By Clair McLafferty
Since the third series of the BBC’s Sherlock hit England, my Facebook and Twitter feeds have been buzzing about the show. Needless to say, the Internet was pretty much in agreement that it was awesome, beautiful and almost perfect. But one sector of the fandom was discussing it in terms of how the TV series fit into the original Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Stories.
I became aware of this discussion after following the Baker Street Babes on Twitter a few months ago. Their all-female blog and podcast has a huge (and growing!) following, and has members who are fans of all of the different parts of the Sherlock-verse. As their About page states, they “hope to provide a bridge between the older and often intimidating world of Sherlockiana and the newer tech savvy generation of fans that are just discovering the Holmes series.”
Though a few of the Baker Street Babes bloggers, podcast participants and social media mavens came to the series through the BBC show or the Robert Downey Jr. movies, most began reading the Sherlock novels when they were kids. “As a kid, I can definitely say I didn’t get all the nuance, but I loved them,” says Babe Amy Thomas. The diversity of the members’ passions and interests gives them the range and ability to explore new parts of the canon, says Baker Street Babe Lyndsay Faye. “We’re never going to run out of awesome content.”
The Babes’ influence isn’t limited to the Internet. In fact, many of the contributors are active participants in fan groups in their areas. Their New York annual charity benefit, The Daintiest Thing Under A Bonnet, draws substantial crowds for its theme party and auction. Most importantly, several of the members are authors in their own right and benefit with writing-focused organizations in their areas.
Despite the focus on the male subjects of the series, Faye doesn’t believe that it’s a male-dominated fandom. “There have always been rabid female fans,” says Faye. “After Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote Sherlock’s death, there was an anecdote about a woman who wrote him and called him a brute.” As the author of Girl Meets Sherlock, Thomas focuses largely on women’s issues within Sherlock Holmes. When she attended the 221B Con (a Sherlock convention), she noticed it was “incredibly female-dominated.”
“I was so thrilled and amazed to see that,” says Thomas. “It’s amazing to think that women weren’t welcome in some settings, but couldn’t be kept down because it was something they cared about.”
The Babes’ advice for woman bloggers was simple: write about what you’re really, really passionate about. “Choose the subject you can’t stop talking about after your second glass of wine,” Faye says. Thomas’s advice is to share your thoughts and perspectives without fear. “What makes a fandom amazing is the variety of perspectives,” says Thomas. “Get what you love out there.”
Check out Amy Thomas’s personal blog, Girl Meets Sherlock and find more of Lyndsay Faye’s writing at LyndsayFaye.com.
Clair McLafferty is the author of our geek girl culture column Talk Nerdy To Me.When she isn’t writing, Clair can usually be found nerding out on programming, cocktails, physics, comics and movies. Some of these interests spill over into her writing at clairmclafferty.com and on to her Twitter feed @see_clair_write.