#moffat fans do the same thing with his misogyny

[akajustmerry]

i think steven moffats comes at writing women from the same angle that Joss whedon does in the sense that he starts off horny and then passes the end result off as feminism, bc obviously getting your rocks off to the idea of a woman beating you up makes you incapable of misogyny. Of course Joss whedon sucks for reasons other than the bigotry in his writing, but he's the first thing I think of when people argue moffat writes women through a feminist lense or whatever. I get that people instinctually want to defend the TV shows they love but as a dr who and a Buffy fan i think sometimes you have to come to terms with loving things in spite of their many, many flaws.

omg i've thought about this as well! because i think a lot of fans also think when you point out a piece of work is misogynistic, they experience it as a moral judgement on people who like it. people have different opinions on that. personally, i don't judge people for enjoying problematic media (to a degree, there are things where i draw the line). but i do automatically judge anyone who refuses to acknowledge issues in a piece of work because it shows an unwillingness to critically think. the fact that men like joss whedon and steven moffat wrote things you really enjoy and pass off as feminist through a narrow lens doesn't make them less misogynistic or vice versa. both whedon and moffat are singlehandedly responsible for creating characters that helped me affirm my bisexuality, but that doesn't mean i wouldn't hit them both with my dad's car for being homophobic weirdos. that's what being a critically thinking fan is all about, baby!

[leikeliscomet]

(Repost from twitter)

This won't be popular opinion but in response to the Moffat hate train (like Moffat fans being attacked & that was/is wrong) there's a 180 where ppl act like there weren't genuine criticisms of Moffat's bigotry. Great writing is great but it can't excuse that. Whining bout DW being bad just bc DT & RTD left, Capaldi being old etc. is 1 thing & that was wrong. *At the same time*, he did say repeated bigoted shit about several marginalised groups but it's acceptable bc dwtwt loves the SJW boogeyman v the innocent showrunner binary.

SA for comedy, calling asexuality a vow of celibacy, strawmanning fans for critiquing his bi rep, calling ur lead actress 'dumpy' & more whilst claiming feminism? That was egregious. Yh he wrote great shit but marginalised ppl matter more than dw. Or at least to me they do 🤷🏾‍♀️The concept of Moffat being an 'omni bigot' isnt that confusing or outlandish actually. His takes on asexuality, the SA jokes & misogyny are no surprise because compulsory sexuality & rape culture go hand in hand in hand. Struggles are interconnected. Yes u can be multi bigoted.

If Steven Moffat actually came out and apologised for his misogyny, rape culture, biphobia & acephobia THEN the 'he's changed' comments make sense. If he actively spoke out against them THEN he would be a feminist. But he hasn't. He's not Satan. But he's not a god either.

[myfandomrambles]

Not to be an asshole but like just because David Tennant/Tenth Doctor had the best viewing numbers of NuWho doesn't actually mean he's sooo uber special better than the others.

Like every doctor before and after he actually matters. Some of those doctors are beloved by like a lot of people.

It somehow just feels icky to me to pick up with David Tennant and Davies and like what? Fuck 11, war, 12 and 13?

Chibnall was bad enough about kind of feeling like he was snubbing 11 & 12's eras.

Like obviously you had misogyny and racism problems under Moffat. And we must, must speak up about that and make sure the show does better. And no he didn't stick the landing every time, The Wedding of River Song sucks. But like there were a shit ton of people involved in those years who like fucking put their heart and soul into that.

Matt Smith & Peter Capaldi along with all the companion actors (plus Gomez) deserve some goddamn respect. I do have just some big emotional attachment to 11 & 12 yes. I also however do not think every story under them was bad. They had extremely good stories! Like season 10 might not be popular but fuck does it kick me in the feels.

But like it's not like all the Tennant hype only affects Moffat's writing if you happen to hate him. This does feel insulting to Ecelston as well. I know he hates the BBC so like I get he wouldn't come back to the main show (his audios rock btw).

This whole thing also feels sketch because you're sticking him in between your first female doctor and your first main doctor to be played by a person of colour. Like do you just not trust that Ncuti Gatwa will be good enough to make people watch? Do you not trust your own writers (even your own writing) to be compelling unless you bring David Tennant back and give him a whole other marketing number (and the numbers, while sort of ridiculous at this if you look through canon, do have meaning to the fans)? Not to mention a new costume (No I don't mean he has to wear the exact same clothes if they don't fit but you can sew a copy of the same design again) and a whole big announcement about him getting a new Sonic. The costumes and sonics are HUGE signs for fans. Like people collect the fucking sonics you have the old ones referenced in the show, it's a whole part of 12's identity crises with the shades and the new sonic after re-accepting the doctor after losing Clara. The TARDIS can make these for The Doctor or The Doctor makes their own. It's a whole thing!

Also, do they have to also fuck with Donna's ending? Really? I get some people do the whole "Donna deserved better" shtick but her ending is heartbreaking, well-written, well-acted and done just so well. Sad can be okay! I'm with Ashildir on this one, It was sad and beautiful. (Yes she's not referring to Donna but the principle stands)

Also like, The Doctor fucks people's lives up. Donna wasn't the first up Companions to have shit destroyed by The Doctor!

In the words of Martha Jones:

You need to be careful, because you know the Doctor's wonderful and he's brilliant, but he's like fire. Stand too close and people get burned (TV: Sonatarn Strategem)

Like Journeys End aired in 2008! Could we just let the story stand on it's merits?

I realise the culture of like the media in the 2010s & 2020s is just fuck with shit that should have been left alone. I mean I guess if we're doing a distribution w/ Disney we might as well follow their storytelling formula.

I mean remember the whole Time Lord victouris project? Like I'm obsessed w/ Doctor Who and have been into the EU for a long time I didn't even try and keep up with it. It was like the high republic franchise in Star Wars so hard to keep up w/ the story when you have to get so many disparate pieces of media. And again it's all Ten focused.

Honestly, I have always loved Ten. minus all this fuckery he is fantastic. And i will go to the bat i don't think he's a fuck boy. but I also like am perpetually gonna be annoyed at him.

Being a money maker does not actually define the quality of the story in every case.

[lesbiten]

liking any moffat character is a curse bc u go into their tag and its got people who like moffat

[sclfmastery]

Dude, Simm!master deserves all the love and joy in the world.

Well I super appreciate this and I know the muse does. At the same time, it’s good to contemplate this in (attempting) being a responsible blogger. A redemption arc should not be an apologia.  I need to be careful. 

 I think it’s important to acknowledge the things Simm Master did that were pretty dreadful, LOL.  What complicates matters, of course, which is kind of the thing this blog harps on about all the time, is that the Master is the Master (and at times, Missy), right? From one face to the other, the same entity.  What changes, arguably, is contingent upon who is at the writing helm at the time, more than “personality differences between faces/incarnations.” You may already know this, but it’s called the Watsonian vs. Doylist perspective.   The problem with most of the Simm Master hate, I think, is that people mistake the Doylist reasons for his behavior as Watsonian reasons.  Basically, one should acknowledge that  some of the explanations for in-universe behavior boil down to bad, tone-deaf writing.  They’re Doylist reasons. 

RTD, Moffat, and Chibnall are ALL guilty of writing the Master/Missy irresponsibly.  @modernwizard recently made a post about Chibnall’s racial and gender-based tone-deaf errors in writing Dhawan Master.  When it comes to Simm Master, RTD and Moffat are pretty bad, too, not in representing the Master HIMSELF (a white man), but in his relationships with the people he hurts. 

 It has been, for instance, pointed out that both times the Simm Master mistreated companions of the Doctor, they were black (the Jones family and Bill Potts--the Bill thing, with the Cybermen conversion, even borders on eugenics, which, given the most prominent Western example thereof in real life, bothers me as a person of Jewish heritage more than I can say).   This is incredibly and repeatedly insensitive to a POC audience. 

 Moreover, representations of gender: why would a canonically nonbinary character from a culture that “doesn’t do gender like you humans do” consciously and consistently be misogynistic? To his wife, whom he beat? To Martha’s sister, telling her to “just stand there and be pretty”? To Bill, “do as she says? Is the future going to be all girl?” This not only misrepresents the Master from a Watsonian perspective, distorting the essence of his character for shock value, it’s also an unnecessary way to make him a compelling, “love-to-hate-them” villain to an audience of women.  The showrunners are (perhaps) trying to condemn this kind of ass-backwards misogyny by rendering the ALIEN villain an exemplar of all the most debased qualities in a HUMAN villain, because that’s their Doylist agenda . . . but does it really work?

 I would argue that it doesn’t.  A villain’s flaws should be consistent with his background and his motives.  They should not just be arbitrarily superimposed onto the character “because bad guy.”  The person who actually writes about this the most eloquently in the case of Simm is @the-twohearted-dalek. 

I know these things mostly because of the great writers I’ve encountered here on Tumblr. Characters like River Song, who seem, in Moffat’s hands, to be mere titllating male fantasy extensions of the Doctor, are suddenly brought breathtakingly to life as compelling, sympathetic characters of their own by FAN writers.  Re Simm Master, someone who is great at this is @natalunasans, who makes a series of photoshoots of dolls they’ve designed (as well as fanfictions) portraying the Master as a chronically ill enby.  Again, the issue is a Doylist one. Get a good writer who loves and respects the characters, and gives them flaws that MAKE SENSE, and you’ve got half the battle fought. 

Writing him therefore presents the challenge of constantly disclaiming that one does not condone the outside-universe flaws that are shoved onto who he is by showrunners who are more interested in getting an emotional rise out of the audience than in disseminating media content responsibly and sensitively.  It’s a unique challenge, and worthwhile, but occasionally, I will admit it’s exhausting. 

Another example of this is people who write Loki in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and have to contend with Joss Whedon the Glorified White Male “Feminist’s” giggly need to slip “cunt” into the Avengers Assemble script by having Loki call Black Widow a “mewling quim.”  Loki, who is genderfluid, and whose mother Frigga is his canonically hallowed role model.  Does that add up? Nope. 

However I agree in that it’s also good to acknowledge when someone is earnestly trying to learn from their terrible mistakes and grow. Otherwise there would be no hope for anyone, because everything sentient, literally, is on some level “problematic.”  We build ideologies from the knowledge our neural network acquires while bombarded with literally millions of information cues per second.  We develop mental “shortcuts” that categorize environments and other people. The problem with that is that sometimes those shortcuts lead to stereotypes, which lead to a resistance to continue learning and growing, because we have “those people” pegged.  And that’s, I think, the root of all evil.  Unlearning that ad being open to growth again, with new information, is a part of every good redemption arc. I hope that  for every Master, even this one. 

Thanks for passing on your sweet message to the evil gay tardigrade <3 

[dianadragonfly]

Commentary on “The Empty Hearse”

So again, I ended up turning off the writer’s commentary. I realized that I really want to hear Martin and Benedict, who aren’t on this edition. Without subtitles, I can barely follow the writers and producers talking over each other. My hearing must be getting worse in my old age. 

Uh, to watch Sherlock’s tears and John’s faint again -- a bit not good. I don’t care that they are fictional, that they are actors, that it’s never happened. I want to collapse with John on the sidewalk every single time. 

Ohhhh the hair ruffle and kiss. God I could watch that over and over.   

John, that mustache is awful.. Not even the same Martin under it. It covers how expressive he is. Maybe that’s the point. It highlights the numbness. 

Jesus Sherlock getting tortured.  I mean he looks like Jesus here. Please, if there are any other episodes before I die, could I please please please see Sherlock with the 90s rock star Jesus curls? I won’t ask for anything else. (Other than Johnlock, obviously)

John on the tube is just highlighting how numb he looks. I’d forgotten how long the tube sequence is at the beginning of the episode. 

Oh damn, the echo of the hallway moment. 

Hello white shirt. What is wrong with me? Instead of talking about the show and how it impacts me, I am busy talking about how Benedict looks in his clothes. But... goddamn...  

I need to see the 221B scene with Una Stubbs’ commentary. 

Brooding over the city -- I know he’s thinking about the last time he saw John and his fall, but I can’t help but think BATMAN!

The moment where he sees John for the first time. So subtle, but omg! But then, he does something stupid instead. I cringe so hard at this scene. Sherlock, what the hell? 

Mary is sitting down now and John finally looks less miserable. I’m finally seeing a look that says “I am proposing” instead of  “I am miserable.” Again, these actors are so incredible. 

OHHHH SHIITTT!!! IT’S THE MOMENT! 

Sherlock knows he’s messed up here. Here we establish the pattern that we will see in Tarmack Hell -- the moment he could make everything okay, or at least say what needs to be said, but instead makes a joke or evades. It’s what drove him to avoid speaking to John as soon as he saw him and instead dress up like a waiter. There are moments when we can see that Sherlock understands. The blink when Molly told him she knows he’s sad, the look he gives John before he jumps off St. Bart’s, and that moment when John hits his fist on the table. I feel so awful for him here. He has screwed up and doesn’t know how to get out of it. 

(An aside -- he doesn’t do that with Molly as much.)

Why didn’t he tell John? He knew when he met John that he was suffering from PTSD. A note. Mycroft could have told him. *sigh* 

When John yells “Swear to God” I think he’s about to laugh.

That moment between Sherlock and Mary is so sweet. I see more actual affection between Mary and Sherlock than I see between Mary and John. I think they could have continued longer as a threesome, solving crimes, taking care of the baby. I’m not suggesting we go for polyamory here, but that there was a real relationship here that got cut short. Of course, anyone who knows ASD canon (at the time I first saw this, I only had a vague idea of canon) knows that Mary has to die. I just wish it could have lasted longer.  

So much angst. 

When the taxi drives away, the narrowing of Sherlock’s eyes. He knows Mary is a liar but he doesn’t know what else is up.  But he’s intrigued. Suspicious but intrigued. 

Oh I love Lestrade’s reaction. I just love Lestrade. 

The horror film things here with Mrs. Hudson is so fun!!!!

The Andrew Scott and Benedict Cumberbatch almost-kiss is so freakin hot. . . 

Had to shut the computer top so my nine year old didn’t read over my shoulder about me finding a male on male kiss hot...  

Okay, this section with the Austin Powers jokes makes me giggle. It’s a bit childish. 

I cringe when John attacks the patient thinking he’s Sherlock. hehehe 

The fake skeleton crime scene cracks me up. I love this episode though. Moffat and Gattis interacting with the fan world, playing with expectations, undercutting them. 

He and Molly are a bit condescending to the train guy.  

OOooohhhhh  kiss her! Kiss her properly! Enough with those pecks on the cheek! I’ve never shipped Sherolly but I feel for her so much in these moments. Even more than I do John. I realize I focus on on Johnlock because the show runners focus on John, almost more than Sherlock.I used to think the obsession with m/m pairings say something about feminism, fandom, and internalized misogyny, but we really are just taking what culture is giving us.  

How many times does Sherlock take books, cars, whole motorbikes from tourists and never face repercussions? 

Mary should be driving. She’s the more likely to have trick motorcycle driving in her background. Don’t think they teach that at Sherlock’s posh schools. 

I forgot this is the first time they’ve talked since John beat the crap out of him. That  last sorry was sincere and John knows it. 

 THis is as good of time as any to point out that I’m a fan of long swishy coats. I’ve worn them almost exclusively. Trying to avoid live rails that might be electrified, or doing any crime fighting, would be more difficult in a long swishy coat. I remember once that I thought I was going to have to fight my way out of a situation and I was pissed at myself. “I can’t kick ass in this coat” I remember thinking. Sherlock, you are about to electrocute yourself for looking badass. 

Okay wil have to finish this last scene in comments. Sorry I don’t know how to do a tumblr cut, friends. 

[thirddoctor]

For the opinion meme, what's your opinion(s) on all aspects of the Simm!Master?

All aspects? You want me to tell you what I think of his fingernail grooming habits? I mean, I don’t have an opinion on that, but I’m sure I can make one up.

Seriously though, that’s a tricky question, Anon. There’s a lot I could talk about—some of it would just be repeating things I’ve said before—and I’m not sure where I would start.

My opinions have shifted in various ways over the years. Honestly? I don’t hate him anymore. Not like I did at one point. I disagree with the majority of the choices RTD made for him, I don’t see eye to eye with many of his fans, and I would’ve been happy to have gone straight from Jacobi to Gomez. But, he exists, y’know? I’m not going to pretend he doesn’t (Dreyfus!Master, on the other hand…). So over time I’ve gotten over my resentment of him enough to try to figure out why he is the way he is. Some things still don’t make sense to me—why did he want to build a new “Time Lord empire” in S3?—but I can more or less reconcile him with my concept of the character as a whole. Obviously, I headcanon nonsense like the drums away, so that he and Jacobi are the only ones who heard them since that frankly is the only explanation that makes sense. At this point the drums couldn’t be any more irrelevant anyway— Jacobi never mentions them in the War Master audios, and that plot was tied up in TEoT so Simm never mentions them in S10. They’re just not part of the character anymore, thank goodness.

I think S10 did a good job with him. Just giving him a decent costume and a beard did wonders. I mean, sure, I kind of get what RTD was going for by deliberately subverting certain aspects of the character. He was trying to do something new, and hey, it worked for a lot of people. Not me, but I can’t say it was an objectively bad choice (even if I personally believe it was). I do at least appreciate him making the attempt, because I’ve come across plenty of boring takes on the Master that don’t try anything. Unfortunately, for me, the changes RTD made robbed the Master of a lot of the things I liked about the character, often didn’t make sense, and some of them were just plain annoying.

S10 managed to blend RTD’s take with some more traditional aspects of the character, in a way that I felt was respectful. A lot of Master fans may disagree with me there, and they are free to do so, but look… if you were expecting the narrative to sympathise with Simm, I think you were always going to be disappointed. He’s the villain. He never stopped being the villain—not even in The End of Time. I would’ve liked to get a little more character study on him, but ultimately he’s secondary, in the same way that previous Doctors are secondary in multi-Doctor episodes. It’s not his story anymore. The show wasn’t particularly interested in any moral complexity he may have had, because the focus was on Missy, as it needed to be. That didn’t mean Moffat wanted us to hate him though. Listen to Missy’s words as she stabs him—I don’t think the Master has ever murdered anyone more lovingly. She pays tribute to her past, she talks about how glorious it was to be him, and then she lets it go because she has to move on. Killing him is framed as a personal sacrifice, not a moment of triumph over a dastardly villain.

And his misogyny—well, that’s on RTD. Again, a choice I disagree with, but it is what it is. I just have to come up with headcanons to make it fit into place. It’s the main reason I still don’t like Simm, even if I don’t hate him anymore. I actually did like him for one whole week of my life, which was the week after WEaT aired, and then The Doctor Falls happened. I don’t mind the Master being terrible, but Simm doesn’t have enough charm to make up for being nasty to Bill and Missy.

I think, in spite of my issues though, there are interesting facets to Simm. In many ways he’s the logical endpoint of many of the Master’s choices. He’s the cruellest Master, the most arrogant, the most selfish, the most self-destructive. He��s the result of centuries of bad choices. I think there are many fascinating angles one could explore the character from. The angles I’m interested in just… don’t really line up with angles the rest of the fandom is interested in. Which is fine. But it’s yet another reason it’s hard for me to get into the character.

Ultimately my opinion on him is… complicated, I guess? He’s far from a favourite, but he’s not wholly without potential, and I like John Simm (I probably wouldn’t have cast him as the Master, but that’s mainly a shallow aesthetic choice because I don’t fancy him; he’s a good actor). Like, at this point I wouldn’t be averse to more media featuring Simm, depending on how he was handled. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time until his inevitable Big Finish series.

I’m not sure that covers my opinion on all aspects of his character, but if there’s anything else you want to know, hit me up!

[sherlockedfanshani]

Johnlock: Two years on

I posted the following on a Sherlock fan forum in August 2016. I’ve just found it again and revisited it. It thought it might be interesting to reflect on how things have panned out in the Sherlock fandom: 

OK if you can bear with me, this is a long one! I wanted to set down some thoughts on this whole situation, which - frankly - I think has become a bit of a mess. Whether it can be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction at this stage I think is unlikely, but who knows?! As far as I can see it, there are two entrenched sides now: TJLC shippers on one, TPTB on the other, and other fans - both non-Johnlockers and Johnlockers who don’t want or don’t expect their ship to become canon - caught somewhere in the middle. This is just my personal interpretation. I realise others will see things very differently so please accept that my intention is only to try and set things out in a non-inflammatory way. I will set my cards on the table from the start. I don’t think it is or has ever been Steven Moffat & Mark Gatiss’ intention for Sherlock and John to enter into a romantic or a sexual relationship in their version of this story. I take at face value what they have said about addressing the fact that, in the 21st century, two close male friends living together would make some people question whether their relationship was more than platonic. And that, combined with the fact that both Moffat & Gatiss’ careers began in comedy and sitcoms, the way they have explored this in ‘Sherlock’ has mostly been through humour. That humour, incidentally, is never at the expense of gay people or gay relationships. If anything it’s a gentle mockery of any characters (Mrs Hudson, Angelo, the innkeepers in THOB) who make erroneous assumptions. In fact, humour is derived from the notion that homosexuality is so unremarkable these days. Therefore characters automatically jump to the conclusion that what Sherlock and John are gay, simply because such a close male friendship is more unusual! Do I think the “gay jokes” are always successful? Not entirely. Even Gatiss is on record as having said maybe they overdid them. However, I don’t think for a moment that they ever expected any section of their audience to interpret these occasional moments in each episode as hints or subtext that Sherlock and John would actually get together as a couple. So what happened way back in 2010? The show airs and becomes a bigger hit than Moffat & Gatiss could ever have imagined. At some stage it becomes clear to them that the show is attracting a very devoted collection of predominantly young and predominantly female fans. And via social media interaction, the creators become aware that for this fanbase, the largest part of the appeal of the show is the relationship between John and Sherlock. I’ve no idea if they’d heard of slash fiction and shipping before it became such a phenomenon in the Sherlock fandom, but presumably they became aware pretty rapidly. In the early days, the cast and crew responded in different ways whenever the fourth wall was broken and they were confronted with the Johnlock-related stories, photo manips and artwork that the fandom was producing. Initially they seemed amused and even played along. However, their responses to some of the more explicit, NSFW stuff that was shoved in their faces - either by fans or by journalists such as Caitlin Moran or Graham Norton - was less genial, and you got the definite sense that they weren’t entirely comfortable. The image of these fans that was being presented then was that they were hysterical, teenage, heterosexual girls: unable or unwilling to have physical, real-world relationships of their own, and fantasising about two men getting together for their titillation in much the same cliched way that straight men fantasise over lesbians. (Note: I’m not saying this was the reality - just the perception which was promoted all the time and which presumably TPTB also inherited.) So their responses began to shift. The creators have always said that fans are absolutely at liberty to write or create whatever they like. To my knowledge they have stood by that. No legal action of any kind has ever been threatened against any of the Sherlock fanbase for anything they have written, drawn or photoshopped. They have even expressed admiration for some of the artwork. However, they definitely took a step back and cooled on this stuff. Over time, both Gatiss and Moffat’s attitude towards and relationship with online fanbases has definitely suffered. They are fans themselves as they frequently remind us. Massive fans. And although there was no ‘Sherlock’ when they were younger and growing up, there was of course the other big TV show that has shaped their careers: ‘Doctor Who’. Remember, they are from a different generation. When they were kids, teenagers, even young men, the fan experience was totally different and almost entirely passive. You couldn’t post your opinions on a massive global forum, there was practically no way to contact other fans outside your immediate geographic locality, and there was no way of contacting the people who made the series, or at least certainly no way of guaranteeing they could see what you wrote or elicit a reply from them. Maybe this means that they haven’t adapted to the way modern fandom works. Maybe it means that as middle-aged men, they expect their fanbases to be more respectful and more passive, and ultimately to accept what they are given or, alternatively, exercise the only other option: stop watching and walk away. So what do they experience in this brave new world? Steven Moffat takes over the show-running job on ‘Doctor Who’, and has a colossal amount of vitriol flung at him by its fanbase. So much so that he decides to quit twitter altogether. He’s also routinely accused of misogyny, to the point where he is forced to give interviews rebutting the notion. I’m not going to get into whether or not the claims have any validity, I’m just trying to make the case for why he he may appear prickly or thin-skinned when it comes to criticism in general. Fan interaction also complicates matters just because the vocabulary that fans use is different. Young fans tweet “u lil shit” to Mark Gatiss in the way they would to their friends, and this is unsurprisingly not interpreted in the way it is intended. Offence is caused, people are blocked, and more barriers are erected between TPTB and the people who love and are inspired by their work. At some point, attitudes within fandom began to shift. Rather than just shipping two characters whose relationship nobody ever believed would become canon, many of the online/tumblr fanbase began to believe that Johnlock could and should do so. The notion took hold that if Gatiss were solely in charge of the show, this would indeed happen, and it was only Moffat - the nasty heterosexual - who was getting in the way. Gatiss was tweeted countless times to this effect. Only recently, someone on tumblr discovered an old League of Gentlemen sketch where Gatiss plays a gay character whose relationship (and its subsequent break-up) is fetishised and patronised by an overbearing straight woman called Tish. Whilst this sketch is problematic and can certainly be viewed as being misogynistic on some level, I don’t think it’s stretching credulity to speculate that ‘Tish’ is probably based on a real-life person and that Gatiss was indulging in some therapy by yelling at her on stage night after night. Did Gatiss connect this person with the Johnlock shippers? Did it seem to him that he was now having his professional career diminished by a bunch of pubescent teenage girls with a crush on Benedict Cumberbatch who counted him amongst their number “shipping Johnlock”? It also presumptuously placed him in the position of junior partner to his straight colleague Moffat, banning him from writing what he really wants. Another patronising assumption. This is total speculation, but I wonder if John’s vehement “I am NOT GAY!” to Mrs Hudson in the Gatiss-penned “The Empty Hearse” was provoked by all the online speculation directed at Gatiss via his twitter feed. Was this intended as the ultimate response - to shut down the Johnlock debate once and for all? Ironically, of course, it had the opposite effect. It was interpreted that Mrs Hudson was the ultimate Johnlock shipper, and she of course could see the fact staring in her face that John and Sherlock were simply made for each other! Then we come to Mumbai in 2014. And Gatiss - in a departure from the creators’ habitually evasive and jokey means of answering questions about forthcoming plot points - embarks on a lengthy and heartfelt explanation/justification when he is questioned about Johnlock. I’ve watched this video more than once and I can’t interpret his speech as anything other than sincere. And this is also why I think Gatiss and Moffat’s reactions to whenever Johnlock is raised are becoming more irritable, more frustrated and with none of the playfulness they exhibit everywhere else. Gatiss must be aware of the accusations of “queerbaiting”. They have appeared on his twitter feed, apart from anything else. And just as Moffat feels hypersensitive to accusations of misogyny, Gatiss must surely feel the same way about being accused of effectively betraying his community and having internalised homophobia. He tries to set the record state but what happens? He still isn’t believed. Of course, a big part of this is a problem entirely of Moffat and Gatiss’ making. When you spend the bulk of interviews smugly declaring that you lie to protect future plot points, you can’t then be surprised when your fans don’t then believe you about other things: no matter how impassioned or frustrated you might sound. They really have made a rod for their own backs. The With An Accent journalist detected a difference in tone and attitude to the Johnlock denials compared to other obfuscations about plot, but if you’re not in the room, AND it’s not something you want to hear, why would you believe them? Johnlockers have varying degrees of expectation of their ship becoming canon, ranging from those who want it to remain strictly in their own heads and never be actualised on the show, via those who think it would be nice but is unlikely, through to those who desperately want it to be but remain unsure. And then we have TJLC. TJLC is a conspiracy in the truest sense of the word. Every piece of data is viewed through the prism of an utter conviction that not only should Johnlock happen, it will. Costume choices, set designs, drinks, lighting, everything is presented as evidence of confirmation of Johnlock, and some of it in the most convoluted way, with no acknowledgment that there could be any other possible interpretation for what appears on screen. A coincidentally commissioned survey into LGB representation is cited as conclusive proof, as well as a quote from Gatiss from an interview years ago that the way to introduce more LGBT representation is “softly, softly”, so as not to frighten the horses, so that everyone just sees it as mundane, everyday and normal. Ironically, if the conspiracy is true, and Johnlock is ultimately going to be the ‘big reveal’, that would be precisely the opposite approach to what Gatiss describes. It would make gay representation into a sensational shock twist, just like Mary’s reveal as the assassin or Jim from IT being Moriarty. That’s not treating LGBT issues with the respect they deserve in my eyes, and maybe that’s what Moffat is getting at when he describes that approach as ‘trivialising’. The TJLCers express the certainty that such a shock reveal would shake the foundations of society to its core, and it would be such a landmark, water cooler moment, that TV and gay representation, and indeed society itself, would never be the same again. Even if I remotely believed Johnlock were on the cards, I actually think the reverse would happen. The show would be universally derided as having ‘jumped the shark’. Not because its viewers are homophobic or resistant to the idea of gay couples, just because it would genuinely come out of nowhere for them. It would be perceived as pandering to a tiny minority of its fanbase - that is for those few of the general audience who are even aware that this is what some of the fans expect from the show. And for the vast majority of the audience it would come completely out of the blue and be utterly confusing. After all, in their eyes, at no point in the show, have John or Sherlock ever exhibited any kind of sexual attraction to another man. And this is another problem, and I’m sad to say, feeds into the sense of entitlement which some fans do exhibit. ‘Sherlock’ is a massive, mainstream, worldwide hit show. It is very easy to forget that in the little bubble of tumblr where you’re speaking to a self-selected group of people who all feel the same way and all agree with you. But the online fanbase is a tiny minority of the people who watch the show. Threats to ‘desert it’ and expect that to hold any weight with the creators really are meaningless. It’s not a niche, cult show where a fan can expect to stamp her feet and automatically get her wish. To put it bluntly, when your worldwide viewership is in the hundreds of millions, if a few thousand storm off because their ship is not actualised, it really makes no difference. What really makes me sad is that I can’t see any way that this is not going to end horribly for some people. I don’t think Gatiss and Moffat realise that - whatever it may have been to begin with - the fanbase now, or at least the ultra-ardent TJLC part of the fanbase, contains a number of young people who identify as LGBTQIA. For these young people - again predominantly women but also with a number of trans, non-binary and gender queer members - they feel their sexuality, their gender and indeed their whole identity has been helped and in some cases shaped by ‘Sherlock’: specifically by their conviction that Johnlock will be realised in the show. Watching the youtube video TJLCExplained Episode 25 “Why it matters” gives a glimpse into the passion and the desperate certainty these people have. It grieves me to see these bright, passionate, articulate and intelligent young people ploughing their energies into this conspiracy. They’re politically aware: educated in and fired up by gender politics and sexual awareness. So why waste all that energy and passion on two white, middle-class, middle-aged fictional men who - if the conspiracy is correct - are so far into the closet they have been unable to express their true feelings emotionally or sexually for many years to the one person they have shared a home with in all that time? I wish Gatiss and Moffat could see these inspired yet vulnerable people. I wonder what they would think. Would they be gratified that their show has had such a profound and positive effect on their fans? Or would they be sad or bewildered that these young people’s convictions have foundations built on sand? I’m not sure how or when it will end. Of the TJLCers who were fully signed up theorists before last week’s interview dropped, I have observed a couple of reactions. A few of them seem to have now been convinced that it isn’t going to happen and have already expressed disappointment and anger that they were duped or queerbaited. Presumably if they do feel so betrayed, this marks the end of their relationship with the show. However, most of the fan responses I have seen on tumblr have assimilated the new data as ‘yet more lies’ and rejected it, along with anything else that does not fit the conspiracy, whilst at the same time reserving some anger at the way Moffat and Gatiss spoke in order to protect their great ‘lie’. So what happens in five months’ time when Series 4 airs and - as I fully expect - Johnlock doesn’t happen? Will there be an explosion of rage and bitterness which will make last week’s little flare-up look minor in comparison? Or will the conspiracy continue on the basis that Series 5 is the ultimate destination? Or the special after that? Or the one after that? Until sufficient time elapses and everyone moves on? Only time will tell. It just makes me sad that fandom - which should be a positive, happy place - and which, when everything works, means friendships are made and creativity flourishes - can and has become such a toxic environment for both fans and creators. I’m sorry this has been so long and I apologise if I have offended anyone with either what I said or the way I said it. I guess I wanted to lay out my position - to clarify it in my own mind if nothing else!  

[nerdgirlriot]

All the whelms

I’m unpacking and finishing up the last of the laundry from the trip, and I wish to chronicle a bit of my adventures from the past week.

Disneyland was as it always was, a bit of a homecoming. Lots of construction made navigation of the park more difficult than years past, but serviceable. I know which things I wanted to experience and I managed to do all the things. California Adventure had great people-watching, as they were in the middle of Lunar New Year celebrations and the park seemed filled with Chinese tour groups on vacation for the biggest holiday of the year. It felt bizarre, sitting on one of the benches in front of the pier, listening to Chinese music (both traditional and pop) and seeing how...global this whole thing was. Capitalism strikes again, but it was so interesting. Go figure.

I had planned our Disney trip for Monday/Tuesday, as weekdays were supposed to be less crowded. Little did I know that the kids had the day off from school on Monday, so the parks were more crowded than usual. We tried to get on the Indiana Jones ride, got to the stairs right before loading, and then had to leave the ride. Indy’s always prone to breaking down, but with the influx of guests, the breakdowns were much more prevalent. After we left, it started to rain(???!!!) so we left Disneyland and walked the 2 blocks to our hotel room.

Gally is always like a homecoming as well. After helping with setting up the drapes in the main hall for the past few years, Jeff & I have gotten to know a bunch of the folks who actually make the con happen for the past 20+ years. It was great to catch up with them in a venue that wasn’t just Facebook. But the con itself was filled with ups and downs, and, privy as I am to the inner workings of said con, it was like the old saw about a swan in water, serene above the surface, but paddling furiously below. That the con *seems* smoothly run is testament to the hard work of all the folks who run it, FOR FREE, FOR THE LOVE OF DOCTOR WHO AND THE FANDOM SURROUNDING IT.

Anyway, this year I didn’t want to tax myself with trying to see too many things. Sat in a group of panels from Friday and Saturday. The Camille Courduri/Jemma Redgrave This or That was a particular favorite of mine. Rapid fire Q&A, and when Camille was asked her fave version of the Sonic Screwdriver, to which she replied “The one I keep in a drawer next to my bed,” which killed most of the audience, including me. Camille scolded all of us for having dirty minds. “Smutty Gally!” 

Also, Jemma Redgrave’s laugh is a gift to the world.

Then there was the Steven Moffat one-on-one where I think he was ready to defend himself from haters. Not 2 hours before the panel, I was in the dealers’ room and spotted a cosplayer dressed like Moffat with a sign on the back reading “I’m Steven Moffat. Kick me.” I don’t condone violence against anyone, not even TV showrunners. So that was...bizarre. 

Say what you will about his run, I did appreciate Moffat’s absolute candor during his panel. It was candid and raw and I think he did a decent job of defending himself against accusations of “all your female characters are the same” and misogyny. To which, he stated (this is not an exact quote, I think, but I hope I got the gist) “Misogyny is a genuine tool for evil in this world and you voted it into the White House.” There are valid points to criticism of his writing (hell, I didn’t like everything he did either) but he defended himself well and accepted that he did make some mistakes. There was also a fan who brought up mischaracterization of the First Doctor (”make the tea”, “smacked bottom”, etc.) but Moffat pointed out that the Doctor was absolutely a product of his time, those lines came directly from the First Doctor serials, and the whole point of that scene was as a commentary,on how far the character has come since then. (I mean, even in The Five Doctors, One told Tegan to make some refreshments and she’s all like no fucking way and Fivey told her to “humor him.” What I’m saying is that it was already an awkward thing in the ‘80s and Fivey was already a little embarassed!)

From what I’d seen, Moffat spent loads of time hanging out at the hotel bar and speaking with fans the entire weekend. He absolutely wanted to interact, and I’m hoping he had a decent experience.

Sunday was a mixed bag for me. Lack of sleep finally caught up with me and I woke with the worst migraine I’d had in perhaps a few decades. Took my meds and decided to take it easy for the rest of the day. No panels, just a final sweep through the dealers’ room, and mostly just hanging out in my hotel room sitting on the balcony and peoplewatching. I was in a strange headspace by Sunday afternoon. I’d cried in the shower. I still don’t really know why. Probably a mix of fatigue and sadness that my week away was nearly over. So i missed the Gallifrey Waits No More, which was, by all accounts I’d read afterwards, an incredible and neccessary panel on the Me Too movement as it pertained to many of this year’s female guests. I hope that more cons are brave enough to do this, and that the momentum for this never stops. 

I’m back home now, nursing post-con blues, while Jeff, I think, has caught a terrible version of con crud. Next Gally will be incredible. 

[bardqueenofgallifrey]

I didn't have a tumblr account in 2013, so I have no idea how the fuck a 53-year-old Sci fi show became part of something as cringe as "superwholock". I mean, I watch Sherlock but damn this match makes no sense. Could you explain to me how it happened please???

Honestly? I don’t know exactly.

I was never really a part of SuperWhoLock, and I don’t think I was on here for the origins either, but whenever it was that I did get on here, I was just a passionate Whovian who also watched and liked Sherlock (these days I’m pretty indifferent about Sherlock one way or another, and give as few shits about Supernatural as I ever did).  

BUT, I’m gonna see if I can try and work out/theorise how SuperWhoLock rose and fell, if only to try and make the point that Doctor Who never deserved to be lumped in with it. Feel free to challenge any points I make, because I’m guessing here. 

although, frankly, this idea of cringe culture is kinda snobby and gross. let people like shit, damn, if they’re not hurting anyone or trying to say Supernatural is the best show ever, who gives a fuck, honestly

Firstly, the thing about Doctor Who is that it has been around for literal multiple decades. Almost fifty four years. It has been around since before some of our parents were born. 

Doctor Who fans were around long before the internet was invented. They were here before, and will be here long after everyone has forgotten what the hell Supernatural ever was. Doctor Who fans are now the ones making Doctor Who. They were the ones who, when it got cancelled, created an entire thriving Audio Drama business through the love of it that still existed everywhere, and they are the ones who brought it back and now create it. They’ve never let it die. 

You know why? Why Doctor Who’s endured, and is so passionately loved by so many, and before all this mess wasn’t any more cringy than being into Star Trek? Because it’s good. 

It is a flawed show, of course (always, somehow, in some way, in ways that vary across different eras), but one that is good in a reckless, nonsensical, optimistic way. No matter the ups and downs of its objective quality, it’s never really lost its heart. 

It is a show with a protagonist that uses words/intelligence/compassion over violence to fight, a show that focuses on telling hopeful adventures that can be watched by children and also inform them of some of the harsher aspects of the world in an interesting way.

Also, it’s always been quite progressive. It had the first female drama producer at the BBC, and a gay Indian director. No one wanted it to succeed and it’s a miracle the show ever got off the ground. 

People like to talk about the “screaming Classic companions” but you know what? Fuck that. The Classic ladies were all wonderful, including the biggest screamers. Susan? The Doctor’s granddaughter, genius, with telepathic abilities and a whole lot of heart. Mel? Computer programmer aka fucking smarty pants, who once flipped the Doctor over her shoulder, and was such a genuinely nice person that it was genuinely impressive. Zoe? Adorable 60′s companion who canonically had a higher IQ than the Doctor. 

Doctor Who ladies have been awesome since the beginning, and calling out misogyny from the beginning. 

(It ALSO had errors of its time, especially an Orientalism issue that is pervasive through a lot of older sci-fi, that can’t and shouldn’t be forgotten either. But that’s for the most part irrelevant to this discussion other than the general whiteness which is still obviously a problem albeit one the show is slowly working on.)

The reboot then brought in (some, not enough) queer characters and main characters of colour, etc, and its general diversity has only been getting better and better on that front for the most part, especially in the last couple of years. 

But anyway, how the hell did it get mixed up with the whole SuperWhoLock mess? 

Well, the reboot brought in a whole new generation of fans, and only got bigger and bigger and bigger, and was peaking RIGHT about when Sherlock aired. 

The Doctor Who and Sherlock crossover is easy enough to work out; they had the same headwriter(s), and they’re both about neurodivergent (coded??) genius white guys that theoretically have a kind of unconventional attractiveness to them. You can see how they drew in the same crowd. 

Now, how the hell Supernatural became a part of that, I’ve no idea. I’ve never been a Supernatural fan (even if I did watch the first four and a half seasons once, more or less enjoy them, but also not find them massively interesting). 

But I’m going to assume it’s because it again involved white guys with Big Emotions, that the fans could thirst over, who were undertaking some larger than life shit. 

My theory is that it, at least partly, was the White Male Slash Fandom. 

You know. That group of mostly straight girls who treat shipping conventionally attractive white men like a fetish and a kink to explore, who will ship basically any two CAWM under the sun if they so much as look at each other. I imagine the Johnlock crowd overlapped with the Destiel and Wincest crowd, and Doctor Who, since it had Ten/Simm!Master (and Eleven/Rory to a lesser extent) as well as some nice hetero ships, kind of got dragged along because almost everyone in the Sherlock fandom was probably in the Doctor Who fandom too. 

You can kind of see how it fits. The Supernatural gang and the Team TARDIS are big damn heroes with a lot of heart, while Sherlock fulfilled the ideal levels of pretentiousness that we all go through in our teenage years. 

Of course, then everyone realised that Supernatural kinda sucks because it’s an incredibly white, incredibly male, incredibly STRAIGHT show that just queerbaits its audience and doesn’t know when to call it quits, and so everyone started jumping ship. 

Then everyone looked at Sherlock, either went “this has its issues but it’s still fun”, “this is QUEERBAITING TOO, WHY WONT JOHNLOCK KISS, FUCK MOFFISS”, or “this is also incredibly white, incredibly male, and incredibly straight, so fuck this also”, and that was it for Sherlock and general opinion too. 

(For the record: Johnlock was not queerbait. Johnlock was an expression of Steven Moffat’s own very intimate, but platonic, friendship with Mark Gatiss, and they explicitly told everyone they were not gonna make it gay. And then the toxic ass fandom, deluded out their minds, started sending Gatiss - an actual gay man - abuse about being “an honorary straight” for not making their fetishised fictional relationship canon, at one point literally the day after the Pulse massacre. Seriously. What the fuck. Never speak about it being queerbaiting ever again and leave Mark Gatiss the fuck alone.) 

Now. Doctor Who had meanwhile been dealing with the changeover of the showrunner. 

Series 5 went down pretty well for the most part, but a lot of people had their issues with Series 6 and Series 7. The fandom had kind of gotten too big, for a show this unconventional. To the point of a lot of people not being able to deal with the distinct change from the style of Russell T Davies, because they weren’t really aware of how the show needs to reinvent itself constantly even on a stylistic level. Because they were treating the show like any other show, when one can’t really do that. 

It was all kind of a mess of:

very mixed fan reception on Series 6

Series 7 being on the weaker side (not as weak as some people who missed the whole point of Clara’s storyline make it out to be, but weak nonetheless, though Moffat has admitted to this and explained it was because he was under so much pressure about the looming 50th anniversary, and like, fuck, fair enough)

people being pissed at Moffat for Sherlock shit

Russell T Davies having done quite a few things in his era that are questionable from a wider Doctor Who standpoint, which Moffat as the Ultimate Who Fan didn’t go along with, only to then receive hate from people who were convinced that if RTD did something it must be right, because they haven’t seen Classic Who or apparently bothered to do a couple of google searches to educate themselves

plus, a few of Moffat’s quotes around 2012ish got taken out of context because he’s a sarcastic little shit who runs his mouth

and so people got the idea that Moffat’s a narcissistic misogynist who “loves white men”

also people confused “plot hole” with “is going to be explained later” and complained about him having plot holes in series 5-7 when really it’s just that he was waiting to tie up all the loose ends in Matt Smith’s finale episode

Anyway, thus began the popular - to this day! - sentiment of thinking that Moffat is one of the worst things to happen to television, or at least Doctor Who (and Sherlock Holmes). 

And so, that was the “downfall” of Doctor Who and SuperWhoLock, so to speak, as all three shows were written off by the wider Tumblr/nerd community as being incredibly cringy. 

Now, to examine it from today’s view, in light of recent series/opinion about the series/the female Doctor reveal. 

The problem is, the general attitude about Moffat - who don’t get me wrong, is far from a flawless writer, or person - has literally reached the point of mass delusion. It’s very clear that literally thousands of people have a completely fictionalised version of him in their heads. 

How do I know this? I saw someone say that a female Doctor was a “defiance of everything the Moffat era stood for”. 

As in, the same Moffat era that, in the last three seasons:

explicitly made the genderfluidity of Time Lords canon (Dark Water/Death In Heaven, World Enough And Time)

changed the Master into a woman (Dark Water)

had the now female Master refer to becoming a woman as an “upgrade” (The Witch’s Familiar)

had a companion’s whole storyline be about “becoming the Doctor” in her own right, with her getting a whole episode of her pretending to be the Doctor, and her flying off in her own TARDIS with a companion of her own in the end of her final episode! (Flatline, Hell Bent)

had ANOTHER companion’s storyline end with her immortal space girlfriend at the console of the TARDIS, offering for her to travel through all of time and space with her in a direct parallel to the Nine/Rose offer from the first episode to the reboot (The Doctor Falls, Rose)

had a Time Lord regenerate from a white guy to a black lady onscreen just to FINALLY shut up people who said race/gender changes couldn’t happen (Hell Bent)

had the Doctor positively reacting to the suggestion that he could be  - or had been - a woman, multiple times (Death In Heaven, World Enough And Time, The Doctor Falls)

Moffat’s era has been statistically proven to have shifted public opinion in favour of a female Doctor (ask @scriptscribbles, if you want proof), thanks to the above. 

Simm!Master: “She? Is the future going to be all girl?” 

Twelve: “We can only hope.” 

Also, Moffat wrote Lumley!Doctor in The Curse of Fatal Death in 1999. He’s been pushing for a female Doctor for 18 damn years. 

So, the idea that anyone thinks he’s against it, as opposed to having explicitly worked to help make it happen for years, shows that the general opinion of him is literally a mass fictionalisation/delusion. 

(It’s just one example, but there are hundreds of others, like how everyone seems to think he thinks of himself as The Greatest Ever and having a huge ego, when he’s literally one of the most self-deprecating people ever, if you watch him in an interview. He’s openly admitted to mistakes he’s made on his time on the show, such as the way he handled the scene at the end of Flesh and Stone, and how Series 7 wasn’t his best because of the pressure he was under about the upcoming 50th anniversary; he is aware of his fallibility.) 

He’s not a perfect person, or writer, and no one knows that better than him. There’s a lot of critical discussions we could have about his writing, and there are a fair few actual problems with it, just as there are in the RTD era, and every damn era of Who that has existed. I’m not saying everybody has to like it, because every era of Doctor Who is down to personal preference, and that’s fine. There are plenty of rational, well-informed people, fans and otherwise, who have their -often sound - reasons for not liking Moffat and/or his era of Who in general. I am friends with some of them. 

But those rational, well-informed people are like, 5% of the people who otherwise make up a sea of loud, ignorant delusion that condemns Doctor Who under Moffat’s direction and downright refuses to acknowledge some of the amazing stuff it’s done in the last few years. 

(Like, Series 10 featured a black lesbian co-lead who got a happy ending, leaving the Moffat era finishing strong on six canonically sapphic women, four of whom are still alive, none of whom died pointlessly or without agency, and three of whom are immortal or close enough, in a time when all other TV sapphics are dropping dead like flies. It also had the Doctor punch a racist in the face and comment on how history is whitewashed, and had an episode slamming capitalism. Plus, the finale canonised that Time Lords don’t view gender the same way, reinforcing canon genderfluid Time Lords.)  

Between his second and third seasons of DW being divisive and/or a bit weak, all the Sherlock shit going down, and the fall of Supernatural, and the issue of people taking RTD Who as the baseline for everything Doctor Who when they really shouldn’t have, anti-Moffat sentiments got so big that masses of people fell off the show, and continue to refuse to acknowledge that he might have done anything worthwhile with it since they left. That he might, as a person, have developed and improved. 

And so, that is potentially how Doctor Who got lumped in with SuperWhoLock, labelled “not progressive”, and considered “cringy” to this day. 

Or at least, that’s my theory, as someone who wasn’t really paying a lot of attention, but knows her Doctor Who. 

[the-desolated-quill]

Let’s Kill Hitler - Doctor Who blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

Oh Christ, do I have to talk about this piece of shit?

I’ve made it no secret how much I despise Steven Moffat’s writing. His convoluted series arcs, his painfully obvious plot twists, his smarmy ‘too kool for skool’ dialogue that’s often dripping in pretentious bullshit, his one dimensional ‘quirky’ characters and his casual sexism. Even the few good stories he’s written have at least some of these problems. Let’s Kill Hitler is definitely one of the worst stories he’s ever written. Every problem I listed, Let’s Kill Hitler contains in excess. I HATE this episode with a passion. I usually watch these episodes twice before writing a review in order to properly analyse every detail. and that can be excruciating when it comes to other bad episodes. With Let’s Kill Hitler, it felt like my own personal torture. Halfway through my second viewing, I was about ready to jump through the TV screen and start throttling the characters to death.

After some bullshit involving crop circles and establishing that, after all this time looking for Melody Pond, the Doctor has achieved fuck all, we’re introduced to Mels.

Yes. Mels.

Well gee. Could she be Melody Pond? Nah! That would be ridiculous! Mels has a darker skin tone than Melody. It’s not as if she’s a Time Lord that could regenerate or anything... OH WAIT!

Oh God. Where do I start with Mels? What a smug, grating, unlikeable piece of work this is (also she’s the first woman of colour to appear in Leadworth and she’s a criminal. Lovely). I was about to say I can’t see how Amy could possibly stand to be around someone like Mels, let alone name her child after her, but then I remembered this is Amy we’re talking about here. She’s just as big of a bitch as Mels is. Just look at the way she treats Rory as they grew up. At this point I’m convinced Rory isn’t so much in love with Amy as he is feeling the effects of Stockholm Syndrome. So no. I have no problem buying Amy and Mels would be friends. They’re both utter bitches. I’m sure they got on like a house on fire.

You know, considering what close friends Mels and Amy supposedly were and how incredibly influential she apparently was in Amy’s life, it’s strange that this is the first time we’ve ever heard of her, which suggests that Moffat just pulled Mels out of the darkest depths of his arse in order to facilitate his shit plot. And as shit plots go, this is very shit. Worthlessly, pathetically, incontinently shit. Moffat has written some bad stories before, but this one simply takes the cake. NOTHING makes any sense whatsoever.

The Doctor and co crash-land in Berlin 1938 where they encounter the Teselecta. A robot controlled by miniaturised people who travel in time punishing historical criminals. Like with the Headless Monks in A Good Man Goes To War, the Teselecta isn’t an inherently bad idea. It could be potentially interesting. The problem is it barely gets a look in due to Moffat’s bullshit series arc. The story is really about Mels/River. The Teselecta, Hitler and Berlin are really little more than just a backdrop. This could have been set on a space station or in a Nandos and it would have been the same.

So Mels regenerates into River Song, at which point she’s labelled by the people in the Teselecta as ‘the woman who kills the Doctor’ and ‘the worst war criminal in history.’ Yes. River, who killed one man, is a worse criminal than Hitler, who facilitated the deaths of millions of people. Fuck you Moffat.

Okay there’s a lot to unpack here. I apologise if this review is coming across as a bit sloppy and all over the shop, but there’s just so many problems with Let’s Kill Hitler that its hard to know where to start.

Let’s start with the whole Time Lord thing. River can regenerate because she was conceived in the TARDIS. Well that’s bollocks. It’s like The Big Bang all over again. If a TARDIS can destroy the space/time continuum if it were to explode and can infect foetuses, why on Earth would the Time Lords have ever let one off the assembly line? The most popular excuse Moffat fans like to use is that the TARDIS is faulty. Um... yeah, because of its chameleon circuit. Not because it’s a radioactive deathtrap.

Also why would the Silence need to create a Time Lord to kill the Doctor? Think back to The Impossible Astronaut. The Doctor died from two gunshots. The first to start the regeneration process and the second to finish him off. You don’t need a Time Lord for that. Any old fucker with a gun would do.

Which brings me to the Silence’s motivations. So they take Amy’s kid and brainwash her into becoming an assassin (not a psychopath Moffat. Would it kill you to use Wikipedia?) by telling her all the crimes and evils in the universe the Doctor didn’t solve, thus proving what a bad man he really is.

I’m sorry, but even the village idiot could spot the flaws in that logic. The Doctor isn’t a God. He can’t be everywhere at once. And if he reversed every bad thing that ever happened in history, the space/time continuum would probably have more holes in it than a colander. Also, why is the Doctor the only sole person responsible for this? What about the fucking Teselecta? What about the Time Agency? What about your DIY TARDISes? The Doctor doesn’t hold a monopoly on time travel. If you want to fix history, why not do it yourself?

And then we get another bullshit mystery in the form of the Question. The first question ever to be asked. Hidden in plain sight...

......

NAH! Come on! Even by Moffat’s standards, that’s just too stupid.

Before I dive deeper into this cesspool of convoluted nonsense surrounding River Song, I suppose I should point out I’ve got nothing against Alex Kingston. I think she’s a great actor and has done some good stuff over the years. It’s not her fault that she’s been lumbered with such a shit character.

River is at her most annoying here. The smarmy, post regeneration dialogue is utterly cringeworthy and there’s just a sprinkling of casual misogyny thrown in for good measure, such as Mels saying she’s concentrating on a dress size just when she’s about to regenerate and River exclaiming she needs to weigh herself. And that’s not the worst of it. Everything River says has a flirtatious or sexual undertone to it, to the point where it becomes nauseating, there’s yet another scene where the Doctor has to ask Rory’s permission to hug Amy as though she’s an object rather than a person, the Captain of the Teselecta at one point makes a comment about the size of a female colleague’s arse, and then there’s this unforgivable line from the Doctor when Amy asks about River’s flip-flopping goals and motivations:

“She's been brainwashed, it makes sense to her. Plus, she is a woman.”

Moffat, seriously, go and fuck yourself! This isn’t remotely charming or funny. It’s just sexist as shit.

Matt Smith gets lumbered with shit too sadly. The Doctor gets poisoned by River’s lipstick (again, why do the Silence need a Time Lord for that? This makes no sodding sense), at which point he spends the majority of the episode flailing about on the floor like a prat. Not only is this horrible to watch due to Matt Smith’s god awful panto acting, there’s also no tension because we know he doesn’t die here. The death at the lake is a fixed point in time. He HAS to die there. So all this poison stuff just feels like a massive waste of time. In fact not even the fixed point in time stuff makes sense. If the Doctor’s death is a fixed point, why are the Silence bothering to kill him now with poison lipstick? And how do you create a fixed point in the first place? Who determines what’s fixed and what isn’t? I’ve always found the concept of a fixed point in time to have a slight whiff of bullshit about it, but this is just a whole compost heap of bullshit.

And how does the Doctor get out of this one? River gives up her remaining regenerations to bring him back to life. Because apparently she’s fallen in love with him.

Yeah! This isn’t a slow, gradual thing. She just suddenly changes her mind. She’s just sporadically in love with him now. Moffat doesn’t do anything to properly justify this change of heart, unless he's suggesting that the Doctor still caring for his companions on his deathbed was enough to make River’s heart flutter, which it isn’t. Maybe Mels had a crush on the Doctor growing up, but that’s bullshit too. Imagine if Mels was brainwashed to kill Hitler. All her life she’s been fed all the reasons why Hitler is evil and deserves to die. Would it be likely that she would fall in love with Hitler? Of course not! It’s the same principle with the Doctor. if she’s been brainwashed to kill him, it’s unlikely she would have any positive feelings for him whatsoever. So I’m not buying any of this.

But the biggest problem of all is the lack of characterisation and empathy. River Song isn’t a character. She’s a plot device. We never fully explore how she feels about the Doctor and she’s never written consistently. Her thoughts and motivations change depending on what the plot requires. River needs to save the Doctor now, so she just does. And in Moffat’s rush to connect all the dots in his bullshit series arc, he forgets quite possibly the most important characters in this story:

YEAH! Amy and Rory! You know? RIVER SONG’S PARENTS!

Over the course of this two parter, Amy and Rory discover a secret pregnancy, have the baby, lose the baby, realise the baby is both River Song and their best friend Mels due to convoluted time travel stuff, learn that their daughter is the one that kills the Doctor and they ultimately lose out on parenting their own child. That’s some pretty heavy stuff. Pity none of this is ever explored. In fact the one time this is touched upon, Moffat actually plays it up for laughs. What the fuck is wrong with you, you incompetent prick?

And then, just to rub salt into the wound, there’s this really weird line where Mels says it all worked out in the end because Amy and Rory got to raise her during the course of their childhoods, which is just prime Moffat idiocy right there. There’s this huge emotional tragedy taking place here, but Moffat appears to be the only one who hasn’t noticed. His attention is in all the wrong places, focusing on the mechanics of his convoluted arc rather than exploring what the characters are thinking and feeling. I suppose you could argue that exploring these kinds of themes might be too heavy for a family show, but if that’s the case, why is Moffat introducing the topic in the first place?

Like I said at the beginning, I’ve never liked Steven Moffat’s writing very much, but Let’s Kill Hitler was the point where I went from not liking Moffat to hating Moffat. This is easily one of the worst episodes he’s ever written and indeed one of the worst episodes in all of Doctor Who. Whereas A Good Man Goes To War was annoyingly stupid, Let’s Kill Hitler was insultingly stupid. It’s ill conceived, poorly written, utterly misogynistic and completely tone deaf. Fuck this episode and fuck you Moffat.

[whovianfeminism]

Now More Than Ever, It’s Time For A Doctor Who Isn’t a White Man

Peter Capaldi has decided that Series 10 will be his last Series as the Twelfth Doctor. He wasn’t the first Doctor I ever watched, but he’ll always be my Doctor. And I will be truly sad to see him leave.

But if there’s just one thing that Doctor Who teaches us, it’s that while endings are sad, they’re also opportunities for new beginnings. And this is one opportunity that Doctor Who and the BBC can’t squander.

Now more than ever, it’s time for a Doctor who isn’t a white man. The show needs the change, the fans need the representation, and the world needs a new hero who can lead us through the difficult years to come.

This change has been a long time coming. The idea of casting a woman as the Doctor has been bandied around ever since the Fourth Doctor, Tom Baker, announced he was leaving the show. And, giving credit where it’s due, Steven Moffat has done a lot these past few years to lay the groundwork within the show for a woman or person of color to play the Doctor. The Master, a fellow Time Lord who had solely been played by men, returned in Series 8 played by the brilliant and utterly bananas Michelle Gomez. In the Series 9 finale episode “Hell Bent,” a white male Time Lord regenerated on-screen into a black woman. Even the most stubborn detractor can’t argue that the Doctor couldn’t do the same one day.

And, quite frankly, it’s always been absurd that an alien being capable of changing every cell in their body when they’re dying has always come back as a white man. At best it’s an example of institutional inertia — at worst, it’s an example of a collective lack of imagination.

But now that Peter Capaldi has given us an end date for the Twelfth Doctor, the debate has flared up again about whether or not the Thirteenth Doctor should be played by someone other than a white man. The same old arguments against a woman or person of color portraying the Doctor are trotted out every time it’s time to cast a new actor. And while they were always a bit thin, they’re weaker than they’ve ever been.

Supposedly well-meaning observers always like to come in and say that hardcore fans simply won’t accept a woman portraying the Doctor. This attitude does both the show and our fandom a disservice. While there is always a smattering of assholes to prove this type of attitude does exist, they aren’t even close to a majority. And even if it were true, we should not let the direction of the show be dictated by the worst of its fans. If a misogynistic jerk who disparagingly refers to a woman Doctor as “The Nurse” says he’ll quit watching the show, he’s exactly the type of fan we should be proud to piss off. I promise, plenty of new fans (especially ones with disposable income!) are waiting in the wings to take his place.

And that’s another important argument to counter too — that choosing a woman or a person of color to play the Doctor would be too risky for ratings and merchandising. Kyle Anderson outlines this argument at Nerdist. Although he personally doesn’t agree, he argues that the BBC might be convinced that picking another young white male to play the Doctor would be a safer bet. It’s a comforting trap to fall into. Change is inherently risky, and casting young white men to play the Doctor is familiar, proven territory.

The problem is that repeating something that worked in the past doesn’t necessarily guarantee future success. Eventually it just becomes expected, stale, and dull. There’s no guarantee that Ben Whishaw or Rupert Grint or whatever new guy the bookies have their money on this week will be a breakout hit for the show. Furthermore, there’s plenty of evidence showing that audiences are hungry for women and people of color protagonists. It’s not a perfect analogy, but consider the Star Wars movies. After being headlined by young white men for decades, women and men of color made “Rogue One” and “The Force Awakens” the two highest grossing Star Wars movies ever.

Curiously, some people argue that making the Doctor a woman or a person of color would simply be “tokenism.” Obviously, it’s anything but tokenism. The Doctor is the central character of the show, and a pop culture icon. This isn’t some small bit part with only five lines. Having a woman or person of color portray the Doctor would absolutely not be an insignificant gesture. If you see this argument, dismiss it for the red herring that it is. It completely mangles the definition of tokenism so that every advancement for representation can be shot down and dismissed as a cynical ploy.

Finally, there are some who argue that the Doctor shouldn’t be portrayed by a woman because the character is a unique type of male role model for boys. They argue that he portrays a better type of masculinity for boys to emulate — one that relies on wits over brute strength, emphasizes compassion, and isn’t afraid to show emotions. I’m a little more sympathetic to these arguments. However, I think they’re wrong for several reasons. First, the Doctor is far from the only male character to present this type of masculinity. Second, the Doctor is not always a good man. The Time Lord Victorious arc and the Series 9 finale were basically about exploring the Doctor’s occasional tendencies towards toxic masculinity.

Furthermore, making one of the Doctor’s regenerations a woman will not erase the men who came before her. William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann, John Hurt, Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, Matt Smith, and Peter Capaldi will all have been the Doctor and will still be the Doctor. Young boys will still be able to watch their performances and still be able to relate to their Doctors no matter who is currently flying the TARDIS. They won’t be losing a role model.

But young girls could gain one.

And that’s really what this argument boils down to: representation. Our pop culture is overwhelmed with white male heroes. We need to give every child a hero that looks like them.

Bringing in a woman or person of color to play the Doctor would give us a chance to see that anyone could be the cleverest, wisest, and occasionally most infuriating person in the room. It would give the show an opportunity to tell new stories from new perspectives. And it would be an opportunity to show that anyone can be the hero who fights villains and protects the people they love.

It might be tempting to look at everything happening around us and argue that who’s cast as the Thirteenth Doctor doesn’t matter, but it matters more than it ever has before. We are living in exceptional, and occasionally frightening times. We are seeing bigotry, xenophobia, and misogyny gain new strength. Cybermen and Daleks seem rather tame compared to the villains we face.

The exceptional times we are living in require not just a hero who can tell us that everything will be all right — they require a hero who drives us to be better people who can make the world all right again. It’s not enough for the companion to get a snappy one-liner when faced with sexism or bigotry. We need to see more women as the rebellious heroes who fight these forces. It’s not enough to give us alien allegories about discrimination and bigotry. We need to see more people of color as our revolutionary heroes who fight for justice.

So lets give a woman or a person of color a chance. Let’s give Olivia Coleman, Sophie Okonedo, Zawe Ashton, Hayley Atwell, Alfred Enoch, Riz Ahmed, or Idris Elba a shot at flying the TARDIS. Let’s make it clear, once and for all, that this show really is bigger on the inside.

[theleftpill]

1/2 One thing keeps bugging me though and I would really like to hear what people think. I've loved Sherlock's and Molly's dynamic since TRF and I think that for some time she's had a deep appeal for him although he didn't really understand it. Although it was being further explored since TEH I never expected them to become a couple because it's not that kind of show. That is why I was a bit taken aback by the inclusion of the ILY scene and the way it was played. Anyway, the sheer intensity of

Hello anon!  Thanks for your ask - can I just say that I love my anons??? Seriously.  Y’all send me the best thoughts and questions and really get me thinking about the show which I am absolutely here for.

OK tl;dr

1. ILY is almost entirely about Sherlock; its purpose & reason in the story is Sherlock’s progression and growth, and any romance really is secondary.  

2. Even though ILY is really Sherlock’s Big Moment, people want to know all about Molly because she’s a great character and we just didn’t get enough of her.

You’ve got two different topics going on here:

First is Sherlock (first is always Sherlock), and the idea that I Love You was a more important scene for him than for Molly.  First let’s acknowledge that the show is about him so that’s going to be the focus always, and move on to more fun analysis.  

I think “I Love You” was definitely more powerful and destructive for him than it was for Molly.  Molly has been present and wrestling with these feelings for years.  Literally.  She has had time to process and consider and work things through.  She’s already done the work.  So while the moment was intensely difficult for her, she has a groundwork to support her.

Sherlock was hit like a freight train.  He started the game knowing how difficult this would be for her; I don’t think he had any idea what it was going to do to him.  You’re completely right that he didn’t understand what he feels for Molly. He has spent those same years denying, suppressing, not even being aware of his feelings for her.  Think of all the times she has confronted him, think about the looks on his face:

He is always surprised.  He is always surprised.  Sherlock is always surprised by her reactions to him, and how they make him feel.  He doesn’t know that those feelings are there, and it always throws him off.  He hasn’t processed who she is to him, and that’s Eurus’ game: to make him confront those feelings.  Molly is collateral damage to her - but not to Sherlock, as he’s realized for the first time.

Which is why we have the explosive scene with Sherlock destroying the coffin.  He’s just had a bandaid ripped off that he didn’t even know he had; he’s been manipulated, exposed, just had to devastate one of his dearest friends, and through all that came to a realization he was absolutely not ready for.  Shoot the wall, stab the files, karate chop the fridge: that coffin didn’t stand a chance.  All those years of suppression and passion finally let go.

The second issue you raise concerns the audience, and our connection to the character of Molly.  (I am at a disadvantage because I haven’t yet read many reviews [still want to absorb the eps on my own for a bit longer] so I haven’t read reviewer comments for myself, but I can go by fan reaction I’ve seen on tumblr.)  I think people are focusing on her because she’s become a well-loved character.  This was a huge moment for her.  I mean it’s clear that the game is all about Sherlock’s progression, and ILY is a showcase scene for him - it’s the climax to act 2, fer pete’s sake - but we have an emotional investment in Molly by this point of the show.  Everyone else in the game so far have just been pawns, disposable physically and narratively - but we want to know what happened to Molly.  Because she counts.  She’s a dynamic, complex, and entertaining character.  She has her own story being told that, while secondary to the narrative, connects very strongly with viewers.  Molly is the one missing from the narrative, and we want to know what happened.

And it’s pretty much agreed, that regardless of shipping or romance, Molly was sorely underused in S4.  I think it’s a testament to how important her character has become for the audience that people are left wondering how she reacted to the phone call, what her experience was, and how their relationship resolves, rather than “oh that poor sad woman well I guess that’s over ok what’s next?”

I mean it could be just “oh that sad poor women all the misogyny” but I don’t know not having read the reviews.  If you send some links I’ll repost with some thoughts.  

I can see your take on Moffat’s annoyance about the outcry about Molly, that he would have been frustrated about the audience missing the point of his big dramatic scene.  But it’s true that something as big as ILY needs a resolution between those two characters, and this is a point where they dropped the ball.  My own personal conspiracy is that S4 is two series mashed into one because they figure they won’t get to a S5 any time soon, so they crammed six episodes into three.  I firmly believe she figured much more heavily in the story originally, but was sacrificed for time.  It would be easy to say “oh they just don’t know what they have in Molly” but I think Mofftiss know exactly how important she is - I mean, they made her that way - but that’s where the TV stuff intrudes in these characters’ lives.  There just wasn’t enough time to tell her story.  (That’s our job.  ;)  )

I also don’t believe, and I think you’ll agree with me, that Molly is “wrecked” from ILY.  Besides the Happy Shot at the end, Molly has shown way more fortitude in her dealings with Sherlock, both emotional and Sherlockian, that I’m sure she had a good cry and a good rant and gave Sherlock a good piece of her mind when he got home, and I’m sure even without the Happy Shot that she’ll be fine.  It’s Sherlock that ended up a mess from ILY.  

I hope all this answers your query.  I’d also like to hear others’ viewpoints on this - it’s a great question.