The Role of Alterity for the Construction of Identity in BBC's
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The Role of Alterity for the Construction of Identity in BBC’s Sherlock Masterarbeit im Ein-Fach-Masterstudiengang, Fach “English and American Literatures, Cultures, and Media” der Philosophischen Fakultät der Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel vorgelegt von Wiebke Wilhelmine Pauketat Erstgutachter: Prof. Christian Huck Zweitgutchterin: Prof. Annegreth Horatschek Kiel im Dezember 2013 2 Table of Content 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 3 2 Theory ............................................................................................................... 7 2.1 The importance of alterity for identity construction ...................................... 7 2.2 Concept reality/fiction, film techniques ...................................................... 10 3 Analysis ........................................................................................................... 16 3.1 Perspective and Identification with Sherlock/Sherlock´s side of the story.. 16 3.2 Moriarty as a concept and not just a character (more than just a villain) ... 21 3.3 Moriarty – as he is depicted as alterity ...................................................... 28 3.3.1 Expectations/schemes ....................................................................... 28 3.3.2 Scenes .............................................................................................. 32 4 Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 56 5 German summary ............................................................................................ 59 6 Bibliography ..................................................................................................... 61 7 Erklärung ......................................................................................................... 65 8 Appendix ......................................................................................................... 66 3 1 Introduction In 2010 the BBC launched the crime drama Sherlock, featuring the famous detective Sherlock Holmes in a modern day London. Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat co-created the TV-series that concentrates on Sherlock Holmes as an investigator who uses modern techniques as well as his enormous intellect to help the police solve crimes. The drama consists of two series - with three ninety minutes episodes each - so far. The second series was aired in early 2012 and the third series has been announced for January 2014. The choice to adapt Sir Conan Arthur Doyle’s stories into the twenty- first century is one important difference between this and other productions. Critics often praise how well the adaptation depicts a modern Sherlock Holmes while still staying true to Arthur Conan Doyle’s work (e.g. cf. Roush 2010, Hale 2010). For the creators, this however made no difference in the portrayal of Sherlock Holmes. In the original stories the detective is a modern man using modern ways to solve problems; depicting Sherlock Holmes1 as a modern detective was one of the main goals in this new production, and not the setting: Much as we love Sherlock Holmes, we love Victoriana. Many of the adaptations become about the period as opposed to about the story. (Moffat, In 'Sherlock', A Classic Sleuth For The Modern Age 01:03) A crucial change however is the importance of Moriarty2 as Sherlock’s archenemy in this production. Moriarty – as I will explain in more detail in chapter 3 – has become a well known antagonist to Sherlock Holmes in contemporary Western culture. His figure often appears in relation to the detective - may it be in films like Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (Ritchie 2011), other TV series like Elementary - where Moriarty is actually a woman - (Doherty 2012-) or novels and short stories. Even in the German audio drama Die Drei Fragezeichen there is an episode concerned with him (154/Botschaft aus der Unterwelt 2012). 1 Actor Benedict Cumberbatch 2 Actor Andrew Scott 4 However, his role in Sherlock is very different from the original stories and most adaptations where he only appeared a couple of times. Although his appearance is undoubtedly also of importance in those, Sherlock takes this one step further. Co-creator Moffat explains the decision to change Moriarty’s role as such: Moriarty was the nightmare of his time, the idea – in Doyle’s time – that crime could be organised - the idea that crime could be a centrally organised thing - was the nightmare then. What is our nightmare? Our nightmare is primarily the suicide bomber, the enemy that doesn´t priorities their own survival, the lack of rationality, the fact that there is nothing that you both want that you can negotiate with. You can´t make peace with somebody who only wants war. And that´s where we went with Moriarty. We wanted someone like Sherlock Holmes, and as clever as Sherlock Holmes, and as focused as Sherlock Holmes, who was completely barking mad. So we went for madness. (Steven Moffat & Benedict Cumberbatch RE: "Reichenbach Fall" 00:10) “Our nightmare”, as Moffat phrases it, is that threat of someone who does not conform to social norms of our culture. With Moriarty the series depicts an alterity that is attributed with a “lack of rationality”, but still manages to be quite similar to the individual that does conform to the norms. Moriarty is not just the character who gets to “kill” Sherlock like Professor Moriarty did in The Final Problem (Doyle 301-318) - but in this adaptation, he is also re-presenting the concept of alterity to Sherlock from the first episode on. Therefore he plays a crucial part not only in the feared destruction of Sherlock’s identity, but more importantly also in the construction of Sherlock’s identity in the first place. This thesis will therefore illustrate how alterity is the most important part in constructing identity in Sherlock – so far. As the second series ended with a cliff hanger – Moriarty dead and Sherlock faking his own death – one will have to see just what effect this destruction of alterity will have on Sherlock’s process of identity formation in the forthcoming third series. Because he is the other that Sherlock himself sees most important as his opponent, this thesis focuses on the role of Moriarty as representation of the concept of alterity. One could also consider Irene Adler3 – who appears in the first episode of the second season A Scandal in Belgravia – as alterity. Although she can clearly be seen as some other to Sherlock, especially 3 Actor Lara Pulver 5 sexually, he himself does not choose to make this part of his identity crucial. He states “I consider myself married to my work”, when John Watson asks him about his personal life (A Study in Pink 00:51:12). He does not even think of himself as a man in that way, but focuses all his energy on his work as a consulting detective. Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss point this out in the episode’s audio commentary: Moffat: He’s not interested at all. He’s interested in what his brain is doing. Gatiss: The rest is transport. (00:51:30) Sherlock is depicted as asexual. Neither John nor Mrs Hudson – the people that are closest to him – know if he has ever had a physical relationship. A sexual being like Irene Adler then certainly is his other, but he himself does not choose his disinterested in sex to be one of his important character traits. Therefore, Moriarty, as his opponent in his line of work, is more important than Irene Adler as a woman. While he dismisses Irene’s effects on him in the end, he takes Moriarty’s importance for constructing his own identity very seriously. Sherlock is not the only TV series where there is such a constellation of the protagonist fighting a sometimes invisible opponent. There are many examples that follow the same story of the main character consulting an investigative authority and having an enemy that determines how they see themselves. These fictions are made for a mainstream audience and their main intention is to entertain, still it is remarkable how similar they depict the constellation of opponents and therefore show how their viewers perceive antagonists as a crucial part for the protagonist to constructs his/her identity. Profiler Will Graham investigates Hannibal Lector – only after they worked together on other cases – in Hannibal (Fuller 2013-); Consultant Adrian Monk still tries to catch the murderer of his wife while working with the police in Monk (Breckman 2002-2009); Former FBI agent Ryan Hardy consults the FBI in cases connected with Joe Carrol in The Following (Williamson 2013); Richard Castle seeks inspiration for crime novels while working with the New York Police Department in Castle, and one killer – 3XK – appears again and again to haunt the investigators (Marlowe 2009-). Pretend mentalist Patrick Jane consults the CBI and seeks revenge for the murder of his family 6 committed by Red John (Heller 2008-). In a similar way Shawn Spencer pretends to be a psychic to work with the Santa Barbara Police Department in Psych; here there are also re-occurring killers – Mr. Yin and Mr. Yang - who focus on Shawn (Franks 2006-). All the opponents just mentioned have major influence on how the protagonists identify themselves. In Sherlock, the opponent Moriarty is very prominent; the fact that the series is an adaptation - and therefore the audience is able to compare it to its source material - makes it possible for the viewer to spot the importance of Moriarty as the antagonist.