I decided to attend The Sherlock Holmes You Never Knew: Black American Adaptations, Then and Now given by Provost Ann McClellan. This event was held on the evening of February 29th in a room upstairs in Old Main. I wanted to attend this event simply because it sounded incredibly interesting to me. Growing up, I had heard of the book and movie character named Sherlock Holmes, but I had never read any of the books or watched any of the movies. The name was just such a part of pop-culture and so I was curious. My conception however was that Sherlock Holmes was a white, British, private eye. However, I would soon learn from this event that that was not necessarily the case.
One of the most interesting facts to me was that Sherlock Holmes is the most portrayed fictional character ever. When I heard that I was more than a bit surprised, especially given that there are so many other famous, fictional characters (Batman, James Bond, Superman, and maybe even Spiderman). I also doubted whether many people in the States are huge fans of him and whether the character is even relevant these days. Sherlock Holmes is always portrayed as a white man in most movies, TV, and comics. The fanbase is also predominately a white, male fanbase. In this fanbase though there exists an elite group of Sherlock fans who are called the Baker Street Irregulars. This group consisted of an all-white group until they let their first black member in named Phillip Brogdon in 1988.
The first African American adaptation of Sherlock Holmes was also the first, all-black musical on Broadway in 1903. It featured Bert Williams as Shylock Holmes who was hired as a private detective. Bert, although he was a black man, still acted in blackface. In the musical, there were a lot of references to the original Sherlock Holmes. Then in 1918 one of the first black silent films was entitled “A Black Sherlock Holmes”. This version of Sherlock was portrayed by an actor named Sam Robinson who played Knick Carter. Knick was trying to rescue a kidnapped young girl named Cheza Sneeze. The movie was listed as a comedy. They also used colorblind casting which means they would pick the actor who was the best, not caring what their ethnicity was. Not everyone was on board with this strategy, especially since he was a historically white character.
Sherlock Holmes turned out to be more embedded in our culture and the media than I think anyone – me included – would ever think. He’s referred to often in jazz music. Bill Cosby even once did a whole bit on his show dressed as Sherlock Holmes. While there are tons of adaptations of Sherlock Holmes stories, there are still surprisingly few black adaptations. There are, however, thousands of fan factions online for Sherlock Holmes. But there are only 15(!!) that are not white fan pages. It is interesting to see how people interpret fictional characters and how it either changes through the years or remain the same. I do wonder if as society becomes more ethnically diverse if fictional characters will do the same. This event certainly made me think about it.
