Fans, Imitators and Spectators

First Response

Sherlock Holmes has certainly made an impression. Starting in the 1930s, fan societies sprung up to celebrate Sherlock on both sides of the Atlantic, fans going by the title Holmesian in Britain and Sherlockian in America (Sherlock Holmes Handbook 257). For over a century, readers have been writing Sherlock Holmes and John Watson at 221B Baker Street, many of them under the false impression that these were historical figures, not fictional characters. 

Most of the Western world has met Watson and Holmes, as there are many successful adaptations in other languages. Sherlock is said to be among the most often portrayed characters, and it's easy to believe. Adaptations began almost immediately upon popularity and continue in a constant stream today. Adaptations have both been done through official channels, like the authorized pastiche novels produced over the years, or created through informal channels and shared among fans for free, like fan fiction or fan art. Both the authorized commercial works and the unofficial fan works emerge out of admiration and reinterpret the famous detective and his companion - some straying further than others. However, Sherlock Holmes remains legible in some sense in each re-imagining.

By combining great intelligence, rationality, mastery and justice into a single man, Conan Doyle created an enduring hero compatible with the dominant masculinity. In uncertain times, Sherlock could then be looked to as an example of an ideal. For example, in Scouting for Boys by Robert Baden-Powell, Sherlock Holmes is held up as the model of the man, as the book attempts to articulate appropriate masculinity and behaviour for its readers (Sherlock's Men 2). For readers and fans, Sherlock Holmes can provide comfort in a changing world that hegemonic masculinity is not going to collapse. Fans can also follow the example of Watson's hero worship and idealize a Sherlockian masculinity.

Societies

Sherlock Holmes inspired a very organized sort of fandom in the form of societies. The Sherlock Holmes Society of London and The Baker Street Irregulars in New York gathered up fans of the detective to swap stories, theories and fan works since 1934. Both organizations have acted as flag ships for other societies and offer journals to their membership to gather up the best Sherlockian scholarship.

Every January since 1934, the Baker Street Irregulars (BSI) have sung songs and said wild toasts at invite-only dinners (Sherlock Holmes Handbook 257). The BSI and its scions are rather exclusive, utilizing canon trivia quizzes to grant/deny entrance to the societies. Unfortunately, the BSI and many of its scions (associated clubs) throughout the United States excluded women until quite recently (Sherlock Holmes Handbook 258). These groups were bastions of masculine fandom. Women were constantly attempting access and told that they could not possibly be proper Sherlockians. Although the original invitation to the BSI was supposedly based on answering a crossword in the paper correctly, women found that the right answers weren't enough to gain access to this dinner party (Sherlock Holmes Handbook 258).



This picture from 1947 shows the composition of the BSI at the time. White men without exception, the group reflected the demographic of Sherlock Holmes himself. I would argue that Sherlock's hero status among this particular group could be based on his accessibility as a direct role model. Although they could never be as brilliant, as rational, as emotionless, he was something to aspire to. Indeed, Sherlock Holmes and Watson were treated as real among these men. The "Grand Game" was played by those who would analyze the stories as if they were nonfiction tales and extrapolate from the facts ( (Sherlock Holmes Handbook 263). Pseudo-academic works were produced this way, and occasionally a woman might find a place in the Baker Street Journal, but it was rare.

Women were forced to form their own society in the United States: The Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes. In 1965, a group of women at Albertus Magnus College in Connecticut discovered a shared passion for Sherlock Holmes and attempted to gain entry to the BSI. After being harshly rebutted (even after picketing their meetings), the women decided to create something on their own (Sherlock Holmes Handbook 272). The result was the Adventuresses (ASH), and their meetings were less formal, more inclusive, and reportedly less focused on the trivia competitions so beloved by the BSI members, but they did hold similar meetings, develop their own songs and traditions, and produce their own journal (Sherlock Holmes Handbook 273). Women were forced to carve out their own space to be fans.

It wasn't until 1991 that women were truly accepted as members of the BSI, while men could attend ASH dinners from nearly the start and could become members as of 1979 (Sherlock Holmes Handbook 268, 272). If you take for granted my premise that a great deal of Sherlock's appeal is his masculinity and the comfort of its certainty and stability, it makes more sense that these societies would reject women's presence. They merely followed their hero's lead. Sherlock offers a heroic, rational masculinity to celebrate that specifically rejects the equal contributions of women and that played out in the fandom. While this has been challenged, it shows that gendered power dynamics are a part of the Sherlockian fandom.

Fan Thoughts on Sexuality

Although much is currently made about the abundant number of fan works that feature a gay or asexual Sherlock Holmes, it is interesting to note that there is a long history of toasting Irene Adler in all-male fandom societies. Adler features in only a single story, A Scandal in Bohemia, but her meaning and role has been explored over and over, much like Moriarty (who is similarly featured in only a handful of stories). She is "The Woman" to Sherlock Holmes, but also to his fans. More the point, their focus on Irene Adler has created a hypothetical heterosexual life for the detective that would otherwise not exist, as it is almost explicitly decried in the original text. Once fans take hold of a character, however, they will transform him/her to suit their own vision and needs. Christopher Redmond speculates that Sherlockian men of the BSI may have needed a heterosexual romantic interest (In Bed with Sherlock Holmes 57). They found their target in Irene Adler, object of apparently endless fascination for many fans, and she has historically been manipulated in a great deal in adaptations. Adler often comes to stand in for a femme fatale or secret love, portrayed as a challenging, dashing and potentially scandalous woman but with few stable characteristics. This is seen in the 2009 Guy Ritchie film Sherlock Holmes, where essentially all of Irene Adler's original back story was abandoned and she becomes the legible but unrecognizable romantic interest for Sherlock Holmes.

While most interpretations retain Sherlock's essential markers of masculinity, the fandom has no uniform opinion about Sherlock's sexuality, making it fluid within the fandom. This is rather different for a popular hero. Even after all the scholarship and celebration, Sherlock's sexuality still leaves room for many possibilities. For all the efforts to establish his heterosexuality, Sherlock's queer potential remains.

Looking Ahead

The fandom surrounding the newest iterations has come together largely online and there has been a majority participation by girls and women. Women can no longer be refused entry to Sherlock Holmes fandom in the age of Tumblr, Youtube and Livejournal, where communities have sprung up online to celebrate the detective as portrayed in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes and, especially, BBC's Sherlock. In these spaces, Sherlock Holmes is experiencing an evolution of fandom. New viewers and readers who may not even know the history of Sherlockian societies are spending hours making fan works, discussing theories, and building a collective notion of these characters. As women begin to interpret Sherlock Holmes, his masculinity arguably becomes more flexible out of necessity, because women can and are relating to Holmes. He is not just a romantic object but a character to experience, try on and even become in cosplay. These women fans see themselves in these characters and create interpretations that better suit their ideas about masculinity. Perhaps this is the threat to hegemonic masculinity that the BSI Sherlockians feared. What if Sherlock was queered?