*edit* Rereading this whole thing, I felt the need to put in this disclaimer ahead of time: BBC's Sherlock is the main reason I would have even heard of Elementary or cared about it for that matter. I'm not trying to bash the show ... I love every second of Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman banter. Steven Moffat is a writing god-among-men, and if I ever get the chance to work on a show as intelligent, adventurous, fun, tech-savvy, hilarious, and well-put-together as Sherlock, I'd consider myself to be one of the luckiest people alive. *endedit*
This actually started last September -- well, even earlier, I guess. Probably sometime last June. I had just finished thesising and recovering from thesising and I binge-watched (if you can really call it binge-watching when there are only six episodes) BBC's Sherlock. The wit! The sarcasm! The carefully thought-out -- EVERYTHING! And the cheekbones! Oh, the cheekbones. Basically, especially after the stunning RDJ Sherlock Holmes films of recent years, Sherlock Holmes was back in fashion. And so I counted myself among the extremely un-surprised when CBS announced they were going to do their own Sherlock Holmes series, set in New York, with completely new (rather than reinvented) mysteries. Exciting!
Johnny Lee Miller was cast as the recovering addict Mr. Holmes, and the role of Doctor Watson was filled by ... Lucy Liu. Aka, not only an Asian, but an Asian woman. As if the genderbending was so far out of the realm of possibility to some people, she is Asian. They went and "racebent" Watson too! Inconceivable! Despicable! In all honesty, if I remember correctly, the backlash against her being cast is somewhat akin to the backlash against Ben Affleck being cast as Batman for the upcoming Justice League film.
Anyways, back on subject, in a round-about way: having just finished watching the first season of Elementary in time for the season 2 premiere tonight, I found Lucy Liu's performance throughout the entirety of the season to be outstanding. She's subtle, graceful, ferocious, intelligent, loyal, thoughtful, thorough, caring, and all-together a great representation of what a good friend and human being should be. A wonderful foil to Miller's good-chaotic Sherlock. And, as an Asian woman in film, Liu's casting is a testament to the hope that the portrayal of Asians onscreen is slowly getting better.
See, that is the majority of the reason why I think Elementary has half a leg up on Sherlock, at least in the race front. Don't get me wrong, Sherlock is amazing. The script, the line delivery, the scope of the whole show ... I do believe all that is at a higher production value than Elementary (as can be done when you only do three episodes a season and have a year and a half between airings ... MOFFAT!! *shakes fist*). But, and it actually surprises me to say this, Sherlock lacks meaningful diversity in its casting. As far as I can tell, the only person in entirety of the main cast who is not some sort of Caucasian is Sargent Sally Donovan, and she's only in half the episodes (not to mention she's literally built to be an un-likable/unsympathetic character).
Not only that, but Sherlock takes a step in the wrong direction with the second episode of the first series, "The Blind Banker". Long story short, it's the Chinese mob. And there are Chinese artifacts involved. And the non-lead, sort-of center-of-focus character is a Chinese young woman who I couldn't help but cringe at every time she was on screen (Soo Lin Yao). While I'm extremely aware that my Chinese-American upbringing is far from standard, it felt to me that her entire purpose in that episode was to reinforce stereotypes about Asians. She was doe-eyed and docile throughout the entire episode, even when the mob's assassin comes to kill her, and she held onto a Chinese accent stronger than the one my own mother has. (Honestly, I know that one doesn't seem like it should matter that much, but think about it this way: if you were running as fast and as far as you could away from people who would hurt you to the best of their ability, and you had a chance at blending in to your new environment, wouldn't you? She's intelligent enough to know flawless English, so she's got to be intelligent enough to learn to mimic the English accent. I'm just saying.)
And the Chinese mob! Yet another unnecessary stereotype! While Soo Lin Yao obviously represents the flawlessly innocent exotic beauty of the Chinese, these mob members, so fully steeped in their evil smuggler ways, are twisted, heavily-accented, and *sigh* no getting around it -- straight-up ugly, as any self-respecting villain should be, apparently. In contrast to the taller, gorgeous, wide-eyed Soo Lin, these Asians were the squat, squinty-eyed, wrinkled Asians. Take a second to think about it. You know the image I'm talking about.
These parts were cast as stereotypes, not people. And that is my big issue with Sherlock, well, at least with that episode of Sherlock. My problem with it is that there is no in-between. Sure the world, as seen through the eyes of Sherlock, is a completely maddeningly different one than the one the viewer would see on her own, and maybe the series is supposed to be like his point of view or something, but Sherlock also sees layers of people, which is why he is so good at catching criminals -- he in shades of gray, not strict black and white, as the characters were painted in "The Blind Banker".
Whereas, with Elementary, Watson is a force to be reckoned with. By the end of the first season, Holmes himself even puts her on-par intelligence-wise with Moriarty. Watson holds her own in a world surrounded by men who think they hold all the cards at all the times, but she truly is the one to bring them together, hunker down, and hold them up -- she is the stability, foundation, and connection that Holmes and the boys need in order to even consider getting along. Watson is more than the bland, two-dimensional, but-we-have-a-strong-woman-so-we're-doing-female-diversity-right "strong female character". Like I listed before, she's got a long list of truly admirable qualities that exemplify what a good friend and human being should be.
And she just happens to be Asian.
Seriously, though, her race is just an afterthought! There hasn't been an episode yet where Watson has been written into your standard Asian box. From watching the show, I get the overwhelming feeling that she was cast as an American-Asian, not as an Asian-American. The show makes it feel like she was cast a person first, and her identity as an Asian is a relatively secondary aspect to her personality, as honestly, it kind of is, at least in my experience.
I know, it seems counter-productive for someone who could be now touted as holding the banner high for positive portrayals of Asian-Americans to have their race be considered secondary, but that's just it -- we're people first, not Asians. Being Asian to us is just the same as all the people who are from, say, Ireland ... Is being Irish the first thing you think about when you wake up in the morning? Do you wear traditional, or even stereotypical Irish dress on the day to day? Do you speak American English with that great Irish accent? Is Guinness the only beer you'll drink? Are you a practicing Catholic? Do you believe in leprechauns?
... No?
Well of course you don't, you're American!
Surprise. So are we.
Yes, I'm fully aware that I just listed a bunch of probably insulting stereotypes about Irish people (and I do apologize for that, I do), but this is what I'm talking about. It's apparently not okay to list Irish stereotypes, but it's acceptable to stick Asians into a neat little box and always have them portrayed that way? (That sentence alone is insane ... Asia has as many countries as Europe does, all with varying cultures, customs, and peoples ... just like Europe does). That's why there needs to be a shift away from what has become the standard portrayal of Asians in film and television. We are not all super-genius math geeks, and we sure as hell are not doe-eyed and docile exotic playthings from the Orient. The majority of us don't have accents, especially if we were born here, and all in all, and perhaps the most important thing of all: we're just like everyone else who lives in this country. So there's no need to differentiate Asian-American characters from white characters.
And that is why, despite there being a fandom-wide disdain of Elementary from Sherlockians, I will continue to watch Elementary proudly, no matter how much flack I get from my Sherlock-loving friends.
--Tiffany
P.S. Check out this article; it's one that I found around this time last year about the casting of Lucy Liu in Elementary, and it definitely inspired this blog. Honestly, the article was actually the reason I didn't even bother writing this in the first place last year, because it explained so eloquently why the racebending of Dr. Watson doesn't deserve to be bashed.
P.P.S. Quick explanation of this blog: Really the only reason I ended up deciding to write this is because I just finished the first season of Elementary, and based on its individual merits, I'm not a fan of the bashing that the show is getting from Sherlock fans who refuse to watch it purely because they consider it a rip off of the British show and refuse to see the differences in genre and intent between the two.
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