It’s a rousing thought to believe we took a few veiled hints from the writers of BBC Sherlock, a few hidden clues, and created the Johnlock universe in our fictions, art works and on our blogs. We have created, exploded with our obsession, become more than we were, but to believe we emerged from a few scattered hints in a television show is to do disservice to the ones that went before us. If our history is ignored we lose validity. God knows, those outside our fandom try and rob us of our agency , we need a strong foundation to stand on, and we have one.
I won’t go into our genesis as Johnlockers here, just a brief reminder that our birth was written into the canon in such things as the flight of Holmes and Watson during the ‘Invert Stings’ of 1895, Holmes dislike of women’s company, Watson’s abandonment of his wife in favour of Holmes, the frequenting of Turkish bath houses, and the sheer desolation of Holmes on Watson’s engagement. Our Victorian counterparts whispered the anathema idea of the true nature of these two men, the homosexual Victorian subculture found solace in the subtext, and Doyle kept delivering, even as he was denied his seat in The House of Lords due to his sympathy for homosexuals. The Holmes and Watson Romantic School of Thiught, underground, grew throughout the early 1900s, cresting with Rex Stout and his essay ‘Was Watson a Woman’. Johnlockers continued to be black balled from the Holmesian Societies, even as writers began to surface the idea in publications such as The Baker Street Journal, until in the 1970s Billy Wilder attempted to free John and Sherlock from the closet. He regretted not being more overt in his film, he bowed to pressures at the time, but we did get some precious glimpses of a gay Holmes. Granada took up the mantle in the 1980s and decided to ignore Watson’s marriage, they gave us a married same sex couple solving crimes. The fanzines and online forums ignited with creativity, Johnlockers began to emerge from their clusters and we became a subsection of a fandom. Finally two men, talking on a train, had the idea to modernise Sherlock Holmes and fix the wrongs done over the past 135 years.
Moffat and Gatiss had a plan and it was taken up by the BBC, it was timely, meeting an agenda, the project orchestrated and with ASiP the Johnlock community erupted on line. Our creativity stoaked by the show, in its visual tropes, it’s obvious direction, the brilliant casting of the two leads, the costuming and hair of a Byronic Sherlock, the music and the hints of suggestion by a well run PR campaign. We were led by the nose. We didn’t create Johnlock, it had been there all along, only now two of our members were in control of the project, had an international forum, and were challenging us to create. And create we did, aided by technology, we expanded with every episode. Anyone who thinks we are just going on vague hints and wishful thinking doesn’t truly understand the art of manipulation. Manipulation in a good way. We are being led and always have been, from Doyle to Moffat and Gatiss, we are willing fulfilling the agenda.
I knew Johnlockers who lived and loved Sherlock and John in the 1950s, they were as obsessed and creative as we are, they just didn’t have our outlets. Don’t rob those before us of their contribution.
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