This is a bit disjointed and not exactly that good, as I’m just about to step out of the door, but I feel I have to add to this pile of Irene talk by saying that no, Irene as a character was not necessarily misogynistically put together: she was a independent, resourceful woman, who was confident in her sexuality and comfortable using it to her advantage. What the writers did to her, though, was problematic in more than one way.


First off, in the original Doyle stories, Irene Adler bests Sherlock Holmes. Simple as that. Using her her wit and cunning she tricks him, and in the end rides off into the sunset with the man she loves, leaving the greatest detective the world has ever seen staring bewildered after her, arse firmly planted in the mud. What Moffat did, however, was strip Irene of that victory. In the episode, Sherlock come out on top — not only once, but twice, and then Moffatt finishes it all off with a scene in which Sherlock rescued this capable adventuress, who’d been rendered absolutely helpless at the hands of evil brown people (complimentary racism, for no extra charge!), from certain death.


Moffat began by turning the scene from the books in which Irene proves herself completely upside-down, by completely removing the precise element with which Doyle’s version did so, and then proceeded to having it all climax with Holmes literally telling Adler that if she wasn’t so emotional, she wouldn’t have lost their little game. A woman, who Moffat himself had established as  a capable enough of an information merchant to tangle with the likes of Professor Moriarty, lost because of her emotions — and not just any emotions, but the ones she had for Sherlock. There is, of course, absolutely nothing wrong with having a soft spot where the people you love lie, or occasionally needing a helping hand. It’s only natural. However, Irene had managed to stay alive for years in a dangerous line of work, completely unaided by consulting detectives, but then! suddenly!, was so undone by Sherlock’s cheekbones that she made the password of phone (often referred to has her life, and being both her health insurance and the thing they tangled over) his name, like a thirteen-year-old girl with a crush. Sherlock, of course, figured this out in the end, by feeling the then seemingly-winning Irene’s pulse and noticing how he turned her on. While she managed to make him unwittingly help her, the only victory-esque thing that wasn’t undone by Sherlock’s massive intellect, was one she scrounged together by literally overpowering Holmes with whip, forcibly drugging him, and then faking her own death.


I, personally, found it all problematic in more ways than one — and I haven’t even mentioned Irene’s magical, disappearing gayness. Yes, that was a thing, too! Irene point-blank told John Watson that she was gay, and that she was in love with Sherlock. Now, I know that the immediate reaction of a large portion of the lovely people here at Tumblr is “hey, what about sexual fluidity!” and I am not discounting that. As a queer lady myself, I’m well-aware of it and have experienced it myself, but the point is this: it’s very unlikely Moffat knows all that much about it, and if he wrote in something that could be considered sexual fluidity, without intending to, it’s erasure and gross and ends up in the vicinity of that charming Lesbians Just Need The Right Penis trope. Even if he does know and did it intentionally, the majority of the viewers won’t and would’ve just assume Sherlock cured her ~abnormalities~ by being awesome while man.

submitted by walburga

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  1. treowe-treow reblogged this from maggieblueberry
  2. maggieblueberry reblogged this from moon-rabbits and added:
    Just watched “A Scandal in Belgravia” again and felt it as good a time as any to post this! *hop*
  3. syvasuru reblogged this from criticalfeministcorgi
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    Feminist discourse on BBC Originals.
  10. eldritchcry reblogged this from skagerak
  11. baddylongway reblogged this from skagerak and added:
    I thought that when Irene said that she was gay it was a pointer to that even if John ISN’T he can still like Sherlock,...
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  16. lornrocks reblogged this from criticalfeministcorgi and added:
    Oh, thank you for putting into words the reason her character made me unsure! It’s...woman...
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