Once Again Late to the Party

[kgkofmel]

I am once again in the sad position of being the person in my circle who is lagging far behind in some major cultural product.

It's not really me on my own, but me in company, as the Motorcycle Boy is my partner in crime here again. Before this the most recent case was BSG.

This time it is Doctor Who. Not Doctor Who conceptually (my Whovian

Comments

[dagibbs]

Not, of course, that SFF doesn't have its share of misogyny. Sadly. Especially in, but not limited to, older stuff.

[kgkofmel]

True, but part of the reason I was first drawn to SFF was the broader range of roles and types of agency taken by female characters.

Doesn't mean I didn't run into some clunkers or revisit old favorites and discover they had wobbly underpinnings, but it was a whole lot better than other genres at the time.

I think as I get older I am becoming even less tolerant of fictional misogyny. It's one thing for me to look at John Brunner's Polymath in the early 1980s and go "combination of the time of writing and a systemic failure of vision" and another to look at something new in the 2000s and go "ah, f*k, no."

[dagibbs]

That does make sense, and modern stuff should, as you say, have a far more modern awareness of these things.

[jimtrash]

I think the episode you're talking about is the silly spider one.
Unfortunately it was a long time ago and I can't remember the misogyny.
What were those 6 words?

[kgkofmel]

Don't recall spiders, this is the alien invasion via blood magic based mind-control.

The six words are "Don't you think she looks tired?", which I gather is supposed to be a reference to commentary around the end of Thatcher's term in office, but the whole "six words" sequence grated on me because this is a phrase that is actually used to undermine women in roles of authority.

As I said, it is in some ways minor, but it put my back up and left a bitter, bitter taste for me.

[tanac]

That was the entire point, though. That it would take so little to topple her, just the right words in the right ear, and that he chose to do it. It's part of a larger character arc, for a character who is wonderfully complex (good and bad parts). He's not all good, despite generally trying to do good. He sometimes overreacts. Post time war, he is a damaged being, and part of his entire arc with rose and then Donna is learning how to stop being out for the kill all of the time.

Yes, it was horrible, but it wasn't accidentally horrible. You're supposed to hate it.

[kgkofmel]

Then it was successful. I hated it almost enough to consider stopping watching.

As to "it would take so little to topple her," that is why it leaves such a bitter, bitter taste for me: that it takes so little to topple a woman in authority, and that it can be presented as a humorous device. It was a throwaway, and so was a character I had actually enjoyed: Harriet Jones.

It also lessens my respect for Rose, that she stands by and does not even think to call him on it.

I agree that it wasn't accidentally horrible. I'm not sure that I believe that it was supposed to be something the viewers disapprove of.