Sherlock is a TV miniseries that first aired on the BBC back in 2010. Created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, and starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as Sherlock Holmes and John Watson respectively, the show amassed a huge fan following. The Sherlock fandom was a force to be reckoned with and is the perfect case study for fan culture studies.
Throughout the show’s run, the creators have frequently denied the possibility that Sherlock Holmes is gay, and that he and John Watson will get together as a couple. But the fandom doesn’t take them at their word, citing the fact that the creators have a history of lying in interviews to protect plot points of the shows they run. Queer fans in particular draw from their experience and view the show in a different light from what was originally intended. The Johnlock Conspiracy, or TJLC for short, was the culmination of the work of many fans who analyzed the show for evidence to support the subtext they saw.
This discrepancy can be illustrated by the three different readings an audience may take when decoding media as theorized by Stuart Hall. First is the dominant/hegemonic position, which is the audience taking the text at face value. In the context of Sherlock, casual fans which comprises majority of the show’s viewership views John and Sherlock’s relationship as platonic, which was the intention of the creators. Second is the negotiated reading, which is when the audience partly agrees with the text. In Sherlock’s case, this would be the people who accuse the show of queerbaiting, which is when a show employs queer subtext in order to attract a queer audience, but with no intention of following through on that subtext. In line with the negotiated reading, this section of the audience generally agree that the text for John and Sherlock’s relationship is purely platonic, but they also can’t ignore the queer subtext evident in the show. So they take the view that the show employs queerbaiting to explain the discrepancy between the show’s text and subtext. Last is the oppositional reading, which is when the audience is in complete disagreement with the text. This is illustrated by the TJLC sub-fandom, who believe that the queer subtext will become text, going against the creators’ intentions that the text will never become queer. These fans reject the platonic nature of the show’s main relationship, citing the mountains of subtextual evidence in the show as reason to do so.
In the end, fandom has a way of remixing existing media to take on more fresh and radical stories. Participatory culture has largely been a space for minorities such as women, LGBTQ+, people of colour, etc. It is important that we not dismiss the alternative readings, for they reveal the representation that is sorely missing in the current media landscape.