Sherlock Homo: A Game of Eyeshadows

"Make it count, Watson!"

Remember 2009, when Guy Ritchie's first foray into that bachelor's flat at 221 Baker Street raised eyebrows over how Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Dr. Watson (Jude Law) acted like a bickering gay couple?  There were all sorts of stories of Downey claiming it was an intentional character interpretation and how the executor of Conan Doyle's estate was unhappy about it, etc.

But that homoerotic aspect of the film was pretty canny, and a big part of its advance marketing. It no doubt drew a lot of people into theaters who might otherwise have skipped out on a Guy Ritchie film. And count me in that camp. I mean, give me queer subtext over Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels – or Snatch – any day!

But for all the homo hoohaw, that Holmes and Watson bromance in the first film was fairly tame.

Roll forward to the 2011 sequel. Ritchie says he wanted to give audiences "even more" of what they liked in the first film, and so they put the queer flourishes on at full blast. Holmes in full drag. Check. Watson pointing various phallic objects at Holmes. Check. Holmes lying shirtless next to Watson, asking him to pull the trigger and, "make it count!" Oh for goodness sake. Just do it already.

Andrew O'Hehir over at Salon is right when he says it's not even gay subtext any more. In this second film they've gone and made it "supertext!"

But here's a curious thing. Despite making Holmes in drag the centerpiece of the new film's marketing campaign - the veritable climax of the trailer - no one outside the Warner Bros. marketing department actually seems to care much.

Hardly a peep in the mainstream media about how shocking/cool/amusing it is that Holmes and Watson act like a gay couple. Sir Author Conan Doyle's heirs aren't squawking this time out. Even the gay(ish) blogs haven't had much to say about it. (Us included.)

Why is that? It could be that A Game of Shadows is just such a mess that people have lost interest in all aspects of the Holmes and Watson relationship, gay or otherwise. 

Full disclosure, I saw the film last night and, other than some really cool visuals and a small part for Stephen Fry (naked), I thought it was strangely boring for such an elaborate action film. But the film has generally done well – So far raking in 185 million worldwide.

So if it's not that people are tired of Sherlock Holmes, does it mean that aggressively queer onscreen bromances are so commonplace now that no one even bothers to remark on them any more?

If so, not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. That bromance stuff is our bread and butter around here!

Thoughts?