fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2314 ]

[ SECRET POST #2314 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2314 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 096 secrets from Secret Submission Post #331.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
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I disagree. Yes, most writers, including RTD, could write sexist stuff, but most of them - especially when it comes to writing for a mainstream family show - are nowhere near as blatantly and deeply sexist as Moffat. Just...imo, some sexism is not "no different" than raging pervasive sexism.

Yeah like RTD wasn't perfect and I side eye some stuff from his era too. But I still don't think that his issues were on the same level as Moffat.

This I disagree with. RTD was equally blatant about his sexism. He had issues with female sexuality, particularly when it came to older women. Rose is as much defined by her relationship to the Doctor as River is. Davies has talked in interviews about writing attractive female companions to appeal to male viewers. Donna's end was extremely problematic and had clear sexist undertones to it. Rose's end is problematic too. In both cases we have the male Doctor taking the freedom of choice away from the female companion.

And Davies' female companions are as much defined by romance and/or wanting children as Moffatt's. Rose and Martha are both defined by their feelings for the Doctor, and Donna is shown to ultimately want to settle down with a family (her consolation prize for having her memories taken away are to be hooked up with some random guy).

That isn't to say that Moffat isn't sexist, because he is. But Davies is equally so, and it frustrates me when people act like Moffat's who is so much more sexist than Davies. And personally I'm at least happy that Moffat's women at least are allowed to have sexuality, even if that is often written in problematic ways.

I massively disagree with everything you've said here. For one thing, Journey's End =/= the entirety of Davies' run. Moffat's sexism is pervasive and little things pop up in every episode and the big things fill the entire arc of his female characters. Davies' just randomly crops up in a "dude, did you even think about what this looks like" way, and almost all of it cropped up only in Journey's End. Which is the worst episode Davies ever wrote, so it's not like it's representative.

The bottom line is that with Davies, there is way more to his portrayal of female characters than just romance and sexist things, and the type of romance and sexism is way less revoltingly awful (to most people) and explicitly gendered than Moffat's type of romance and sexism - no brainwashed child brides or mystical incubator pregnancies or women talking about how you shouldn't let him see you age or claiming that the pain of the entire universe is less important than their pain at losing the Doctor or being told to "grow up" by taking their husband's name or the Doctor joking that someone is acting irrational because she's "brainwashed, also, she's a woman" in Davies.

So with Davies, we've got some problematic plot points and romantic cliches thrown into a much more substantial and active character arc with far more fleshed out character development. On the other hand, Moffat's female characters don't have much more to them apart from the sexist parts, and the sexist parts are much bigger parts of his female characters' stories, so it's obvious why they are picked on far more.

Of course, it's partly due to perception -- what bothered you personally about Davies may have bothered you way more than the things that bothered you about Moffat. And that's fine. But there's a reason most people find Moffat's writing far more sexist than Davies, and it's not because they're stupid. It's because of how they perceive his problematic elements in the context of his full body of work.

tl;dr, if Moffat's writing was more substantial and his character development better, people would be more forgiving of his sexist bits, because the sexist bits wouldn't seem like the only thing there.

^This. I hate Moffat's sexism for how in-your-face it is and how hard it is to escape it, because it keeps coming up in so much of his writing.

However, my dislike of Moffat is not a case of "is he better or worse than RTD?" RTD doesn't figure into my criticisms of Moffat, except for explaining that the fact I'm a Doctor Who fan is because RTD's writing had a lot of material that was untainted by sexism and therefore didn't put me off, because it was easy to avoid the bits that were sexist.

Yes, character development like Nice Guy (TM) Mickey and Pine For Rose Forever Let Me Angst For Three Seasons Ten. Totally so much better.

Yes, it is so much better from a "depth and extent of character development" standpoint, because you know full well that you're massively cherry-picking a couple of individual traits out of many, many traits and evolving character threads. *eyeroll* Whether you personally enjoyed said character development and character traits is up to you, but it's an entirely different topic.

Also, part of said character development involved Mickey changing from a pathetic whiny loser to a competent badass who shaped up and took control of his life choices about things that didn't go his way instead of being a dick about them and blaming them on other people. So yeah, lotsa character development there too.

Rose is as much defined by her relationship to the Doctor as River is.

No. Just... no.

Yeah, Journey's End was problematic and I didn't particularly like it but there is no way that you can say that after everything, Rose is in any way defined by her relationship to the Doctor. Yes, she loved him and chose to be with him but that =/= being defined with her relationship to the Doctor.~~No wait, am I defined by my relationship to my SO? Shit.~~

Rose is as much defined by her relationship to the Doctor as River is.

As much as I'm not happy with what their romantic subplot did to both Rose and Ten's characterizations, nobody on the show is as defined by their relationship to the Doctor as River is.

You could take Martha, Rose, Clara (probably), heck, even Amy and Rory, and think up a Turn Left-style AU about their lives and relationships if they'd never met the Doctor. You can't do that for River. Even if you handwave the circumstances of her conception and birth, you still can't do it for River. Handwave a dozen times, there's still little to nothing to work with- virtually all of her actions and motivations come back to him in the end. There may be ways in which she's a stronger or more likeable character than some of the other companions, but that's not one of them.

While I can admit that Moffat's Who has more blatant sexism than RTD's (At least from what I remember. I didn't pay much attention to the specials after series 4 and I haven't seen the last few episodes of the current season) Merlin wasn't any better in regards to sexism and that's a family show. I confess to not watching many other family shows but there are plenty of other non-family shows that have the same level of sexism as Moffat's Who.

Merlin was worse, imo.

...but Merlin had the excuse that it was historically accurate for the time time period? Not that any of the rest of it was historically accurate to the original legends (or even the widely-abused Monmouth ones).

That is another rant, however.

the show had a magical, talking dragon. i think they gave no shits about historical accuracy and could've written the women any way they chose.

I don't know...I think RTD's era had plenty of sexism. Rose's arc devolved into nothing but her relationship with the Doctor and ended with her being written off with 10.2 and Donna's ended with her being married off to some guy we'd never seen before, as if all either woman needed for a happy ending was to settle down/get married. And Companions in RTD's era seemed to fall for the Doctor as often as Companions in Moffat's - Rose, Martha, Jack, Amy, River, at least one version of Clara and plenty of one-off companions as well. And I think Moffat's female characters are allowed to own their sexuality in a way RTD's weren't, though that certainly comes with problems of it's own.

Both eras are incredibly problematic on this front so I imagine which you think is worse probably comes down to which bothers you more on a personal level.

I think the main difference is actually how all-encompassing and how explicitly gendered Moffat's sexism was. RTD's sexism was more about an overly strong focus on romance (that affected the Doctor and male characters like Jack too, not just the female characters) and the problematic elements that came about alongside/after a lot of strong character development.

On the other hand, the big sexist things about Moffat's writing are more gender-essentialist and are the main plots and focal points of his female characters' arcs while not affecting the male characters, and his writing doesn't have as much character development to balance those big events out. Also, Davies didn't make constant jokes based on gender the way Moffat does.

So IA that it is a matter of what bothers you on a personal level, but it's also no surprise Moffat's stuff bothers way more people on a personal level than Davies' stuff, IMO.

Most of Moffatt's jokes are the expense of people who keep crying "misogyny", he's mocking those guys.

Well, *that's* not petty and snotty and supercilious, noooo. (Note my sarcasm.)

I can see what you're saying. Though I think some of Moffat's jokes are in reaction to some people calling out sexism where it wasn't. I mean, some people called Moffat's era misogynistic right at the start, simply because Amy wore skirts and River was very confidant in her sexuality.

Combined with the hinting that Karen was only worthy to play Amy because he was gorgeous with those long legs~ (and not dumby as he first feared), yeah... it comes off sexists.

"And Companions in RTD's era seemed to fall for the Doctor as often as Companions in Moffat's"

This is exactly the thing that hits my berserk button with Nu!Who (and why I don't watch it anymore). No one with a shred of common sense and/or taste wants to watch Coronation Street IN SPAAAAAAAAACE but that's what we've got to live with, until/if someone half-decent and/or actually familiar with Classic!Who comes along, and does the job properly.

Rose fell in love with the Doctor, it was reciprocated. Martha had a crush on him and Donna did not. And the random girls who had a thing for the Doctor were mostly Moffat's writing (e.g Reinette).

Compared to Amy, River and Clara and the random one-off girls of Moffat era.

So, yeah I still think Moffat takes the cake in this one.

Ahahahaa, "Rose's arc devolved into nothing but her relationship with the Doctor".. no wait, you were serious? O__o

You must have missed a few episodes. ~~Or seasons..~~

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[ SECRET POST #2314 ]

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