Ho 1 Vincent Ho Professor Lynda Haas Writing 37 20 February 2014 New York. New Watson.

The night is dark and lifeless as the fog fills the city streets. A woman is making her way to a local store through the dense fog. A few minutes later, a loud shrieking scream was heard and nothing more. The next morning, police officers are shocked as they find the womans body in a pool of blood by the store. This scene is common in the mystery genre, which usually involves a murder in a strange setting (Oracle). Many genre conventions, expected aspects of a genre, derive from the mystery genre. According to S.S. Van Dine in Twenty rules for writing detective stories, one convention is that the detective always solves a case rationally and scientifically. In an excerpt from Theory and Practice of Classic Fiction, Jerome Delamater and Ruth Prigozy state that the detectives eccentricity is another mystery genre convention. One of the most important convention of a mystery genre is a sidekick. Arthur Conan Doyle established this convention in his early stories such as The Sign of the Four and The Hound of the Baskervilles and the convention is still apparent in modern texts such as House, Sherlock, and Psych. Elementary, directed by Robert Doherty and airs on CBS, is another modern-day TV series that captures the importance of the sidekick. In season 1, episode 9, You Do It to Yourself of Elementary, the importance of the sidekick is shown. Elementary is a modern-day revision of Conan Doyles Sherlock Holmes stories, updating genre conventions for its 21st

Ho 2 century audience; in particular, the convention Joan Watson is an update of Conan Doyles sidekick, Dr. John Watson, with specific revisions such as Joans role and gender. In the episode You Do It to Yourself, Watsons important role in assisting Holmes is seen through the effects of lighting. According to Stephen Davega, ratio, quality, and direction are three aspects of lighting that work together to help create a mood of a scene. Ratio is how much light is used in a scene. Quality is how the light is hitting its subject; the light can hit the subject directly, or indirectly by reflection or a through a screen that dims the light. Direction is the angle that the light is shining at. The typical direction is 45 degrees from the eyesight of the subject. However, other directions includes frontal, back, and under. In a scene from You Do It to Yourself, the three aspects of lighting work together to create low-key lighting, where there is a high contrast between the brightness and darkness, on Watson. The low-key lighting is common in suspenseful scenes from genres such as horror and mystery because this lighting only shows a partial of the subject. In this scene, the low-key lighting creates a serious mood when the camera is pointed at Watson, emphasizing the importance of Watsons character in the show. By showing the importance of Watson, Elementary includes the convention of Watson, the sidekick, in the show. Watsons gender is emphasized in Elementary through the use of camera angles. The three basic camera angles are eye-level, high angle and low angle. Eye-level is when the camera is at eye-level with its subject, such as how a person normally looks at something. High angle involves a camera shooting down on a subject. Davega mentions that by viewing a subject from a high angle, it makes the subject smaller, therefore, weak or vulnerable. On the other hand, a low camera angle looks up at its subject and portrays its subject as powerful, important, or impressive. In the scene from You Do It to Yourself, the camera is at a low angle looking up at

Ho 3 Watson as she points out a crucial observation to Holmes. Through the low camera angle, Watson is depicted as big and powerful. Even though Watson is a woman, the low angle camera portrays Watson as a dominating figure in the 21st century. This symbolizes womens equality among men. Watsons role as a sidekick to Sherlock Holmes has a greater importance in Elementary than in The Hound of the Baskervilles. When Watson observes the walking stick at the beginning of The Hound of the Baskervilles, he states some incorrect facts. Holmes then responds to Watson, It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulation it (71). Holmes is basically saying that through Watsons errors, Holmes is able to piece together information that allows him to figure out whom the walking stick belongs to. This scene downplays Watson, making him inferior to the Holmes because through Watsons mistakes, Holmes is sparked with new ideas. In Elementary, Watson is more helpful towards Holmes. In You Do It to Yourself, the mystery genre convention of Watson being a sidekick is displayed when Watson helps Holmes get a new lead with a mystery. Holmes acknowledges the fact that Watson has helped him, showing that Watson has a greater importance to Holmes in Elementary than in The Hound of the Baskervilles. Watsons gender is another updated aspect about the convention of the sidekick. In The Hound of The Baskervilles, Watson is a man. However, in Elementary, Watsons character is a female. In the 21st century, women have gained their equality among men which is why the convention of Watson is updated through Watsons gender to show that in modern society, women and men are equal. Throughout time, social norms tend to change, and new rights and laws are implemented to accustom those changes. These changes result in updating text of the past to relate to the

Ho 4 culture of the current time. For instance, the tragedy Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare was remade into the 1996 American-Australian movie Romeo + Juliet directed by Baz Luhrmann. Romeo + Juliet was created to appeal to the American-Australian audience by adapting to the American-Australian culture and norms at the time. Similar to the Romeo + Juliet, Elementary is a modern-day update of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Doyle during the Victorian Era. Elementary even includes the mystery genre conventions of the Sherlock Holmes stories, such as Watsons role as a sidekick, except the conventions have been updated to appeal to the modern-day audience. Elementary is an American TV series, so its aspects of Doyles stories are updated to appeal to the American audience.

Ho 5 Works Cited

"Anatomy of a Mystery." ThinkQuest. Oracle Foundation, n.d. Web. 20 Feb. 2014. Davega, Stephen. Angles. Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 19 Oct. 2009. Web. 20 Feb. 2014. Davega, Stephen. Lighting. Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 19 Oct. 2009. Web. 20 Feb. 2014. Delamater, Jerome, and Ruth Prigozy, eds. Theory and Practice of Classic Detective Fiction. Westport: Greenwood, 1997. Print. Dine, S.S. Van. "Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories." Gaslight. Mount Royal College, n.d. Web. 20 Feb. 2014. Doherty, Robert. "You Do It to Yourself." Elementary. CBS. WCBS-TB, New York City, New York, 27 Sept. 2012. Television. Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir. The Hound of the Baskervilles. London: George Newnes, 1902. Sherlock Holmes. Kindle. "Yale Film Studies." Film Analysis Web Site 2.0. Yale University, 27 Aug. 2002. Web. 20 Feb. 2014.