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There are not many television watchers in today’s society that have not seen or at least heard of Sherlock, the BBC’s infamous remaking of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic stories of Sherlock Holmes. Creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss’ adaptation plunges detective Sherlock Holmes and his companion John Watson into the 21st century, and retell their infamous adventures in a way that remains true to the canon but still exhibits a modern twist. What makes this series so unique and open for interpretation is that there is a boundless depth to it beneath the surface. Through layers of subtext, underlying narratives, complex characters, and fan reception, the creators utilize the show as a medium to influence the audience and to communicate their own ideas, including many of our integral course themes and notions centered around philosophers Marshall McLuhan, Morris Berman, and Cheryl Misak. The key ideas within our course units Ideology, Media, and Imperial Collapse that are conveyed to viewers through BBC Sherlock include ‘Technology as an Extension of the Self’, ‘Mechanical vs. Electrical’, ‘More is not a Purpose’, ‘Liquid Modernity’, ‘Lying versus Bullshit’, ‘Ideology’, and ‘the Medium is the Message’.
Before understanding how BBC Sherlock influences the minds of viewers, it is important to understand how exactly Moffat and Gatiss have ‘modernized’ the iconic tale of Sherlock Holmes. Indeed, there are small changes, such as the replacement of his pipe with nicotine patches and John’s books with a blog. It is even arguable that Sherlock’s physical appearance itself has been modernized, where actor Benedict Cumberbatch comes across as almost alien at times in his towering height, angular facial features, ghostly pale complexion, and sharp sense of style. However, the most substantial change that Moffat and Gatiss have applied to the recreation of his character is Sherlock’s newfound dependence on technology. In fact, Moffat and Gatiss’ Sherlock never enters a crime scene without his smartphone in hand. In his essay Sherlock’s Epistemological Economy and the Value of “Fan” Knowledge, critic Matt Hills explains, “In the contemporary world, where all forms of knowledge can be archived and accessed via cloud computing, Conan Doyle’s hierarchies of knowledge melt into air: unlike the 19th century rationalist, this version of Holmes doesn’t need to know in advance what he needs to know, precisely because he’s networked—he can consult digitally at the scene of the crime.” (Busse and Stein 32). In this context, viewers can easily see Marshall McLuhan’s notion of technology as an extension of the self, and the allegation that such extensions are ingenuous. Sherlock’s internet skills are an essential part of his brilliance, and ultimately his very identity. This technological extension of his self is not at all credible to Conan Doyle’s Holmes, whose genius is upholded through his inquiry and memorization skills. Consider the episode the Blind Banker where Sherlock cannot decipher a set of ancient Chinese symbols because he cannot find translations of them online. He lashes out at others in frustration caused by the internet failing him, and in his desperation he actually calls inspector Lestrade to complain. Anne Kustritz and Melanie E. S. Kohnen explain in their joint essay Decoding the Industrial and Digital City Visions of Security in Holmes’ and Sherlock’s London by stating “The overall portrayal of Sherlock’s relationship to digital networks affirms that Sherlock is deeply embedded in them. Moreover, while he knows how to master these networks, he also clearly depends on them—when the Internet fails Sherlock, he is (momentarily) lost.” (97). Had our 21st century Sherlock had the genuine inquiry and deduction skills that define the genius of Conan Doyle’s in the 19th century, he would have realized that searching for the ciphers online was what was in fact hindering his investigation. He thus would have thought sooner to search the ghettos of Chinatown for the translations, and in turn could have saved more innocent people's lives.
What is interesting about Sherlock’s character, particularly at the beginning of the series, is that he goes far beyond mere dependence on technology. He had actually become one with it, having arguably been written as a robotic entity until his intensifying feelings for John Watson humanize him completely. This particular development is an excellent example of the transition from a literal to an oral mind, or more importantly, from the mechanical to the electrical, and it’s psychologically satisfying effects. Sherlock’s mechanical brain is seen quite literally through his ‘mind palace’, an internal place in his mind where he stores information in a computerized fashion. The graphics on the screen as well as his hand gestures when navigating it literally make it appear as if he is searching through some sort of online database, when in fact he is just brainstorming. He even explains that he ‘deletes’ information that is irrelevant to him, including basic knowledge of the solar system. In the Great Game he says “This is my hard drive and it only makes sense to put things in there that are useful.” This mechanical mind frame is not just present while solving crimes, however. Sherlock has on many occasions plainly stated that ‘sentiment’ is ‘human error’ because in most cases it is the suspect’s actions driven by emotion (usually unconsciously) that ultimately proves their guilt. In the Reichenbach Fall, when Sherlock needs John to leave the morgue so he can meet Moriarty, he makes up a lie that Mrs. Hudson has been attacked and is in critical condition. When he refuses to accompany the distressed John to check up on her, John angrily yells at him “You machine!” It is notable that here in the story viewers start to see Sherlock’s withdrawal from his literal, mechanical mind frame into an oral, electrical one. It is his growing ‘sentiment’ towards others that changes him into a person who values meaningful relationships, and by the end of the series this is both what condemns yet exhilarates him. His growing love for others is exploited by the antagonists James Moriarty and Charles Augustus Magnussen most evidently in the very last episode of the series when Sherlock publicly shoots Magnussen in front of the British Secret Service because he humiliated and threatened to blackmail John for the rest of his life. As the government arrests him, we see a wide, seemingly misplaced smile across Sherlock’s face. Instead of manipulative, alienated, and detached, Sherlock became capable of intimacy, embracing relationships, and engaging in communication with others. His elatedness at sacrificing himself for someone he loves, the very ‘sentiment’ his mechanical mind had shunned, shows the finality of his transition into his new electrical mind frame. With this the audience can see the superiority of the electrical mind to the mechanical despite its tendency to ‘erroneousness’. On a larger scale, the underlying message Moffat and Gatiss direct at viewers in this context is that living like a human and forming meaningful relationships is more satisfying than living in a professional, impersonal way through technology.
Through this television series, viewers are also acquainted with McLuhan's notion of ‘more is not a purpose’ and Berman's ‘liquid modernity’. There is a notable scene in the Sign of Three where Sherlock sets up dozens of laptops all over his apartment to aid his struggle in finding information on the Mayfly man. He believes he will find results quicker with more laptops at once, but what he does not realize is that the technology itself is what is holding him back. In the end, it is simply through a casual conversation with John that he realizes what was extremely obvious the entire time. Viewers can conclude that dependence on technology is what handicaps us, particularly in comparison to those of the pre-technological era, because authentic conversations more often than not provide us with more credible answers. Zygmunt Bauman reiterates this in his analysis on Liquid Modernity that “The whole of modernity stands out from preceding epochs by its compulsive and obsessive modernizing.” (13). It is evident in this situation that the very idea of ‘more’ as a quantifier of progress or purpose is meaningless, and this idea is parallel to Berman’s concept of liquid modernity. If liquid modernity is defined as constant change and the container it is being controlled it, then it can be gathered that modernity, and ‘more’ as a force that drives it, is not really even progress at all since its container is hypothetically withholding it from actually going anywhere. Consider Sherlock’s speech about the locked room murder in this same episode. He says, “I’ll solve your crime for you, but it takes John Watson to save your life. And that is what really matters.” From this dialogue comes forth the underlying argument that perhaps progress is not quicker, cleverer crime solving, but instead finding the reason for why there is such a high crime rate in London in the first place, and in turn doing something to permanently reduce it. As shown in the series by Sherlock’s character development, true progress would instead consist of a society wide transformation from a mechanical mind to an electrical.
The implications of Cheryl Misak’s concept of lying versus bullshit are also demonstrated to viewers in BBC Sherlock. The notion is most evident in the antics of the series’ main antagonist, Jim Moriarty. This is particularly so in the Reichenbach Fall when Moriarty turns the media against Sherlock by fabricating his own fake identity as an actor named Richard Brook. He sets up a phony acting history online and convinces the public that Sherlock had hired him to ‘play’ his nemesis as well as fabricate his own crime scenes so he could solve them quickly and look smart in the papers. John sums the idea up quite nicely by saying, “One big lie, [that] Sherlock is a fraud, and people will swallow it because the rest of it is true.” Here we see an example of the effectiveness and manipulation of bullshitting. Moriarty is only successful in his plan because he extends the truth instead of opposing it, and this is what makes so many people believe him. His ability to control others through bullshitting is what gets him what he wants throughout the entire series, as well as makes him such a cunning criminal mastermind. Viewers in this case learn to associate bullshitting as a device with the terrorism, manipulation, and callousness of the character Jim Moriarty. Another significant example of this lying versus bullshit concept includes when Moriarty breaks into the vaults of the Bank of England, wipes security at Pentonville Prison, and steals the royal jewels from the Tower of London all with a single line of computer coding. He tries to convince Sherlock that he told him the coding through Morse when he visited his flat earlier that day, but in reality there never was a code to begin with. Under the impression that Sherlock had believed him, Moriarty set up his infamous ‘suicide’ scene atop St. Bart’s hospital. What he did not know was that this time, Sherlock saw the truth through his bullshit, and was in complete control of the entire situation. Such as with Sherlock in this visual example, viewers can in turn question notions of truth in the real world, recognize bullshit when it is thrown their way, and learn how to resist it while remaining genuine themselves.
With this, I believe that Moffat and Gatiss use BBC Sherlock as a medium to communicate to their vast audience ideologies of their own. In his essay Sherlock and the (Re)Invention of Modernity, Balaka Basu says the following, “Because it [BBC Sherlock] is invested both in replicating the familiar effect of the original text and in being fashionably relevant, the program exists in a state of belatedness, unable to interrogate its own ideology fully and take part in a progressive, critical discourse that is truly contemporary.” (196). I partially agree with Basu in this regard. Though it is true that the protagonists are white middle or upper class men, and the story is based around their adventures, this is only the case because Moffat and Gatiss have opted to remain fundamentally true to the canon. The show would not have acquired the massive audience it has if it had changed the characters and premises completely. Despite the lack of diversity among the protagonists, there has most certainly been a conscious effort to stray from, and even criticize the harmful ideologies present in the 19th century canon. For instance, consider the portrayal of women in BBC Sherlock. To name a few, we have the lesbian dominatrix Irene Adler, the assassin Mary Morstan, the black sergeant Sally Donovan, and the mortician Molly Hooper, all characters who would send the men of Victorian London into anarchy. It is also notable that in this series women are not usually the stereotypical damsels in distress. In fact, Sherlock himself and even John are often enough the individuals in need of saving by these women. Regarding representation and white, heteronormative ideology, I feel it is also significant to bring up the notorious JohnLock Conspiracy, or TJLC as it is known among the fan community. TJLC is a theory that supports the idea of Sherlock as a homosexual interested in a bisexual John Watson, and that the show has from the start intended to end with their romantic relationship. TJLC also includes belief that the show runners purposely lie about this intention (as they have with many other spoilers about the show) to ease close-minded audiences into unconsciously rooting for their relationship through subtext and vague narratives slowly made explicit. It is important to acknowledge that the series already features a number of LGBTQ+ characters including antagonists Irene Adler and Jim Moriarty, and that the co creator Mark Gatiss himself is a married gay man. Though TJLC is still undetermined due to the ongoing status of the series, the inclusion of independent female characters and a variety of LGBTQ+ individuals is an example of how Moffat and Gatiss utilize Sherlock as a medium to combat harmful ideology and instead, normalize unprejudiced ideologies.
With this in mind, I would like to reiterate the course theme of Marshal McLuhan’s ‘the Medium is the Message’. Here, it is important to consider McLuhan’s notion that art, and specifically film, is incredibly significant in shaping the thoughts of contemporary society. W. Terrence Gordon, a McLuhan criticizer, states in his novel McLuhan: A Guide for the Perplexed that “McLuhan constantly stressed [television] as, iconic and sculptural.” (Gordon 7) and “it influences social trends and values.” (9). The ‘artists’ behind BBC Sherlock utilize the show as a medium to communicate to their own ideas to the audience, including many of our integral course themes and notions. As well, the idea that imaginative capacity travels in a spiral effect is very evident in the fan reception of BBC Sherlock’s watchers. Fan art, fiction, and discussion are central to the enthusiasm behind the series. There are even BBC Sherlock conventions, themed cafes, podcasts, and inspired web series. This particular television show has an artistic impact on society greater than I have seen with nearly any other, and the fact that the series is so young, airing first on the 25th of July in 2010 with only 9 episodes to date, promises that much more is to come. Myself personally, as well as millions of others, am waiting to see what Moffat and Gatiss have in store for us in the next season with eagerness.
Works Cited
Bauman, Zygmunt. Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000. Print.
Busse, Kristina, and Louisa E. Stein, eds. Sherlock and Transmedia Fandom. Ed. Matt Hills, Anne Kustritz, Melanie E. Kohnen, and Balaka Basu. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company, Inc., 2012. N. pag. Print.
Gordon, Terrence W. McLuhan: A Guide for the Perplexed. New York: The Continuum International, 2010. N. pag. Print.
Sherlock. Writ. Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. The British Broadcasting Corporation, 2010. DVD-ROM.