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Benedict Cumberbatch (left) and Martin Freeman (right), during the filming of Sherlock

Johnlock (also Sherlock Holmes/John Watson or Sherlock/John) is the fandom name for the hypothetical romantic pairing, or "ship", between the BBC Sherlock characters Sherlock Holmes and John Watson.

Background

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Sherlock, a BBC TV show which first aired in 2010, is a modern adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Homes stories. It centers around Sherlock Holmes, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, and John Watson, played by Martin Freeman.[1]

Queer readings of Sherlock Holmes are not new to the 2010 Sherlock.[2][3] The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970 film), for instance, heavily implies that Holmes is gay.[4] This adaption is one of Sherlock showrunner Mark Gatiss' favorite movies, and he has said that he believes the Holmes in the film to be in love with Watson.[5]

In Strangers – Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century, Graham Robb argued that Doyle's original Holmes was coded as gay and had a "distinctly homosexual lifestyle".[6] Fandom scholar Anne Jamison, in Fic: Why Fanfiction is Taking Over the World, quotes an anonymous fan describing Sherlock Holmes as the "First Fandom Ever", and Holmes/Watson as "the first slash ship sailin' the seven seas".[7]

The pairing

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Peek at a few fiction websites for Sherlock and you'll find tales of a mantel-bound skull that talks; an army doctor who's also a werewolf, or vampire, or teacher; a consulting detective with wings, or grease and gears instead of flesh and bone; and again and again you'll find two men who give their hearts—and bodies—to their one and only friend. And, though there's plenty of kid-friendly fic, there's also sex, sex, so much sex.

Wendy C. Fries, "Mad as a Box of Frogs", in Fic: Why Fanfiction is Taking over the World

As of 2018, about half of the over 116,000 Sherlock works on the popular fanfiction site Archive of Our Own (AO3) were tagged Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, with the slash indicating a romantic relationship.[5][1] As of 2022, Johnlock was the second most popular pairing on AO3, after Castiel/Dean Winchester ("Destiel") from Supernatural.[8] The same year, it was the 72nd pairing in terms of new works added, reflecting a significant decrease in fandom activity from when the show was airing.[9] Johnlock shipping was most prominent over the show's 2010-2017 run.[10][11]

Most commonly, Sherlock is portrayed as gay and John as bisexual, though there are many other readings.[5] Sherlock, who claims to be "married to his work", is sometimes read as asexual or aromantic.[12]

Cassandra Collier analyzes Johnlock fanfiction as "subverting social norms of desire and sexuality" and avoiding the homonormativity that other slash ships often fall into.[13] Johnlock fanfiction often frames their relationship as "fixation or obsession", which creates less healthy relationships.[13] Sherlock's perspective is often used to defamiliarize romantic relationships, while John is a more conventional character whose narrative often involves complicating this conventionality.[13][7]

Fandom

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Johnlock fans are usually "young, female, queer, and neurodivergent".[5] The Johnlock fandom largely grew on the social media site Tumblr, while Sherlock fans on other sites tended to be more resistant to the idea of a romantic relationship between the leads.[5]

Poet Richard Siken has written Johnlock fanfiction.[14] Romance author Kara Braden's first published novel The Longest Night was a revised version of her Johnlock fanfiction "Northwest Passage" with the central romance changed to a heterosexual one and "the serial numbers filed off".[7]

Some Johnlock shippers lashed out against Amanda Abbington, who played John's love interest and wife in the third season. She received death threats from angry fans.[3][15]

The Johnlock Consipracy

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Some fans believed that the romantic reading was intended by the show's creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, a theory known as The Johnlock Conspiracy (TJLC). This theory gained prominence on the social media site Tumblr after the release of the third season of the show in 2014.[16][16] Both showrunners have denied this, instead favoring explicitly heterosexual interpretations. The showrunners have repeatedly been accused of queerbaiting.[5][13]

TJLC fans relied on close readings of the show and interviews with the cast and crew to make their argument.[16][5] Evidence fans have used includes Sherlock and John being repeatedly mistaken for a couple, the allegedly incoherent plot of seasons three and four which fans claimed only made sense with a romantic reading, a BBC report on its interest in developing LGB content,[13] and "the set designer's fondness for elephants", which Johnlock fans considered a coded symbol for the "elephant in the room" of John and Sherlock's love for each other.[12] The extent of the theories has been partially attributed to the two year pauses in between seasons, which gave fans a long period of time to develop their theories without new source material.[13][7] The showrunners had been known to lie to prevent spoilers, which contributed to some fan's dismissal of their denials of a romantic relationship between John and Sherlock.[12]

Some fans of Sherlock, including ones that themselves ship Johnlock, strongly dislike TJLC, referring to it as "cult-like" and "crazy".[5][12] TJLC has been criticized for harassment and doxing of other fans.[16][10] Pop culture scholar E. J. Nielsen argues that the switch of fandom culture Livejournal to Tumblr, and a lesser degree Twitter, contributed to the spread of TJLC and the harassment that non-TJLC fans faced from TJLC fans.[12]

Fans that believed in TJLC became so convinced that the fourth season would end with Johnlock being written into the show that after the final episode of the season aired they began to expect a secret fourth episode, even watching the unrelated miniseries Apple Tree Yard in the hopes that it would be the "real" final episode.[17][18] Some fans reported mental health issues following their disappointment with the fourth season.[5][19]

Queerbaiting

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In the course of the first nine episodes and holiday special, John and Sherlock's relationship is read as queer by a restaurateur, their new landlady Mrs. Hudson, John's ex-girlfriend, married gay innkeepers, lesbian dominatrix Irene Adler, Mrs. Hudson again (after she has known John for at least two years), and the in-universe British tabloid press, among others.

E. J. Nielsen, The Gay Elephant Meta in the Room

Both members of the Sherlock fandom and academic critics have argued that the show engages in queerbaiting: implying a queer relationship between Sherlock and John in the show without explicitly showing it, and while denying it in commentary by the showrunners and actors.[12] Characters in the show repeatedly mistake Sherlock and John's relationship as romantic,[20] which Watson denies with increased frustration or anger.[19][12]

Martin Freeman, who plays John Watson, has described the series as "the gayest story in the history of television",[21] while elsewhere denying that he played John as having a romantic interest in Sherlock.[5] Gatiss has said that "ambiguity is what's interesting" about the nature of the relationship between Sherlock and John.[5] Moffat, Gatiss, and the actors have expressed frustration at fans interpreting the relationship between the leads as anything but platonic.[12]

Sherlock is one of the most prominent examples of media accused of queerbaiting,[22][23] and one of the primary sources of academic scholarship on queerbaiting.[24]

References

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  1. ^ a b Paskin, Willa (2018-06-04). "The Case of the Fractured Fandom". Slate. ISSN 1091-2339. Retrieved 2025-02-01.
  2. ^ Jarvis, Ava (2010-01-04). "The Sherlock Holmes Fandom: Dawn of the Shipping Wars". Reactor. Retrieved 2025-02-01.
  3. ^ a b Romano, Aja (2013-04-26). ""Sherlock" fans lash out over sunken JohnLock ship". The Daily Dot. Retrieved 2025-02-05.
  4. ^ Wood, Michael (2000-03-02). "Scentless Murder". London Review of Books. Vol. 22, no. 05. ISSN 0260-9592. Retrieved 2025-02-01.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Hofmann, Melissa A. (2018-09-15). "Johnlock meta and authorial intent in Sherlock fandom: Affirmational or transformational?". Transformative Works and Cultures. 28. doi:10.3983/twc.2018.1465. ISSN 1941-2258.
  6. ^ Robb, Graham (2004). Strangers : homosexual love in the nineteenth century. Internet Archive. New York : W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-02038-0.
  7. ^ a b c d "Fic : why fanfiction is taking over the world | WorldCat.org". search.worldcat.org. Retrieved 2025-02-05.
  8. ^ "[Fandom stats] Biggest fandoms, ships, and characters on AO3: Looking back at 2022 - toastystats (destinationtoast) - Fandom - Fandom [Archive of Our Own]". archiveofourown.org. Retrieved 2025-02-01.
  9. ^ "AO3 Ship Stats 2022 - Chapter 1 - centreoftheselights - No Fandom [Archive of Our Own]". archiveofourown.org. Retrieved 2025-02-01.
  10. ^ a b Tyler, Adrienne (2020-11-07). "Sherlock: The Johnlock Shipping Conspiracy Theory Explained". ScreenRant. Retrieved 2025-02-01.
  11. ^ Ledezma, Cecilia (2024-03-29). "The Johnlock Conspiracy and other likely stories". The Michigan Daily. Retrieved 2025-02-01.
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h Nielsen, E. J. (2019-12-01). "The Gay Elephant Meta in the Room: Sherlock and the Johnlock Consipracy". Queerbaiting and Fandom: Teasing Fans through Homoerotic Possibilities. University of Iowa Press. pp. 82–94. ISBN 978-1-60938-671-9.
  13. ^ a b c d e f Collier, Cassandra M. (May 27, 2015). The Love That Refuses to Speak its Name: Examining Queerbaiting and Fan-Producer Iterations in Fan Cultures (B.A. thesis). Bowling Green State University.
  14. ^ Radulovic, Petrana (2023-08-10). "Richard Siken has always been a fanfic enthusiast". Polygon. Retrieved 2025-02-01.
  15. ^ Fjordside, Louise (2013-06-25). "Mary in the Middle: The use and function of a female character in the policing of a male-male relationship in BBC's Sherlock". Academic Quarter | Akademisk kvarter (in Danish): 100–108. doi:10.5278/ojs.academicquarter.v0i8.2794. ISSN 1904-0008.
  16. ^ a b c d Christensen, Bo Allesøe; Jensen, Thessa (2018-06-15). "The JohnLock Conspiracy, fandom eschatology, and longing to belong". Transformative Works and Cultures. 27. doi:10.3983/twc.2018.1222. ISSN 1941-2258.
  17. ^ Christensen, Bo Allesøe; Jensen, Thessa (2018-06-15). "The JohnLock Conspiracy, fandom eschatology, and longing to belong". Transformative Works and Cultures. 27. doi:10.3983/twc.2018.1222. ISSN 1941-2258.
  18. ^ "Sherlock fans furious after BBC series Apple Tree Yard turns out to be not Sherlock". The Independent. Archived from the original on 2025-01-19. Retrieved 2025-02-01.
  19. ^ a b Diana W. Anselmo. Gender And Queer Fan Labor On Tumblr.
  20. ^ Valentine, Amandelin A. (2016-09-15). "Toward a broader recognition of the queer in the BBC'S "Sherlock"". Transformative Works and Cultures. 22. doi:10.3983/twc.2016.0828. ISSN 1941-2258.
  21. ^ "Sherlock is the 'gayest story in the history of television,' says Martin Freeman". The Telegraph. 2011-05-24. Retrieved 2025-02-01.
  22. ^ Romano, Aja (2014-02-05). "'Sherlock' cut a scene of John and Sherlock at a 'gay club'". The Daily Dot. Retrieved 2025-02-04.
  23. ^ Rocha, Mariana (2021-06-30). "¿Qué es el Queerbaiting y por qué representa un problema para la comunidad LGBTQ+?". Glamour (in Mexican Spanish). Retrieved 2025-02-04.
  24. ^ Brennan, Joseph (2018-03-01). "Queerbaiting: The 'playful' possibilities of homoeroticism". International Journal of Cultural Studies. 21 (2): 189–206. doi:10.1177/1367877916631050. ISSN 1367-8779.
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