beccaelizabeth's dreamwidth journal

Exploring the extent of gender difference

Abstract

This dissertation explores the depiction of gender in Doctor Who, a long running text, 1963-present, with multiple authors. Across half a century of popular television the representation of men and women changes, influenced by changes in social and cultural context that reshaped discourses of gender. I focus on Chapman’s account of the creation of classic Doctor Who in 1963, the story The Aztecs [1964], and seasons 5-7 of the new series, 2009-2012. Originally character design focused on creating audience identification figures to induce loyalty, providing both men and women with characters they would both understand and want to be. That has always been in tension with the demand of the plot that characters make mistakes and be endangered. The Doctor is always the expert hero, travelling with a female companion; many critics see the divide along gender lines, a powerful man protecting weak women. The Aztecs can be read that way: women, expert in humanities, argue about morality and kindness, and fail; men, expert in science and violence, successfully protect them. The division of power and spheres of influence set structures that influenced later seasons, producing tensions that were resolved differently in different decades. By 2009 The Doctor and Rory demonstrate different models of masculinity, differences in class, and tensions between expectations that males use power violently and approaches that emphasise communication and caring. Amy and River show different femininities, including stereotypes such as motherhood or dangerous manipulative sexual attractiveness, but fight against them, refusing to be boxed in and used by others for such roles. Success for both genders requires flexible approaches drawing on skills previously associated with the opposite sex. Previously gendered divisions became conflicts within each individual, highlighting and questioning the limits of both genders’ stereotypes. This reflects the increased importance of the feminine in society, culture, and science fiction.

13,196 words.



This dissertation was for my English with Cultural Studies BA (Hons) and it got 65%
My best mark for an essay was 80%, so it's really not my best work.
But it was the best I could do after having been ill so much this year, to a deadline, in word count.

Word Count also explains why there's so many Appendices - quotes count towards the word limit, appendices don't. For the other 10 years I've been at college indented quotes over 40 words don't count towards the word limit, which was much less clunky and irritating.

Dissertations take a long time, and my initial plan didn't end up looking much like the finished thing, especially as regards how many episodes I was looking at. There were only supposed to be two, The Aztecs and A Good Man Goes to War, but I barely looked at the one and couldn't for the life of me focus on only the other. By the end of it I'm not sure I even agree with me, but there you go, it's done now.

I said if I got over 60% I'd show people. So.


Dissertation
Appendices and References

A lot of this should be photos, but I can't figure out how to put them in just yet. Bit of a pain really.

Appendices

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References
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Comments and feedback (including 'here is how to put your pictures in' comments) here please.

Thanks you everyone who offered help at all. Lots of helpful. I'm sure I'm going to regret not taking more of it, but people were nice.


I have finished.
Two hard copies of dissertation, printed and bound, including abstract and contents and appendices and references and bibliography, plus one log book, plus CD of all everything ever, plus upload of dissertation.
Handed in to appropriate desk, receipts received.


I am done.

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I am done with my BA degree, with college, potentially with education if I so wish.

*blinks a lot*



... now I need a new plan.

... that could take a while...

I went to college. Got there an hour early, got on the computer and worked on my bibliography. I realised it's not as close to done as I had thought, because I need to write each and all Doctor Who episodes I mention individually in proper format in the bibliography. I can't just say a season and year, it has to look like this:

'A Day in the Death' (2008) Torchwood, Series 2, episode 10. BBC Two Television, 5 March.

'Genesis of the Daleks' (2006) Doctor Who, episode 1. Directed by David Maloney. Written by Terry Nation. First broadcast 1975 [DVD]. London: BBC DVD.

... those are the exact examples in Cite it Right, the how to book.

I must use the full title of an episode the first time it is mentioned but after that I can use 6.7 or whatever, the episode numbers.

But teacher explained the really good trick that will get the words down to count ( Read more... )


The important thing I should take from this day is, if I get the citations right and the word count rearranged, I will pass and get my degree. That should really relieve the pressure.
... it doesn't, but it obviously should.



Now I need to actually sleep since I haven't for more than a couple hours in a couple days and my eyes are all blurs.

That essay I was highlighting this afternoon, where the myth reference nagged at me?
Had probably got Promethean and Protean mixed up.
The Doctor as Promethean figure actually kind of fits, but it was in a paragraph talking about the very changeable nature of both the character and the show, so probably it meant the other P.


also in this afternoon's reading: social moors. Probably means mores.
less amusing than the sexual morays I have previously read of.

my hand hurts. handwriting sucks. I don't know why I started handwriting my DW notes. No, wait, I do, because I was eating soup at the time and couldn't get my laptop out. That's a suck reason to continue a habit that leaves my hand hurting. Except the habit continues to include eating while watching Doctor Who, so the problem continues to apply.
puzzler.

I made notes on The Doctor's Wife. ( Read more... )

Am also reading theory books. Triumph of a Time Lord I've got as far as checking the bibliography (read it read it own it read it hmmm maybe the librarian can get hold of that one but mostly read it) and reading the introduction. It seems unlikely to be specifically helpful to a focus on gender in Moffatt's era. But it's a lot more readable than some of the other stuff.

Science Fiction Audiences keeps either being about Star Trek or repeating stuff from The Unfolding Text that was boring in the first place. ( Read more... )

Do you think it's theoretically possible to have seen all the things and heard all the things and read all the books and read all the comics? It feels impossible, but then it feels impossible to read all the fanfic until I'm actually poking around trying to find new things to read.
Not so much new Doctor Who things though, I've barely read any of those, and them usually because they turn up on my f-list.

There's bits about Audiences that are all about fans. Like about reading what fans write on forums or on LJ and treating it just as serious as the Serious Academia. Which it is, just with less Foucault, usually.
I can therefore quote a theory dude pointing out this is Serious Thinkings and then go poking around on DW and LJ for what other people think of A Good Man Goes to War specifically and gender in the TARDIS in general.
... and again, there's never any reading all of that.

On the one hand I could read all the gender stuff in the library and just keep going and going and going. On the other everyone keeps citing the same people, who I have read, and the same books about science fiction, which I have read, and neither what I've read nor the remaining books seem to be specifically relevant to gender on television or gender in science fiction let alone both.

All the books, none the finding things.
Boo.
I'd like to be better at that part.

By Thursday I'm planning to have a new list of to-read to give to the librarian, books I can't find in any of the libraries I can physically get to. Then I give them 50p for each title and they magic them from afar.
Librarians have awesome powers.

I should also ask for librarian advice.

I'll get tutor advice too.



I'm bored and my hand hurts and also quite a lot of my arm.
I might have to take a day off to not use my writing hand.
Boo.

... I knew that, that's why I have a computer for college, so this is just me being an idiot.
double boo.

I decided to focus on A Good Man Goes to War. Because. I don't know, it seemed like a good idea at the time.
I've been rewatching the Amy and Rory and 11 and River episodes. I'm up to A Christmas Carol. There's a lot of very upsetting themes in these things. It's not just Daleks and Cybermens and Silurians, it's suicide and child abuse and... well, more suicide and scared children. I'm used to things having more of a cloak on, but here the monsters are, mostly human looking and frightened of plausible things.

And then there's the time travel stuff, and trying to sort it out in your head. Which is a bit less plausible. But still really about things like losing a child or not really knowing the important things about someone you love.

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I was going to write something more proper lit theory ish though.

Things I have been reading lately... were not as useful as I might have hoped.

( Read more... )

So: theory things
weave Trasker and Mulvey and that TARDIS thingy together better
find more to say about the military bits


... feel a horrible sinking sensation as one becomes convinced this wouldn't fill an essay, much less a dissertation.



I don't know what I'm doing.

I don't know what I'm handing in tomorrow, this is my best shot thus far, I have nothing.

Balls.

Been reading a lot about gender and action heroes and also Doctor Who and how they designed identification figures for a loyalty program for a family audience.

One of the essays suggests that companions are identification figures for children because of the screaming bits. The parts where they're powerless are parts children can identify with. And then the parts where they're having adventures in time and space are the attractive fantasy parts.

So I was thinking, there's a lot of grump about screaming women that need rescuing. It is sometimes even well aimed grump. It's annoying when the only thing women do is scream and need rescuing. But I hadn't thought before about the powerless parts being about making them someone to identify with. Cause we all start out screaming. If it was powerless = women identify I'd be annoyed and it would be a stupid idea. But it's the child part. Every kid knows the monsters are real because every kid starts out stranded ignorant among giants, totally dependent on others for rescue. Everyone can understand that bit.

So I reckon it's only a problem if one person only gets that bit. Because then there's no attractive fantasy, or no role model to look at it from another point of view. The planning thingies for inventing Doctor Who point out that children aren't interested in the adventures of kids the same age or younger, but they don't say why that I recall. I speculate they're interested in people who can do more than them. Because once you know monsters exist, you want to know how monsters can be defeated.

Yelling for help is one pretty good way when you're a kid. Again, it's annoying if one person yells and someone else comes to help every single time. And it's annoying if it's always women screaming. But I've been grumpy previously about the screams-and-dies combination so popular in movies. And before the credits in certain TV shows. Screaming should be socially useful, serving as an alert to others who can help or protect themselves according to their resources. And in Doctor Who it does work that way. Yelling 'Doctor' happens a lot - a lot a lot - but it has the cardinal virtue of actually working. Yell for help, get help. Get by with a little help from your friends.

It's like how the Doctor consistently reckons running, fear, even being a coward, as good things. Because then you haven't slaughtered billions, and fear keeps you fast so you have a better chance of surviving. It's very anti action movie in that respect. Run away and figure things out, do lots of talking, bring friends along because they keep things interesting but also because then they protect you while you figure things out.

So being powerless and screaming aren't necessarily annoying, because they have their place. It's just they tend to be unbalanced, especially because gender. There are imbalances of knowledge and power, and since the Doctor is a bloke who knows everything and can do almost everything, it tends to be the blokes who are ahead on points. Which is why we need a female Doctor as soon as possible. A female person of color Doctor. Because otherwise this imbalance is built in. But the other way to balance things out is to introduce someone who knows things, sometimes more than the Doctor, and can do things, sometimes more than the Doctor, and is not a white bloke.

Hello River Song.

It was annoying she was black that one time because she was also kind of evil and criminal and stuff. She turned white for her redemption arc. That's a bit of a problem. But it's kind of cool that River was black that one time because (a) Time Lords can just change, it's a silly category for Time Lords, the Doctor could be black later (which I think he said in a Sarah Jane Adventures bit but can't remember for sure) and (b) River is cooler than the Doctor and River was black and is a woman.

River isn't always cooler than the Doctor, they take turns. And they rescue each other. And when the Doctor rescues River it's generally because she's whistled him up like a cab, so he's part of her plan.

I like it.

So, why, if these are to me the important parts of River Song, did I say I would write about A Good Man Goes to War?
... because there's Rory and nursing stuff in there that's easier to get at than anything Rory related elsewhere. Though I did just get four pages of notes out of rewatching Vampires of Venice when I only have that notepad to keep track of who screams for help, who rescues who, and what cool stuff does Amy get to do. Because again I picked a bad episode for Amy getting to do cool stuff.

River is older looking than the others except for when she's the same age or a baby. As identification strategies go this is afaik unique. She's a one person team TARDIS.

Team TARDIS has changed a lot since the beginning though. The different ages were meant to be three different age bands for three different segments of the audience, like grandparent, parent, child, but a teenager because of that children don't like younger children bit. The teenager kept getting older, the Doctor kept getting younger, and now instead of being someone's Grandfather he's usually being referred to as a parent, were you a dad, I could be your dad, no you look about nine, or calling him Uncle Doctor. They all got closer together. It's like there's only one interesting age now.

I want to fix it back to being lots of ages because I find people younger than me increasingly less interesting (sorry). Which is what the first inventing them people thought was true about audiences. So it's probably not just me.
Also it's depressing when only people younger than me get to have interesting stuff happen to them.

But you can tell more stories with more variety of people.

But they've managed to have the oldest, the couple in the middle, and the baby, while at the same time making everyone kind of the same, and making the baby also be the one who knows most and bosses everyone around.

... I think I've seen a diagram of that family in some self help books...





I need to turn my random meanderings into something worth handing in for a progression point, and I have a week to do it.
... I really, really miss that semester I was ill. I'd quite like that much extra time back now. But even then I'd be coming up on the first progression point and I'd still have a bunch of nothing so basically I'm just being a bit rubbish.



Also I forgot breakfast today and only turned my computer on to check the date for sell bys purposes so I'll go see to that now.

I just uploaded a draft of my last assignment. I very much hope to have another go at it and check all my sentences actually have a beginning and end, but I'll have to leave it for a day or two before I can try that, and I don't want to go and forget to upload the thing. I have until midnight monday, but since I'll be at a three day party before then, forgetting is not beyond the bounds of possibility. This way I can upload a new draft if I make one or leave it be if nothing needs changing (hah). It's insurance against things going binky, basically.

I think it's also the first time I've been early in all the years I've been at college. And I started in 2002.

Usually I get a two week extension for being a me.

So, that's the last assignment for the last taught lessons for the last year of my epic, epic studyings to get a BA in English with Cultural Studies.

Now I just have to do my dissertation to get the (Hons) bit.

... think I'll take a minute to bask in the sense of accomplishment first...

... or possibly wait to bask until I know I passed, since there was epic not turning up for lessons this semester. *sigh*

(I need the mood to be accomplished and worried at once)

I have about 120 days left to do the suggested 400 hours of work on my dissertation, of which I have done... lets call it 4. That's like 3 hours 20 minutes a day. If I round that up to 4 hours a day I'll end up with some free time.

That totally looks possible.

Today: Finish transcript-with-notes of A Good Man Goes to War
Maybe read some of the bazillion pages of photocopy I did last week.


Before that, do second draft of assignment, due in on 17th, but for me due in on 13th because I'll be at Midnight for the weekend.

... I have done absolutely nothing to prepare for Midnight. I think I'm going to turn up without themed costumes. Weird.


But: Work is not huge intimidating thing of woe and doom, work is a solid four hours a day, and days have a lot more than four hours in so I can totally do that.

Okay. Has a plan. ... *xfingers* ...

today I am doing the reading
for pretty much the entire semester
at once

I ... really miss the opportunity to have done this in its right place, alongside example texts, with weeks and weeks to think about it. But I was busy being ill so that didn't happen. *big sigh*

so today I'm reading and taking notes on ALL THE THINGS. And zombies. The zombies make the rest of it substantially better.
... this theory stuff is all going 'hey, people have lives! and they write about them! surprise!'
and they're all pointing out how memory is mostly made up, and people make a narrative out of a stream of random stuff, and they use language, and woah, does that mean it's all secretly made up?
if tis made up, then so is being human. we mostly bump along being done to, life kind of happens, and then being thinking beings we make up a story about it (and mostly post it to the internet)
and that's how we figure out what it is to be human
and that's the neat part.

but this theory stuff we've been given, it keeps getting stuck on the divide between truth and fiction, and how can anything be true? and myself, I reckon it's all fiction, and I don't care, because that's how we put the meaning in it. lives are full of made up stuff, like justice and mercy and love, and rather the better for it. but these theory papers, they never get that far, they're all sitting there making stoned Keanu noises about how you never really know anything. woah.

... I'm so bored. bored bored bored.
... yet I have already got more work done today than I have all semester.

Meds suck. ... depression sucked pretty bad too, but meds seriously suck.



Now I'm wondering if I can quote Hogfather in my Life Writing assignment or if I'll just run out of words if I try it.
... oh dear, I need to double check how the word count thing works this year, they were making noises about changing it last year and I've been away.

... *gets back to work* ...

I have been working on my dissertation via watching Doctor Who.
Those episodes with the Flesh were well creepy. Mostly the minute at the end when Amy wakes up. There's horror and screaming and really, Do Not Want.

I'm checking and making notes on a transcript of A Good Man Goes to War. Also I will need to get screencaps of what everyone looks like and what they're wearing.
I forgot how long it takes to go through something when paying attention. 90 minutes of study, 8 minutes of episode.

This progress would not usually be worth writing about, except it's the first I have made since depression ate my brain this summer. I haven't been watching Doctor Who. That's how depressed I was. I haven't just been avoiding the one episode, I simply haven't watched it at all. That was a whole new level of suck.

Today: Three episodes. Well, the last half of the one I gave up on yesterday, a whole episode, and then a very slow 8 minutes of an episode. Near enough.

I've stuck a timesheet in the front of my logbook so I can add up exactly how much work I've been doing, and go arrgh arrgh how am I going to turn this into 400 hours before next year let alone April arrgh. But it's a start.

On Monday I can go and print stuff out and have lots more bits of paper in my log book. Which is actually a big blue box. Because obvious reasons.

Next I shall eat food, and then decide between going to bed and doing more taking notes out of books.
... okay, face it, bed will win, but I'm actively thinking about it.
And I've been getting the old cheat sheets out and trying to remember which movements are pans and what a medium shot looks like, so I feel like Proper Film Studies Student.
Not that I need that stuff. I'm studying stuff about gender, it usually isn't relevant if they're in close up or not. But I'm also trying to get my brain back in gear, and feel I have had some success.




None of this is the homework I need to get done for Monday, but that's a whole separate problem.