Why aren't more people ranting about this?

[caz963]

I am utterly stunned that, in NONE of the reviews I've so far read of last night's DW (the off LJ ones) does anyone say how inappropriate and conpletely squicky the pregnancy plot-line is.

Now, I'm not normally one to cry "sexism" - in fact, I'm usually pretty much on the fence about things like that, as in the end, a lot of it comes down to personal perception and feelings about a particular issue. I've also (mostly) steered clear of the whole "Moffat is a sexist bastard" issue, becuase I recognise that perhaps some of his comments have been taken out of context and because I don't know enough about the man to be able to make that sort of a judgement.

But now... I'm going to do it. And I'm not just directing it at Moffat, I'm going out on a limb to theorise that most of those reviews were written by men, too. The debate appears to be about the Doctor's motives and ethics in "decomissioning" ganger!Amy, which I thought was explained in the episode (she was made from a different version of the Flesh and therefore functioned in a different way - she wasn't sentient in the way the gangers we met in the story were; rather she was more like a walking shell that had a psychic link to real!Amy and not a completely integrated copy).

But nowhere - so far - outside of LJ have I seen anyone discussing the fact that here we have a major female character who is restrained, imprisoned and terrified - all while about to give birth. Is the pregnancy even consentual? It seems that, until she looks down and sees the bump, Amy isn't even aware that she IS pregnant. Was she kidnapped and inseminated against her will and without her knowledge? I know that some are theorising that it's Rory's baby but that it has somehow been affected by the timey-wimeyness of the TARDIS - but we were told in the DWC that Amy hasn't been real!Amy since 6x01 and possibly earlier, so I'm not sure it can be Rory's.

But that's all beside the point.

The point is this. In a comment to my review yesterday, papilio_luna says this:

bringing pregnancy into it, it's like a bridge just too far for me, especially when the episodes are written by men. Being pregnant is something that only happens to women, and for a dude to turn that into a horror scenario is something I've always had a problem with

- and I agree, 100%. There's something extremely unsavoury about it that's leaving a very bad taste in my mouth indeed.

I'm not a Moffat hater. While I'm not his biggest fan, and I preferred DW under Rusty, I've always taken care to be fair in my reviews and comments. But I don't know if I'm ever going to feel the same way about my show after this.

Two interesting comments from the Guardian's DW blog :

The problem I have is that, by this time, I don't remember all the unexplained questions from episode 1 - because they haven't been kept fresh, just parked for a few weeks. I can't remember exactly what happened in the White House bathroom, or just what happened at the end of episode 1, not really do I care by this time.

This is a mystery designed for diehard fans. It's telling those of us who just turn in every week for an interesting, entertaining family show that we're not wanted - as some of the negative comments directed at "casual viewers" in these blogs testify.

The mystery is, I presume clever - Moffat is a clever writer. But turning Dr Who into a memory test isn't.

and -

it's all a bit much for everyone who doesn't enjoy having to put that much effort into Saturday night entertainment.

I look back on the Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant episodes with wistful nostalgia - good entertainment but not necessitating sustaining a photographic memory of each moment in each episode throughout the entire series (and into future series).

Mr Moffat clearly enjoys changing Doctor Who in the way he has, and he's clearly creating enjoyment for a small tribe of like-minded people, but he may just be writing himself into a shark-jump from which it will be difficult to recover.

I, too, look back with a sense of nostalgia - to the days when the plot made sense as I was watching it.

Comments

[teresadivicenzo.livejournal.com]

I will say first up that I haven't watched DW this series because I wanted to store them up for the summer when I'm less busy.

But what I don't get is why you just can't say that you feel uncomfortable about something that is clearly bordering on the horror genre being incorporated into a tea-time family show. That you'd find it uncomfortable viewing at *any* time and appreciate that it's meant to be - but that you have a very real issue with it being on early in the evening on a show that seems to have moved on somewhat in it's direction from what we grew up with. Whether that's good or bad is a matter of personal taste and what we individually want the show to be. It's a debate about what should DW be as a show.

Given that fandom is prone to throwing out mpreg, twincest, rape, and goodness only knows what else via fanfic - and I completely appreciate you wouldn't particularly care for all that either - I do find it a bit comical when fandom starts complaining about what's on our screens.

I was chatting with mum about this earlier - she has seen all the eps - and it went a bit like this --

"Did it offend you?"
"No. But it's difficult to watch."
"Would you have wanted me, when I was little, to watch it?"
"Not at age 5 when you started. I'd have worried you would have been too upset by it and not understood any of it. By the time you're 10 or 12 then maybe, yes"
"So is it the whole pregnancy thing? Did you find it sexist?"
"It's not that - it's just that it's DW having grown up - it's got complicated writing now that a younger child just won't get and, yes, it was disturbing. There's nothing wrong with that, but if the show has moved on then I think I'd think again about whether it was family viewing or something I'd rather let you watch when you were more able to deal with it."

Now, I suspect that when I do watch, I may well agree with her. Writers will use pregnancy in horror stories - there's not much they can do about the fact that women are the ones who get pregnant (unless they go the route of a lot of the fanfic writers and I suspect most viewers would find that *more* disturbing and difficult to explain to their 5 year-olds) - and it's really a question of "Where is this show going with content and am I comfortable in moving along with that and wanting my kids to grow up with it?"

I don't mind complex - but that's obviously aimed at the adult viewers. The trouble is, is there enough left for the kids to enjoy? It's possible SM has taken it too far and if kids watching it don't get it, or need too much explained to them, then the show isn't family viewing anymore.

I'd be sad if that's the case given that I grew up as a child watching it, but I'm not inherently opposed to shows evolving either.

[caz963.livejournal.com]

I'm not inherently opposed to shows evolving

Neither am I - and let's face it, if there was ever a show with "change" built into it, then it's this one.

Like I've just said to crossoverman upthread, the key term you've both used in your comments is "horror". The scene I'm talking about went out at just before 7.30 pm in a family show.

You know, I think that a five year old would possibly have been less bothered by that scene than a twelve-year-old because the latter would have been able to understand more about what was going on and some of the implications of what they were seeing. I was actually uneasy about letting Cazlet #1 watch it (she was out when it aired) - but I did and she's okay even though she thought it "wasn't very nice". But I can imagine that other girls of her age and perhaps a bit older would have been quite disturbed,

But what I don't get is why you just can't say that you feel uncomfortable about something that is clearly bordering on the horror genre being incorporated into a tea-time family show. That you'd find it uncomfortable viewing at *any* time and appreciate that it's meant to be - but that you have a very real issue with it being on early in the evening

That is the case - I do think it wasn't age appropriate. But it's not just that, and that's what I'm having a hard time trying to work out. Fringe had a pregnancy storyline this season which took a turn for the squicky - and while I was squicked, I was meant to be and I was okay with that. I've seen plenty of telly/films which have employed this plotline - and if I was uncomfortable it was always because I was meant to be, and I was okay with that, too.

It's a debate about what should DW be as a show.

*nods* And as you know, it's a debate that's been raging for years. At the end of the day, right now, it's whatever the showrunner says it is. And the showrunner is someone who is known for wanting to bring it "back to kids". (I know SM hasn't said that directly, but when you listen to him or read what he's said, he's keen to emphasis the fairytale and magical elements and talks about what appeals to kids) - yet that stance is at odds with what I watched on Saturday night.

there enough left for the kids to enjoy?

Another question I was asking myself because all my two wanted to know was "which is the REAL Doctor?" through that last episode, and no amount of my telling them that it didn't matter because they were both the same would satisfy them. And had I not read previews or seen clips, I'd have been hard pressed to work out what was going on at the start of TRF - and I had to explain it to the kids or they wouldn't have understood what was happening.

I know that RTD's DW got dark and addressed adult themes too - but I think he managed to strike a better balance than I'm seeing right now.

[teresadivicenzo.livejournal.com]

Which leads me onto another general thing - that of the old chestnut of kids growing up quicker these days. I may have been pee scared of the Daleks when I was younger, but these days it probably would take a lot more - especially given the gaming content out there that many kids are mucking about with (I'm not passing judgement on whether it's too violent or not, merely that it may have moved the goalposts somewhat.)

The issue about "which is the real..." was one mum mentioned to me - she said she would have been concerned with potentially having to explain that it wasn't Amy being killed to me and me not understanding that and being confused and upset. I can understand that from a parenting point of view it's definitely moved into a different territory because I'm certain when we watched it in the 70s/early80s she wouldn't have had to think about something like that. But again I wonder if it's, in part, because DW was about as scary as it got (at least when I wasn't watching dodgy horror VHS tapes from mates' older siblings...as one did back then.)

The other thing is that we're all adults posting on here - you have the reactions of your kids, but we've got no way of knowing yet how other parents/children felt. I'm positive someone will complain to the RT et al, because someone always does, but that may not even be representative of wider opinion.

I also agree with Keith in that some views re: SM and misogyny are too entrenched.

[caz963.livejournal.com]

I spoke to Cazlet#1 about it this morning and she said she was made uncomfortable by both things - but she had more to say on the subject of the pregnancy than the killing of ganger!Amy. With the latter, she made the point that we'd been told that the gangers were in effect "the same" as the originals, and said of the killing - "but the Doctor just wouldn't DO that".

She was quite disturbed by screaming-pregnant Amy, though - and that was with no direction from me whatsoever. Some of her feelings she had trouble putting into words (like she doesn't think it's Rory's baby but couldn't articulate how else it could have got there other than to say "maybe someone put it there), but she was definitely not happy about it. But that's only one (almost) twelve-year-old's view.

In response to your other comment somewhere about how DW is marketed in other territories - I'm not entirely sure, but it seems, from comments and posts that I've read here over the years, that it's aimed more towards the adult audience in the US. I remember posting a comment myself once to which someone (a US-ian) responded saying that they'd never thought of DW as a kids' show and that it's not aimed at kids over there, but that's not empirical evidence.

I do have someone on my flist who might be able to answer that question - I'll ask her :)

[papilio-luna.livejournal.com]

Here in the US, it is not thought of as a kid's show. It's not really thought of as an adult show, either, mind. It's a cult show, a British show, a show that not many people are aware of the existence of (though that is slowly changing now that BBC America have stepped up to the plate--oh how I wish they had done that 5 years ago!). BBC America airs it at 9PM on Saturday night (that's Eastern Time, so I think it must go out earlier in other time zones but I'm not sure), which is a very adult, very nerdy time slot (the assumption is that everyone who has a life is out partying at 9 on Saturday night).

But yeah, most American viewers who aren't familiar with the status that Doctor Who has in the UK do not think of it as a kid's show. And "family shows" are not something we really have here (we have so many channels that everything gets segregated into "for kids only" and "for adults only"--we have very few things that are supposed to be for everyone). Programming that is actually meant for children is really really simplistic, so we look at Doctor Who and think "This can't be for kids, it's not a cartoon and none of the stars are below the age of 16! Therefore, it is for adults."

I got my 13-year-old nephew (and his mom) into Who and now I feel bad about pitching it to his mom (who has always been concerned with his media consumption) as a very family-friendly show with good solid liberal values. They watch on the US schedule and we haven't yet had The Almost People air here (it was a bank holiday weekend this weekend and, because we are opposite land, that means the networks assume no one is home watching TV so nothing new airs) and I'm wondering if I should send her an email to warn her that it might not be appropriate for her son. And it makes me so sad to contemplate having to do that.

[crossoverman.livejournal.com]

(I know SM hasn't said that directly, but when you listen to him or read what he's said, he's keen to emphasis the fairytale and magical elements and talks about what appeals to kids) - yet that stance is at odds with what I watched on Saturday night.

That's actually an interesting point, since he certainly was saying that or at least alluding to it last year - that the show was for the family. But I haven't heard that as much this year - possibly because I'm not listening or watching as much DWC or reading interviews. I was actually disappointed by the "fairytale" aspect of last season, but in retrospect it works - it's just a massive departure from what had been done before.

This season he's trying something entirely different, it seems. I'm not sure how Moffat sees it, but he seems to have moved from fairytale tropes - though I can't say he's replaced it with horror just yet, even though there's definitely elements of that: from the spooky orphanage onward.