[ SECRET POST #3792 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3792 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 31 secrets from Secret Submission Post #543.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe the constant assault on everything even vaguely masculine? If it's traditionally boyish then it's toxic.

[(Anonymous)]

I really like how different the perspectives we're getting here are. Cause according to the other anon, what's great about the Doctor is that he's not aligned with toxic masculinity.

nayrt

[(Anonymous)]

Except when he's Steven Moffat's self-insert character (aka the Eleventh Doctor).

Re: nayrt

[(Anonymous)]

What was toxic about Eleven? Not trying to pick a fight, I just didn't see much of anything inherently stereo-typically masculine (let alone toxically so) about Eleven personally.

Re: nayrt

[(Anonymous)]

NAYRT and I want to be careful here because I don't want to just get into another Moffatargument so, with that caveat in place:

First of all, I don't think it'd be controversial to say that Stephen Moffat's writing is - in general, just at a basic level - highly concerned with gender and gender relationships. And the 11th Doctor can be pretty easily fit into a specific narrative Moffat often deploys in that regard - he's another variant of the Abrasive Genius or The Abrasive Boy Wonder, the character with extraordinary innate gifts of intelligence and competence who has difficulty relating to other human beings and has to learn to empathize with them. And I would argue that Moffat's interpretation of this character is distinctively masculine in general - he more or less consistently frames it as a male character, and the means by which the male character is redeemed and forced to empathize is in part through his relationships with women. And that's a basic framework that's connected to toxic masculinity - it's not mere toxic masculinity, because Moffat is clearly aware of the problems with toxic masculinity, but it's still clearly connected to a conception of personal identity which is both distinctively masculine and distinctively toxic in its lack of ability to empathize and its reliance on the emotional labor of women for growth.

When we delve into the specifics of Moffat's storylines with 11, I think we see that pattern reiterated. Moffat sets up situations closely related to toxic models of masculinity, and attempts to problematize and comes to grips with that, but (in my view) consistently fails in two ways. First, his attempts to problematize toxic masculinity generally fail. Second, he never moves on from the idea that toxic masculinity is flawed - he never presents a mature masculine identity. His characters and plots recognize the flaws of toxic masculinity but remain trapped in an eternal state of recognizing and obsessing over those flaws without being able to move on from them or even being certain that it's possible to move on from them.

I wrote all of the above and I was going to go into more depth about the specifics of the storylines in seasons 5-7 and how this plays out but I got a phone call and now my train of thought is broken so this is going to be more fragmentary notes. First of all, a lot of what's going on in season 6/7a is a reflection on the idea of the sole male hero who solves everything with violence, which is an archetypal idea that's closely linked to toxic masculinity. However, while Moffat is critical of that basic structure, he's completely unable to overcome it, which is one of the reasons that those seasons are so deeply flawed (IMO). I'm basically following Phil Sandifer's reading of those seasons except that Phil thinks Moffat succeeded in overcoming the toxic-masculine-archetypes and I don't - but his review of A Good Man Goes To War is a pretty good analysis of these themes. Second, the plot of 7b is basically a romantic plot where the female character is literally a mystery to be solved by the main character, which I think is a trope of toxic masculinity. Third, one of the central concerns and through-lines of Moffat's run on Doctor Who is the idea that the Doctor is fundamentally and irredeemably harmful to the companions and the people he travels with and encounters, in a way that I would argue is connected to what Moffat views as the masculinity of the character, or at least is connected to Moffat's ideas about masculinity.

In conclusion, Moffat almost intentionally links the 11th Doctor to toxic masculinity as a consequence of his themes, concerns, and worldviews. Thank you for your time.

[thewakokid]

This is the line of reasoning I keep running in to, yes.