Why Stephen Moffat Isn't Actually Evil
Sep. 30th, 2012 12:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hathycolI've been waiting until this batch of Doctor Who episodes aired in order to post this, so that I could make a fair and balanced judgement. You see I've come back from honeymoon, caught up on Doctor Who, gone online to see opinion on said episodes, and been horrified at the level of vitriol and hate directed towards Stephen Moffat. I'm genuinely puzzled by this. Are there problems in Doctor Who? Yes. There have ALWAYS been problems in Doctor Who, and I think it's right to point them out. What confuses me is that it now seems to be done so at the exclusion of anything good, or indeed out of context.
Here follows, under the cut, my thoughts on Why Stephen Moffat Is Not The Sexist/Homophobic/Racist Doom Of Doctor Who.
[a note: I am not saying, necessarily, that everyone is wrong and I am right on this. That's half the problems. These are just my thoughts, written down out of genuine confusion at the mad hate that seems to proliferate these days. If you are one of the people making death threats to Moffat, though, then you are definitely wrong.]
I'm going to try and do this in rough groupings of what seems to be the main criticisms, although I will no doubt get confused and wander off elsewhere.
1. The Doctor.
I have read criticisms of the show for glorifying the Doctor, along the lines of how bored they are to see TV glorifying white cis men. Now, the latter half of that sentence I am a-OK with, and I would like to see a more diverse range of characters on TV.
However? He's the Doctor. The hint is in the name of the TV program. He's meant to be the hero. He would still be the hero if he was black, or gay, or disabled, because he's the Doctor. At a convention, I heard the lovely Sylvester McCoy do a talk, and he told a story about a signing he was at once, and a Dalek emerged. A small child started to cry, so he stood up and shouted "It's okay! I'm the Doctor!" So the Dalek was defeated, and the small child stopped crying. That's who the Doctor is. He's the hero of the piece, and you believe that he will save you. I was thinking of that story when I saw the last Doctor Who prom, with Matt Smith madly adlibbing to camera, and I thought 'my goodness, I really do believe in him as the Doctor'.
The Doctor is glorifed because he is the Doctor, and characters believe in him as such. The peisodes themselves show he isn't infallible, and all about the hubris, which is fine by me.
Also, Matt Smith is a marvellous and glorious actor. There hasn't been an episode where I didn't 100% fully invest in him as the Doctor. He's utterly believeable. In short, I don't see all the hate for Matt Smith at all, and it feels a little like the early David Tennant hate when people wanted him to still be Christopher Eccleston.
2. Careers
This is a bugbear for me. I've been reading a lot of criticism about Amy being a model, and I am confused by this, because when did it become okay to judge a woman for her career choices? We know from the character of Amy that there's no way she'd do a job that she didn't want to do. We also know that she's fickle when it comes to careers - kissogram, anyone? To my mind, model suits her - she can dress up and be a different person that day. It's not the best job but it's not presented as the best job.
And before we leap all over the above statement, I'd like to take a moment for us all to examine the career choices of Rory. He is a nurse. That is not a traditional male job. I know this, because my father is a nurse. Other kids in school just didn't believe this when I was in primary school, because only women can be nurses. I am delighted to see male nurses on a family program. Rory is efficient, and caring, and quietly shines in a female-dominated job. He's sometimes put down a bit for it by other characters (earlier on, mostly) and we see in Amy's Choice that he secretly wants to be a doctor. In the end, though, he sticks with being a nurse and by The Power of Three we see him being professionally acknowledged by his peers and superiors. This is a marvellous bit of TV, to my mind.
3. Parenthood
Please note my choice of word here.
I am a little bit peeved at the presentation of motherhood in Doctor Who. Not via Amy (we'll come to that later), but through the quiet horror that is The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe. Look, I enjoyed that episode, but the motherhood in it made me squirm. Also because the courtship was presented as 'he followed me home until I married him' which is just creepy but we'll leave that be for now. Women are mighty and all powerful because they're mothers? Bullshit. Mothers are often pretty awesome, but lots of women aren't mothers and manage to be all powerful. I think it was the bit where they picked the daughter because of her magical chromosones. So much wrong, there. I have the biological potential to be a mother, but definitely not the psychological potential, and that's just as important, I reckon.
This is because the idea of a mother's love for her children, though, I don't have an issue with. Once again on the flipside it's important to look at the fathers on the program. Craig struggles with being a father, but the cries of Alfie force him into protective mode - a mode we might just call Mama Bear, if we were looking a gender stereotypes. The same presents itself in Night Terrors. Daniel Mays is a very physical actor and normally plays the proverbial hardman - in this, he's a caring father overwhelmed with love for his child. What's wrong with that?
It's all a part of what seems to be a big part of Stephen Moffat's Doctor Who storytelling, which is Love Conquers All. (See also: The Doctor Dances.) It's just not always romantic love, that's all.
And as for Amy as a mother? The critique seems to be that Amy is only mighty and powerful because she's River Song's mum. That's bollocks. Amy is awesome because she is Amy. River is awesome because she is River. Amy is hung up over not being able to have any more children, yes, but there are many women and men in the same position that she is and I don't think it demeans Amy that she feels like that.
4. River Song.
I... actually don't have any comebacks here because I just don't get all the River hate. It sort of makes me confused and sad. River is awesome, and not just because she's one of very few women on TV with curly hair. Yes, River is in love with the Doctor. We knew that from the beginning. This makes her occasionally make some questionable decisions. Crucially, we see her move past them. We've already seen her move past them.
River, in conclusion, is awesome. I'm not even going to list why. If you've watched Doctor Who, you should just know.
5. "It was a phase."
RIGHT. If I wasn't on my high horse before, then here I go.
I am bisexual. I have dated women, and men, but now I am married to a man and people have often asked if I was going through a phase. No, I always say, because I still like women. But you know what? In a way, I was going through a bit of a phase when I was a teenager on the basis that I really didn't like men at all. Legolas was a bit of a gateway drug, what can I say.
For some people, sexuality is fixed. For others, sexuality is a fluid thing. Oswin may well have been going through a phase, and that is a valid expression of her sexual identity. We don't know enough about her yet. She may introduce herself to EVERYONE she flirts with with a variation of the same line. It may never be mentioned again. I don't know. I'm just not sure when it becaome okay to judge people on their stated sexual identity because it doesn't fit into your perceptions. To be honest, it upsets me a bit that people are jumping all over this. If, in response to the whole Nina thing, Rory had said "But you were just going through a phase, right?" I would be more up in arms at the assumptions of other people. However, Oswin makes her statement herself, under no duress. We have no reason to doubt her, and nor does she say that this was the way that Nina felt about matters.
The thing about the horse in A Town Called Mercy, the name of whom I cannot remember right now, and the changing on the pronouns etc, I see the minor outrage about. For a throwaway line, it would have been nice if the Doctor got the pronouns right.
6. DYING FOR HER MAN!!!!1
Companions willing to die for their man is annoying. I'm looking at you, Russell T Davies. Amy, however (and correct me if I'm wrong?) will only do this particular trope if she believes that she's going to GET BACK to Rory. As opposed to Rory, who has demonstrated on several occasions that he will die for Amy. Because he does. A lot.
What I'm driving at here is that people seem very happy to criticise Amy, without at any point looking at Rory for a reverse flip of the coin. Rory quietly subverts expectations in the background, and this seems to be something not fully appreciated amongst the hate.
6. In conclusion...
... I actually think this has been a really good set of episodes, and considerably better than the last season, mostly on the basis that I kept up with this lot. Dinosaurs on the Spaceship was possibly the best thing ever. Plot holes abounded - my main ones, at the moment, consist of wondering how the baby angel in Central Park managed to send Rory back when the baby angels in the basement didn't have the power, and why no one noticed that the Statue of Liberty can move about. I mean, seriously, did New York go all 'thanks for the statue, France!' and France was all 'quelle horreur! Let's just tell them we sent it and take the credit, oui?' Doctor Who has always had plot holes, though. That's what it DOES. You can't suddenly diss Moffat for something that's kept the show running for 50 years.
Also, in this series, we got THE BRIGADIER'S DAUGHTER. What MORE do you people want.
Would I like a more diverse mix of characters, who aren't all necessarily white and able-bodied and roughly hetrosexual? Yes, I would love it, and it's important to criticise TV for not doing this. To pick in Moffat exclusively for this seems a little short-sighted. But I don't get the idea that he's a terrible misogynist. I enjoy Doctor Who, and I will keep doing so.
Now, if you'll excuse me I woke up nearly two hours ago, started to write this, and then got carried away. Time for a shower.
Here follows, under the cut, my thoughts on Why Stephen Moffat Is Not The Sexist/Homophobic/Racist Doom Of Doctor Who.
[a note: I am not saying, necessarily, that everyone is wrong and I am right on this. That's half the problems. These are just my thoughts, written down out of genuine confusion at the mad hate that seems to proliferate these days. If you are one of the people making death threats to Moffat, though, then you are definitely wrong.]
I'm going to try and do this in rough groupings of what seems to be the main criticisms, although I will no doubt get confused and wander off elsewhere.
1. The Doctor.
I have read criticisms of the show for glorifying the Doctor, along the lines of how bored they are to see TV glorifying white cis men. Now, the latter half of that sentence I am a-OK with, and I would like to see a more diverse range of characters on TV.
However? He's the Doctor. The hint is in the name of the TV program. He's meant to be the hero. He would still be the hero if he was black, or gay, or disabled, because he's the Doctor. At a convention, I heard the lovely Sylvester McCoy do a talk, and he told a story about a signing he was at once, and a Dalek emerged. A small child started to cry, so he stood up and shouted "It's okay! I'm the Doctor!" So the Dalek was defeated, and the small child stopped crying. That's who the Doctor is. He's the hero of the piece, and you believe that he will save you. I was thinking of that story when I saw the last Doctor Who prom, with Matt Smith madly adlibbing to camera, and I thought 'my goodness, I really do believe in him as the Doctor'.
The Doctor is glorifed because he is the Doctor, and characters believe in him as such. The peisodes themselves show he isn't infallible, and all about the hubris, which is fine by me.
Also, Matt Smith is a marvellous and glorious actor. There hasn't been an episode where I didn't 100% fully invest in him as the Doctor. He's utterly believeable. In short, I don't see all the hate for Matt Smith at all, and it feels a little like the early David Tennant hate when people wanted him to still be Christopher Eccleston.
2. Careers
This is a bugbear for me. I've been reading a lot of criticism about Amy being a model, and I am confused by this, because when did it become okay to judge a woman for her career choices? We know from the character of Amy that there's no way she'd do a job that she didn't want to do. We also know that she's fickle when it comes to careers - kissogram, anyone? To my mind, model suits her - she can dress up and be a different person that day. It's not the best job but it's not presented as the best job.
And before we leap all over the above statement, I'd like to take a moment for us all to examine the career choices of Rory. He is a nurse. That is not a traditional male job. I know this, because my father is a nurse. Other kids in school just didn't believe this when I was in primary school, because only women can be nurses. I am delighted to see male nurses on a family program. Rory is efficient, and caring, and quietly shines in a female-dominated job. He's sometimes put down a bit for it by other characters (earlier on, mostly) and we see in Amy's Choice that he secretly wants to be a doctor. In the end, though, he sticks with being a nurse and by The Power of Three we see him being professionally acknowledged by his peers and superiors. This is a marvellous bit of TV, to my mind.
3. Parenthood
Please note my choice of word here.
I am a little bit peeved at the presentation of motherhood in Doctor Who. Not via Amy (we'll come to that later), but through the quiet horror that is The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe. Look, I enjoyed that episode, but the motherhood in it made me squirm. Also because the courtship was presented as 'he followed me home until I married him' which is just creepy but we'll leave that be for now. Women are mighty and all powerful because they're mothers? Bullshit. Mothers are often pretty awesome, but lots of women aren't mothers and manage to be all powerful. I think it was the bit where they picked the daughter because of her magical chromosones. So much wrong, there. I have the biological potential to be a mother, but definitely not the psychological potential, and that's just as important, I reckon.
This is because the idea of a mother's love for her children, though, I don't have an issue with. Once again on the flipside it's important to look at the fathers on the program. Craig struggles with being a father, but the cries of Alfie force him into protective mode - a mode we might just call Mama Bear, if we were looking a gender stereotypes. The same presents itself in Night Terrors. Daniel Mays is a very physical actor and normally plays the proverbial hardman - in this, he's a caring father overwhelmed with love for his child. What's wrong with that?
It's all a part of what seems to be a big part of Stephen Moffat's Doctor Who storytelling, which is Love Conquers All. (See also: The Doctor Dances.) It's just not always romantic love, that's all.
And as for Amy as a mother? The critique seems to be that Amy is only mighty and powerful because she's River Song's mum. That's bollocks. Amy is awesome because she is Amy. River is awesome because she is River. Amy is hung up over not being able to have any more children, yes, but there are many women and men in the same position that she is and I don't think it demeans Amy that she feels like that.
4. River Song.
I... actually don't have any comebacks here because I just don't get all the River hate. It sort of makes me confused and sad. River is awesome, and not just because she's one of very few women on TV with curly hair. Yes, River is in love with the Doctor. We knew that from the beginning. This makes her occasionally make some questionable decisions. Crucially, we see her move past them. We've already seen her move past them.
River, in conclusion, is awesome. I'm not even going to list why. If you've watched Doctor Who, you should just know.
5. "It was a phase."
RIGHT. If I wasn't on my high horse before, then here I go.
I am bisexual. I have dated women, and men, but now I am married to a man and people have often asked if I was going through a phase. No, I always say, because I still like women. But you know what? In a way, I was going through a bit of a phase when I was a teenager on the basis that I really didn't like men at all. Legolas was a bit of a gateway drug, what can I say.
For some people, sexuality is fixed. For others, sexuality is a fluid thing. Oswin may well have been going through a phase, and that is a valid expression of her sexual identity. We don't know enough about her yet. She may introduce herself to EVERYONE she flirts with with a variation of the same line. It may never be mentioned again. I don't know. I'm just not sure when it becaome okay to judge people on their stated sexual identity because it doesn't fit into your perceptions. To be honest, it upsets me a bit that people are jumping all over this. If, in response to the whole Nina thing, Rory had said "But you were just going through a phase, right?" I would be more up in arms at the assumptions of other people. However, Oswin makes her statement herself, under no duress. We have no reason to doubt her, and nor does she say that this was the way that Nina felt about matters.
The thing about the horse in A Town Called Mercy, the name of whom I cannot remember right now, and the changing on the pronouns etc, I see the minor outrage about. For a throwaway line, it would have been nice if the Doctor got the pronouns right.
6. DYING FOR HER MAN!!!!1
Companions willing to die for their man is annoying. I'm looking at you, Russell T Davies. Amy, however (and correct me if I'm wrong?) will only do this particular trope if she believes that she's going to GET BACK to Rory. As opposed to Rory, who has demonstrated on several occasions that he will die for Amy. Because he does. A lot.
What I'm driving at here is that people seem very happy to criticise Amy, without at any point looking at Rory for a reverse flip of the coin. Rory quietly subverts expectations in the background, and this seems to be something not fully appreciated amongst the hate.
6. In conclusion...
... I actually think this has been a really good set of episodes, and considerably better than the last season, mostly on the basis that I kept up with this lot. Dinosaurs on the Spaceship was possibly the best thing ever. Plot holes abounded - my main ones, at the moment, consist of wondering how the baby angel in Central Park managed to send Rory back when the baby angels in the basement didn't have the power, and why no one noticed that the Statue of Liberty can move about. I mean, seriously, did New York go all 'thanks for the statue, France!' and France was all 'quelle horreur! Let's just tell them we sent it and take the credit, oui?' Doctor Who has always had plot holes, though. That's what it DOES. You can't suddenly diss Moffat for something that's kept the show running for 50 years.
Also, in this series, we got THE BRIGADIER'S DAUGHTER. What MORE do you people want.
Would I like a more diverse mix of characters, who aren't all necessarily white and able-bodied and roughly hetrosexual? Yes, I would love it, and it's important to criticise TV for not doing this. To pick in Moffat exclusively for this seems a little short-sighted. But I don't get the idea that he's a terrible misogynist. I enjoy Doctor Who, and I will keep doing so.
Now, if you'll excuse me I woke up nearly two hours ago, started to write this, and then got carried away. Time for a shower.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-30 01:38 pm (UTC)I'm sure I will at some point, but more and more, when I turned on Netflix and decided to watch some Who, I found myself watching something Old School instead. When it was about adventure and fun and not about being in looooooove with Rooooooose.
Point is, I got kind of sick of Ten and haven't even seen Eleven. Maybe I should just jump back in where he starts?
no subject
Date: 2012-09-30 01:43 pm (UTC)Old School is DEFINITELY a good thing to watch. The Green Death is a great example of how to have a companion leave, and have the Doctor be cut up, without making a soap opera of it. Also, the Doctor dresses up as a cleaning lady.
Eleven is wonderful, and it feels a bit like a new start because of the new companion/Doctor/writer. There's a lot of anger in fandom around them, and it just... puzzles me.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-06 03:25 pm (UTC)I came to the Eleven party late and was astonished by the hate, too. It's puzzling.
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Date: 2012-09-30 01:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-01 06:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-01 07:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-02 07:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-01 08:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-02 07:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-01 09:13 pm (UTC)And I think part of what contributes to that unfortunate implication is that the episode that was chronologically directly before Asylum of the Daleks was The Doctor, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, which as you mentioned, had the seriously problematic connotations of "uterus = ability to carry life = strength". And that gets especially uncomfortable when you consider Amy's infertility.
And then another thing that I think bears mentioning, here, is that Moffat also wrote The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, in which the world is saved by a woman accepting her role/destiny as a mother. Never mind that motherhood was effectively forced on Nancy as well - both likely physically, due to whatever social circumstances may have prevented her from getting an abortion, and psychologically at the end of the episodes. Yes, technically, she had a choice, but if the alternative was letting the world get transformed into gas-mask-people, that's not much of a genuine choice, is it? (And, from what I understood, Nancy's own mother had been previously taking on the role of "mother" for Nancy's child, as well, further implying that Nancy was OK with her role being "big sister")
And, off-topic, I feel like Moffat was trying to go too big and too epic during season 6 and Asylum of the Daleks, and was losing things like continuity, or character quirks like the Doctor liking silly hats, or the joy of good old campy monster-of-the-week episodes. That said, so far every episode this season has had a guest star I loved - JLC in Asylum of the Daleks, Rupert Graves in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, Ben Browder in A Town Called Mercy, and even a Brian Cox cameo in Power of Three!
(Also, FYI, I don't think it was the baby angel in NY that sent him back, but the adult one on top of the fountain. IDK if you've been to Central park before, or recently enough to remember, but I visited it a few months after watching "Blink" and took a photo fo that fountain for that precise reason :-) It's four baby angels back-to-back, and then a basin above them, and an adult angel on top of the basin)
no subject
Date: 2012-10-02 07:43 pm (UTC)I think that Nancy would have been forced into the role of big sister, though - my understanding from social history (slightly out of my period, I'll be the first to admit) because often to hide 'the shame' grandparents would take on the role of parents which Nancy may have then continued after the (death? absence?) of her own mother.
I had SO MICH RUPERT GRAVES love this series. This may have coloured my view of the whole thing. He improves EVERYTHING he's in. (See also: the desperately underappreciated Garrow's Law.)
I thought that the baby angel was the one that sent back Rory on the basis that we heard the creepy laughter - I must admit I've only been to America the once and the Central Park visit was rather short and several years ago, so the additional info is very helpful, thanks for that!
no subject
Date: 2012-10-03 07:12 am (UTC)And I didn't even think of Night Terrors! I guess it was one of the less remarkable episodes that sort of slipped my mind. (And wasn't the couple in Night Terrors infertile as well?)
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Date: 2012-10-06 02:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-06 03:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-01 11:39 pm (UTC)Moffat has many flaws in his writing. I'd rather see Toby Whithouse, Mark Gatiss, or someone else write.
no subject
Date: 2012-10-02 07:46 pm (UTC)The thing is, though, it's okay not to like actors or Doctors or writers, the bit that has weirded me out in the last few months is people taking the 'I don't prefer your method of Doctor Who' to death threats, which is why I had the urge to examine the (to my mind) many positive points of the last batch of episodes.
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Date: 2012-10-03 07:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-06 02:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-06 03:31 pm (UTC)