Ten Little Chances to be Free (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tenlittlebullets) wrote2011-06-18 10:22 pm
tenlittlebullets) wrote2011-06-18 10:22 pm
Entry tags:
Martha fucking Jones.
Spent a lot of yesterday (a) reading Gödel, Escher, Bach which is, so far, an amazing, cheeky, geeky synthesis of everything I love about math, logic, theoretical computer science, language, physics, wordplay, mind-bending paradoxes, the nature of intelligence, etc. and (b) kicking around Tumblr, specifically the Martha Jones tag. And oh boy, did that ever make me want to write meta. And then I saw the vid/meta about manpain that's been making the rounds, and spent this afternoon rewatching scattered episodes of DW season 3. So here, have some meta.
There appear to be two camps of people who don't like Martha: the ones who hate her because she is not Rose, and the ones who feel she was undermined or made annoying by her crush on the Doctor. With significant overlap between the two groups.
Group #1 can fuck right the fuck off and take their ship wars and unsubtle racism with them. I arrived late to the fandom and thought all the stories of Martha hate were exaggerated, but dear God, some of the things I saw on Tumblr that have been posted within the past week... so much vitriol directed against her, and all of it with the strong flavor of how dare she. How dare she want--nay, demand--things she's not entitled to. Things like an iota of fucking respect, or to not be jerked around and given mixed signals by a sulky emotionally-unstable Time Lord. I thought I could sum up Group #1 with exactly five words, those words being "haters to the motherfucking left," but some of the stuff I saw on the Tumblr tag for Martha just gobsmacked me.
(NB: I have no problem with people who just have trouble digging Martha because she came right after Rose. I'm talking about the people who act like her very existence, to say nothing of her reluctance to let Ten treat her like crap, is an affront to their OTP. And while we're on the subject, Rose-hate makes me sad too. Especially classist Rose-hate--if you use the word "chav" anywhere near what you consider a valid reason to dislike her, well, thanks for letting me know how much your opinion is worth. Rose was the quintessence of an everywoman from a modest background who gets thrust into an extraordinary situation and shines there, and I honestly loved her in s1 and s2 no matter how often the writers tossed her the Idiot Ball. I just latched on much more strongly to Martha because she was the one who asked the questions I was shouting at the screen and refused to be the clueless Earth girl.)
Group #2... I can kind of see where they're coming from, because I too am slightly disappointed that the writers gave her an unrequited-love subplot. Here's the thing I don't get, though: how is Martha diminished by her crush on the Doctor? I'm really, honestly asking here. Was there a moment I missed where she got upset over it and it got in the way of what she was doing, or made her do something stupid, or distracted her, or made her sell herself short for his sake?
Because yes, she has a crush that she knows is a bad idea. And she deals with it. She deals with it like a responsible fucking adult who can't help the way she feels but sure as fuck can help what she does about it. Which not only makes her one up on Rose, who never quite seemed to grasp just how much normal Earth rules of romance do not apply when your boyfriend is a 900-year-old time-traveling alien, but also makes her several bazillion up on Ten, who is just a mess. And he's got a right to be a mess, but he doesn't have a right to take it out on Martha.
All I'm saying is that there seems to be just a tiny bit of a double standard here. How can it be that is Martha diminished by falling for the Doctor despite herself and refusing to do anything but indulge in an occasional wibble in private and snark him when he's treating her like crap--and yet Ten is somehow not diminished by moping over Rose to the point where he openly treats Martha like crap? I think the way I put it in my initial reaction to s3 was "Wow, one of these people is dealing really badly with their relationship woes, and it sure as hell isn't Martha."
I'm not going to jump to the obvious conclusion and say that the double standard is 100% sexism, because there are other issues at play here--this is after all Doctor Who and not The Martha Jones Show (although I would watch the hell out of that), so the audience is naturally a bit more invested in the Doctor's issues and inclined to be forgiving. And speaking of investment, his issues are mostly about Rose, who was an incredibly popular companion whose relationship to the Doctor was much more established than Martha's. So yeah, we are all a bit inclined to be on his side, and a bit leery of the new companion. But that goes nowhere near justifying fandom's tendency to make excuses for the worst of Ten's bullshit while judging Martha for what were, all in all, incredibly mature responses to a sucky situation.
So yeah, I think there is some buried sexism at play there as a contributing factor. Can you imagine if the genders were reversed? Not only would the Doctor be weak and petty and overemotional for moping over Rose, and a downright bitch for comparing Martha to Rose all the time, there would be massive wank wars over whether he led Martha on. The kiss. The "hey, want to be my completely platonic travel companion? My erratic behavior has nothing to do with my ex--er, former completely platonic travel companion." The "One trip... well, maybe one trip more... well..." This is clearly a man who breaks his stated boundaries all the time and jerks Martha around in the process, is it any wonder if she thinks she might have a chance with him? And yet I have seen people liveblogging Shakespeare Code and ripping into Martha for having the fucking audacity to be awkward about sharing a bed and not sure whether this means she's getting some tonight. Seriously? That would be awkward and ambiguous even if you weren't traveling with a hot geeky emotionally-unstable alien who keeps giving off mixed signals and moping about his ex.
And let's not even get into all the ways Ten treats Martha like crap and completely takes her for granted. This post is long enough and if I started making a list I'd be here all night. I love Ten, but his treatment of Martha was not exactly his finest hour.
One more consideration in the "Martha fucking Jones is not diminished by her crush on the Doctor" meta: the Tumblr tag for Martha is not solely full of hate and vitriol, and in fact has a lot of love and appreciation, and one person rightly pointed out: "This is the woman who walked away from David Tennant's tiemcock like it was nothing. Would you have been able to do that?" Ruminate on that question. Ruminate for a long time, if such is your fancy. I'll still be here after the cold shower.
All of this was kicking about in my head even before I saw this vid and accompanying meta on manpain, who is allowed to hurt and for what reasons, and whose pain matters. Goes at length into fridging, the White Man's Burden, and other things that are extremely relevant to Ten's interests (cough). And that's what it boils down to, isn't it? Martha is an uppity bitch (or, alternately, a snivelling affront to feminism) for daring to be hurt over the Doctor. The Doctor is not only allowed to be hurt over Rose, he's allowed to take it out on Martha, and God help her if she says anything. God help her, too, if she silently swallows her hurt for his sake. She does both at various points and gets attacked for it.
And speaking of pain and fridging-for-motivation and other such topics, this is one of the reasons I wish Last of the Time Lords hadn't sunk under the weight of its plot!fail and Tinkerbell Jesus ridiculousness. Not only would it have been easy to fix the worst of what's wrong with it (seriously, have the Master holding the Doctor in some sort of telepathic cage or weakening field, humanity shorts out the Archangel network, the psychic overload briefly superpowers him instead of weakening him, tone down the Jesus imagery, and bam, your episode no longer outright sucks) there was some really interesting hero/villain/damsel triangulation going on. Because as it begins you've got the Master as the villain, Martha as the hero, and the Doctor as the helpless captive--and what's more, Martha gets all the manpain. She gets to walk the earth stoically witnessing its suffering with only the thought of her remote, be-pedestalled love interest to keep her going. Not only that, when the Master ages the Doctor on live TV it's not really about the Doctor for once, it's about using his pain to hurt Martha. She is the true threat, the one he's really trying to get at.
Of course then you get Jesus!Doc and everything that is awful about that, but afterwards. Afterwards there is the glorious twistedness of the Master playing the villain and the love interest at the same time, and fridging himself so that he can die laughing at the Oncoming Manpain. That is some truly epic trolling right there.
So, um, in conclusion, Martha Jones is fucking awesome and not even the worst parts of the finale can keep season 3 from being my favoritest of favorites.
There appear to be two camps of people who don't like Martha: the ones who hate her because she is not Rose, and the ones who feel she was undermined or made annoying by her crush on the Doctor. With significant overlap between the two groups.
Group #1 can fuck right the fuck off and take their ship wars and unsubtle racism with them. I arrived late to the fandom and thought all the stories of Martha hate were exaggerated, but dear God, some of the things I saw on Tumblr that have been posted within the past week... so much vitriol directed against her, and all of it with the strong flavor of how dare she. How dare she want--nay, demand--things she's not entitled to. Things like an iota of fucking respect, or to not be jerked around and given mixed signals by a sulky emotionally-unstable Time Lord. I thought I could sum up Group #1 with exactly five words, those words being "haters to the motherfucking left," but some of the stuff I saw on the Tumblr tag for Martha just gobsmacked me.
(NB: I have no problem with people who just have trouble digging Martha because she came right after Rose. I'm talking about the people who act like her very existence, to say nothing of her reluctance to let Ten treat her like crap, is an affront to their OTP. And while we're on the subject, Rose-hate makes me sad too. Especially classist Rose-hate--if you use the word "chav" anywhere near what you consider a valid reason to dislike her, well, thanks for letting me know how much your opinion is worth. Rose was the quintessence of an everywoman from a modest background who gets thrust into an extraordinary situation and shines there, and I honestly loved her in s1 and s2 no matter how often the writers tossed her the Idiot Ball. I just latched on much more strongly to Martha because she was the one who asked the questions I was shouting at the screen and refused to be the clueless Earth girl.)
Group #2... I can kind of see where they're coming from, because I too am slightly disappointed that the writers gave her an unrequited-love subplot. Here's the thing I don't get, though: how is Martha diminished by her crush on the Doctor? I'm really, honestly asking here. Was there a moment I missed where she got upset over it and it got in the way of what she was doing, or made her do something stupid, or distracted her, or made her sell herself short for his sake?
Because yes, she has a crush that she knows is a bad idea. And she deals with it. She deals with it like a responsible fucking adult who can't help the way she feels but sure as fuck can help what she does about it. Which not only makes her one up on Rose, who never quite seemed to grasp just how much normal Earth rules of romance do not apply when your boyfriend is a 900-year-old time-traveling alien, but also makes her several bazillion up on Ten, who is just a mess. And he's got a right to be a mess, but he doesn't have a right to take it out on Martha.
All I'm saying is that there seems to be just a tiny bit of a double standard here. How can it be that is Martha diminished by falling for the Doctor despite herself and refusing to do anything but indulge in an occasional wibble in private and snark him when he's treating her like crap--and yet Ten is somehow not diminished by moping over Rose to the point where he openly treats Martha like crap? I think the way I put it in my initial reaction to s3 was "Wow, one of these people is dealing really badly with their relationship woes, and it sure as hell isn't Martha."
I'm not going to jump to the obvious conclusion and say that the double standard is 100% sexism, because there are other issues at play here--this is after all Doctor Who and not The Martha Jones Show (although I would watch the hell out of that), so the audience is naturally a bit more invested in the Doctor's issues and inclined to be forgiving. And speaking of investment, his issues are mostly about Rose, who was an incredibly popular companion whose relationship to the Doctor was much more established than Martha's. So yeah, we are all a bit inclined to be on his side, and a bit leery of the new companion. But that goes nowhere near justifying fandom's tendency to make excuses for the worst of Ten's bullshit while judging Martha for what were, all in all, incredibly mature responses to a sucky situation.
So yeah, I think there is some buried sexism at play there as a contributing factor. Can you imagine if the genders were reversed? Not only would the Doctor be weak and petty and overemotional for moping over Rose, and a downright bitch for comparing Martha to Rose all the time, there would be massive wank wars over whether he led Martha on. The kiss. The "hey, want to be my completely platonic travel companion? My erratic behavior has nothing to do with my ex--er, former completely platonic travel companion." The "One trip... well, maybe one trip more... well..." This is clearly a man who breaks his stated boundaries all the time and jerks Martha around in the process, is it any wonder if she thinks she might have a chance with him? And yet I have seen people liveblogging Shakespeare Code and ripping into Martha for having the fucking audacity to be awkward about sharing a bed and not sure whether this means she's getting some tonight. Seriously? That would be awkward and ambiguous even if you weren't traveling with a hot geeky emotionally-unstable alien who keeps giving off mixed signals and moping about his ex.
And let's not even get into all the ways Ten treats Martha like crap and completely takes her for granted. This post is long enough and if I started making a list I'd be here all night. I love Ten, but his treatment of Martha was not exactly his finest hour.
One more consideration in the "Martha fucking Jones is not diminished by her crush on the Doctor" meta: the Tumblr tag for Martha is not solely full of hate and vitriol, and in fact has a lot of love and appreciation, and one person rightly pointed out: "This is the woman who walked away from David Tennant's tiemcock like it was nothing. Would you have been able to do that?" Ruminate on that question. Ruminate for a long time, if such is your fancy. I'll still be here after the cold shower.
All of this was kicking about in my head even before I saw this vid and accompanying meta on manpain, who is allowed to hurt and for what reasons, and whose pain matters. Goes at length into fridging, the White Man's Burden, and other things that are extremely relevant to Ten's interests (cough). And that's what it boils down to, isn't it? Martha is an uppity bitch (or, alternately, a snivelling affront to feminism) for daring to be hurt over the Doctor. The Doctor is not only allowed to be hurt over Rose, he's allowed to take it out on Martha, and God help her if she says anything. God help her, too, if she silently swallows her hurt for his sake. She does both at various points and gets attacked for it.
And speaking of pain and fridging-for-motivation and other such topics, this is one of the reasons I wish Last of the Time Lords hadn't sunk under the weight of its plot!fail and Tinkerbell Jesus ridiculousness. Not only would it have been easy to fix the worst of what's wrong with it (seriously, have the Master holding the Doctor in some sort of telepathic cage or weakening field, humanity shorts out the Archangel network, the psychic overload briefly superpowers him instead of weakening him, tone down the Jesus imagery, and bam, your episode no longer outright sucks) there was some really interesting hero/villain/damsel triangulation going on. Because as it begins you've got the Master as the villain, Martha as the hero, and the Doctor as the helpless captive--and what's more, Martha gets all the manpain. She gets to walk the earth stoically witnessing its suffering with only the thought of her remote, be-pedestalled love interest to keep her going. Not only that, when the Master ages the Doctor on live TV it's not really about the Doctor for once, it's about using his pain to hurt Martha. She is the true threat, the one he's really trying to get at.
Of course then you get Jesus!Doc and everything that is awful about that, but afterwards. Afterwards there is the glorious twistedness of the Master playing the villain and the love interest at the same time, and fridging himself so that he can die laughing at the Oncoming Manpain. That is some truly epic trolling right there.
So, um, in conclusion, Martha Jones is fucking awesome and not even the worst parts of the finale can keep season 3 from being my favoritest of favorites.