Irene (Lara Pulver). Screencap credit: fprintmoon/gallicka
Let’s jump right into this, shall we? Remember, if you don’t want to see any spoilers, then CLICK AWAY!
As far as the feeling of the canon in the show Sherlock goes, I’d say that Sherlock consistently gets the tone of the stories right. There’s not much that the show actually gets wrong on that front.
Some people had an issue with this episode because of the fact that Irene Adler is an actress in A Scandal in Bohemia and in “A Scandal in Belgravia,” Adler is a dominatrix. I’ve done some research on this aspect of her character, but for now, let’s look at how Irene is described in Scandal.
In the story, she is described as a “well-known adventuress,” a contralto, a prima donna in the Imperial Opera of Warsaw and, as Watson described her, “the daintiest thing under a bonnet on this planet.” She also arrives for dinner at seven sharp every night.
Okay, most of the stuff is pretty straightforward, but we get a picture of her being a very talented, very precise (probably OCD the way she comes home for dinner at seven sharp every night), and very beautiful woman. She is also very cunning.
I decided to look up the term “adventuress” to see what it actually means, since I imagined there was more to the word than “Indiana Jones”-type of adventure. According to Dictionary.reference.com, “adventuress” means:
1.a woman who schemes to win social position, wealth, etc., by unscrupulous or questionable means.
2.a woman who is an adventurer.
And, according to Merriam-Webster, “adventuress” means:
: a female adventurer; especially: one who seeks position or livelihood by questionable means
Also, according to Webster, the word was in this type of usage in 1754, so when Count Von Kramm calls Adler an “adventuress,” this is what he means. This definition of the word puts the 21st century Irene very comfortably in canon, since 21st century Irene does make her living using dubious methods.
Irene at work. Screencap credit: fprintmoon/gallicka
I can’t say for sure if Sherlock co-writer/creator Steven Moffat (the writer of “A Scandal in Belgravia”) looked this up or not, but in 1868 and 1875, there was a book series called Pauline the Prima Donna, which was supposed to be looked at as a memoirs of a prima donna in that time period. To quote Wikipedia:
A famous German erotic work of this time, published in two parts in 1868 and 1875 entitled Pauline the Prima Donna purports to be the memoirs of the opera singer Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient. Various discrepancies with known facts of the singer’s life however have led many to doubt the veracity of this book and the erotic adventures contained in the second volume, at least, appear to be very implausible. These include the authoress indulging in lesbian sadomasochism, group sex, sodomy, bestiality, scatology, necrophilia, prostitution and vampirism: all before she had reached the age of 27.
And A Scandal in Bohemia was written in 1891 and set in 1888, both dates being well after the publishing of Pauline the Prima Donna. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle could have been inspired by this. But here’s the official record of who he was inspired by.
According to thegreatbare.com via Market Watch, Sir Conan Doyle was inspired by Adah Menken, known as “the Naked Lady.” To quote the site:
Adah Menken was the first media celebrity, who was known around the world as “The Naked Lady” because her stage show featured her nude (in a sheer body stocking). Her star power inspired poets like Walt Whitman and writers like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who used Menken as the basis for the classic Sherlock Holmes supporting character of Irene Adler. Her biographers call her the originator of the modern celebrity femme fatale.
She had a tumultuous life, according to the site, and some of the aspects of Irene’s life could be seen as being lifted directly from Menken’s life–the many suitors, immense talent, fame and stardom in an opera house, the title “the most dangerous woman in the world,” performing and dressing as a man/blurring gender lines, (Menken portrayed Prince Mazeppa in the play Mazeppa and gambled in male clothing, Irene dresses in drag for comfort and to blend in), dying young, etc. According to Wikipedia, there’s even a bit concerning her and a run-in with flagellation. To quote Wikiepdia:
She went to perform in Paris, France and was romanced by Alexandre Dumas, père. She went to London, England, and was wooed by Charles Reade, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Algernon Charles Swinburne, and Tom Hood, and became a friend to Charles Dickens. Rosetti is said to have offered her ten pounds to seduce Swinburne away from his fetish for flagellation, but that after six weeks she admitted defeat and returned the money.
Even the fact that Civil War soldiers carried both martial (I’m assuming her as Mazeppa) and pin-up-like pictures of her reflects a little of the sexuality games that were going on in the episode–Sherlock, a person who has a dubious sexuality is attracted to Irene, whereas Irene, a lesbian in the episode, is attracted to Sherlock while telling John how much he’s attracted to Sherlock. The lines between gender get blurred and what remains is who a person is attracted to, no matter what gender they are.
As far as how Irene was interpreted for the 21st century–in my view, after looking this stuff up, I think all they did was crank up the sex a bit for television/theatrical purposes and to make her a true foil to Sherlock in the fact that where he falters with handling the messy emotions of sexuality and lust, she excels and profits from. I will say that it would have been fun to see 21st century Irene sing, as that might have provided a little bit more roundness to her character, but for what she is on screen, she’s very good. Personally, I don’t view this Irene as an insult to the literary version.
Adah Menken as a French spy. Source: Wikipedia/public domain
One more person I must mention that probably has a bit of bearing on how Irene was interpreted for the 21st century–I don’t know if this is true, but perhaps someone took a look at a real-life 19th century dominatrix named Theresa Berkley. According to Wikipedia, she engaged in BDSM, particularly flagellation (just like how 21st century Irene favored the whip) and she invented the Berkley Horse, used specifically for whipping. She soon became sought after by royalty, much like how 21st century Irene is.
I think what I’m getting at is that any way you slice it, Irene Adler was never just a simple actress or simply a stereotypical “strong” woman. She’s a lot of things to a lot of people–she’s a complex individual that can’t be put in a single box. I think that for me, the show accomplished that aspect of her character.
On to other stuff–I think one thing about the episode that was interesting was that we see John hasn’t progressed at all with Sarah. During A Scandal in Bohemia, Dr. Watson is married and actually doesn’t have a lot of time for Sherlock’s adventures (well, he tries not to make time, it would seem, since I’m sure he’d be lured back into crime-solving if society didn’t dictate its expectations on him). However, in “Belgravia,” John has already broken up with Sarah (a fact made “canon” by John’s blog), is dumped by Jeanette in the episode, and has already gotten a public reputation with others of spending more time with Sherlock than he does his girlfriends (as evidenced by Jeanette talking about her friends saying he’s a great boyfriend to Sherlock but not to her). Also, on IMDB, there’s been no mention of anyone playing Mary Morstan, unless they’re keeping it an über-secret. I’m taking this to mean that Mary won’t be in this series at all, which is interesting, especially since the third episode is based on The Final Problem; if there’s any good time to introduce John’s future wife, it’d be when Sherlock Holmes is supposedly dead. I will get at this more in the fanon review of this episode, but I find it to be really interesting as to how they are going to portray the progression of John and Sherlock’s friendship.
Sherlock (Benedict Cumberbatch) and John (Martin Freeman). Screencap credit: fprintmoon/gallicka
Also, I’d been discussing this episode with my sisters, who all have slightly varying views, and one thing one of my sisters said when I asked if they thought the episode was anti-women was, “I don’t think it’s anti-women. It’s just pro-John and Sherlock.” Even if you’re not thinking in terms of the fandom, it makes sense. I never thought the show was anti-women, since the books and magazine stories aren’t anti-women either. A lot is on the internet about how Sir Conan Doyle loved women because of the love he had for his very strong and capable mother. But, like the books and magazine stories, it’s “The John and Sherlock Show,” with every other character–women included–acting as a backdrop or some filler. So, as far as I’m concerned, it’s not all Moffat’s fault when it comes to scripting this show. I’m not excusing any issues he may have that might bubble up in his work, I’m just saying, perhaps the guy deserves a break once and a while, eh? Even with Sir Conan Doyle’s expansive thoughts about women, his work is still indicative of his time period, and its a work that is being taken out of its original time.
Anyway, that’s my canonical take on the episode. To me, the episode holds up to the original work, and it’s actually a bit cooler now that I’ve done some research.
Hello Monique. Just wanted to say thanks for reblogging me, and for writing this brilliant article about the potential influences for Conan Doyle & Moffat’s Irene Adler. I’m always on the lookout for those bits and pieces of history that don’t quite make it into the mainstream, and Adah Menken is definitely someone I ought to know more about!
Also, I worry a lot of people have missed the point of Moffat’s Adler. Certainly I read an opinion piece on the Guardian’s website that did so entirely. There are thousands of pieces of literature, film, tv and plays that treat female characters as little more than sexualised personality vacuums. So I found it distinctly worrying that one of the few shows that actually manages to use sexualisation to reveal a 3D female character, got accused of sexism. Ah well.
Anyways, thanks again. I’m very glad to be aware of this blog
.
Adam
Hi, Adam! You’re welcome–I had to reblog it because it was everything I think–I’ve been looking on the ‘net to see a TON of people missing the point of the episode, like you said.
I am also worried that a lot of people, women especially, missed the point of the entire episode. Call my cynical, but there are a lot of women who have drunken the Kool-Aid when it comes to women characters who show their sexuality. Sure, I get that in the past, women have been shown as nothing but sexual playthings–I understand that because it’s happened many times, and it’s very annoying. Movies like “Transformers,” for example, offend me on multiple levels, including the fact that the women are usually extremely sexual for no reason and are bland. But the one time someone gets that type of character right, some women decide to jump on that character as a “bad example” and use it as further proof of Moffat’s so-called attitudes toward women (I’m still doing research on that, since I haven’t watched enough of “Doctor Who” or “Coupling” to really know what they’re talking about). I find it highly annoying that people would bypass everything else about Irene Adler and simply focus on her sexuality, that she is using deliberately as a tool–in this episode, she is rarely using it for pleasure, unless she’s expressing her lust for Sherlock.
Yeah, I had a look at that Guardian piece myself. It’s really annoying when a newspaper spouts opinions like these. It’s like the person who wrote it didn’t even watch the same episode. It’s almost like how here in the States, a minority of black women historians got mad about the southern, 1960s-set movie “The Help” just because some white women and black women were friendly in the film, when, as a black female myself, I felt the mad historians completely missed the point. Ugh. What are you going to do, eh? People think what they want to think.
Anyways, I say all this to say I’m so glad you liked the article! I want to spread this article around enough so that people get an idea of where the Irene Adler character stems from, because after writing it, I realized the character isn’t that far off from Sir Conan Doyle’s original intentions.