Companion Relief
So, it’s now pretty much official. Amy is there to be leered at. We now have plots that hinge on Rory being unable to stop himself staring up her skirt.
Let me just repeat that:
Doctor Who, in 2011, has episodes (albeit charity ‘comedy’ ones) in which vital plot points rest on a man staring up a woman’s skirt without her knowledge or consent.
Classy.
To add insult to injury, the episode coyly reminds us that the man in question is the woman’s husband, as though that makes it okay… So spying on a woman’s privacy and getting off on it is permissable as long as your relationship is sanctified by holy wedlock, is that it?
Still, Amy doesn’t seem to mind too much, so it must be okay. After all, if a woman character in a show written by a man makes a sexist comment or displays a sexist attitude, that proves she’s okay with sexism, as long as it’s all, like, jokey and ironic ‘n’ stuff.
But Amy wouldn’t mind, would she? Firstly, she’s Moffat’s meat puppet and viewer titilation service. Secondly, she’s a self-involved, self-adoring harpy… just like so many women in Moffat scripts. But that’s okay ‘cos she’s ‘feisty’… which means that, while she may be an unflattering misogynistic stereotype, she’s an unflattering misogynistic stereotype in a modern, liberated, post-feminist kinda way.
In fact, Amy is so far from minding being leered at and leched over that she deliberately uses her body as a way of getting favours (i.e. driving test passes) from the poor, helpless men she enslaves with her feminine wiles. Women, eh? They really fancy themselves, don’t they?
Well, Amy is now so self-involved and self-adoring that she literally fancies herself. She flirts with her own doppelganger, providing lesbian fantasy fodder for Rory (but that’s okay ‘cos he’s her husband, remember?).
I’m sure Wossy was amused too… if that’s a recommendation these days.
The Doctor then saves the day by twiddling his “wibbly lever”. I can’t help thinking that this is almost too perfect as a metaphor, both for how Moffat now writes the show and for how millions of lechy mysoginist fans now watch it. Stare at Amy, fiddle with the wibbly lever and, before you know it, the episode has reached a satisfying climax.
As the Doctor says: “Euurrrgghh… so this is how it ends…” Not with a whimper even, but with a sexist wank.
Still, it was all for charity, wasn’t it? Fitting. After all, what is Comic Relief but a great big load of sanctimonious, sentimental, self-righteous masturbation?
March 22, 2011 @ 8:31 am
I may actually hate this one more than "The Unquiet Dead". At least I didn't feel the need to fast-forward that one less than a minute in.
March 22, 2011 @ 8:54 am
I mean, there was a lot I wanted to say about this in the discussion thread, but it was bound to break the code of conduct.
Is there any point in watching Season 6?
March 22, 2011 @ 8:59 am
Where was your indignant essay decrying the toilet humor, boob jokes, homophobia, and wank jokes in Moff's first Red Nose Day script in 1999? (hint: It's got three settings!)
March 22, 2011 @ 10:30 am
Richie:
There is no Code of Conduct here. That's fundamentally why this place exists.
As for Season 6? Well, I'd love to just ignore it. I did actually ignore Season 5 for ages before weakening.
John:
From my dim memory of 'Curse of Fatal', I don't think it had anything remotely as bad as the creepy voyeurism material we got a few days ago.
And, just to be clear: I don't have a problem with toilet/wank humour per se.
March 22, 2011 @ 10:30 am
I've actually never seen it. It's on YouTube somewhere, isn't it? Sod it, I've got nothing better to do.
March 22, 2011 @ 10:58 am
Just seen "Curse of Fatal Death" for the first time. It… actually works better as a parody of Moffat's own work than anything else, despite predating his run by over a decade.
March 25, 2011 @ 10:07 am
(Now that I've seen it…) Sorry, I still don't see why I should take this any more seriously than "Dimensions In Time" or "Curse of Fatal Death," except that Space/Time has the current cast and the others were done during the interregnum. If CoFD starred Sylvester, Sophie and Anthony instead of Rowan, Julia & Jonathan, would you have been as forgiving?
March 25, 2011 @ 12:58 pm
To be honest, my memory of 'Curse of Fatal Death' is very poor. And I've honestly never seen 'Dimensions in Time'.
March 25, 2011 @ 1:01 pm
You see, it isn't silliness or crudeness I have a problem with. My issue with 'Space'/'Time' is the creepy, lechy mysoginy.
March 27, 2011 @ 6:50 pm
Fatal Death and Dimensions are all on YouTube.
I see very little substantive difference between the three, except that Space/Time features the current cast. Perhaps the fake cast of CoFD serves as a distancing element so we don't take the content seriously. Otherwise one might consider Emma losing sexual interest once the Doctor regenerates into a woman as jokey homophobia. But it's Blackadder and Saff, so it's all a larf, innit? (For the record, as a gay man, I'm not offended by it)
And the obvious aging of the regular cast of Dimensions in Time is apparently an intentional distancing element from just how unspeakably awful it is 😉
March 28, 2011 @ 9:53 pm
The thing about Space/Time is that it features the current cast AND it's written by the showrunner AND it's a "mini-episode" rather than a stand-alone sketch per se. So the way Moffat portrays Amy in it, even though it's (allegedly) "funny", is clearly an extension of how he sees the character.
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