Is there really a ‘best’ Holmes adaptation?
Recently, I’ve been noticing some posts on my dash about the “Sherlock fandom” as opposed to the “Holmes fandom” and I thought I’d toss my two cents in, since I’ve been planning to say something like this for a while anyway, because I’ve gotten sick of the ‘my Holmes is better than your Holmes’ debate.
There are Holmes fans of pretty much every vein, and each of them have become a part of the fandom through different adaptations, whether it be through the original stories, the Rathbone-Bruce films, Granada, Russian, Ritchie, BBC… the list goes on.
But there seems to be this attitude among some people that you can only “really like” one adaptation and that all others must pale in comparison by default; that a certain version is the absolute best, and all the rest imitations. There’s this feeling from some members of the fandom that only their version is the one worth watching and all others fall by the wayside. Not everyone does this, but I’ve seen it enough for it to become disconcerting. And I hate that this is happening, because I adore pretty much all the versions, and I don’t know why there has to be a compulsion to ‘pick’ one.
Consider this: Sherlock Holmes is the most portrayed literary character in history, having been portrayed in 211+ movies as well as in countless TV shows, radio shows, cartoons, anime, books, plays and many more mediums besides. Since his inception, the legendary detective has crossed over into every medium imaginable. And each of these adaptations are different, because everyone interprets the text differently; everyone sees the characters, the cases, the canon, in a different light. So think about this: With all those different adaptations, there’s no way there can be a ‘best’ one. If you can go back through the hundreds of adaptations, watch each and every one of them — whether it’s movies, TV shows, plays, etc. — and definitively say, ‘This is the best one in every way,’ please tell me, because that’s impossible.
If you’re only watching one adaptation — whether it be Sherlock or any of the others — you’re only scratching the surface. These characters are so multi-faceted that more than one adaptation is needed to get even the tiniest grasp of it all. You definitely need more than one to cover the awesomeness of these stories and these characters, and I cannot recommend watching other versions or reading the stories enough.
So when people spew vitriol toward the versions that aren’t their favorites, or feel the need to put other ones down to bring theirs up, it sucks. There is no one singular version that ‘matters,’ it’s all of them, and they all bring something to the table. I’m sick of the ‘my Holmes is better than your Holmes’ debate, and it should stop. All the versions are great, and all of them bring something new to these characters.
Basically: everyone get along, we’re all in this together.
