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It's a testament to how far Doctor Who has fallen in my estimation that I didn't torrent last week's episode and instead chose to watch it on shitty Time Warner cable, with BBC America's hacktastic "editors" deciding where to stick act outs. Sadly, their chop-sockying isn't ruining my appreciation for the show because this year, same as last year, the show is bad (with a few exceptions -- dug the season opener, and Neil Gaiman's episode proved that the show doesn't have to suck if some deft writing and a love for something other than wowing an audience with puzzles is involved). But this year it's bad in a different way. Because THIS year, Steven Moffat has to write A WHOLE NEW SEASON for a WOMAN.
And I'm sure he sat there and went, "How the fuck do I do THAT? I already made her an adorable little girl. Everyone likes little girls. I made her a mini-skirt wearing hottie. Ditto. I made everyone love her, because who doesn't love a hottie who used to be an adorable little girl? But now it's another year. I married her off, of course, because HELLO, she's a WOMAN, that's what she's FOR. But the trouble is, she still has to travel with the Doctor. Luckily I can bring Rory along, because EVERYBODY KNOWS that no self-respecting husband would just let his wife trot off on her own, even someone as sweet as Rory. But I'm still stuck with Amy freaking Pond, who has already fulfilled one of her major womanly duties by marrying. I guess the only other thing I can do is start digging into that womb. Because aside from being a good wife, what IS a woman FOR? We all know that if a woman doesn't spit out kids she's not much of a woman. It's just going to be hard in the TARDIS and all, traveling through space and whatnot, but it obviously has to happen because there's nothing else to do with the old girl. I guess I'll science fantasy it all up, do my typical lazy, sloppy retconning -- oh! This flesh episode! I can do it in that one! And if I make sure Matt Smith talks a mile a minute, which isn't hard because that is what I've spent a season beating into him, then he can blah-blah-blah and nobody will question it. I AM A FUCKING GENIUS! Now Amy can FINALLY have the kid she's supposed to have because she's a woman and it can be all important and stuff because it's science fantasy and I'm quite certain that NOBODY in the HISTORY of GENRE has EVER used a woman's womb as something QUITE so important. It'll be like she was a queen back in the day or summat, like Anne Boleyn (STUPID woman, just have a BOY, you silly old cow) or any of them, really, because all they had to do was produce a fucking HEIR so the MEN could get ON with the business of running the WORLD. Yes, Amy's baby will be SPECIAL -- MY GOD SERIOUSLY I AM A GENIUS OF GENIUS PROPORTIONS -- and the best thing is -- YOU ARE GOING TO LOVE THIS, MY DEVOTED FANBASE -- the Doctor will know all of this (I mean, HE'S THE DOCTOR AND A MAN AFTER ALL) but he won't tell her because it's inevitable anyway and she's a woman with her girl head so why bother her with it, so he won't tell her and then she'll wake up and be SO FUCKING PREGNANT and it'll be like that episode of Mad Men where Betty Draper gave birth. Because I am BETTER than Matt Weiner, who was just doing something stupid like showing how horrific giving birth was back in the Sixties and continuing to develop this female character who people seem to like for some reason, but she's a horrible mother and a terrible wife so I don't get it. But mine is better, because it's SPACE! And people will FIGHT over Amy Pond and although the person putting these words into my horrifically misogynistic mouth hasn't seen the latest episode yet, she will say that I'll probably wreck River Song too because HELLO, woman."
QED, motherfucker.
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9 comments:
You are my hero.
i totally disagree.
What a load of old tripe! To present a woman marrying and having a kid is not to say, in giant capital letters, THIS IS ALL A WOMAN CAN EVER DO OR BE. In fact, Amy Pond is the first woman in forty-odd years of Who companions to go through marriage and childbirth and stay on board the Tardis - she's a modern woman who's having it all. How is that "horrifically misogynistic"?
Fair enough, there are plenty of people who dislike Amy (I think she's great, myself) but to imagine that it's sexist to give her experiences that a great many (most?) women live through is just absurd. The purpose of fantasy is to make us think anew about the stuff we take for granted. On that score Moffat is doing a great job.
This is a rant not a review.
Ndroid --
That would be true if, in fact, Amy Pond were a "great" character and her pregnancy were anything other than a plot device. Which she is not now, and has never been. Seriously, I have no idea who Amy is. Why is she traveling with the Doctor? Why is she with Rory? Does she WANT kids? I mean, we know Moffat's goto place for her is pregnancy (Amy's Choice, anyone), but the only thing I really know about Amy is that she's apparently, out of nowhere for one episode, a big fan of Van Gogh.
Let's look at her in relationship to the other NuWho female companions, NOT created by Moffat. There was Rose, who ripped open the heart of the TARDIS, etc, to save the Doctor and made Captain Jack immmortal in the process. There was Martha, who walked the frigging earth FOR A YEAR and saved the world all on her own. There was Donna, who saved the universe and sacrificed her life with the Doctor to do it. And then there's Amy. She... waited. That's her superpower. She waited for the Doctor. Oh, and she REMEMBERED the Doctor. After someone else (River Song) reminded her to remember him. And in the season finale, she'll do MORE exciting waiting to be rescued! Awesome!
And those other women... I know exactly why they wanted to travel with the Doctor. I knew who they were. Rose wanted a life bigger than the one she had as a girl working in a department store, with no real future. Martha had that silly love thing, but she also could kick ass with the best of them and had enough sense to know when she needed to call it quits. Donna spent heaven knows how long searching for the Doctor after realizing that turning him down had been a mistake, and that traveling with him was her best change to "be magnificent." AND SHE WAS. It still hurts me to think about what happened to her. If Amy fell down a hole and was eaten by space weasels tomorrow, I would not care, because I have no emotional connection to her at all. I don't know what she is beyond self-centered and petulant. Oh, and apparently for ALL of this season so far, not even actually really there.
And the pregnancy is certainly not presented as "oh, look, Amy is having it all." She's kidnapped, captive and pregnant -- which seemed to be a hell of a shock to her -- and it's PRESENTED as a horrific shock. It's presented as the kind of body horror we'd expect from a SAW movie. It is certainly not the sunshine-and-flowers thing you're presenting it as, Ndroid. It's given to us as a horrific, terrible moment. Amy looks down at her belly AND SCREAMS IN HORROR.
(to be continued, it's too long for one comment...!)
Part Two!
As for how Moffat has presented the other companions when he's written them... well, he was incredibly cruel to Rose in "Fireplace", with the Doctor shoving her aside and willing to abandon her for another woman. But Rose loves him and forgives him for it 'cause, as Moffat has said in a rather yecchy interview, "Women are needy." He only wrote Martha once, in "Blink", and it's not attractive. She's a nagging harpy, interrupting the Doctor on camera to complain about him, and repeatedly interrupting his conversation with Sally Sparrow to nag him along. And Donna's presented in the two-parter as that needy women who REALLY just wants a husband and kids, despite the fact that she's turned her back on all that to travel with the Doctor... at least for now. Aside from that, she's bitchy to River, and clearly jealous... something Donna certainly never was in any other episode with the Doctor. She loved him, but not like that, and she's certainly not possessive of him... except when Moffat writes her.
And River. Ah, yes. Marvelous River. She is awesome. An adventurous powerful woman... until Moffat traps her in the library, giving her imaginary children to take care of for all eternity. Because that's what makes women happy. And he's ruined her even further, turning her from a kick-ass archeologist to someone who has admitted that when the day comes that the Doctor doesn't remember her, it will kill her. From kickass female Indiana Jones to Doctor Groupie in two seasons. Good on you, Moffat. If it weren't for the fact that Kingston is an amazing actress who brings things to the character that are above and beyond what's written for her, I'd give up right now.
So, yeah. Amy's not a real character, and her pregnancy is a plot device because it's easy. And the plot deviceyness of it will only become more apparent when you see the finale. In which Amy admittedly DOES sometimes do something more than sit around waiting for rescue. Sometimes she STANDS around.
Phew. And I wonder why this show pisses me off.
I get that you don't like Amy as a character, and that's fair enough. You think she's a shrill harpy, I think she's a likeable character who isn't overawed by what she sees. But to extend your dislike into a massively generalisation about Moffatt being "misogynist" because the character doesn't conform to your tastes is completely unfair.
My comment about "having it all" wasn't meant entirely seriously but I repeat, why should Amy NOT have life experiences that many, or most, women undergo? Isn't it interesting to have a married couple aboard the Tardis? I'm a man - I think Rory is fantastic, an honourable and understated guy who has grown just as much as Mickey did. Or would you prefer women to be kicked out of the door as soon as they're married off (farewell Leela, enjoy life tidying the commune, Jo Grant)? You're indulging in a weird reverse sexism that says male characters are free to be themselves but women characters must represent an ideal for all womankind or stand as evidence of the writer's appalling attitudes to women.
Why shouldn't a sudden and completely unexpected birth scene be horrifying? Most women WOULD be horrified to suddenly find themselves in labour when they didn't even know they were pregnant. That's not a comment on pregnancy and women's self-image - it's a comment on flesh avatars, the teleportation of consciousness and other fantastical ideas.The job of the show is to be exciting and surprising, not to second-guess itself and run through the potential objections of people who seek out subtexts that aren't there. Newsflash: women get pregnant, even in Tardises.
There are several reasons why Amy doesn't have typical TV motivations like Rose, Martha or Donna. One is that for her first season, she was an enigma, the girl who didn't make sense. You may prefer to see that as a patriarchal negation of female agency - I prefer to see it as a good TV mystery. Another reason is that she has to contrast with the three who went before, and strike a new tone. You can't keep redoing unrequited love in the Tardis, or dreams of escape. They get boring. The show needed something new. Martha was a medical student and a black Briton but both of those attributes were forgotten after a handful of episodes whereupon she was reduced to a complete drip mooning over the Doctor in ways which were (to me, but what do I know) rather less respectful of women in general than Amy's behaviour.
The instances you cite of Moffat writing the other female characters badly - i.e. in ways you personally dislike - are pretty thin stuff but I would point out that in the two-parter, a family and kids are what Donna AND HER MALE PARTNER, A MAN OF THE MALE GENDER, both want. The point being made is not "women just want a husband and kids", it is "humans are caught between the need for stability and a desire for adventure, and the achievement of one leaves us hungry for the other." I'd argue that that is the secret of Doctor Who's appeal.
So no, Amy is a real character - she's just not to your taste. Your "self-centred and petulant" is my "confident and sarcastic". If her pregnancy is a plot device then so is every pregnancy in fiction, in which case what are you saying? Pregnancy is bad? Characters in fantasy should never have any real-world experiences? You've lost me, but Doctor Who hasn't.
You completely misread everything I said, starting with the part where you think I called Amy a harpy. Amy is not interesting enough to be a harpy.
I'm glad you're content with the show. I'm not. But I also don't run around seeking out blogs where people are writing about how much they LOVE the show to tell them why they're wrong.
Suffice to say I'm probably checking out of the show because, after two seasons in which I liked about four of the episodes and mostly none of the paper-doll-thin characters, I'm done.
You've pretty much misunderstood and mischaracterized my comments, and I'm not interested in taking this any further, because I can't imagine that there will be any different result no matter what I say.
Enjoy the return of WHO in the autumn! I hope it's good.
Actually, this is where I meant to post this. "I hadn't seen the new series from this perspective until I read this. Thanks for making me think."
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