Doctor Who: Sexist bullshit from Jacob on TWoP (I know, I know, shocking)
I've become super upset about this, so sorry but I'm going to inflict it on the rest of you.
Jacob is a recapper from TWoP. He ends up recapping a lot of the shows I like - Farscape, BSG and Doctor Who. At first I liked Jacob - I liked his pretentious mythological symboly bullshit because I like pretentious mythological symboly bullshit. I liked how much care he gave to his recaps and how he essentially turned them into epic meta episode reviews that were like love letters. So it was rough when it turned out he was a jerk. Obviously I don't know the guy personally at all - I don't know what's going on in his head. But from my vantage point, to steal one of his own damn metaphors, it looked like he put on his own giant Helo Suit, bought his own PR and started dismissing dissent as personal attacks and just...it got ugly.
Mostly I feel furious with myself - I feel like an absolute punk - because there was a while, back at the end of BSG, when I was like, "Okay dude, you clearly have issues, but you actually wrote a fairly useful bunch of paragraphs in terms of explaining why I thought the finale sucked balls." And you know, that's still true. But now it's also infuriating. He's clearly not intellectually deficient. How can a reasonably smart person be this ugly in his behaviour?
BECAUSE, my friends, BECAUSE. Like the dumb, stupid punk that I am, I thought to myself, Jacob loved Aeryn Sun. I bet you he loves River Song! I bet you this'll be one of the times his weird bullshit doesn't get in the way of him spinning a good tale of mythological symboly bullshit. I'm never making that mistake again. And not just because I think I'll get burned but because I'm genuinely fucking ashamed of myself for trying to hold out for the "good bits" even though I knew he was a sexist ass. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me - shame on me for thinking it would work like that.
Even more shame on him for being such a jerk.
I made it part way through the recaps of Time of Angels and Flesh and Stone. And most of that was only from horrified fascination. I don't even know where to start with the dissonance in it, how much implied, unexamined woman-fearing is mixed with rants about the misogyny of the writing. Near as I can tell, and I am far from confident in this, it's some bizarre attempt to claim Moffat wrote these women in these relationships in a way that demands a sexist response, and isn't that horrifying, and he's only doing it ironically. Also something about how heteronormative the relationship between the Doctor and River is because they sarcastically banter at each other. Something about Boy Spoons and Girl Spoons and River being Captain Jack in drag but if she was we'd all be horrified by how homophobically it was written or something. Honestly. HE LOST ME AT THE SPOONS.
But...but that's not even the worst bit.
That's just shit I get pissed off about quietly and maybe rant to my friends about via email or work into larger posts about other shit. Sure there's an extra layer of fury because he's doing all this from a paternalistic vantage point of telling women what's REALLY bad for them, but fuck it. The guy has issues with women. Give him a fucking medal.
This bit though. This bit I am so appalled by, so angry about, so furious with, I do not even have the energy to explain all the ways in which it is disgusting, not okay, dangerous, aggressive, violent and violating. If I wasn't so disillusioned with the website and Jacob's response to criticism I might actually write an email of complaint. I'm putting it under its own cut not because I'm trying to be melodramatic but because it is honestly an upsetting thing to read and I don't want it floating around on people's flists unrequested. Please bear in mind this is written by a guy who in multiple other places in these recaps attempts to paint himself as a bastion of equality against the rising tide of woman-hating.
He's recapping the final scene in Flesh and Stone between Amy and the Doctor. Whatever your thoughts on the appropriateness of that, narratively, this is not an appropriate response:
"...Which would be a fine ending, making this a B- follow-up to last week, except for how Amy then decides the perfect coda would be to take the Doctor back to her creepy house on her wedding night, and out of nowhere try to fuck him. So the Doctor gets to act skeeved out, and Amy gets to chase him around in heat with her dress up over her head like some kind of sex abuse victim on Law & Order, and that's how we learn the key to saving the universe is getting Amy's slutty ass married... Before it's too late!"
I think the final sentence is somehow meant to justify the vile, vile crap that comes before, like...look guys, I'm just painting the ugly truth of what the episode REALLY said. But no. Just no. Even if he were, those words? Those comparisons? No. NOT OKAY. Your issues are what's showing here, Jacob, and it's gross.
Note: While I like to reply to everyone, I am sufficiently furious about this that I cannot guarantee I will be willing to engage with you if your point of view is that Jacob was justified in using this language. I'm not talking about whether or not there are sexist elements to the show - I'm talking about Jacob's response to his perception of them and his decision to use these terms and comparisons in an incredibly insensitive way to highlight that perception.
ETA: the section of quoted text comes from the Recaplet (that you click to expand) rather than the full-length recap. I should have noted this earlier; apologies to any who went looking and couldn't find it.
Jacob is a recapper from TWoP. He ends up recapping a lot of the shows I like - Farscape, BSG and Doctor Who. At first I liked Jacob - I liked his pretentious mythological symboly bullshit because I like pretentious mythological symboly bullshit. I liked how much care he gave to his recaps and how he essentially turned them into epic meta episode reviews that were like love letters. So it was rough when it turned out he was a jerk. Obviously I don't know the guy personally at all - I don't know what's going on in his head. But from my vantage point, to steal one of his own damn metaphors, it looked like he put on his own giant Helo Suit, bought his own PR and started dismissing dissent as personal attacks and just...it got ugly.
Mostly I feel furious with myself - I feel like an absolute punk - because there was a while, back at the end of BSG, when I was like, "Okay dude, you clearly have issues, but you actually wrote a fairly useful bunch of paragraphs in terms of explaining why I thought the finale sucked balls." And you know, that's still true. But now it's also infuriating. He's clearly not intellectually deficient. How can a reasonably smart person be this ugly in his behaviour?
BECAUSE, my friends, BECAUSE. Like the dumb, stupid punk that I am, I thought to myself, Jacob loved Aeryn Sun. I bet you he loves River Song! I bet you this'll be one of the times his weird bullshit doesn't get in the way of him spinning a good tale of mythological symboly bullshit. I'm never making that mistake again. And not just because I think I'll get burned but because I'm genuinely fucking ashamed of myself for trying to hold out for the "good bits" even though I knew he was a sexist ass. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me - shame on me for thinking it would work like that.
Even more shame on him for being such a jerk.
I made it part way through the recaps of Time of Angels and Flesh and Stone. And most of that was only from horrified fascination. I don't even know where to start with the dissonance in it, how much implied, unexamined woman-fearing is mixed with rants about the misogyny of the writing. Near as I can tell, and I am far from confident in this, it's some bizarre attempt to claim Moffat wrote these women in these relationships in a way that demands a sexist response, and isn't that horrifying, and he's only doing it ironically. Also something about how heteronormative the relationship between the Doctor and River is because they sarcastically banter at each other. Something about Boy Spoons and Girl Spoons and River being Captain Jack in drag but if she was we'd all be horrified by how homophobically it was written or something. Honestly. HE LOST ME AT THE SPOONS.
But...but that's not even the worst bit.
That's just shit I get pissed off about quietly and maybe rant to my friends about via email or work into larger posts about other shit. Sure there's an extra layer of fury because he's doing all this from a paternalistic vantage point of telling women what's REALLY bad for them, but fuck it. The guy has issues with women. Give him a fucking medal.
This bit though. This bit I am so appalled by, so angry about, so furious with, I do not even have the energy to explain all the ways in which it is disgusting, not okay, dangerous, aggressive, violent and violating. If I wasn't so disillusioned with the website and Jacob's response to criticism I might actually write an email of complaint. I'm putting it under its own cut not because I'm trying to be melodramatic but because it is honestly an upsetting thing to read and I don't want it floating around on people's flists unrequested. Please bear in mind this is written by a guy who in multiple other places in these recaps attempts to paint himself as a bastion of equality against the rising tide of woman-hating.
He's recapping the final scene in Flesh and Stone between Amy and the Doctor. Whatever your thoughts on the appropriateness of that, narratively, this is not an appropriate response:
"...Which would be a fine ending, making this a B- follow-up to last week, except for how Amy then decides the perfect coda would be to take the Doctor back to her creepy house on her wedding night, and out of nowhere try to fuck him. So the Doctor gets to act skeeved out, and Amy gets to chase him around in heat with her dress up over her head like some kind of sex abuse victim on Law & Order, and that's how we learn the key to saving the universe is getting Amy's slutty ass married... Before it's too late!"
I think the final sentence is somehow meant to justify the vile, vile crap that comes before, like...look guys, I'm just painting the ugly truth of what the episode REALLY said. But no. Just no. Even if he were, those words? Those comparisons? No. NOT OKAY. Your issues are what's showing here, Jacob, and it's gross.
Note: While I like to reply to everyone, I am sufficiently furious about this that I cannot guarantee I will be willing to engage with you if your point of view is that Jacob was justified in using this language. I'm not talking about whether or not there are sexist elements to the show - I'm talking about Jacob's response to his perception of them and his decision to use these terms and comparisons in an incredibly insensitive way to highlight that perception.
ETA: the section of quoted text comes from the Recaplet (that you click to expand) rather than the full-length recap. I should have noted this earlier; apologies to any who went looking and couldn't find it.