The problem that I have with Moffat is ALL the alleged heroines who have shown up on Doctor Who during Moffat's tenure--ALL, without exception--have been focused on men.
After one abortive wedding in her intro, Donna gets the same fate twice--happiness with a man and two perfect children in virtual reality in the Library, and marriage to Shaun Temple after the Doctor wipes her memory. Amy gets Rory (who is, admittedly, THE BEST BOYFRIEND EVER) and a daughter so fantastic that the Doctor marries her. Abigail from the Christmas Carol episode loves the Scrooge character so much that she doesn't mind using up the few days of life that she has left to make him happy. Madge from this year's Christmas special gets to save an entire race purely because she's borne offspring, because apparently pregnancy and childbearing miraculously convey special physical and moral strength no one else can possibly possess. This is not unlike Nancy from "The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances," who not only mothers a flock of orphaned and abandoned children during the Blitz but who also manages to save the world from the gas mask zombies when she hugs her son Jamie and tells him, "I am your Mummy."
And River. Dear God, I am disappointed in River Song. She had so much potential at the beginning--a brave, funny, intelligent adventurous woman. And Moffat ruined her by making her entire life centered around the Doctor.
The Doctor is River's sole focus. She is completely defined in relation to him. She was created and trained as a weapon to kill him. She became an archaeologist, not to discover new things about peoples of the universe or to increase knowledge and understanding, but so that she could find the Doctor wherever he went. She has left messages for him throughout time and space. She will cheerfully jump out of a window in the certainty that the Doctor will be there.
Everything she does, she does because of him. The Doctor matters to River literally more than anything else in the multiverse.
Over and over again, the women are supposed to be standalone characters...and over and over, Moffat gives them the same reward: marriage and motherhood.
There's nothing wrong with either one. But if Moffat kept having every man who ever helped the Doctor become a firefighter, it would feel just as off. There's nothing wrong with being a firefighter, either. But--everyone shouldn't BE a firefighter.
Honestly, I've been getting this message from books and film and stage plays and TV shows since 1962: you're a girl, so marriage and motherhood are the summum bonum of your life. It's been almost fifty years. I'm tired of that message. I'm tired of being told by society and the media that I have to be defined by whether or not I have a man and whether or not I can convince him to marry and whether or not I can have children and how everlastingly tragic it will be if I don't marry and have children, even if I don't want to do either.
And you can't even genderflip the message to explain what's wrong, because society doesn't insist that men get married and sire children and do nothing else. You can't get across the impact of having this dinned in your ear through TV and songs and films and ads and comics and webshows and books and real life people, day after day, every day, from infancy on.
I think that Steven Moffat genuinely believes that he is a liberated man. I think that he'd probably say that he's praising women for what they are best at (being maternal and affectionate) and giving them what they want--husbands and children.
And honestly, I don't mind if women want to be wives and mothers. That's fine. Both involve a lot of work. I respect the people who do both.
But why do Moffat and the rest of the media keep insisting that marriage and motherhood are the only important dreams, the only VALID dreams for girls?
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2012-01-29 02:46 pm (UTC)After one abortive wedding in her intro, Donna gets the same fate twice--happiness with a man and two perfect children in virtual reality in the Library, and marriage to Shaun Temple after the Doctor wipes her memory. Amy gets Rory (who is, admittedly, THE BEST BOYFRIEND EVER) and a daughter so fantastic that the Doctor marries her. Abigail from the Christmas Carol episode loves the Scrooge character so much that she doesn't mind using up the few days of life that she has left to make him happy. Madge from this year's Christmas special gets to save an entire race purely because she's borne offspring, because apparently pregnancy and childbearing miraculously convey special physical and moral strength no one else can possibly possess. This is not unlike Nancy from "The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances," who not only mothers a flock of orphaned and abandoned children during the Blitz but who also manages to save the world from the gas mask zombies when she hugs her son Jamie and tells him, "I am your Mummy."
And River. Dear God, I am disappointed in River Song. She had so much potential at the beginning--a brave, funny, intelligent adventurous woman. And Moffat ruined her by making her entire life centered around the Doctor.
The Doctor is River's sole focus. She is completely defined in relation to him. She was created and trained as a weapon to kill him. She became an archaeologist, not to discover new things about peoples of the universe or to increase knowledge and understanding, but so that she could find the Doctor wherever he went. She has left messages for him throughout time and space. She will cheerfully jump out of a window in the certainty that the Doctor will be there.
Everything she does, she does because of him. The Doctor matters to River literally more than anything else in the multiverse.
Over and over again, the women are supposed to be standalone characters...and over and over, Moffat gives them the same reward: marriage and motherhood.
There's nothing wrong with either one. But if Moffat kept having every man who ever helped the Doctor become a firefighter, it would feel just as off. There's nothing wrong with being a firefighter, either. But--everyone shouldn't BE a firefighter.
Honestly, I've been getting this message from books and film and stage plays and TV shows since 1962: you're a girl, so marriage and motherhood are the summum bonum of your life. It's been almost fifty years. I'm tired of that message. I'm tired of being told by society and the media that I have to be defined by whether or not I have a man and whether or not I can convince him to marry and whether or not I can have children and how everlastingly tragic it will be if I don't marry and have children, even if I don't want to do either.
And you can't even genderflip the message to explain what's wrong, because society doesn't insist that men get married and sire children and do nothing else. You can't get across the impact of having this dinned in your ear through TV and songs and films and ads and comics and webshows and books and real life people, day after day, every day, from infancy on.
I think that Steven Moffat genuinely believes that he is a liberated man. I think that he'd probably say that he's praising women for what they are best at (being maternal and affectionate) and giving them what they want--husbands and children.
And honestly, I don't mind if women want to be wives and mothers. That's fine. Both involve a lot of work. I respect the people who do both.
But why do Moffat and the rest of the media keep insisting that marriage and motherhood are the only important dreams, the only VALID dreams for girls?