i feel like there’s so many valid criticisms of ‘superwholock’ like the racism, misogyny, homophobia, etc. present in all those shows but 90% of the time i see it discussed on here it’s just used as an excuse to take a cheap shot at teenage girls for daring to enjoy something while being teenage girls
“Sherlock, Supernatural and Doctor Who
are massively popular shows that teenage girls find appealing – maybe
due to the portrayal of close male friendships that they can safely
project their own desires onto (Sherlock, Supernatural), or the idea of a
girl roughly their age working her way through a complex relationship
with an attractive, powerful man (Doctor Who). Many of these young women
in question have found geniune support systems both within the texts
and within the fandom that surrounds them- fandom as a subculture has
long provided an easy way for teenage girls to get the things they’re not getting,
for good or for ill. For example, Sherlock and Supernatural’s
queerbaiting male-male relationships provide a quick, easy gateway for a
young girl -who might, of course, not be straight herself- into a
‘romance’ that she can relate to without ever having to ask the
difficult questions. And of course, asking the difficult questions
should be the job of the text, but they often fail in this
regard – a problem made even more complicated and difficult by the fact
that sometimes the people involved behind-the-scenes of popular shows,
like many of their most defensive fans, are themselves members
of marginalized groups. When critiquing problematic-but-popular TV
shows, it’s important to remember just how much misogyny, homophobia etc
is internalised, and also to bear in mind the problem of
seeing any fandom as a homogeneous entity when any one will contain
people of all genders, sexualities and backgrounds…
But unpicking all that is really haaaaard! So we reblogged a fourteen-year-old girl’s lovingly drawn Dean-Doctor-Sherlock fanart with the caption ‘ewww no this is gross’, instead.”