ENG 910: English Capstone Seminar: Week Six

This week's seminar focused on the Sherlock Holmes stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle, the stories are beloved in the genre of detective stories. A product of its time, although not an adequate excuse, the stories are rife with racist stereotypes of BIPOC and portray women in a light where they lack little agency. In the story, 'The Man with the Twisted Lip', one of the character's is seen trying to enter an opium den to look for her husband, but is stopped by the owner in what is portrayed as a very violent way. The man is 'othered' as someone who hails from South-east Asia but is depicted as dark. Sidney Paget's own biases likely influenced this depiction, the notion that someone that was not white, was dangerous, especially to respectable women of the upper classes. This is furthered seen through the way that their clothes are depicted: the man is depicted in assumed to be traditional clothes, but comes off more like rags; while, the woman is wearing a dress befitting her station, along with a hat. Although, we can say the woman has agency through her decision to travel to area of London that is 'dangerous', but she 'loses' this agency through the violence forced upon her by the den owner. The Sherlock Holmes stories did not portray racialized people or women kindly. In our own cultural moment, ths is still an issue, as BIPOC and women are constantly falling into stereotypes that are backed by centuries of colonialism and racism. However, films like Enola Holmes, chronicling the adventures of Sherlock Holmes' younger sister, a self-sufficient, spunky dectective attempt to subvert this narrative and portray the more progressive moments of the Victorian era such as the women's suffrage movement and being sure to include BIPOC in the film, which is typically an issue with period pieces. Although, it is unfortunate that these BIPOC characters fall into roles that serve the white characters who are ultmately the main cast in the film, it is still a start. 

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