter, I really do, but sometimes I feel this franchise expands at a faster rate than the actual universe, which is just kind of exhausting.

That said, this is a really fabulous essay about why I found Newt to be such a lovely character.

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Reading in the Wild: A Study in Charlotte + Problematic Faves

Ah, yes, the ever-present problematic fave - that one show/character/actual person with so many problems you feel guilty for liking them. Sometimes profoundly guilty. This week, I’m live-blogging about the newest in my collection of deeply problematic faves, which - and this should surprise no one - comes from yet another adaptation of Sherlock Holmes.

No, not that one. That one’s just straight-up problematic. I will save it for the day when I have the patience to sit through a single episode, which, like, may be never, so I guess what I’m saying is, don’t hold your breath, Benedict Cucumber Patch.

And no, not that one either, even though I adore this show and (almost) everything about it. Re: The Battle of Sherlock and Elementary: I will save this argument for another day, although it is one of those pop culture hills I would die on and probably be buried on, too.

And this one gave me nightmares as a kid, so that’s a definite no.

No, the newest entry in my Sherlock collection is none of these, and ends up  closer to the Cucumber Patch than I’d like. Especially since I devoured both books in two days, which, for a grad student with a mountain of reading to get through, is just plain embarrassing.

What is this series?

This week, we’ll be breaking down Brittany Cavallaro’s A STUDY IN CHARLOTTE (cymbal crash). Nice pun, right? (Way better than “A Study in Pink,” if you want my aggressively subjective opinion.)

Technically, this is a sequel to the original Sherlock series, because it’s about Jamie Watson and Charlotte Holmes (the rich and angsty descendants of the original Watson and Holmes), but trust me. This series has it all. Deductions, drugs, murders, and British accents, eye-rolling and social awkwardness - plus, huge helpings of parental abandonment and somewhat troubling narratives about women.

It’s gonna be great.

Or should I say, elementary?

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Rhetoric in the Wild

If you’re reading this, it’s probably because you are a) very bored b) very lost c) in one of my classes or d) all of the above. This makes you a perfectly normal person: as far as any of us can claim to be normal, anyway.  Alternatively, it’s 2 AM before the first draft of your rhetorical analysis is due and you’re feeling desperate.

Desperation, like caffeine, is a key ingredient of the college experience.

This blog is here, in part, because I want to help alleviate some of that desperation, mostly by giving you a fun, mildly embarrassing window into my brain. It is a scary jungle of cheesy television, young adult literature, random podcasts, and rhetorical questions.

That’s not to say that this blog is nothing more than SAMPLE ESSAYS: NOW WITH GIFS! I’m also starting this blog because I like this stuff, and as of right now, I have no place to store the little rhetorical scraps I collect in those few spare hours I have to read, watch, and listen to whatever I want. Someday I may have to, like, copyright some of this stuff, but today is not that day.

Anyway. Welcome to the blog! Let’s go wild.