8 Sherlock moments that feel way more problematic today

The shadow Sherlock Holmes casts is massive. You can’t talk detective stories or even half of pop culture without bumping into that deerstalker hat. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle made a brainiac icon; Holmes is all about razor-sharp logic and that uncanny ability to notice what no one else does. People still worship his methods in everything from crime novels to CSI-style shows. But when you go poking around in those old stories or even the newer reboots, you trip over some stuff that doesn’t quite sit right anymore. Things that might’ve slid in Victorian London just make you wince now: the racism, the colonial swagger, tired old gender roles, or the way they talk about mental health.

So, we’ll be diving into eight of those moments from Sherlock Holmes stories and the big TV adaptations. For each one, we’ll drop in some background, dig into the modern backlash, and ask how it all lands in our world today.

We’re talking the full spectrum of problematic moments: racist caricatures, imperialism, women who exist just to be plot devices, Holmes doing some ethically sketchy stuff, the whole “drugs make you a genius” trope, and the way trauma gets brushed off or neurodiversity gets played for laughs or tragedy.

The point isn’t to dump Sherlock Holmes in the cancellation bin; he’s too interesting for that. It’s more about facing how our standards change and what it says about us that we notice these things now. Maybe it’s time to get real about how we rework, rethink, or just plain argue about these classics so they’re actually worth passing on—not just as dusty relics, but as stories we can engage with, question, and maybe even love a little more honestly.

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Sherlock moments that feel way more problematic today

Explicit racism and colonial attitudes in the Holmes canon

Have you ever tried to reread some old Sherlock Holmes stories and just cringe your way through half the dialogue? Doyle wasn’t shy about shoving in the empire’s ugly baggage. The Adventure of the Three Gables is emblematic of this. Steve Dixie, a Black character, gets a crude and stereotypical treatment, and Holmes himself tosses out lines that reinforce racist tropes. Stuff about Dixie’s “smell” or “woolly head” shows how it was no big deal in Victorian England.

However, now and then, Doyle stumbles into being a little progressive, such as in The Yellow Face, where an interracial child gets accepted by the end. But those moments are as rare as hen’s teeth. Most of the time, Doyle has this whole “Brits are the best, everyone else barely counts” thing humming along in the background. You see it in the way he writes about other cultures, like the Indian servant in The Sign of the Four. The servant has no lines, no real presence, and is just there for the scenery.

And it’s not just a “product of its time.” These stories actively prop up an idea of British Christianity squaring off against the inferior “other” religions. British culture is on a pedestal; everyone else is lucky to even show up. Critics have pointed out how modern adaptations like to sweep the nastiest stuff under the rug, but nobody wants to get their hands dirty and face up to the legacy. You can love the mysteries, but you have to admit, some parts are deeply troubling.

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Sexism, gender stereotypes, and the shrinking of female characters

Holmes’s world, whether in Doyle’s stories or the BBC update, is a boys’ club with a couple of women drifting in and out, usually to get saved, murdered, or just be a bit of background noise. The original stories are Victorian, so women mostly show up as clients, worried wives, or damsels with a tragic past. Even when a woman does something, it’s usually because she’s “madly in love” and not because she is smart or ambitious.

Now, the BBC’s Sherlock somehow manages to double down on this. Irene Adler, who in Doyle’s A Scandal in Bohemia schools Holmes and earns his respect, gets the short end of the stick in A Scandal in Belgravia. Suddenly, she’s a dominatrix, but her smarts get undercut so Sherlock can look like the galaxy-brained alpha. What was once a rare moment of a woman outsmarting the genius turns into yet another case of Sherlock coming out on top… again.

And the pattern keeps going: women show up as love interests, plot twists, or background professionals who never get to be more than that. It’s 21st-century TV, but somehow the female characters feel even flatter than in the Victorian era. If anything, it’s a step backward. No wonder feminist critics are calling for modern adaptations to fix this stuff, not just copy the old-school sexism and call it an homage.

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Holmes’s morally sketchy methods

Sherlock’s “ethics,” or, you know, lack thereof. The guy lies, sneaks around, breaks into places, and does whatever he wants as long as he gets his answer. Back then, it came off as clever or rebellious—wow, look at him breaking all the rules and still winning. But now, it’s more awkward. Are we seriously still cool with him planting evidence or accusing people based on a hunch?

Take The Hound of the Baskervilles—Holmes just keeps the cops in the dark for his reasons and plays puppet-master. Or The Norwood Builder, where he messes with evidence to save a guy. He is usually right, but what if he wasn’t?

Today’s viewers aren’t so quick to give him a pass. We’re pretty wary of lone geniuses who think they’re above the law. Sherlock might’ve shaped the way people think about crime-solving, but that whole “do whatever it takes” attitude is not exactly aging well.

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Drugs: The glamorous, messy, and mostly ignored

So, Holmes and his little habit of cocaine, morphine, and whatever was fashionable at the time. In Doyle’s original stories, it’s treated like a shrug. He is bored, so just let him have his seven-percent solution. But we don’t talk about addiction.

Flash forward to BBC Sherlock, and his drug use is a plot rollercoaster. One minute it’s a throwaway joke, next minute it’s supposed to be this big dramatic moment, and it just feels like the writers are fishing for shock value. There’s no real exploration of what addiction does to a person; it’s just there to stir up some drama or add “depth” when the plot gets thin.

Critics weren’t wrong to call it out. Sherlock’s “drug problem” shows up right when the show starts running out of steam. The whole opium den thing, the relapses—they all come off as lazy shorthand, like a forced reminder that he’s “flawed” and we’re supposed to be impressed by it.

And if you think mental illness gets any better treatment, think again. Whether it’s in the stories or the show, characters with mental health issues are usually just props, comic relief, tragic spectacles, or, at best, plot devices. It’s not a good look, and people (rightly) aren’t letting it slide anymore.

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Orientalism, stereotyping, and The Blind Banker controversy

The BBC tried to give us a slick, modern Sherlock, but somehow landed in the middle of every tired Asian stereotype in the book. In The Blind Banker, you get these generic, “mysterious” Chinatown shots, random flute music in the background, and characters who talk in riddles or do “ancient” rituals nobody in actual modern London does.

People weren’t having it. Critics and viewers called out the show for dressing up regular streets and communities like some dangerous, mystical “other world.” It’s not just cringe, it’s harmful, and it’s crazy that a supposedly “progressive” adaptation falls straight into the same old traps.

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Violence and moral ambiguity in Holmes & Watson’s relationship

Violence is practically baked into the Holmes stories. The old tales, like The Abbey Grange, are full of grim stuff like wife-beating and domestic abuse, and for the most part, nobody bats an eye (it was Victorian England). Holmes jumps in to help women in crappy marriages, but a lot of times his “help” means ignoring the law or just letting vigilantes walk.

Fast forward to BBC Sherlock: things get more intense. John Watson (who, reminder, is an actual doctor) will sometimes just snap and punch Sherlock. Sometimes it’s for laughs, sometimes it’s heavy drama, but either way, not acceptable anymore. Critics have pointed out how strange it is that the show shrugs off or jokes about John’s violent outbursts, especially considering his “do no harm” doctor vibe. It’s like the writers want their friendship dark and edgy, but instead it just comes off as kind of messed up.

And Holmes is not innocent either. He’ll threaten, manipulate, or even physically go after people—sometimes even his own friends. We all love a flawed genius, but there’s a limit. Just because someone’s a brainiac doesn’t mean we should let them get away with everything.

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John Watson’s (un)healthy coping mechanisms

Let’s zoom in on John for a second. The original Watson was the “good guy”—dependable, steady, your moral compass. BBC’s John has got issues. There are scenes, like in The Lying Detective, where he straight-up beats Sherlock to the point of hospitalization. The show barely blinks. No real consequences, no big moral reckoning, just a shrug that John is having a tough time. Some fans even cheer him on, which raises eyebrows given the context.

It’s bizarre how the show normalizes all this violence between friends. The classic Holmes-Watson dynamic had its drama, but it wasn’t just about who could punch whom harder. Now, we’re supposed to believe this is dark, gritty character growth? It just makes the whole relationship feel off and sort of misses the point of why people loved these two in the first place.

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Holmes’s arrogance, detachment, and unethical traits

Holmes is a legend for a reason. His brain is a supercomputer. But he can be the worst. He is cold, detached, and treats people like they’re chess pieces instead of humans. And for some reason, people keep making excuses for him, claiming he is just so brilliant he can’t help being rude. Right. As if being smart automatically earns you a free pass to be insufferable.

And here’s where things get sticky: a lot of people see Holmes as a kind of autistic-coded character, which could be cool if it were handled with some respect. But mostly, the adaptations just lean into the weird, unfeeling genius trope, which isn’t exactly the representation people are looking for. Instead of showing neurodivergence in a real, nuanced way, they just turn it into another quirk to poke fun at or pathologize.