Progressive Masculinity in "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows"

I am always intrigued when a sequel is able to rise above the 60% mark on Rotten Tomatoes.  Thus, with Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows hovering in the low 60th percentiles and, therefore, acquiring the status of "certified fresh" I figured I would give it a go.  I must say that I wasn't disappointed either.  But, as I tell my students, just because I liked the film doesn't mean that I can't critique it.  So let the fun and spoilers begin.

In this installment of the continuing sagas of Sherlock Holmes the detective is manic about a professor named Moriarty... or is it really something else that has got Holmes all in a huff?  At the beginning of the film Watson stops by Holmes' apartment to find the detective in a manic state.  True, Holmes is on the trail of Professor James Moriarty, but Watson is there to celebrate his stag night before he weds and cares little for Holmes' new venture.  With Watson's marriage looming Holmes' manic state seems to be worsening; as Holmes' housekeeper, Mrs. Hudson, points out he's been recently subsiding on coffee, tobacco, and cocoa leaves.  Now it is nothing new to say that the Guy Ritchie versions of the Sherlock Holmes saga are full of innuendo between Robert Downey, Jr.'s Holmes and Jude Law's Watson.  There are so many different critics and bloggers that have commented on this:

[Holmes]... more or less sabotages Watson's bachelor party, makes something of a comedy out of the marriage ceremony itself, then invades the couple's honeymoon train-compartment dressed as a woman. He tosses Mary off the train, and -- in torn dress and smeared lipstick -- falls bare-chested to the berth, commanding, 'Lie down with me, Watson.'  - John Beifuss

And I am not here to argue with them.  The bromance between Watson and Holmes is alive and well in the second installment of the series.  My interest in how the latent love between Watson and Holmes, coupled with the surprising attributes of the other male characters, makes for a stunningly progressive take on masculinity in an action film.  These men aren't your what-is-bigger-my-pecs-my-gun-or-my-ahem-masculinity sort of men.  These men are smart, they cry, they are crafty, they have strange phobias, they love women, and they love other men.  They have, in some ways, broken out of the box of stereotypical masculinity and they've done so in an action film.  This is no small feat.

First, let's look at Holmes nemesis, Professor James Moriarty, played by Jared Hess.  Moriarty is ruthless and uses his intellect to devise a plan to make money by selling weaponry after igniting a world war.  Moriarty is smart, cunning, and uninterested in women in the film.  In most action films he would be made to seem effeminate and exude homosexual vibes since real men, well, penetrate in all aspects of their life.  However, if you contrast Moriarty with Holmes, there isn't much of a difference between the two.  Holmes is smart, cunning, and more interested in Watson then women.  The one thing that divides Moriarty from Holmes is that he wants to profit off his wits and, to do so, he's ruthless and cunning.  The differences between the men is so slight that it opens up new possibilities for the cinematic other -- they can be evil because they choose to be evil, not because there are anything but white, heterosexual, and male like our protagonist  (see my other blogs on the cinematic other to see what I'm talking about).

Also, interesting in this film is Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock's brother, played by Stephen Fry.  Mycroft is your stereotypical latent homosexual character.  He is effeminate, clean, and has a man servant with him at all times.  He is a committed bachelor who wonders around his house naked while telling the newly-minted and decidedly perturbed Mrs. Watson that he "might grow to enjoy the company of a person of your gender."  In your typical action film Mycroft Holmes would be the antagonist, he's everything a real-man is not.  But he's not the antagonist of this film.  In fact, he has a lot of power working in a unspecified job in the higher levels of the English government.  It is extremely unusual to see a character like Mycroft be so integral to the success of the main character in an action film and, also, live to see the end credits roll.

Allowing men to show compassion for another man (Watson and Holmes hold hands) and a series of personality quirks (Holmes hates horses and Mycroft doesn't like to touch other people) are newer contributions to the acceptable characteristic given to male characters in the action genre.  This expansion of the masculine box is the type of progress I am happy to report.  Now if only there were good things to say about the female characters in the film...  Oh well, one step forward, one step back.

Plato is So Gay

"Wow. Those are some gay undertones," states my husband, Geoff, during the first planetarium scene in Rebel Without A Cause. Geoff is not a filmmaker, has never taken a film class, and generally avoids reading too much into media. However, even he is not convinced that Plato is, as he is described by others, just "the youthful innocent."

Quickly Googling for Plato+Gay+"Rebel Without A Cause" produces a myriad of results. Seems Geoff isn't the only one picking up on Plato's vibes. Roger Ebert had this to say about Plato's reaction to the planetarium presentation in Rebel Without A Cause:

"What does he know about man alone?" It is clear now but may have been less visible in 1955 that Plato is gay and has a crush on Jim; at the planetarium, he touches his shoulder caressingly. After Buzz dies when his car hurtles over the cliff, the students all seem curiously -- well, composed. Jim gives Plato a lift home and Plato asks him, "Hey, you want to come home with me? I mean, there's nobody home at my house, and heck, I'm not tired. Are you?" But Jim glances in the direction of Judy's house, and then so does Plato, ruefully.

No one brought up the question of Plato's sexuality at "An Afternoon with Stewart Stern" where I, and several lucky others, got to listen to stories of old Hollywood and talk with the screenwriter of Rebel Without A Cause - Stewart Stern. However, Stern did elude to Nicholas Ray having an interest in men. And that Stern was "so naive" about these things when he first started working in the film industry. Indeed, one blogger even went farther with the suggestive sexuality in the film stating:

Sal Mineo—so affecting as the essentially fatherless outcast Plato—later commented that he had portrayed the first gay teenager on film. There are little clues: the photograph of Alan Ladd taped to his locker door, his longing looks at Jim Stark, his disguised declaration of love in the abandoned mansion. Ray was aware of Dean’s bisexuality and encouraged the actor to use it in certain scenes. Dean instructed Mineo, “Look at me the way I look at Natalie,” for their intimate scene in the Getty mansion. It had to be subtle. A Production Code officer had written in a memo to Jack L. Warner on March 22, “It is of course vital that there be no inference of a questionable or homosexual relationship between Plato and Jim.” In real life Mineo was gay, and it is even rumored that he and Ray (who was bisexual) also had a tryst while filming Rebel.

While those of us who have seen the documentary or read the book The Celluloid Closet don't find any of this particularly shocking, the thing that still bothers me about homosexuality in mainstream film, latent or "out", is how much we like to punish the characters for their alleged transgressions. Here is a quick synopsis of mainstream Hollywood films that have come out in the last twenty years, been acclaimed by the masses and critics, featuring gay, bisexual, transgendered or otherwise "out" main characters and their celluloid fates:

• The Crying Game. Dir: Neil Jordan. 1992. This one is hard to explain, but trust me when I say that this one does not end on a complete happy note. Dead and depressed.
  
• Philadelphia. Dir: Jonathan Demme. 1993. Tom Hanks plays a gay attorney with AIDS who eventually succumbs to his disease. Dead.
  
• Boys Don't Cry. Dir: Kimberly Pierce. 1999. Hillary Swank won an Oscar for playing a transgendered man who is shot and killed by his former friends once they learn his secret. Dead.
  
• Far From Heaven. Dir: Todd Haynes. 2002. Dennis Qauid finally leaves his wife after revealing that he is gay only to be isolated, alone, and depressed in this contemporary re-make of Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows. Depressed.
  
• The Hours. Dir: Stephen Daldry. 2002. This film featured several contemporary "out" characters. One was stuck in a loveless relationship. The other threw himself to his death instead of allowing AIDS to take him. Dead and depressed.
  
• Monster. Dir: Patty Jenkins. 2003. Charlize Theron won an Oscar for her portrayal of Aileen Wournos, a real-life lesbian/prostitute/serial killer, who is eventually tried and convicted for her crimes and sentence to death by lethal injection. Dead.
  
• Brokeback Mountain. Dir: Ang Lee. 2005. Jake Gyllenhaal uttered the classic line "I can't quit you" to Heath Ledger in this story of two cowboys who fall in love with each other. However, eventually Jake Gyllenhaal is viciously murdered by men who learn his secret. Dead and depressed.
• Transamerica. Dir: Duncan Tucker 2005. Felicity Huffman was robbed of the Oscar for her portrayal of a man transitioning to become a woman and the complications it brings with the discovery that she fathered a child. Alive and pretty much happy!
  
• Milk. Dir: Gus Van Sant. 2008. Based on the real story of Harvey Milk who, like his fictional and real peers, is assassinated. Dead.
  

While there are cult favorites and independent films like But I am a Cheerleader (Dir: Jaime Babbit. 1999) and Kissing Jessica Stein (Dir: Charles Herman-Wurmfeld. 2001) that break taboos and allow for more positive gay, bisexual, and transgendered main characters it is almost unheard of in a mainstream or co-opted (small film that gets a lot of Oscar attention) Hollywood films. In fact, the only film that I could think of that has come out in the last twenty years, received mainstream critical and audience acceptance, and featured a character that did not die or end up completely emotionally devastated by the end of the film was Transamerica. This, to me, very clearly articulates an issue with how we feel culturally about LGBTQ men and women in our society - that they do not deserve happiness and acceptance like the heterosexual population. And while their presence has increased and "come out of the closet" since Rebel Without A Cause was released in 1955 they are still meeting the same fate as Plato time and time again - death. This is troubling. I challenge filmmakers large and small to think of better ways to deal with sexualities that break the heteronormativity mold than this disturbing trend of death, depression, and/or emotional destruction. In the meantime I will revel in the campy brilliance of But I am a Cheerleader.


Mad love to Lane, who, one night on a slow film set, helped to create the list of modern films and the fates of their main LGBTQ characters while simultaneously doing a handstand.