In this blog post, we will look at the dangers and warning messages that media play and tabloid gossip pose to our society through the character of Magnussen, Sherlock Holmes’s enemy.
If you were to choose one character from the most famous detective novels in the world, there is one character that would never be left out. Everyone has heard of him at least once, and that character is Sherlock Holmes, the protagonist of the Sherlock Holmes series by Arthur Conan Doyle. He is known as the best detective of all detectives in detective novels, and he has been recreated and reinterpreted in various works. In particular, the British drama SHERLOCK, which aired from 2010, became a huge hit worldwide, gaining immense popularity among Sherlock Holmes fans, and thanks to its popularity, it was successfully aired until season 3 in 2014. Season 4 was aired in January 2017, but no new season has been released since then. However, the main actors Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman have expressed their positive attitude towards Season 5, raising the expectations of the fans. Cumberbatch said, “I’m willing to come back if the situation is right,” and Freeman also said, “I’ll come back if there’s a good script.”
I, too, was captivated by the drama and watched all four seasons from Season 1 to Season 4 this year. Each episode had a variety of cases and ways to solve them, so I was able to watch them without getting bored. Among them, the final episode of season 3, His Last Vow, was memorable because it contained a strong twist and the hardships of Sherlock Holmes, and it dealt with the issue of media play, which is an important topic to be addressed in the real world.
The episode begins with the newspaper publisher Charles Augustus Magnussen being interrogated. He is suspected of regularly meeting with the British Prime Minister and exerting pressure on him to enact policies favorable to the Prime Minister. Magnussen denies this, but from this first scene it is implied that he is the final mastermind of the episode. Within minutes, Magnussen corners the interrogator by finding evidence of the interrogator’s husband’s affair in a private knowledge warehouse called “Apple Door.” When the interrogator protests that it is blackmail, he says the shocking words, “Of course it’s not blackmail. This is… possession.”
This line reveals his true nature. He used information as a weapon to manipulate people at will and accumulate it like an asset. Eventually, Sherlock Holmes was the only person in the UK who could deal with Magnussen, and the story entered a full-fledged battle of wits. I watched the rest of the story, looking forward to seeing how Sherlock Holmes would win the confrontation with the president of a large newspaper company.
Sherlock Holmes makes a plan to steal the “Apple Door.” Even if the president of a media company is involved in a state secret, the “Apple Door” could be searched by the British intelligence agency. With this in mind, Sherlock Holmes makes a proposal to Magnussen to exchange the laptop containing the state secret for the “Apple Door.” Magnussen accepted the laptop without hesitation, and I was now waiting for the scene to be revealed, hoping that the information contained in “Apple Door” would be revealed.
However, in the following scene, Magnussen has been aware of Sherlock Holmes’ plan from the beginning and calmly says that Sherlock Holmes has made a big mistake. Then the true identity of “Apple Door” is revealed, and surprisingly, it is a virtual warehouse made up of Magnussen’s own memories! He didn’t actually have the evidence, he just remembered everything. No physical evidence was needed; the fact that it could be published in a newspaper and mislead people was enough. In this scene, both Sherlock Holmes and I were shocked. The first shock was that Sherlock Holmes lost the battle of wits, and the second shock was that it reminded me of the unreliable and sensationalist articles often seen in the real media, the so-called tabloid articles. At that moment, I felt that the real world media is in touch with the way it dazzles and manipulates the public.
In the work, Magnussen uses real facts as a tool of blackmail, but there is a difference from the essence of a tabloid article. Magnussen threatens based on real facts, although there is no material evidence. On the other hand, tabloid articles incite people with plausible stories, regardless of whether they are true or not. However, both are the same in that they can manipulate public opinion by misleading people without any basis. Just as Magnussen uses memory as a means of manipulating the public, real-life tabloid articles also deceive the public with uncertain evidence. In fact, it is difficult to restore the image of many celebrities and politicians after their image has been tarnished by the media. Even if a correction article is published, it is rare for the tarnished image to be restored. As a result, people come to fear the media as they fear Magnussen, which is a huge departure from the media’s original role of providing fair reporting.
Through this episode, I felt that it was more than just a re-telling of the Sherlock Holmes series, but rather a commentary on the current issue of media manipulation through Magnussen’s words and actions. Of course, not all media manipulates public opinion through media manipulation. Many articles are written fairly based on facts, and even if they criticize someone, it is right to let the world know if the content is based on facts and can be proven. However, it is clearly wrong to take advantage of people by threatening them unfairly or to manipulate their image with false facts. Currently, there are not enough legal measures to prevent malicious media practices, so numerous tabloids are still thriving. One solution would be to establish legal punishment standards for unfounded malicious articles or to allow only articles with a minimum of evidence to be published.
