Southland links, Sherlock Holmes
Mar. 21st, 2010 02:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
inmyriadbitsI had a few things piling up in tabs, so here's some clean-up sharing:
1. Have y'all been reading Ben McKenzie's celeb guest blogs about Southland over at TVGuide.com? He's writing one for every S2 episode, and they're really quite good. He has a clear, direct style, gets his points across succinctly, and quite obviously understands what the show is trying to do, and what he's doing as an actor. I find them very interesting.
Entries for: 2.01 "Phase Three", 2.02 "Butch and Sundance", 2.03 "U-Boat"; all entries listed here.
2. I'm pretty sure most of you have read the AfterElton interview with Michael Cudlitz already, but have the link again. It's not the most highly intellectual interview out there, but is rather blessed with a practical, down-to-earth point of view that I enjoy.
I thought this exchange was of particular interest:
The tattoo parlor scene is one of my favorites of the series as well. :)
Anyway, I love the idea that John doesn't really know what he's doing all the time. He's a very confident character, especially on the job, but in his personal life? John is having to learn the rules of the game all over again, and it makes for a fascinating juxtaposition, and gives him a very appealing fallibility.
This is turn leads me to Sherlock Holmes. (All roads lead to Holmes! ...sorry) I'm working my way through Arthur Conan Doyle's canon, and it's really driving home how many popular misconceptions of Holmes I'd internalized. For example, I've heard a lot of people kvetch about how they don't like the stories because Holmes is always right. He doesn't make mistakes! How unlikeable. Reading the stories for myself, now? Wow, is that off the mark. In almost every story I've read thus far, Watson seems to go out of his way to point out that his narratives focus on Holmes' successes, or Holmes makes a mistake and observes that that should teach him a lesson, or something. There are entire stories devoted to situations where Holmes is just plain wrong.
While I grant that there are formulaic qualities to ACD's work, there's something much less offensive about how Holmes goes about it than someone like Horatio Caine (HAAAAATE), or even Grissom (who I quite like). I can't quite put my finger on why, but it's resonating for me with what I see on Southland, much moreso than other shows that superficially have more in common with Holmes -- like House, or CSI, or Due South, or even Psych; Lie To Me, The Mentalist, Bones, Veronica Mars, etc. I think it has a lot to do with the creator; Watson is very loyal to and fond of Holmes, obviously, but he never tries to whitewash the man's faults. Holmes as Watson writes him can be arrogant, mistaken, terribly untidy, drug-addicted, reckless, theatrical, frustrating, and enigmatic. He exists, and we can think of his actions what we will. Watson seems more concerned with championing Holmes' methods than his character; I see the opposite happen with most TV show-runners. They grow very precious about their characters, and stop seeing or writing them at fault. Or, also heinous, they start only focusing on the bad to the exclusion of the good or happy qualities, likely in the mistaken belief that this decision is more artistically valid.
1. Have y'all been reading Ben McKenzie's celeb guest blogs about Southland over at TVGuide.com? He's writing one for every S2 episode, and they're really quite good. He has a clear, direct style, gets his points across succinctly, and quite obviously understands what the show is trying to do, and what he's doing as an actor. I find them very interesting.
Entries for: 2.01 "Phase Three", 2.02 "Butch and Sundance", 2.03 "U-Boat"; all entries listed here.
2. I'm pretty sure most of you have read the AfterElton interview with Michael Cudlitz already, but have the link again. It's not the most highly intellectual interview out there, but is rather blessed with a practical, down-to-earth point of view that I enjoy.
I thought this exchange was of particular interest:
AE: How would you describe John as a cop and as a gay man?
MC: As one informs the other, or as two separate things?
AE: Two separate questions. Tell us what kind of cop he is, and tell us what kind of gay guy he is.
MC: That's a great question because the two answers are completely different, but I'll answer them together because I think one informs the other. He's a great cop, and by great cop I mean he knows what he's doing, he's very experienced, he has really good instincts, he's been trained well, and he's had prior military experience. He's not a super hero.
One of my favorite moments in the show is when the guy with the tattoo knocks him on his ass. He doesn't pull some fancy move and get out of it, he actually gets himself in danger because he's so cocky because he's going to give this guy shit that he actually forgets for a moment and does something stupid. And you know what? Good cops, and good people, do stupid stuff all the time.
It's our mistakes that make us who we are. That's what makes us real. You're able to follow these characters and see, "Oh, he's not a Horatio on CSI who's just infallible, or William Petersen on the other CSI who has all the answers and is just going to solve every crime." When you watch some of these procedurals, the serial killer has been running around for twenty years, but somehow our hero is going fix all this shit in the last ten minutes, and all of a sudden the killer becomes an idiot and I'm like a superhero. "Oh, well I've put it all together!" That's not how it works. Good cops don't necessarily solve things all the time. It's their training and instincts that they fall back on, and their passion for their job.
Now, the fact that he's gay, the gay thing, relatively speaking, is new to him as far as negotiating the waters of a relationship. He's so well-trained at shutting off those feelings, calling those feelings wrong initially because his whole life, his father told him it was wrong. "That's not right! A real man wouldn't do that."
So his initial thing, I think, when there is an attraction or a connection or closeness that's happening, is a lot of doubt. There's a lot of examination, and self-worth examination, because he still hears his father in the back of his head. It's not like, "Oh, I went to see a psychiatrist and got rid of my wife and now I'm a gay man and everything is cool. Man, look at me! I'm in charge!"
It's one of those places he feels the least in control.
The tattoo parlor scene is one of my favorites of the series as well. :)
Anyway, I love the idea that John doesn't really know what he's doing all the time. He's a very confident character, especially on the job, but in his personal life? John is having to learn the rules of the game all over again, and it makes for a fascinating juxtaposition, and gives him a very appealing fallibility.
This is turn leads me to Sherlock Holmes. (All roads lead to Holmes! ...sorry) I'm working my way through Arthur Conan Doyle's canon, and it's really driving home how many popular misconceptions of Holmes I'd internalized. For example, I've heard a lot of people kvetch about how they don't like the stories because Holmes is always right. He doesn't make mistakes! How unlikeable. Reading the stories for myself, now? Wow, is that off the mark. In almost every story I've read thus far, Watson seems to go out of his way to point out that his narratives focus on Holmes' successes, or Holmes makes a mistake and observes that that should teach him a lesson, or something. There are entire stories devoted to situations where Holmes is just plain wrong.
While I grant that there are formulaic qualities to ACD's work, there's something much less offensive about how Holmes goes about it than someone like Horatio Caine (HAAAAATE), or even Grissom (who I quite like). I can't quite put my finger on why, but it's resonating for me with what I see on Southland, much moreso than other shows that superficially have more in common with Holmes -- like House, or CSI, or Due South, or even Psych; Lie To Me, The Mentalist, Bones, Veronica Mars, etc. I think it has a lot to do with the creator; Watson is very loyal to and fond of Holmes, obviously, but he never tries to whitewash the man's faults. Holmes as Watson writes him can be arrogant, mistaken, terribly untidy, drug-addicted, reckless, theatrical, frustrating, and enigmatic. He exists, and we can think of his actions what we will. Watson seems more concerned with championing Holmes' methods than his character; I see the opposite happen with most TV show-runners. They grow very precious about their characters, and stop seeing or writing them at fault. Or, also heinous, they start only focusing on the bad to the exclusion of the good or happy qualities, likely in the mistaken belief that this decision is more artistically valid.
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(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-21 12:19 pm (UTC)Great post. Love the thoughts on Holmes.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-21 08:53 pm (UTC)Thanks! Are you a Holmes fan yourself?
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-21 09:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-21 09:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-21 08:59 pm (UTC)(although it does give me the opportunity to go back and say LOL ICON!)