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

ead The Sign of Four (1890/2001), The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes and The
Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1892, 1894/2001a). I returned to the original products
because I did not believe my fandom would be as legitimate if I did not follow what I
assumed was the correct literary process. While I did not read Doyle‟s serialised short
stories with the consistency of an original Strand Magazine consumer, or
simultaneously with legions of other fans, as one would a television show, I was
cultivated nonetheless. I read them with consistency and from this, I warmed to the
familiarity of the subject matter, the formulae Doyle employed and most of all, the
knowledge that there was so many more, and so I embraced “regular, emotionally
involved consumption” (Sandvoss, 2005, p. 8) of the canon. Consumption coupled with
consistency cultivates a consumer‟s investment and loyalty towards a product; I
therefore, from my own experience, find that fandom is the emotional consumption of
consistent enchantment. In other words, viewers are cultivated towards embracing and
investing in the commercial imitation of a relationship. Those, however, who rail
against commercial products, do not escape cultivation either. Hill‟s (2002) labels this
category of viewer as the fan-as-anti-commercial, in other words, a commercially
rebellious fan. Such a definition coincides with Abercrombie and Longhurst‟s (1998)
cultist and Hill‟s (2002) definition of the cult fan; this form of fandom however is
cultivated independently from the media and is community based. Therefore, I was
unable to incorporate it into my model as I focused on non-community based fan
cultivation. In acquainting myself with the original Holmes products and my position as
a Holmes fan, I found myself cultivated to a state similar to that of Bourdieu‟s petit
bourgeoisie (as cited in Hills, 2002, p. 48). I consider the petit bourgeois as social
climbers; they have the ability “to recognise „legitimate culture‟, but do no[t] possess
sufficient knowledge of it [and that] this gap between recognition and knowledge results
in . . . misplaced fan knowledge” (Hills, 2002, p. 48). I, at this stage of my cultivation,
was the perfect example of the petit bourgeois‟ “gap between recognition and
knowledge” and “misplaced fan knowledge”, for I was solely interested in the character
of Holmes and his visual characterisations. At this stage, I was enamoured by Granada‟s
Sherlock Holmes (1984-1994), and in an attempt to legitimise my opinion with
comparisons and community-approved products, I sought out and bought the collectors
edition box set of Basil Rathbone‟s Great Detective, The complete collection: Sherlock
Holmes (1939-1946). In my venture away from original products and towards official
secondary products, I witnessed “poaching” (De Certeau, as cited in Jenkins, 1992, p.
33). A poacher is a fan who does “not observe from [a] distance (be it physical,
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