BBC's *A Scandal in Belgravia*
Jan. 8th, 2012 12:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
emma_in_dreamSpoilers.
I really liked the Sherlock and John bits of the first episode of the second season of *Sherlock*. The Christmas party, with John in his hideous jumper and Sherlock showing off for their friends is hysterical.
But I found the characterisation of Irene Adler to be completely unlike the ACC characterisation and.... more misogynistic. In the story from the 1890s Irene Adler is clever, she is focussed on her goal, she tricks Holmes and she gets away with the lover she has chosen.
In the version from 2011 she is dumb as a stump, has no goal at all (literally has to go to Moriarty to come up with a plan for her to use the incredibly amazing secret she has discovered by accident). At no point does she trick Holmes (though she does drug and physically overwhelm him) and her last words are to beg for her life and her last moments on the screen are on her knees.
So Moffat's characterisation is kind of the opposite of Irene Adler as outlined by ACC, and in a way that really seems like he deliberately set out to demean this fabulous character.
But I have mentally fixed the problem. I have decided that the Adler he showed is not the one from *A Scandal in Bohemia*. She is based on the ACC character in *A Case of Identity* - the shortsighted, heavily set woman who fell in love with her stepfather in a disguise he cruelly donned in order to stop her from taking her money elsewhere. She wasn't very bright, but she was loyal, and, sadly, at the end she continues to be deluded about her boyfriend/stepfather's behaviour. This character is far more like the one Moffat presents, so I shall just pretend that she has wandered into the wrong story. There. Problem solved.
I really liked the Sherlock and John bits of the first episode of the second season of *Sherlock*. The Christmas party, with John in his hideous jumper and Sherlock showing off for their friends is hysterical.
But I found the characterisation of Irene Adler to be completely unlike the ACC characterisation and.... more misogynistic. In the story from the 1890s Irene Adler is clever, she is focussed on her goal, she tricks Holmes and she gets away with the lover she has chosen.
In the version from 2011 she is dumb as a stump, has no goal at all (literally has to go to Moriarty to come up with a plan for her to use the incredibly amazing secret she has discovered by accident). At no point does she trick Holmes (though she does drug and physically overwhelm him) and her last words are to beg for her life and her last moments on the screen are on her knees.
So Moffat's characterisation is kind of the opposite of Irene Adler as outlined by ACC, and in a way that really seems like he deliberately set out to demean this fabulous character.
But I have mentally fixed the problem. I have decided that the Adler he showed is not the one from *A Scandal in Bohemia*. She is based on the ACC character in *A Case of Identity* - the shortsighted, heavily set woman who fell in love with her stepfather in a disguise he cruelly donned in order to stop her from taking her money elsewhere. She wasn't very bright, but she was loyal, and, sadly, at the end she continues to be deluded about her boyfriend/stepfather's behaviour. This character is far more like the one Moffat presents, so I shall just pretend that she has wandered into the wrong story. There. Problem solved.
