fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2570 ]

[ SECRET POST #2570 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2570 ⌋

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

01.

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02.

[The Lying Game]

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03.

[Hobbit movies, LOTR movies, Tolkien]

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04.

[Perry Mason]

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05.

[Carnivale]

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06.

[Downton Abbey]

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07.

[BBC Sherlock]

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08.

[Lee Pace]

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09.

[Virtue's Last Reward]

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10.

[Deep Space 9]

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12.

[Elementary]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 040 secrets from Secret Submission Post #367.
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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There are specific ways Moffat writes about women that are clear and repetitive when you recognise them in the shows he has creative control without Gatiss. When Sherlock has those traits, I'm gonna be thinking Moffat, because that man has a one-track mind when it comes to his fetishes about women. The third ep of new series Sherlock had it in -spades-; the first two did not as much. I enjoy the show but the repetitive ideas he applies to faux-empowered female characters just makes me eyeroll and takes me out of the show for a moment.

Give some specifics? Especially in regards to the third episode.

I haven't seen any of this season's episodes, but I'm going to take some guesses. Mary:

a) is flirtatious
b) is smart-mouthed
c) has a quick temper
d) wants to have kids
e) all of the above

0/5.

...the screencaps on Tumblr would tend to disagree. She's snarky, landed John (one would assume she'd have to flirt to do that), snarky, is an assassin (except then she's not or smth IDEK), and oh yes, she's preggers.

That's 5/5 from where I'm sitting, tbh.

the screencaps on Tumblr
Sorry but maybe watch the show before making an assesment based on tumblr screencaps. Flirtatious and snarky are not the same thing. She is definitely sassy so I'd say maybe 1/5- she is smart mouthed. Not 5/5.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-16 05:25 (UTC) - Expand

Er... you're aware there is a difference between "flirts occasionally with specific people" and "flirtatious" right? Unless we're categorizing every single person who's ever been in a romantic relationship as "flirtatious," which reduces the word to meaninglessnes.

she was also a ruthless assassin in the past because I assume that moffat either has a huge boner for "dangerous" women or he thinks that this constitutes an easy way to make a Strong Female Character

sa

also I'm not sure that those things necessarily fit mary. I mean, she could be a bit quippy I guess but most characters on the show are. and she's pregnant and keeping the baby so she does technically want kids but she didn't really talk about how much she wanted a baby before she was pregnant

I see that you missed the point. Let me help you: the point is that no matter how much John wants a normal life, he's obsessed with danger, so of course the woman she falls in love with is an assassin.

DA

Everyone got that point. The unfortunate thing is, it is a very very dull point.

To be fair, that's not Moffat alone. That's most writers nowadays. Sorry, but a cardboard cutout in a catsuit is still a cardboard cutout.

DA

Yeah I agree with this. Moffat just displays more extreme symptoms of the syndrome. Which would not manifest at all, if he'd just stuck to writing plot-free slapstick. But oh well.

Lmao try again.

She's not flirty to Sherlock? They're friends. She's flirty obviously to John, her boyfriend/husband.

She's not any more or less smart mouthed than the rest of the characters

Wouldn't say she has a quick temper. She was pretty calm and collected in The Last Vow, when she, John and Sherlock were outside the Major's hotel room.

Actually she looked scared when Sherlock guessed she was pregnant.

Even if she was flirty and sassy, she'd be different to another woman in Sherlock, Molly.

She isn't all that flirtatious (certainly not the level that Moffat can write her), she is smart-mouthed, not really having a quick temper and she seems happy enough to be pregnant but that wasn't planned.

1 1/2 out four?

AYRT

The female characters are now:
1) Mrs Hudson has a sexy dangerous past
2) Molly-girl-next-door is violent
3) Sherlock's mum intimidates her husband
4) "Girlfriend" is sexily vengeful
5) Mary is a femme fatale
The civil servant wasn't any of these iirc but she was a powerful woman.

And of course, these dangerous/powerful/violent women mostly end up being damselled. Can't women just be well-rounded characters without some battle of the sexes dominatrix bullshit going on? The manic pixie component is to the background in this show, however.

I like the creative ideas Moffat's writing has the trademarks of, and Gatiss ain't half bad, but damn, this episode was so Moffaty about women.

Oh yeah, what was up with Molly? The way she kept on slapping him was just strange.

fanservice

nayrt

Yeah, I mean I kind of get doing it once but several times just seemed excessive. Annnd she also stabbed her boyfriend with a fork. I guess they're trying to show that even Molly has a temper but I do not like the way they're going about it. wtf are they doing to you, Molly?

the fork was OOC and the slapping was just out of place/awkward

Oh I dunno, I thought it might have been this little thing called 'character development'...obviously its just Moffat being sexist agian though, apparently.

(nb: I'm not saying Moffat's writing isn't problematic but I am so sick of every little thing skewed to fit the arguements against him, honestly this is reaching at straws to justify your Moffat-hate).

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-16 05:52 (UTC) - Expand

What? All five of them have agency, and the ones that are in Sherlock's or John's immediate orbits have personality traits and backgrounds that make it reasonable to think that they might remain in these men's lives. One of the points of the last episode is that John's as much of a nutter as Sherlock, and I don't think anyone would deny that Mycroft is as off as either one of them. What kinds of women do you think, realistically, would choose to be close to them?

And how are they all being damselled, except in ways that the men are being damselled too? Mary needs to be saved, yes, but at various points so do both John and Sherlock. For the same reasons, too: that their fondness for the others makes them vulnerable in ways they wouldn't be if they didn't care. Mycroft needs saving in precisely the ways that the powerful civil servant needs saving. The women here are being treated in the same ways as the men, and I'm not sure why that's not exactly as it should be.

I don't know Moffat's other work. Maybe if I did it would make me see these characters differently. But standing alone, I don't get what the problem is supposed to be. Did you want your basic tv-femininity tropes? If you'd got them, would you believe that these were women who would put up with these particular men, or be respected or loved by them?

AYRT Haha no, I want kickass strong women, believe me. What I'm seeing is a pattern, over and over, and it seems so well-worn to me.

The key phrase of my argument is "battle of the sexes dominatrix bullshit". It's like Moffat has only one way to conceive of "strong" women, which falls nearly in with the type of pedestal worshipping that he obviously has for women. It's a different flavour of sexism that still treats us as a slightly irrational and volatile and mysterious separate species, always acting in relation to and opposition to men, according to the dictates of our gender. I'm so frustrated by it. His offscreen comments about women and his wife match up with his writing too. It's like he sees us as "women" first and "people" second, yanno? Not everyone gets annoyed by his treatment of female characters, and that's fine by me, but it personally rubs me raw when I'm otherwise enjoying his stories :(

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-16 06:39 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-16 23:04 (UTC) - Expand

Well, it's a pretty limited scope of writing, if you think about it. A lot of male writers have problems conceiving of a "strong female character" as anything other than a literally strong woman, whereas male characters can be layered and diverse and strongly written without it becoming "kickass character" = actually kicking people's asses. It's like with women, the go-to method of jazzing a character up is to make her "sexy and dangerous". And sexy and dangerous characters are cool, but is that the only way a woman can be interesting?

I mean, let's look at the two most prominent characters here, Irene and Mary. In the source material, both were women of high intelligence and good moral standing who fit perfectly well into the dangerous setting the protagonists rolled in, and were interesting in unique ways. But that's not good enough for a modern audience, I guess, better make them morally dubious and have problematic relationships with the men that never existed in their original incarnations. And yeah, a big part of this is just like the thread OP said, it is Moffat and he has an established pattern and once you've picked up on it you can't enjoy his characterization at face value anymore. I'd have liked the super assassin reveal more if they hadn't done what they did with Irene last series, and also if, like you, I wasn't familiar with the rest of this man's works.