The Case Study of Sherlock Holmes (2009) - Scholarly Commons ...

To inspire such a reaction from a modern audience may be more difficult to achieve due
to Holmes‟s popular stereotype. But if Holmes had existed, which the original products
clearly state, consider for a moment the dramatic shift it would cause in a reader‟s
perspective, for the possibility that The Great Detective was alive while you read about
him transforms the text‟s ability to cultivate and casts a spell of enchantment near
impossible to break. This was Starrett‟s (2008) original audience. Today, however, no
amount of advertising and marketing could cultivate that kind of intrigue:
[For] there can be no grave for Sherlock Holmes or Watson . . . Shall they not
always live in Baker Street? Are they not there this instant, as one writes? . . . So
they still live for all that love them well: in a romantic chamber of the heart: in a
nostalgic country of the mind: where it is always 1895. (Starrett, 2008, p. 93)
Cultivation analysis: Unofficial secondary products
Unofficial secondary products are produced by fans for fans. Abercrombie and
Longhurst (1998) would classify this category as petty producers. However, due to the
expansion of technology since the creation of that term, a pretty producer is now a far
more accessible position. Unofficial products are often published online, in either video
or text format, and are accompanied with a copyright disclaimer. Due to the number of
unofficial products, I chose only to interact those works published on Youtube, an
online video sharing platform, and Fanfiction.com, an extensive community based
website in which amateur authors upload pastiches, a term used rather loosely in this
instance, for entertainment and criticism.
Unofficial secondary products: Youtube images
After my initial viewing of Sherlock Holmes (2009) and before I began reading the
original products, I turned to Youtube for information. Having soon become acquainted
with cast interviews for Sherlock Holmes (2009), which qualify as official secondary
products because they are produced by media outlets only uploaded by fans, I decided
to expand my search and ventured towards previous Holmes adaptations. While
browsing corresponding playlists would offer various videos featuring related material,
it was here that I first viewed a clip of Granada‟s Sherlock Holmes (1984-1994). This
was a pivotal point in my cultivation process. Before Sherlock Holmes (2009),
Granada‟s “Jeremy Brett . . . was quickly transformed from a Shakespearean actor . . .
into the best-known Sherlock Holmes of the electronic era by far” (Redmond, 2009, p.
68