About a month ago I used a meme-pic of Benedict Cumberbatch as the launching-point do a discussion on rudeness in society. This weekend I saw some of Cumberbatch’s BBC series “Sherlock”, and now I know how he got to be the Dismissively Rude Poster-Boy. That’s what his character, Sherlock Holmes, is.
Granted, I saw only part of two episodes, so perhaps I didn’t get to watch far enough for the show to redeem itself, but I frankly found their take on Holmes to be insufferable. He’s not just rude, he’s cruel. The show creators describe him as “slightly Aspergerish”, but that’s perhaps an insult to people with Aspergers. Yes, Holmes is incredibly smart, but evidently not smart enough to realize that unless you are the main character in a TV series people will not put up with crap like he continually gets away with. He refuses to be kind or respectful to anyone (he shows up to an appointment to Buckingham Palace wearing only a bedsheet simply because he found it annoying to be invited before he was ready to go outside for the day), not even his supposed friend, Dr. Watson.
About the only enjoyable aspect of the series is the Holmesian “this is how I know” explanations, though in true (and annoying) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle style you’re not given the chance to see these same details and therefore prove yourself as smart as Holmes. In fact, it almost seems as though everyone in the show is written to act dumb so that Holmes and (sometimes) Watson can appear smart.
Perhaps had I been able to watch one episode to its conclusion I might feel differently. I sat down with my kids to watch (it was my daughter’s night to choose), since BBC’s standards are not always as strict as US network TV, nor do they give you the same warning. The first episode I quickly determined would likely not be suitable for my children, so we skipped out after the first 30 minutes or so. The second proved too frightening, so we bailed on it after 20-30 minutes. I never really got to see how the stories developed, but instead got to watch several times Holmes getting to be Holmes before settling in to really try and solve a case.
Maybe he gets to be more bearable once “the game is afoot.” But after those two doses of this “modern take” I have no desire to see more. I already encounter enough people who are so smart they feel the rules of decent behavior and tolerance don’t apply to them. I encounter significantly more people who simply think they are so smart they don’t need any measure of traditional courtesy. I’m not all that surprised that “Sherlock” has been most often recommended to me by teenagers.
Be glad you are a fictional character, Mr. Holmes, with writers on your side to run interference for you. In the real world when you actively insult and attack the people who are paying you, you soon find there are no more willing to pay for the “honor” of being savaged by you when someone significantly nicer, even if less brilliant, will still be able to get the job done.
Rude is only rude when other people do it.
So…it was rude of me to point that out?
Are you “other people”?
I’ll always be “other people” to “other people.”
Well, there you are …