CBS has cast Lucy Liu as Watson in “Elementary”
Further proof that CBS’ in-the-works Sherlock Holmes reboot will take the iconic franchise in a radical new direction: The network has cast Lucy Liu as Watson!
TVLine has learned that Liu has been tapped to play Watson toJonny Lee Miller‘s Sherlock in Elementary, the network’s modern-day take on the famed detective saga.
Another key change: Sherlock and Watson now live in New York City.
On the one hand… HOLY SHIT THEY CAST SOMEONE NOT WHITE AND NOT MALE FOR THIS ROLE????
#freaks the fuck out
And then I thought about it and was like, HEY WAIT-
#it’s a trap
Because of course when you look at Sherlock or House (to look at a very extreme adaptation of Sherlock Holmes) you always end up with this problem of Sherlock Holmes being very smart and basically always right unless the point of the episode is That One Time Sherlock Wasn’t Right.
And the person who is most wrong is always Watson because he’s around the most.
I’m not sure I’m looking forward to an entire series of Lucy Liu Watson telling Holmes how brilliant and awesome and not-ever-wrong he is. Because it’s not like women and PoC don’t end up in that exact role all the time naturally when they are in shows anyhow.
I mean, it could be cool and subversive and I hope she’s a awesome and fun as Martin Freeman’s bad-ass adrenaline junkie who straight up caps a dude for looking at Sherlock wrong but…I’m not gonna hold my breath for it. I’m basically always waiting for the other shoe to drop when it comes to female characters and turning out to be useless or getting totally undermined and defanged so that the male lead can hog the spot light and this just seems like the perfect set-up for that to happen in record time.
This is exactly why I wasn’t as excited as everyone else I know at this announcement. I can hope, but I don’t think I’ll be expecting too much.
(via stopwhitewashing)
Reblogged from squintyoureyes February 28th, 2012 949 notes
