Amy Ponds of the 99% (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
allchildren) wrote2012-03-27 01:22 am
allchildren) wrote2012-03-27 01:22 am
Entry tags:
I HAVE OPINIONS ABOUT FICTION
FILM! AT! ELEVEN!!!!
Pretty much everybody whose Doctor Who opinions I respect and agree with have come out in a strong voice to condemn... people who wanted the new companion to be a dude. Everything about the choice of new companion is uninspired and problematic and boring, they agree, but ~at least~ it's not a man! Y WOULD U EVEN ZOMG
I take issue with this.
Now (as I assume anyone reading this probably already knows), I am generally the last person to agitate for more men in fiction. I straight up will not watch or read most popular/nerd-popular stuff if it strikes me as a brodeo, and when I happen to consume something that is dudecentric I will still usually find a way to make it about chicks. Not that I don't have my share of favorite male characters and the occasional dudeslash ship and male-dominated media franchise or interest (baseball and too many teenage feelings about all the fucking boys in the fucking bands), but as a rule my investment in fiction (and uh... life) is incredibly femcentric.
But the reason for this is because I love women. I want women to rule the fucking universe and be happy and successful and appreciated and fulfilled. Just as I avoid stories about lots of dudes, I avoid stories that contain lots of women being exploited, attacked, derided, hated on, damaged, held down, and most of all narratively fucked over. (That awkward moment when everybody keeps mentioning The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo to me and I just have to blink politely and try to change the subject.) Or, at least, I try. Sometimes I'll get in on the ground floor with a story about a girl and fall in love with her and then I have to ride it out. That's a lot of pain and rage for me. And there's no greater (worse) example of this than Doctor Who.
feelings collage
IT'S DOCTOR WHO
angry pukefest '11
(also basically just all my who tags for all websites)
I mean, the best understanding I have of the Doctor is to conceive of him as a serial killer of women. I made up this macabre story once about his victims: Rose he suffocated, Martha's heart was cut right from her chest, and Donna was left alive after a lobotomy. Amy, pushed to her limit, hanged herself before he could do the honors (then ghost!Amy and bloody-handed Doctor could be friends). And it feels like this is what really happened, on a narrative level. People call it a kid's show and it's the fucking Rake's Song.
So there's that. But even when I put aside my own Raxacoricofallapatorious-sized issues with what happens to every goddamn woman on the show (and let's be real here the four main companions are just the tip of the iceberg), I just cannot understand how people don't get why someone would pick up an inescapably patriarchal overtone in "900 year old genius god star MAN picks out his latest necessarily-much-younger woman and gives her a ride in his sexy space ship and opens her eyes [and odds are she'll be attracted to him but let's not get into that] and becomes the most important amazing person imaginable in her life and then goes on to the next one." Like, maybe it's just my personal squick re: relationships with power differentials resting on the male side. But it's a hard earned squick based on, er, my experience of reality and sexism. Individually, in a perfect everything-is-s1-and-nothing-hurts world the Doctor and Companion might have somewhat even footing in their respective relationships because she is smart and resourceful and brings perspectives the Doctor doesn't have, but a pattern of five of these relationships in a row seems really fucking obviously intent on perpetuating and in fact cementing a patriarchal this-year's-girl model.
Choose your own analogy about Henry VIII's wives.
YES, Moffat is the worst and his ability to craft male characters is in permanent doubt after the self-insert mess that is Rory Williams (which is like Xander as Joss Whedon's but scarily WITHOUT THE HUMILITY OR SELF-LOATHING) (and consider the fact that Xander Harris is comes just behind Derek Shepherd as Least Favorite Male Character of All Time), and YES, bromance in the TARDIS is the likely boring result of a male companion, and YES, the real solutions are to a) fire Moffat and retroactively destroy RTD and p much Ten's whole run and b) get a GODDAMN FEMALE REGENERATION and c) we wouldn't even be talking about this if Nasreen were the next companion as she should be and d) fuck this binary thinking anyway, like there aren't nineteen million ways to diversify the companion that Moffat will not do because he is the worst and has no imagination and also in two seasons Jenna will be just as narratively fucked over as Amy or River or Rita.
No really, let's break that last down a little more: e) STRAIGHT WHITE males are overrepresented in fiction; but women like Jenna are represented all over the place and still have a kyriarchical upper hand over men of color/trans men/disabled men and to act like it's a crime against feminist criticism to think that maybe a male character could also be progressive seems, intersectionally speaking, highly suspect to me.
I feel like I've entered some opposite dimension where I accidentally side with people who are all "writing dudeslash is the most feminist" and it's shit because lol no and also I'm frankly just happy to have an out from my Doctor Who cathexis. I did not intend to write all this. It's just... THE PRINCIPLE OF THE THINGGGGGGGGGGGGG.
whatttt is this post, I also have opinions about Korra worldbuilding + politics and lots of Hunger Games grump (STOP TALKING ABOUT BATTLE ROYALE is the logline there, plus my recurrent dissatisfaction that I never wrote a real review of all my issues but ranted them out loud at poor Carrie because she was... in my bedroom at the time) but I accidentally a whole post and now I need to sleep. Damn the wheel of the world. Goodbye 4ever.
Pretty much everybody whose Doctor Who opinions I respect and agree with have come out in a strong voice to condemn... people who wanted the new companion to be a dude. Everything about the choice of new companion is uninspired and problematic and boring, they agree, but ~at least~ it's not a man! Y WOULD U EVEN ZOMG
I take issue with this.
Now (as I assume anyone reading this probably already knows), I am generally the last person to agitate for more men in fiction. I straight up will not watch or read most popular/nerd-popular stuff if it strikes me as a brodeo, and when I happen to consume something that is dudecentric I will still usually find a way to make it about chicks. Not that I don't have my share of favorite male characters and the occasional dudeslash ship and male-dominated media franchise or interest (baseball and too many teenage feelings about all the fucking boys in the fucking bands), but as a rule my investment in fiction (and uh... life) is incredibly femcentric.
But the reason for this is because I love women. I want women to rule the fucking universe and be happy and successful and appreciated and fulfilled. Just as I avoid stories about lots of dudes, I avoid stories that contain lots of women being exploited, attacked, derided, hated on, damaged, held down, and most of all narratively fucked over. (That awkward moment when everybody keeps mentioning The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo to me and I just have to blink politely and try to change the subject.) Or, at least, I try. Sometimes I'll get in on the ground floor with a story about a girl and fall in love with her and then I have to ride it out. That's a lot of pain and rage for me. And there's no greater (worse) example of this than Doctor Who.
feelings collage
IT'S DOCTOR WHO
angry pukefest '11
(also basically just all my who tags for all websites)
I mean, the best understanding I have of the Doctor is to conceive of him as a serial killer of women. I made up this macabre story once about his victims: Rose he suffocated, Martha's heart was cut right from her chest, and Donna was left alive after a lobotomy. Amy, pushed to her limit, hanged herself before he could do the honors (then ghost!Amy and bloody-handed Doctor could be friends). And it feels like this is what really happened, on a narrative level. People call it a kid's show and it's the fucking Rake's Song.
So there's that. But even when I put aside my own Raxacoricofallapatorious-sized issues with what happens to every goddamn woman on the show (and let's be real here the four main companions are just the tip of the iceberg), I just cannot understand how people don't get why someone would pick up an inescapably patriarchal overtone in "900 year old genius god star MAN picks out his latest necessarily-much-younger woman and gives her a ride in his sexy space ship and opens her eyes [and odds are she'll be attracted to him but let's not get into that] and becomes the most important amazing person imaginable in her life and then goes on to the next one." Like, maybe it's just my personal squick re: relationships with power differentials resting on the male side. But it's a hard earned squick based on, er, my experience of reality and sexism. Individually, in a perfect everything-is-s1-and-nothing-hurts world the Doctor and Companion might have somewhat even footing in their respective relationships because she is smart and resourceful and brings perspectives the Doctor doesn't have, but a pattern of five of these relationships in a row seems really fucking obviously intent on perpetuating and in fact cementing a patriarchal this-year's-girl model.
Choose your own analogy about Henry VIII's wives.
YES, Moffat is the worst and his ability to craft male characters is in permanent doubt after the self-insert mess that is Rory Williams (which is like Xander as Joss Whedon's but scarily WITHOUT THE HUMILITY OR SELF-LOATHING) (and consider the fact that Xander Harris is comes just behind Derek Shepherd as Least Favorite Male Character of All Time), and YES, bromance in the TARDIS is the likely boring result of a male companion, and YES, the real solutions are to a) fire Moffat and retroactively destroy RTD and p much Ten's whole run and b) get a GODDAMN FEMALE REGENERATION and c) we wouldn't even be talking about this if Nasreen were the next companion as she should be and d) fuck this binary thinking anyway, like there aren't nineteen million ways to diversify the companion that Moffat will not do because he is the worst and has no imagination and also in two seasons Jenna will be just as narratively fucked over as Amy or River or Rita.
No really, let's break that last down a little more: e) STRAIGHT WHITE males are overrepresented in fiction; but women like Jenna are represented all over the place and still have a kyriarchical upper hand over men of color/trans men/disabled men and to act like it's a crime against feminist criticism to think that maybe a male character could also be progressive seems, intersectionally speaking, highly suspect to me.
I feel like I've entered some opposite dimension where I accidentally side with people who are all "writing dudeslash is the most feminist" and it's shit because lol no and also I'm frankly just happy to have an out from my Doctor Who cathexis. I did not intend to write all this. It's just... THE PRINCIPLE OF THE THINGGGGGGGGGGGGG.
whatttt is this post, I also have opinions about Korra worldbuilding + politics and lots of Hunger Games grump (STOP TALKING ABOUT BATTLE ROYALE is the logline there, plus my recurrent dissatisfaction that I never wrote a real review of all my issues but ranted them out loud at poor Carrie because she was... in my bedroom at the time) but I accidentally a whole post and now I need to sleep. Damn the wheel of the world. Goodbye 4ever.
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OH WAIT LOL NO THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN.
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EXHAUSTED SIGH.
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oh, i'll wait.
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I am, however, thinking of going back and watching some of the older series (which are all on the UK Netflix now, hurrah!), in no small part because they actually did have companions of different genders, and non-human companions, and more than one companion at once, and companions who developed interesting relationships with each other, and no companions swooning over the Doctor. IIRC they were pretty uniformly white, which is annoying, but varied character dynamics are enough of a draw to me after years of this shit.
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YES THANK YOU
You've also hit upon the exact reason why Doctor Who has skeeved me out, thank you. I watched Nine and loved him and watched Ten and just got really uncomfortable after the first season of him and had to stop and have not been able to figure out why until now. I had a friend come visit me for a month once and we did like Ten's greatest hits I was just flustered because the women were gr8! But Ten was still freaking me out! And now I know why. Thank you. (idk if Nine is as bad as Ten, I didn't really have my intelligent brain hat on when I was watching it. My only indicator is that I would watch his seasons again but def not Ten's. But idk about that either, David Tennant's crazyface pushed me over the edge. Like, if David Tennant's crazyface has to come out that often on what is supposed to be a kid's show then something is going TERRIBLY WRONG.)
I was idly thinking of watching Eleven, but your feelings post has convinced me not to. Have you seen the Doctor Who fanvid Handlebars? Between this post and rewatching that vid recently (HOW IS THIS A KID'S SHOW), I am finally coming to understand my Doctor Who feelings...
...that I didn't know I had until writing this comment. lol!
I haven't been on tumblr in ages (sob I miss your tumblr it is so great) but I'm surprised people were against a dude companion? The slash factor would have been off the charts easy and people are into that, I thought.
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The slash factor would have been off the charts easy and people are into that, I thought.
Well, yes, fandom at large is I'm sure. But I am the most aggressive filterer of fannish stupidity and general yay-white-cock slash culture that I know, so the only people I ever bother with are similarly femcentric SJ types and it is to them (my comrades!) I address this.
<33333
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Every time I read your journal, I am reminded that I need to get off the white-cock train and go find something more interesting and/or less white, ffffff. But that's a good thing, thank you.
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And ugh yes!!! To all of it. I haven't seen much talk about the casting because I tumblr savior'd Who a while back for my mental health. But the relief over AT LEAST IT ISN'T A DUDE is baffling because fuck we can't trust Moffat not to break his lady characters. It would have been a relief, because even though I won't be watching I'll inevitably hear about it second hand. I mean Amy Pond is one of my best beloved lady characters of all time and season 6 was such a betrayal which is just all to say you experienced angry puke fest '11 not alone, and this post is great and exactly all my feelings!
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I completely agree! Even a YOUNG women is more highly valued than an older person. Imagine the doctor travelling for an entire season with someone like Wilf, who is also near the end of his life! Or a full season of the Doctor signing with a deaf person (this is in my head right now after watching a season of Switched At Birth deal with so many issues between deaf/hearing people and it's a world I'd never been exposed to before and has just made me more aware in general towards my lack of knowledge re: people with disabilities)
DW reaches so many people in so many countries and they should be able to see themselves represented on this show - which has the easiest canon to explain characters from different places/times!
I remember in S2 when my wish was for a married couple (of colour) with a kid to be the next companions (ah, back when I was young and my heart hadn't been stomped on) but now I wouldn't even be bothered by BROS ON THE TARDIS because I don't trust the show will treat any women with the narrative integrity I want. (I love your Doctor-as-serial-killer idea and it reminds me of a vid that showed all the women - including all the guest stars - who had been hurt or killed for him to accomplish his goals. I will try to find it later.)
Diverging from the people who are "AT LEAST IT'S NOT A PENIS, AMIRITE?", I don't think they ever had to worry? As large as the female presence is in online fandom, marketing is still stuck in the past of going after the 15-25 male demographic and they want them to buy life-size cutouts of the new pretty, white girl they fantasize about. For all the talk that it's a kids show, it's clearly trying to please an older heteronormative audience with it's revolving door of pretty young girls for the Doctor to act like James Bond with.
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plus my recurrent dissatisfaction that I never wrote a real review of all my issues but ranted them out loud at poor Carrie because she was... in my bedroom at the time
lolol well I ENJOYED IT AT LEAST