Dear critics: Please use real numbers
Mar. 2nd, 2013 05:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethAm doing reading about Doctor Who. It's becoming frustrating because so many of these people weren't watching the same show I was. Also, they try and make general and sweeping statements that apply to all of Doctor Who. It's 50 years of canon now, there's very very little you can say that applies to all of Doctor Who. Any attempt to make such statements will erase something.
In many cases it manages to erase a whole gender, since I keep finding article after article that talks about the Doctor's companions as always being women.
Also, specifically, being miniskirt wearing screamers of no particular intellectual distinction or personal agency.
Furthermore, they're alleged to be got rid of by 'frequently' marrying them off.
The exact count of the Doctor's companions is disputed, not least because of arguments over how much of UNIT count and when. My list comes up 26 female, 15 male, and two male voiced robots. I've seen 30 female to 14 male on other lists; I think they left out much of UNIT, counted Romana twice, and listed a lot more one off characters from Specials. Either way: There's twice as many women as men as companions, which makes sense compared to the original team TARDIS and the continuing presence of a male Doctor to balance out. But, not to be ignored, 1/3 of them are male!
So perhaps when they say 'always' they mean in a historically continuous sense. And yes, there have always been female companions around, until a few recent Specials. But if you look at the arrive/depart dates of male companions, out of 26 years of classic series, 16 of them featured male companions, including the first 12 years. K9 probably doesn't count, or there'd be even more years. Of the years where there were only female companions, some of them were 4th Doctor, and the rest were the last 5 years of the series; that covers the most popular and most recent eras of the show, probably explaining the lingering impression. But it's still true that for the majority of the show there were male companions. And this is significant to any treatment of gender on Doctor Who because the explanations for why the female companions so often ended up screaming and asking "What is it, Doctor?" usually focus on the plot functions of the companions, who are there to get into trouble and give the Doctor a chance to explain things. It's necessary to compare the treatment of male and female companions before gender is invoked as an explanatory force.
I have today found one (one) essay that notices there is more than one model of female companion. The screamer, the savage, and the equal, they reckon. The screamer gets in trouble a lot and makes noise until the Doctor gets her out of it. But I'm not sure that's an adequate description of anyone. Mel could certainly scream on key but most companions had their moments of awesome to go with their *facepalm* moments. Jo is usually portrayed as the classic screamer and I'm sure I remember her being actually helpful and standing up to the Master and stuff. The savage is, basically, Leela, who by this scheme gets to kick arse as long as she takes all her clothes off. Again, I do recall Leela wearing clothes that were not skin tight or leather. Perhaps not as vividly as her classic outfit, but I'm sure they existed. Only remembering the annoying bits isn't terribly helpful. And then there's the equals, like Liz, who have knowledge of their own and argue right back at the Doctor. The essay reckoned that was why they don't work, and why Liz only stuck around one season, because the Doctor needs someone to explain at for the benefit of the audience. But Barbara was around for quite a few stories, Romana through two incarnations, Tegan until she stopped having fun, and they're all women who know their own mind and make sure the Doctor knows that. It's like when River's around, they don't just ask a question, they suggest part of the answer and have a good argue about which bits are going to work. There's more than one way to info dump and it doesn't have to make the Doctor be the only fount of knowledge. There are a variety of women, who stand in a variety of relations to the Doctor and his attempts to intimidate you with his great big brain. Ignoring that in the name of feminist criticism is frustrating.
And finally, the marriage thing. Out of 50 years of television, it has happened 5 times. Actually they counted Rose, kind of sort of, so let's make that 6, with Susan, Vicki, Jo Grant, Leela, and probably Peri. Granted that includes the very first departure, but I can't see how it counts as frequent. Now if they wanted to point out that it doesn't happen to men that would be, to the best of my knowledge, fair enough, though I'll happily be corrected since I've not watched as much black and white as I'd need to for proper sweeping statements. Unless of course you decide Ian & Barbara and Ben & Polly count, I don't know, my notes say they all just went home, maybe they went as couples? But that's stretching. Out of the ones who really truly definitely left to get married (usually to someone they'd only just met), that's 5. Out of 26-to-30 female Companions, and 50 years. Is that frequent? Really?
On my list of ways Companions leave the TARDIS there's 8 listed as 'career', though in most cases that means UNIT people staying with UNIT while the Doctor wandered off. Liz and Nyssa definitely left for more interesting jobs. Romana arguably did, though I have her down as leaving to rule a universe. The essay I had to put down to have an argue with via the internet reckons Rose had her awesome contained by being shuffled off into a marriage box, which is an interesting interpretation of getting a universe of her own to save, not considering that enough, and coming back for a custom modified version of her Doctor. I'm not particularly fond of Rose, but she did get an implication of grand adventures of her very own. Plus, some of those marrying-offs have been modified by subsequent texts. We know Jo Grant was all the awesome after her marriage because the Doctor told us so on the Sarah Jane Adventures. What happened to Leela and Romana is covered in one version in Big Finish Audios. Enough of the audience found marrying-off an unsatisfying ending that when the fans took over the asylum they fixed it. That's interesting, especially since said fans-turned-makers are as much men as the original production teams.
Honestly, I'm getting fed up of reading short crit about such a long source. It's easier to do badly than well. And it's warning me off trying to cover very much Doctor Who at once in my own writing.
I need to pick one very specific incident and poke it a lot. Which was the plan. And which I will totally do tomorrow when I wake up feeling well again. Or even if I don't, on account of I have to hand something in on Monday and doing my best is going to have to be enough.
... oh balls, going to faaaaaaiiiiiiiillllllll, how can I fail writing about Doctor Who?
I need to sit down and write and pull together these blogs until they make academic sense. I should totally be able to do that. I'm writing stuff that makes sense, it's just chatty fan meta stuff, not ready for handing in.
I shall make word count and make sense and not fail at all. Right? Right.
In many cases it manages to erase a whole gender, since I keep finding article after article that talks about the Doctor's companions as always being women.
Also, specifically, being miniskirt wearing screamers of no particular intellectual distinction or personal agency.
Furthermore, they're alleged to be got rid of by 'frequently' marrying them off.
The exact count of the Doctor's companions is disputed, not least because of arguments over how much of UNIT count and when. My list comes up 26 female, 15 male, and two male voiced robots. I've seen 30 female to 14 male on other lists; I think they left out much of UNIT, counted Romana twice, and listed a lot more one off characters from Specials. Either way: There's twice as many women as men as companions, which makes sense compared to the original team TARDIS and the continuing presence of a male Doctor to balance out. But, not to be ignored, 1/3 of them are male!
So perhaps when they say 'always' they mean in a historically continuous sense. And yes, there have always been female companions around, until a few recent Specials. But if you look at the arrive/depart dates of male companions, out of 26 years of classic series, 16 of them featured male companions, including the first 12 years. K9 probably doesn't count, or there'd be even more years. Of the years where there were only female companions, some of them were 4th Doctor, and the rest were the last 5 years of the series; that covers the most popular and most recent eras of the show, probably explaining the lingering impression. But it's still true that for the majority of the show there were male companions. And this is significant to any treatment of gender on Doctor Who because the explanations for why the female companions so often ended up screaming and asking "What is it, Doctor?" usually focus on the plot functions of the companions, who are there to get into trouble and give the Doctor a chance to explain things. It's necessary to compare the treatment of male and female companions before gender is invoked as an explanatory force.
I have today found one (one) essay that notices there is more than one model of female companion. The screamer, the savage, and the equal, they reckon. The screamer gets in trouble a lot and makes noise until the Doctor gets her out of it. But I'm not sure that's an adequate description of anyone. Mel could certainly scream on key but most companions had their moments of awesome to go with their *facepalm* moments. Jo is usually portrayed as the classic screamer and I'm sure I remember her being actually helpful and standing up to the Master and stuff. The savage is, basically, Leela, who by this scheme gets to kick arse as long as she takes all her clothes off. Again, I do recall Leela wearing clothes that were not skin tight or leather. Perhaps not as vividly as her classic outfit, but I'm sure they existed. Only remembering the annoying bits isn't terribly helpful. And then there's the equals, like Liz, who have knowledge of their own and argue right back at the Doctor. The essay reckoned that was why they don't work, and why Liz only stuck around one season, because the Doctor needs someone to explain at for the benefit of the audience. But Barbara was around for quite a few stories, Romana through two incarnations, Tegan until she stopped having fun, and they're all women who know their own mind and make sure the Doctor knows that. It's like when River's around, they don't just ask a question, they suggest part of the answer and have a good argue about which bits are going to work. There's more than one way to info dump and it doesn't have to make the Doctor be the only fount of knowledge. There are a variety of women, who stand in a variety of relations to the Doctor and his attempts to intimidate you with his great big brain. Ignoring that in the name of feminist criticism is frustrating.
And finally, the marriage thing. Out of 50 years of television, it has happened 5 times. Actually they counted Rose, kind of sort of, so let's make that 6, with Susan, Vicki, Jo Grant, Leela, and probably Peri. Granted that includes the very first departure, but I can't see how it counts as frequent. Now if they wanted to point out that it doesn't happen to men that would be, to the best of my knowledge, fair enough, though I'll happily be corrected since I've not watched as much black and white as I'd need to for proper sweeping statements. Unless of course you decide Ian & Barbara and Ben & Polly count, I don't know, my notes say they all just went home, maybe they went as couples? But that's stretching. Out of the ones who really truly definitely left to get married (usually to someone they'd only just met), that's 5. Out of 26-to-30 female Companions, and 50 years. Is that frequent? Really?
On my list of ways Companions leave the TARDIS there's 8 listed as 'career', though in most cases that means UNIT people staying with UNIT while the Doctor wandered off. Liz and Nyssa definitely left for more interesting jobs. Romana arguably did, though I have her down as leaving to rule a universe. The essay I had to put down to have an argue with via the internet reckons Rose had her awesome contained by being shuffled off into a marriage box, which is an interesting interpretation of getting a universe of her own to save, not considering that enough, and coming back for a custom modified version of her Doctor. I'm not particularly fond of Rose, but she did get an implication of grand adventures of her very own. Plus, some of those marrying-offs have been modified by subsequent texts. We know Jo Grant was all the awesome after her marriage because the Doctor told us so on the Sarah Jane Adventures. What happened to Leela and Romana is covered in one version in Big Finish Audios. Enough of the audience found marrying-off an unsatisfying ending that when the fans took over the asylum they fixed it. That's interesting, especially since said fans-turned-makers are as much men as the original production teams.
Honestly, I'm getting fed up of reading short crit about such a long source. It's easier to do badly than well. And it's warning me off trying to cover very much Doctor Who at once in my own writing.
I need to pick one very specific incident and poke it a lot. Which was the plan. And which I will totally do tomorrow when I wake up feeling well again. Or even if I don't, on account of I have to hand something in on Monday and doing my best is going to have to be enough.
... oh balls, going to faaaaaaiiiiiiiillllllll, how can I fail writing about Doctor Who?
I need to sit down and write and pull together these blogs until they make academic sense. I should totally be able to do that. I'm writing stuff that makes sense, it's just chatty fan meta stuff, not ready for handing in.
I shall make word count and make sense and not fail at all. Right? Right.