Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes has been adapted and reworked numerous times across many traditional mediums such books, films and television. BBC’s Sherlock is a recent modernized TV adaptation which was critically acclaimed for its writing and direction and nominated for many highly-regarded awards such as BAFTAs and Golden Globes. Like many shows with prominent fandoms (E.g. Supernatural, Doctor Who), Sherlock was subject to a high production of fan activity based on the show and its iconic characters. The often homoerotic pairing of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson in the fandom is similar in fashion to the pairing of Kirk and Spock from Star Trek discussed in Jenkins’s article, which spurs an endless production of what is called
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Comparable to the ‘slash’ genre of Western world is homoerotic manga genre known as Yaoi or Boys’ Love (BL), most of which are often fanfiction of original manga. In Fran Martin’s article “Comics as Everyday Theory: The Counterpublic World of Taiwanese Women Fans of Japanese Homoerotic Manga” (2008), she explores the motives of young Taiwanese women who read BL and the social influence it has on their perceptions of gender and sexuality. In mainstream manga, significant criticism stems from the sexism and gender inequality that is regularly depicted. In shōjo manga, which is the genre of heterosexual boy-girl romance aimed at a female audience, the protagonist female often has a ‘general lameness’(p. 168) to her personality. This boring characterization aligns with Western ‘Mary Sue’ type characters, where the female has no redeeming qualities herself in order for her to be highly relatable and her male counterpart to be outstanding. In his article, Jenkins (1988) describes some of the feminine traits of that female characters in Star Trek have such as having ‘erratic emotion-driven conduct’ and ‘never [being] shown in a position of authority’. Similarly in shōjo manga, the female characters were colloquially described as being ‘plain dumb’ and ‘powerless’ with ‘zero physical strength’ (p.169) by Fran’s interviewees, emphasizing the submissive nature and the lack of resistance of these characters against their active and dominant male counterparts. Hence, fanfiction can assume a functional role in the critique of gender and gender roles in mainstream media. The appeal of BL manga stems from the apparent ambiguity of gendered roles as main characters are of the same sex and have vague motives and intentions as opposed to their shōjo manga counterparts who are bound by ‘limitations of
Comparable to the ‘slash’ genre of Western world is homoerotic manga genre known as Yaoi or Boys’ Love (BL), most of which are often fanfiction of original manga. In Fran Martin’s article “Comics as Everyday Theory: The Counterpublic World of Taiwanese Women Fans of Japanese Homoerotic Manga” (2008), she explores the motives of young Taiwanese women who read BL and the social influence it has on their perceptions of gender and sexuality. In mainstream manga, significant criticism stems from the sexism and gender inequality that is regularly depicted. In shōjo manga, which is the genre of heterosexual boy-girl romance aimed at a female audience, the protagonist female often has a ‘general lameness’(p. 168) to her personality. This boring characterization aligns with Western ‘Mary Sue’ type characters, where the female has no redeeming qualities herself in order for her to be highly relatable and her male counterpart to be outstanding. In his article, Jenkins (1988) describes some of the feminine traits of that female characters in Star Trek have such as having ‘erratic emotion-driven conduct’ and ‘never [being] shown in a position of authority’. Similarly in shōjo manga, the female characters were colloquially described as being ‘plain dumb’ and ‘powerless’ with ‘zero physical strength’ (p.169) by Fran’s interviewees, emphasizing the submissive nature and the lack of resistance of these characters against their active and dominant male counterparts. Hence, fanfiction can assume a functional role in the critique of gender and gender roles in mainstream media. The appeal of BL manga stems from the apparent ambiguity of gendered roles as main characters are of the same sex and have vague motives and intentions as opposed to their shōjo manga counterparts who are bound by ‘limitations of