In a fairly recent post you mentioned that “narratives trying to explore ~fluid~ sexuality can’t be really, really harmful— e.g. Irene Adler in Sherlock.” Now, as a bisexual female, Irene Adler never really sat well with me in the series, though I’ve found it pretty hard to define, or put into words, why or how. I’d be interested in hearing your opinion on the matter, if you don’t mind.
my problem with it is primarily the way it’s used within the overarching narrative. like, irene adler identifies as gay, and falls in love with a man. that’s okay! there are some gay women who fall in love with men!
but “sherlock” is all about this man, this one man, this one perfect wonderful white straight cisman who is above and beyond all other people, who is elitist and ableist and objectively logical and insightful and always always right, which is like, deeply unsettling to me on a personal level
and the parallel that “sherlock” tries to draw is between irene and watson— that sherlock is so amazing, so captivating, that he entrances all people regardless of their identifiers or their perspectives or their selves. that is the argument irene makes.
but like— watson (i’m straight! he shrieks again, hearing me mention his name)— there is absolutely no sincere canonical support for his genuine queerness for sherlock. “sherlock” is a queerbaiter to end all queerbaiting, like what if? do you think? haHA! but at the end of the day, no, it will never, ever have watson kiss sherlock on the mouth
so it’s afraid to queer the primary relationship in the show, but still so invested in the central importance of the central man that it uses this woman to demonstrate how inescapably wonderful sherlock is. and irene adler— the POINT of irene adler— is that she is meant to be the one woman who tricks sherlock, who gets away from sherlock, who is above sherlock
so when you posit her as a gay woman whose undoing is her romantic/sexual love for sherlock, a gay woman who in spite of herself leans towards sherlock like a flower to the son and so unroots herself
and when you have this story in the middle of a larger narrative about sherlock’s whiteness and maleness inextricable from his intellectual rightness and goodness, and a refusal to genuinely queer the other character who is meant to truly see and love sherlock— when sexuality is only fluid when it is flowing back towards straightness— well, then we have a problem
it’s just yeah, it’s not a genuine caring investigation into fluid sexuality or trying to represent the complex ways that people love. irene is not in charge here; the narrative doesn’t care about irene. they just use her, and her identity, and the way sherlock supersedes her identity, to remind us about how great this man is: so great that your self-perceived gayness will be invalid, and your emotions will unravel you, and you will deserve it, because you are a whore and a trickster and a selfish manipulative dangerous woman. but sherlock will save you anyway.
(via rosereddawn)
