a completely strange "scandal in belgravia" reaction

[laurajv]

I have no idea why this is bothering me so much, but it is: the line about how Irene was obviously born in the 1980s.

It just keeps jarring me, badly, every time I think about the episode. I think it might be because I have 5 siblings born from 1981-1989, so I know perfectly well what they and their age cohort look like, and Irene was made up to look older. (The actor was born in 1980; in non-Adler shots of her, she looks younger than Adler does.)

I keep feeling like I must have missed something -- like that Sherlock must have been commenting on her making herself look older with makeup somehow, or something -- because to me the character is made up to look like she's in her late 30s (or early 40s and successfully trying to look younger).

Or like I misheard the line somehow? But seriously, it threw me completely out of the episode, and it is STILL BOTHERING ME and I am not even sure WHY and I'm really not comfortable with being this bothered by something like this. Like there's only one right way/age to look if you're born in the 80s or something. (But if you were born in the 80s, you cannot be older than 32, so if you look older than I do -- I was born in 77 -- I'm going to be a bit struck by that, is all I am saying, because very few people born in the 80s look older than I do unless they have spent a lot of time in the sun or have been seriously ill.)

Comments

[laurajv]

(but also, yes! Sherlock looks a good bit younger than Adler through the whole thing, and yet Cumberbatch has several years on Adler's actor - whose name I forget, bad me. I feel like that HAD to be intentional, but on the other hand based on John's resume from the first season they're trying to make HIM born in the early 80s, which don't make no damn sense at all for an actor who looks like Martin Freeman does -- he's just, he's got one of those faces that only gets more interesting as he gets older but as a side effect that makes it hard to disguise his actual age -- so maybe they just don't think very clearly about age on the show?)

[tazlet]

They're thinking about something: I pitched a fissy hit in a post yesterday about, not Sherlock's age, but his boyness (I'm deliberately using that word instead of immaturity). In canon Mycroft is 7 years older than Sherlock, in BBC the apparent difference looks like 15, but could be as much as 20 years. In canon Mycoft appears twice. Unovis commented on my LJ that, in effect, by expanding Mycroft's role they've split the character - with Gatiss embodying the insider/conservative aspect of the character and Cumberbatch the outsider/queer (for a certain value of queer) aspect - it's not a perfect parallel, since we see Sherlock celebrating Christmas with friends and Mycroft alone but... Unovis commented further that exploring the split would be delicious; I'm pondering that.

[brownbetty]

Except that, to me, Mycroft reads far more queer than Sherlock. Or am I missing something?

[brownbetty]

No, I caught that. I'd honestly just assumed he was married to a dude.

(Although very much agreed about the difficulties of relying on one's gaydar interculturally. Prince Phillip reads as somewhat gay, to me, which I am happy to assume he is not, actually)

[tazlet]

Sorry 'bout that delete - re-post below.

[tazlet]

His wedding ring? (Not that it necessarily means anything) - and British men of his class frequently read gay when they're straight? And being gay also doesn't necessarily mean you can't be committed to the status quo?

Addonthot: Given the puerile sniggering about Mycroft's sexuality throughout, I kinda want him to the straight-arrow ex of a bi-sexual woman with whom he'll forever be in love.