Oh good lord, am I really that far out?
I am starting to watch some CSI. They had an interesting episode on Furries and they seemed to handle it rather well. I just started watching one with a guy that has done a perfect re-creation of Sherlock Homes.
The thing that gets me are some lines at the beginning.
One charater, “Are you going to say ‘The Games Afoot’?”
Grissom, “I never knew you were a Conan Doyle fan.”
One character, somewhat embarrassed, “I’m not, I saw one movie by mistake.”
I am not that much a Sherlock Homes fan. I have been exposed to the material. I have read some of the stories. I have seen it on TV. I have seen movies. I greatly enjoyed the Young Sherlock Homes movie. I have seen a play. But it isn’t part of my fandom. It is on the edge. I will believe that I know more about it than the average person because of my life in fandom but not that much more.
Is the average person really that far out that they would only be exposed to Sherlock Homes by accident? I could understand a small part of the population not knowing anything but I would expect that segment to be mostly uneducated. Not exposed to a variety of things in life. The character in this CSI episode (the new guy getting field tested for those that know the show unlike me) should be pretty well educated. He should be relatively well rounded. Is this just a gambit to give Grissom a foil to work with and explain things to the audience, or the way the tv producers think most of the audience is, or is it really the way the average person things about Sherlock Homes?
I have recently had my version of what reality tested strongly. I have always tried to keep track of what I accept and what I deny of the greater Reality to include in my own personal Reality. But if I don’t know what is really out there, then I am losing my grip on Reality and my personal version don’t have much to stand on. I will find I have more in common with the woman that runs the Vampire Walking Tour in San Francisco that seems to really think she is a vampire and reminds me of the people I avoid at cons. Fandom is great, a personal reality is great, as long as you don’t lose your grip on what other people you share your world with are calling reality.
Could it really be that the average person hasn’t been exposed to Sherlock Homes in any form or considers it an embarrassing accident to have seen one movie? That just seems too far away from how I understand the over all Reality. But then again, it might be my rose colored lenses getting in the way.
I know the eps. That character with the “I saw it by accident” line is quite plausible for him. He comes across as this total surfer popculture throwaway dude, until you realize that he went to Stanford on a science scholarship. He digs *contemporary* pop culture, and science and is otherwise pretty much unhip. But he’s hip enough to make the *really hardcore* (even compared to him) geeks feel very fuddyduddy at times.
I’m not really doing the dude justice but, trust me, it works.
or, duh, I forget the other totally in-character explanation for the line. Greg really *does* dig Sherlock Holmes, but is ashamed to admit it, so tries to pretend otherwise. You can read it both ways if you know the character, imho.
Seconded.
I guess my question is why be ashamed to admit to digging Sherlock Homes. From my perspective, that would be saying that he is afraid of being judged because of this interest which means he thinks it is unhip to like Sherlock Homes. So, in “normal” society is it unhip to like Sherlock Homes? Or is it just his subsection of surfer society?
I am just concerned that while I think it shouldn’t be unhip to like Sherlock Homes in “normal” society, that could be because I have am not really seeing “normal” society. I choose to live with my cool geeks and stay out of the “normal” but that is only ok if I am aware of what I am staying out of. How off is my version of “normal?”
I would love it if it is just his subsection of society he is concerned about. That his reactions are trained to. Although, it is sad that he feels ashamed to admit it to Grissom because what I have seen of Grissom, he is incredibly open minded and unjudgmental.
I would imagine it’s unhip to like anything more than a couple decades old, for starters, and also unhip to read anything that’s not currently on the bestseller lists.