Imaginary Worlds - Sidekicks: Watson

Episode Date: May 1, 2019

To kick off our mini-series on sidekicks, we look at the most iconic and long-standing sidekick in pop culture: Doctor Watson. For 130 years, Watson has always found a place next to Sherlock Holmes. But as contemporary storytellers play with Watson’s race, gender, and nationality, new facets of the character have emerged that shed light on why Watson is indispensable not just for Holmes, but for the audience as well. Featuring Professor Neil McCaw of the University of Winchester, Professor Pamela Bedore of UConn, and the novelist Lyndsay Faye. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show about how we create them and why we suspend our disbelief. I'm Eric Molenski. This month, we are kicking off a mini-series about sidekicks. You could even say that the month of May is the sidekick to summer. I mean, nobody's ever said that before, but we can make that a thing. Hashtag sidekick to summer. And sidekicks are often taken for granted as a trope. summer. And sidekicks are often taken for granted as a trope. But looking at sidekicks brings up a lot of questions about who gets to be put in those roles, why a sidekick needs to be in a story,

and what they reflect back on us and our experiences when we're losing ourselves in these adventures. Now, we could have started with Sancho Panza, who is considered the first sidekick in Western literature from Don Quixote, but Sancho Panza is not exactly iconic in pop culture. In fact, I had to look up his name to make sure I got it right. We could have also started with Robin, but there's actually been like a half dozen characters that have taken up the mantle of Robin because they always end up outgrowing Batman. But there is one sidekick who has appeared in every form of media. Literature, film, TV, comics, anime, plays, musicals, puppetry, opera, wherever fictional characters have existed over

the last 130 years, you will find John Watson, forever loyal to Sherlock Holmes. And Watson was invented in the Victorian age, when Buffalo Bill's Wild West show was the height of entertainment, when Thomas Edison was still experimenting with electricity. And yet today, Watson is more popular and more widely represented in media than ever. So what makes Watson the quintessential sidekick? Why has this character appealed to generations of people around the globe? We have to start at the beginning. The canon. The 56 short stories and four novels written by Arthur Conan Doyle.

Neil McCaw teaches Victorian literature and culture at the University of Winchester in the UK. He says John Watson was not invented completely from scratch. Conan Doyle did have some real-life inspiration. There was a man called Dr. James Watson who was a friend of Conan Doyle's when he lived in Portsmouth on the south coast of England. But I also think that there's a lot of Conan Doyle himself in Watson. For example, that sense of chivalry, that sense of traditionalism and respect and duty, those quite old-fashioned values that were very current in England in the 19th century,

less so now. But I think there are a number of facets of Watson's own personality that are almost an example of Conan Doyle as an author writing himself into the character. Pam Bedore teaches literature at the University of Connecticut, and she says that Sherlock Holmes was also based on a real person.

So Holmes is apparently modeled on Joseph Bell, a doctor that Conan Doyle worked with who had this very rational approach to solving problems and who had these really, really incredible observational skills. So in that sense also, it does make sense to think of Bell and Doyle as sort of analogous to Holmes and Watson. But that is where these similarities end. When we first meet Watson, he feels lost. He's living on a pension in a hotel, doesn't really have friends or family to support him, and he is a veteran. Now there has been some debate as to how seriously Arthur Conan Doyle

took Watson's war experiences. It's actually almost a joke within the Sherlock Holmes fan community because Doyle doesn't make too many mistakes across the 60 stories. But one of the places he does make a mistake is with the war wound. So in one of the stories, the very first one, Watson was sent home from the front. He fought in the Anglo-Afghan War. He's sent home with an injury to his leg. And then in a later story, the injury moves to his shoulder. Although some people look at the canon

and see clear signs that Watson had what we would today call PTSD. Lindsay Fay is a mystery novelist who specializes in writing historical fiction. She's also part of the Sherlockian society, the Baker Street Irregulars, and she co-hosts the podcast Baker Street Babes. She says all you have to do is look at the way that Watson describes himself in the first story after he's come back from Afghanistan. So when he goes back to England, he says he's brown as a nut and thin as a rake. And he is skinny. He's easily startled.

Watson, when he first meets Holmes, they're talking about what qualities as a roommate do you have that I should know about? I mean, we ought to know things about each other. We're perfect strangers before we move in together. And Watson says, well, I object to any sort of fights because my nerves are all in shreds. This is a fine upstanding British gentleman who's saying to a complete stranger, my nerves are in shreds. If that's not a description of PTSD, then I don't know what it is for the time period. At first, Watson and Holmes need something very practical from each other. They each need a roommate. But their relationship takes on a life of its own very quickly.

On his own, he's not fascinating as a character. But the magic that happens when you set him next to Sherlock Holmes is so dynamic, it's absolutely undeniable. So genius needs an audience is a great line in um in bbc sherlock and it's absolutely true sherlock holmes preens when watson is watching as their relationship continues later it has moments where it becomes a bit more cantankerous a little grumpier uh in their later years as they just know each other intimately. They sort of quarrel like an old married couple, which is very, very cute. And then there are occasional glimpses and just glimpses,

but in two or three cases, there are these moments where Watson is in really bad danger and Holmes loses his shit over it and is just absolutely not. This is my person. This person is everything to me. Watson's loyalty is put to the test when he discovers that Sherlock Holmes has a drug

addiction. Although Neil says we need to think about drugs in the time of Arthur Conan Doyle. I've done quite a lot of work, a lot of research on what we might call drug culture in the 19th century in the UK and the prevalence of opium, of what we would now call heroin and cocaine, and they were easily accessible from your local pharmacist and that things like opium were readily available in children's medicines and cough tinctures, etc., etc., etc. So I think in the original stories, it seems to me that what Conan Doyle was trying to do was mark out not someone who was a lawbreaker or someone who ignored entirely society's rules and conventions, but someone who was different through that behavior. And Pam says the important thing to note is how Watson reacts to Holmes' behavior.

It's interesting because cocaine was not illegal in Victorian England, but Watson was really, really against it. And so Watson was constantly telling Holmes, look, you're killing yourself. Don't do cocaine. There are other ways, you know, and he played the violin and he had these other activities,

but there are other ways to keep yourself engaged. He says, this game is not worth the candle. He says, you need to count the cost. You live by your wits. Your brain is beautiful. What are you doing shooting up when your mind is everything that you hold dear to you and is everything that makes you who you are in your career? So Watson is more than just a friend. He's an anchor for Holmes, stopping

him from going too far in a lot of different ways, bringing him back to sobriety and responsibility. And what's interesting is that you would imagine that Holmes is the sort of person who would find those, find the values that Watson represents tedious in the way that he sometimes is rather dismissive of police constables or his brother or government officials. You would imagine that he would feel equally bored by some of the things that Watson represents. But that almost never happens. There's a definition or a level of definition of friendship that was offered by Aristotle, in which he talks about the ideal friendship as the one in which no one party takes from the other. They both give to each other and they both

believe and support each other. Now, from the outside, this may not seem like a very balanced friendship. I mean, Holmes is the big star. Watson is there to bear witness. But Neil thinks that actually speaks to the strength of Watson's character. It's the absence of ego, that there is a sort of selflessness to the Watson character. There is a supportiveness that transcends individual self-interest, being willing to put his own marriage and his own professional career to one side in order to support the other. But it's also a sense of the greater good, because really, Watson's primary motivation is that he thinks that if he can help Holmes be the best that he can be, it will be better for everybody, that he will solve crimes, that he will unravel government problems,

that he will pacify aggressive military foreign nations, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So there's a real defined sense of the common good in him. Yeah, that's a great point about the lack of ego. And also, when you're talking just now, the word that popped into my head was mission. I mean, he's a soldier, and he feels like he and Holmes have a mission, and that mission takes precedence over anything else in Watson's life. Yeah, I think that's right. That absolutely is that sense of, I guess, most, not all, but most missions have that element of the selfless achievement of that wider or greater good. I think that comes up, yeah. The biggest test of their partnership is when Holmes fakes his own death. Of course,

that was not the original plan. In 1893, Arthur Conan Doyle was already tired of writing Sherlock Holmes, so he killed him off. But he eventually brought him back due to popular demand and, well, money. In fact, here is Arthur Conan Doyle from a 1927 interview, and you can hear how after 40 years, he is so sick of Sherlock Holmes. I've written a good deal more about him than I ever intended to do, but my hand has been rather forced by kind friends who continually wanted to know more. And so it is that this monstrous growth has come out. I don't want it as really a comparatively small seed.

But the curious thing is how many people around the world are perfectly convinced that he is a living human being. I get letters addressed to him, get letters addressed to his rather stupid friend, Watson. I assume that's his frustration coming through because he never wrote Watson as stupid. In fact, when he brought the series back to life, Pam found it quite touching to learn what Watson had been doing when he thought his partner was dead. Watson goes out there and tries to do the detective work that is missing in the city because Holmes is dead.

He definitely wants to make the world a better place. First as a soldier, then as a doctor, then as a detective sidekick. And when he discovers that Holmes is not dead. That's the first and only time in his life that Watson faints dead away when Holmes appears. And that's a really tricky moment because Holmes has to explain where he's been

and why he didn't tell Watson, right? His brother Mycroft has known all along that he's alive and so why didn't he tell Watson? And the answer to that is Holmes didn't think that Watson could actually be a good enough actor to make it seem that he was dead so that Holmes could do all of his undercover work.

That's a hard moment. Of course, they get through it. Watson and Holmes are perfect for each other. And they couldn't stay confined to the page for very long. But having a flesh-and-blood actor portray Watson put to the test all the qualities that defined that character, and it raised questions as to whether we still need Watson in the story. That's in a moment. John Watson starts out as a literary device. He's solid, dependable, and smart, so we trust him.

If a man like Watson is impressed by Holmes Holmes that Holmes must be doing something impressive. I asked Pam Bedore what would happen if Holmes were the narrator. Well, my friend Holmes did it. Holmes narrated two of the stories. So I can tell you right now, The Lion's Mane and The Blanched Soldier. Have you heard of either one of them? Tell me honestly. I actually, I haven't heard of them.

They're not the best stories. actually makes a ton of sense. Because one of the pleasures of detective fiction is that when you're reading it, like you want to guess what is the answer to this mystery. And so when Sherlock Holmes is narrating, how does he give you that experience as a reader? You already know what's in his head. But that is exactly what happened when Sherlock Holmes took the stage. The first actor to really embody Holmes was William Gillette. In the late 19th and early 20th century, Gillette toured North America and the UK, and he made the first Sherlock Holmes silent film. And it was Gillette who gave Sherlock Holmes his iconic deerstalker cap in his curved pipe. And who played his Watson?

A dozen guys over the years? Lindsay says it didn't really matter because Watson never got much stage time. And in performance, Watson was negligible. You didn't need to see things through Watson's eyes. You could just watch Sherlock Holmes being amazing, instead of seeing it, you know, through the secondary eyes of some superfluous guy who also happens to be on the stage. Watson finally became a full co-star in the films of the 1930s and 40s with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, foiling plots by Nazis. But the filmmakers didn't really know what to do with Watson either.

So they made him the comic relief. One of the things that marks that series out is what a buffoon Watson is. He's a sweet old man. He's kind. He's good. He's all of those positive human qualities. But he's a bit of an ignoramus. And I'd never thought of Watson in that way at all. And it jarred with my understanding of Watson's role. That's all very well but making a fool of me. Sit down Watson do sit down perhaps a little supper will help you to get over your huff. Huff? I'm in no huff. Here try some of these sardines. It's a pity I didn't know you were coming I'd have provided a brace of pheasant. It's a pity you didn't think of bringing down that infernal violin of yours to regale me with some of your enchanting music. I did, my dear Watson.

Anything to oblige. Watson finally emerged in a more fleshed-out form in the 1970s. There were a bunch of TV shows and films that took a very classical approach to the characters, setting them in the Victorian age. The most well-regarded series from that time, from the 80s and 90s, featured Edward Hardwick and Jeremy Brett as Watson and Holmes. There's money in this case, Watson, if there's nothing else.

Holmes, I think your visitor will want me out of the way. Not a bit, doctor. Stay where you are. I am lost without my Boswell. But he sounded so secretive. I may need your help, and so may he. Now stay in that armchair and give me your full attention. Here he comes. Every generation of people gets the Sherlock Holmes it needs. The version of Sherlock Holmes that we needed in the 1940s

was the perfectly pristine, urbane man who fights Nazis and punches them in the face. In the 70s, we started needing a bit of a grittier Holmes. And now we need a Holmes who, whether he's set in the Victorian era or whether he's set in the modern era, is a Holmes who's a much more human person, or at least we see facets of that.

Yeah, I also think that the Holmes that we need now is a Holmes that needs Watson more than ever. Absolutely. That needs Watson emotionally. It needs Watson. Preach. So like, I feel like they really need Watson to ground them. Like they're much more vulnerable. These Sherlock Holmes is the genius is kind of a blessing and a curse. And so and so they need Watson to function socially and in a way that earlier Holmeses didn't need Watson quite so much in that way. I think that that is a fantastic characterization. And I think that the marvelous thing about these incarnations is that when you go back to the original stories, Sherlock Holmes needs John Watson like air.

like air. Of course, the first big reboot was the 2009 film with Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr., where Holmes and Watson became badass action heroes. Although in this case, Holmes is the more comical character. You've never complained about my methods before. I'm not complaining. You're not. What do you call this? How am I complaining?

I never complain. When do I complain about you practicing the violin at three in the morning? Or your mess? Your general lack of hygiene? Or the fact that you steal my clothes? Uh, we have a barter system. When do I complain about you setting fire to my rooms? Our rooms. The rooms. When do I complain that you experiment on on my dog? Our dog. On the dog? Redstone is our dog. Where I do take issue is your campaign to sabotage my relationship with Mary. But the modern version of Sherlock Holmes that is probably the most beloved by fans is the BBC series Sherlock, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, set in modern-day London.

And this is the first version of Watson to put his wartime experiences front and center. In fact, it's actually Sherlock's brother Mycroft, played by Mark Gaddis, who puts it best in the scene. Remarkable. What is? Most people blunder around this city and all they see are streets and shops and cars. When you walk with Sherlock Holmes, you see the battlefield. You've seen it already, haven't you? What's wrong with my hand? You have an intermittent tremor in your left hand. Your therapist thinks it's post-traumatic stress disorder. She thinks you're haunted

by memories of your military service. Who the hell are you? How do you know that? Fire her. She's got it the wrong way around. You're under stress right now, and your hand is perfectly steady. You're not haunted by the war, Dr. Watson. You miss it. And a few years later, CBS launched Elementary, starring Johnny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu, set in modern-day New York.

Joan Watson is not a veteran, but her partnership with Sherlock Holmes relies heavily on the story of her helping him work through his drug addiction. What's going on? You're skipping meetings. What is going on? Okay. Well, I can't force you to talk to me, but I wish you would. If you must know, Watson,

I've been feeling a little bit down of late. It's the process of maintaining my sobriety. It's repetitive. And it's relentless. And above all, it's tedious. Neil McCaw was particularly fascinated by the casting of Lucy Liu in that show. OK, so what if Watson was a woman? What if Watson was a young woman with these personality traits?

How would that change things? What has become absolutely clear is that when you change one of those features, so if you change the Watson character, make the Watson character female or of different ethnicity or move the historical period, then what's become clear is that everything else moves around it and that Watson is much more influential and focal to the whole thing than we might originally have thought. We might have imagined that we could lose Watson from the events and everything would pretty much remain the same. But both, obviously, in the canon, that isn't the case because the narrator is Watson, it turns out to be very significant. But in these adaptations, by making Watson in elementary an American Asian woman, we suddenly have a woman at the heart of the narrative who has other relationships of her own.

And they intersect with her central relationship with Holmes. And so everything is then we've got lots of moving pieces suddenly. We've got lots of moving pieces suddenly. And what it's done is it's energized the wider Sherlock Holmes franchise by allowing different points of view and different perspectives to coexist. And there were more changes in store. In 2013, there was a comic book series set in Harlem called Watson and Holmes Study in Black, where both characters were African-American. By the way, Lindsay Fay actually wrote on that series. And in 2018, there's a Japanese show called Miss Sherlock, where both characters are Japanese women.

Watson is now Dr. Watto Takibana. And there was a Russian TV series where Watson is the macho counterpart to the very cerebral and therefore less than manly Sherlock Holmes. And fan fiction has taken them in a much more intimate direction, where Holmes and Watson are known by their couple name, John Locke. Now in canon, John Watson marries women. And Pambidor says Arthur Conan Doyle was very specific about Watson's virility. And so one of the very famous quotes from Watson is that he has an experience of women which extends over many nations and three separate continents. We don't see that part of him. He just mentions that in passing. Whereas Holmes is like bigger than life, but has no experience with women at all. Except for Irene Adler.

But that's one story. And it was pure infatuation. So you do wonder, like, what is, is Sherlock Holmes celibate? Does he have, you know, sexual desire? If so, where does he place it? We never really see him interact in any friendships other than with Watson. And so it is an easy story to think about them as having this sort of subversive, hidden relationship. I mean, there's no way that Doyle put that in there for us to find.

But for fans to enjoy exploring that, I think it makes a lot of sense. Lindsay Faye agrees. Sherlock Holmes' sexuality is a tabula rasa. He ostensibly throughout the entire canon is asexual, which is fine if you want to make the argument that he was ace. He certainly had a very intimate and longstanding relationship with Dr. Watson. So if you want to make the queer argument, there's a lot of material for you. Do you ever get the feeling when you're reading the canon that Watson is not always the most reliable narrator. Sure. Not that Watson would lie, but I mean, what were you thinking? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, he's particularly unreliable when it comes to talking about himself.

I think that we're all like that. So yes, he is absolutely an unreliable narrator, which makes him even more fun to play with. Because, you know, if we take into account the notion that homosexuality was completely illegal at the time, then he would have to be an unreliable narrator. So who is Watson if Watson is not white or male or straight or middle-aged or a veteran or British or even speaking English? Lindsay says Watson has a soul and a role to play. That's why being a doctor is the one aspect of Watson's character that almost never gets lost.

He's courageous. He can't shy away from danger. He's honest. He's loyal. And he's devoted to Sherlock Holmes. That is absolutely essential. But all of those qualities that I just described, they sound boring, but when they're in the right hands, they're really not because they're not common. We don't everyday meet people who are unfailingly loyal. We don't everyday meet people who are unflinchingly honest, certainly. It's hard to find people who are absolutely devoted to another person. And it's hard to find people who are, you know, always going to, in a difficult situation, do the right thing and do the brave thing,

even if it's physically dangerous for them. In life, most of us are not a unique genius like Sherlock Holmes. You know, we don't get to be Steve Jobs or Meryl Streep or LeBron James. Most of us dedicate our lives in the service of someone else, or we dedicate our time and energy towards a larger goal or mission. Lindsay says that's why people have always related to Watson. Absolutely. How can you still be heroic? How can you still be meaningful? How can you still be essential? How can you still be essential to this story and not be the person who's got the bright, glaring spotlight, you know, and the unmistakable profile?

And the answer is by being Watson. That is it for this week. Thank you for listening. Special thanks to Lindsay Fay, Pamela Bedore, and Neil McCaw. The next episode will be about two sidekicks that are the opposite of Watson. They don't transcend race and gender.

Unfortunately, they're actually constricted to a white person's idea of their race and gender, which put a burden on the real actors who had to play them. We'll be looking at the parallel histories of Tonto and Cato. My assistant producer is Stephanie Billman. You can like the show on Facebook. I tweeted emulinski and Imagine World's Pod.

And the show's website is imaginaryworldspodcast.org.