Maybe some of us BELONG in the fields
A very good overview of the squalid pass to which Moffat has brought the show in its 50th anniversary year, with special attention paid to the issue of mysoginy, via River and Clara:
…we’re not being encouraged to think there’s something wrong with this person [River]: it’s the show itself that comes across as jaded and withdrawn from empathy and decency to a psychopathic extent (and what a charming ethical copout to have the Doctor leave before he can witness the rest of the killing). Again, we have the depressingly widespread idea that a woman acting violently is empowering and a corrective to sexism and misogyny. When questioned about his ability with female characters during a Guardian interview Moffat replied:
River Song? Amy Pond? Hardly weak women. It’s the exact opposite. You could accuse me of having a fetish for powerful, sexy women who like cheating people. That would be fair.
It would indeed. Unfortunately, a fetish for powerful, sexy women who like cheating people is no substitute for an interest in human beings.
http://richardhcooper.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/steven-and-women-or-how-steven-moffat.html
I don’t agree with every jot and tittle of this, but it’s still excellent. Very well worth reading, with lots of points which seem, to me, pretty much irrefutable… depressing but irrefutable.
I do want to express my increasing impatience with the idea of accidental reactionary writing, a notion that the writer of the above article flirts with (though his conclusions are nuanced). Personally, I’m coming to the brain-bending conclusion that people who aren’t racists or sexists don’t need to concentrate on remembering not to say racist or sexist things.
Thanks to Johnathan Barlow (or ‘old Legohead’ as I always think of him) for putting this my way.…