Urgh.
So. River Song.
I didn't really warm to her in SitL/FotD, and I didn't warm to her in 5.04.
What bothers me is that I can't shake whether or not my feelings about her are gendered.
If I was going to hate a female character who clearly had a romantic relationship with the Doctor, I'd hate Rose (I don't), and I'd never cosplay as Reinette (I have).
There's a smugness and an arrogance to her that I'd like to say I wouldn't tolerate in a male character, but I feel, without being able to come up with examples off the top of my head, that's also not true. I admired Alex Kingston as a capable and talented doctor and surgeon in ER. Why does she bother me here?
Here's what I do like about River Song: She's a mature woman who's not Hollywood pretty, and she's smart and capable and knows how to Get Shit Done(TM). That was true in her S4 arc, and it's true here as well.
But there's still something that grates on me about her.
Worse, I feel like the things that bother me about her are typical female character hate dog whistles.
I don't like the way she treats the Doctor as a henpecked husband, and at the same time, I did like how Donna didn't take any of the Doctor's shit.
Do you see why I'm going 'round in circles on this?
The characters that River Song evokes for me are male archetypes: Han Solo, Indiana Jones, and James Bond.
Han Solo, for all that he's the dreamy space pirate, is pretty irritating. I found Han Solo irritating in a lot of the same ways I find River Song annoying, but lord knows he got away with it much more than she has. Proportionally speaking, anyway.
I'm too young by a couple of years to remember a world before Indiana Jones. Did people find his character smug, smarmy, and arrogant? (And he's Harrison Ford again, so some of his Han Solo cache must have played into the potential popularity of his character.)
I'm way too young to remember a world before James Bond. But I also feel like smug, smarmy, and arrogant were intentional choices for his character. (I also have so many issues with the misogyny in vintage Bond that I've never been able to sit through anything prior to whatever movie had Denise Richards in it. And that was only because I was on a plane.)
I've never had ambivalent feelings over a female character like this before. If I've disliked a female character, I've been able to point to gender neutral flaws, or inconsistencies in the writing to explain my dislike.
Here, I just feel like she's exactly the sort of female character you're supposed to dislike because "she's so awesome even the Doctor married her," and that bothers me a lot.
It also makes me check the lenses on my feminism goggles, and I usually keep that prescription pretty up to date.
So uh. What the heck? Your thoughts, kittens?
I didn't really warm to her in SitL/FotD, and I didn't warm to her in 5.04.
What bothers me is that I can't shake whether or not my feelings about her are gendered.
If I was going to hate a female character who clearly had a romantic relationship with the Doctor, I'd hate Rose (I don't), and I'd never cosplay as Reinette (I have).
There's a smugness and an arrogance to her that I'd like to say I wouldn't tolerate in a male character, but I feel, without being able to come up with examples off the top of my head, that's also not true. I admired Alex Kingston as a capable and talented doctor and surgeon in ER. Why does she bother me here?
Here's what I do like about River Song: She's a mature woman who's not Hollywood pretty, and she's smart and capable and knows how to Get Shit Done(TM). That was true in her S4 arc, and it's true here as well.
But there's still something that grates on me about her.
Worse, I feel like the things that bother me about her are typical female character hate dog whistles.
I don't like the way she treats the Doctor as a henpecked husband, and at the same time, I did like how Donna didn't take any of the Doctor's shit.
Do you see why I'm going 'round in circles on this?
The characters that River Song evokes for me are male archetypes: Han Solo, Indiana Jones, and James Bond.
Han Solo, for all that he's the dreamy space pirate, is pretty irritating. I found Han Solo irritating in a lot of the same ways I find River Song annoying, but lord knows he got away with it much more than she has. Proportionally speaking, anyway.
I'm too young by a couple of years to remember a world before Indiana Jones. Did people find his character smug, smarmy, and arrogant? (And he's Harrison Ford again, so some of his Han Solo cache must have played into the potential popularity of his character.)
I'm way too young to remember a world before James Bond. But I also feel like smug, smarmy, and arrogant were intentional choices for his character. (I also have so many issues with the misogyny in vintage Bond that I've never been able to sit through anything prior to whatever movie had Denise Richards in it. And that was only because I was on a plane.)
I've never had ambivalent feelings over a female character like this before. If I've disliked a female character, I've been able to point to gender neutral flaws, or inconsistencies in the writing to explain my dislike.
Here, I just feel like she's exactly the sort of female character you're supposed to dislike because "she's so awesome even the Doctor married her," and that bothers me a lot.
It also makes me check the lenses on my feminism goggles, and I usually keep that prescription pretty up to date.
So uh. What the heck? Your thoughts, kittens?