writemeastoryofsolitude:

i-read-your-writing-upside-down:

Of course we have talked about the scene at Angelo’s at great length, but just look at these two guys in slow motion, it’s worth it because their faces are so expressive.
The first gif shows John’s reaction when Sherlock says: “I know it’s fine” (having a boyfriend). His look speaks volumes: He’s immensely relieved –finally he has met someone who isn’t a homophobe. We may suppose that his parents are extremely homophobic and Harry’s coming out went badly, so John decided to stay in the closet. With Sherlock, he might dare to come out.
The second gif shows Sherlock giving John his full attention. He turns towards him as soon as John asks: “Do you have a boyfriend?” He was watching the street outside before, but now he fixates John and keeps looking at him fondly and with genuine interest – until John’s hitting on him becomes a bit too much and he has to look away to gather himself
The third gif is John saying: “Right. Ok,” immediately after this bit of conversation: “So you’ve got a boyfriend?” – “No.” Now he’s not only relieved but positively happy. I think if it wasn’t for Sherlock’s “married to my work”, we’d have had a Johnlock kiss not more than 50 minutes into the show. What a pity. But also: What a promising beginning for a very long romantic arc.

Every time I think about this scene, like really think about it, I just… Sure, their conversation here wouldn’t seem particularly out of place in real life for the “socially liberal” or
non-heterosexual of us, but this was not a conversation I expected to
hear in a million years in a television show which presumably has nothing whatsoever do to with the sexualities of the main characters.

As
exhaustively heteronormative as most of our films and television shows
are, and as gradually as we’re coming to expect and demand better, it’s
just simply not done to include a conversation for the purpose of
confirming a character’s heterosexuality, when that sexuality has
absolutely no bearing on the narrative of the story being told.  What
would be the point??

With the “straight until proven
otherwise” mindset which is so frustrating and pervasive, carving out
space in a scene to include dialogue for the purpose of confirming heterosexuality in two characters of the same gender who have just met
would be meaningless, wasteful of limited screen time, nonsensical, and
perhaps even downright cruel. Heteronormative/straight viewers would
find this confirmation utterly unnecessary—as far as they’re concerned,
everyone is at all times straight unless they have been explicitly
singled out as otherwise!—while variously-queer viewers may very likely
take it as a twist of the knife, a clarification with no purpose but to
deny them even the possibility of being allowed to see themselves or
their own life experiences in these characters.

Do you
really think Mark Gatiss, who has talked at length about his own
experiences with the pain of growing up without representation, would
have “never disagreed on anything“ with Moffat if Moffat writing that bit of dialogue into their show was in any way meant to genuinely confirm for the audience that Sherlock or John was heterosexual?

The only reasonable explanation for this talk of girlfriends and boyfriends and of Sherlock calling John out on seemingly angling to snag the title for himself is to let the audience know this is not a show in which we should expect to sit back and blindly assume “straight until proven otherwise.”
(And don’t try to tell me the purpose of this dialogue was simply to
convey the “non-heterosexual-friendly” attitude the show would be
taking—this aspect was more than sufficiently covered by John admitting
without judgment that his sister was married to a woman, and Sherlock’s
only reaction to this information being disappointment in himself for
failing to deduce John’s life situation with 100% accuracy.)

This
is why it boggles my mind when the tjl r crowd claims the conversation
at Angelo’s between Sherlock and John “doesn’t mean anything” or worse
yet somehow “”proves”” they would never see each other in a romantic or
sexual light.  Firstly, because lmao you don’t write meaningless filler
into the first private, personal conversation between your two main
characters, and secondly, because it does say something, it very
much does, just not in a language that those experiencing the world
through heteronormative lenses can understand, evidently.