Ho 1 Vincent Ho Professor Lynda Haas Writing 37 15 March 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 grocery store through the dense fog. A few minutes later, a loud shrieking scream is heard and nothing more. The next morning, police officers are shocked as they find a womans body in a pool of blood on the street. This crime scene is common in the mystery genre, which is a type of text that usually involves a puzzling crime in a strange setting (Oracle). There are many genre conventions, which are expected aspects of a genre by the audience, in the mystery genre. Such genre conventions include: a detective solving a case, the sidekick assisting the detective, clues that lead to a mysterys solution, and the police who often makes claims. According to S.S. Van Dine in Twenty rules for writing detective stories, another mystery genre 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 also a mystery genre convention. Of all the genre conventions that are apparent in the mystery genre, the sidekick is one of the most important convention. The sidekick plays a crucial role by assisting the detective in solving cases, but also by providing the detective with helpful insight when the detective is lost. The convention of the sidekick was first established by Arthur Conan Doyle in his early mystery stories such as The Sign of the Four and The Hound of the Baskervilles, written during the late Victorian Era. Throughout time, the convention of the

Ho 2 sidekick is still apparent in modern-day Holmes texts such as House, Psych, and Elementary. In House, Dr. Wilson is the sidekick to Dr. House just like how in Psych, Burton is the sidekick to Shawn. The convention of the sidekick is also seen in Elementary, a TV series directed by Robert Doherty for CBS. The series is about two consultant detectives, Sherlock Holmes, and his sidekick, Joan Watson, who work with the New York Police Department (NYPD) to solve crimes. Elementary is a revision of Conan Doyles Sherlock Holmes stories, with updated genre conventions to adapt to the shows 21st century audience. The character Joan Watson is an update of the sidekick from Doyles stories, Dr. John Watson, with specific changes in the sidekicks deduction abilities and gender. The convention of the sidekick is seen in episode 9, season 1 of Elementary titled You Do It to Yourself. The episode begins with the police discovering a dead professor in an empty warehouse. Sherlock Holmes and Joan Watson quickly track down the murderer only to find out that he was hired by someone else to kill the professor. Hours pass by, but Holmes cannot get a possible lead to who hired the murderer. At this point, Watson steps in to provide Holmes with a key observation that gives Holmes a possible suspect for the murderer. Watson points out that the picture the murderer had receive from his unknown employer has a glare, which means that someone took a picture of a photo of the professor. During this scene, Watsons important role as the sidekick is seen through the effects of lighting. Professor Stephen Davega states in his video, Lighting, that ratio, quality, and direction are three aspects of lighting that work together to help create a mood of a scene. The aspect ratio refers to how much light is used in a scene. A low ratio uses one or a few lights while a high ratio uses many lights. Quality is how the light is hitting its subject; the light can hit the subject directly, or indirectly by reflection or through a screen that dims the light. Direction is the angle that the light shines at. The typical direction of a

Ho 3 light is 45 degrees from the eyesight of the subject. However, other directions include frontal, back, and under lighting. When Watson points out the important observation to Holmes in this scene, 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 (Yale Film Studies). In this scene, the low-key lighting creates a serious mood when the camera is pointed at Watson because Watsons face is not fully lit. Only some features of her face are lit, while the rest is hidden in the shadow. Even though the low-key lighting uses few lights, Watson is still emphasized in this scene as the lighting of the background dims, making her the focus of the scene. The serious mood and focus on Watson emphasizes the importance of Watsons role as a sidekick in the show. By showing the importance of Watson, Elementary shows that the convention of the sidekick is still important in modern-day just as it was during the time of Doyles Sherlock Holmes stories. Along with lighting, the camera angles used in this scene help emphasize the importance of Watsons character. In particular, Watsons gender is emphasized 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, usually on a crane, shooting down on a subject. Davega mentions that by viewing a subject from a high angle, the subject seems smaller, therefore, symbolizing the subjects weakness or vulnerability. On the other hand, a low camera angle looks up at its subject and portrays its subject as powerful, important, or impressive. In the same scene from You Do It to Yourself where Watson assists Holmes, the camera is at a low angle looking up at Watson as she points out the crucial observation to Holmes. Through the low camera angle,

Ho 4 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. Despite the gender of the sidekick, the sidekick will always be an important part to the mystery genre. The modern-day sidekick, Joan Watson, is similar to Dr. John Watson in Doyles third novel of the Sherlock Holmes series, The Hound of the Baskervilles, which was published in 1902. In the opening scene of the novel, Holmes shows Watson a walking stick that was left in their living room last night. Watson tries to figure out whom the stick belongs to and 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 stimulating it (71). Holmes is basically saying that through Watsons errors, Holmes is able to piece together information that allows him to figure out the owner of the walking stick. Even though this scene shows Watson assisting Holmes, it also downplays Watson, making him inferior to the Holmes because through Watsons mistakes, Holmes is sparked with new ideas. In Elementary, Watson is more equal towards Holmes in terms of deduction skills. In You Do It to Yourself, when Watson helps Holmes get a new lead on a suspect behind a murder, Holmes acknowledges the fact that Watson has helped him, showing that Watson has similar deduction skills 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 sidekick is updated through Watsons gender.

Ho 5 The transition of the sidekick convention from Doyles stories to the modern-day Holmes texts is an example of a genre development. There are four stages of genre development: primitive, classical, parodic, and revisionist. The primitive stage is when the genre is first developing and the audience does not expect anything from the genre. When the genre is in the classical stage, it has become popular and its genre conventions are established. During the parodic stage, the genre is laughable and is made into parodies. The last stage of the genre development is the revisionist stage. When the genre is in this stage, its conventions are revised to adapt to the current audience. Overall, a genre is never static as it continues to evolve to fit with its current audience. 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 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 way Romeo + Juliet is an updated version of Romeo and Juliet, Elementary is a modern-day update of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Doyle during the late 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 6 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.