221B Recs

Music Title & Artist: Dixon's Girl - Dessa
Vidder: stardust_rain
Pairing or Character: Joan Watson, Sally Donovan, Soo Lin Yao, more
Verse: Elementary, Sherlock BBC
Warnings: fast cuts; canon-typical violence against women; blood, corpses, autopsy
Link: Dreamwidth announcement post
Author's summary: You gotta be big to treat pretty girls bad. A kinda-sorta crossover. (or: Breaking the fourth wall with Joan Watson and Sally Donovan.) A meta-vid.

Reccer's Comments: Joan Watson occupies a unique position in film-and-screen Holmesiana, being both a Watson and a woman of color. I've seen meta about how she fits into the long, long history of Watsons, but "Dixon's Girl" positions her as an heir to other female characters of color in Holmesiana: in this case, Sally Donovan, Soo Lin Yao, and General Shan, all from Sherlock BBC, one of the vanishingly few Holmesian adaptations with named women of color.

There are many layers of discussion in "Dixon's Girl": references to the backlash against Lucy Liu's casting; a takedown of the argument that Joan should not to be celebrated because she is 'just' a Watson; a critique of some elements common between the two shows...

...but it's also very much a vid about longing and hope. About rooting for Sally Donovan and Soo Lin while longing for a thing that you feel like you'll never have, and the hope that with Joan Watson, you might finally, maybe, get to have it.