Keeping Up With the Sherlocks?

Every generation needs their Sherlock Holmes, right? It is a widely known fact that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s character, the genius detective Sherlock Holmes, is a literary and cultural phenomenon that has not only stood the test of time but continues to flourish with each of its modern adaptations, may they be brought to life in a theatre, film, television, or even video games. 

Detective’s such as Arthur Morrison’s Martin Hewitt and Catherine Louisa Pirkis’s Loveday Brooke dominated magazine columns of a similar time period but never reached a fraction of the popularity of Holmes and his adventures over time.  Why has Sherlock become an archetype in ways other detectives have not? Why does Holmes as a character translate across media and time so well? This series of blog posts seeks to shed light on the perennial popularity of Sherlock Holmes with the help of several adaptations of the character and his companion, Doctor Watson.

​ Typing the words ‘Sherlock Holmes’ into any search engine brings up countless articles, blogs, and even social media accounts dedicated to either the original material, the different TV series, or its various film adaptations, which started way back in the silent cinema era with Arthur Berthelet’s Sherlock Holmes (1916) —an adaption of the 1899 stage play by the same name. You can even create your own menu fit for Baker Street with Sean Wright and John Farrell’s Sherlock Holmes Cookbook (1976). Whether it’s the so-called Holmesians or the Sherlockians (and yes, there is a difference), people can’t get enough of the famous detective and his adventures in Baker Street. Historically, the distinction between the two was geographically based; Sherlockians were the aficionados across the pond and Holmesians, the British counterpart. However, in recent years, after the release of the BBCs Sherlock (2010-2017), the meaning of the term Sherlockian now rather denotes the more recent filmic adaptations (Dianalmarsh). It seems that keeping up with Holmes’s various adaptations is getting more and more time consuming due to the sheer range of diversification concerning the character’s background, exploits and gender. The one thing that remains constant in the portrayal of the detective is that every generation seems to want to claim a version of Sherlock Holmes for themselves. 

Books like Andreas Jacke’s Mind Games (2017) or Alan Barne’s Sherlock Holmes on Screen (1999) understand the modern filmic Sherlock Holmes to be more emotionally receptive in comparison to earlier film adaptations, making him and his trains of thought more accessible to the viewers. The narratives have begun to shift away from Doctor Watson as the sole narrator, giving more room and closer access to the actual detective as a point of identification. It is easier to identify with these new adaptions because one can better follow clues and actually begin speculating themselves instead of only relying on Watson retelling Holmes’s complex monologues of deduction. Mary Beth Haralovich suggests in her article ‘Sherlock Holmes: Genre and Industrial Practice’ that ‘genre films balance the desire of audiences for the familiar, fulfilling expectations, ritual with a desire for variation, originality, a new twist’ (53). The proper archetype of Sherlock, without any significant love interests, functions as a counter to James Bond’s virile sexuality and machismo on screen in the 1960s and 1970s (Seeslen 135). However, modern adaptations such as the BBC’s Sherlock and both Guy Ritchie films have transformed and evolved the Sherlock archetype by combining these seemingly diametrically opposed genres. There is always going to be two conflicting camps in the Sherlock Holmes fandom—one group who expect and even demand authenticity and the others who wish to see an ever-evolving Holmes.

​ One of the most important changes over the years is the depiction of women in adaptations: Sherlock Holmes is no exception. Not only do the women in his life, Mrs. Hudson or Watson’s wife, Mary, for example, play a much bigger role in Sherlock’s life and therefore the storylines, as seen in examples like BBC’s Sherlock, but they also get the chance to be more active and are often as interesting and mysterious as the detective himself. These women are not simply damsels in distress but characters that can and will stand on their own two feet. When adaptations like the British television series, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1983-1985) with Jeremy Brett as Holmes, remain true to the original content, they often appear outdated for a modern audience, especially for a female—which as we know comprises a huge viewership of crime fiction. Holmes needs to be altered for each generation and its developing social standards. Without adaptation, Sherlock Holmes remains stationary as a nostalgic figment of the past for a small and elite fandom that enjoy the recurring motifs of an eccentric upper-class English man with his pipe and deer hunter hat. Adaptation situates Holmes firmly in the twenty-first century, making him American, as seen in Elementary (2012-2019), or turning him into an action hero like in Guy Ritchie’s adaptions. Despite these seemingly fundamental departures from the original material, these adaptations retain the spirit of Sherlock Holmes, keeping the archetype alive for future generations to enjoy.

References

Seeßlen, Georg. Filmwissen: Detektive Grundlagen des Populären Films. Schüren, 2011. 

Dianalmarsh. “Holmesian v. SHERLOCKIAN.” There’s No Place Like Holmes, 26 July 2016, noplacelikeholmes.com/2016/07/25/holmesian-v-sherlockian/. 

Haralovich, Mary Beth. “Sherlock Holmes: Genre and Industrial Practice”. Journal of the University Film Association, Spring 1979, Vol. 31, No. 2, ECONOMIC AND INDUSTRY HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN FILM, pp. 53-57.