Doctor Who, Season Nine

[Bad Wolf]

Ah, the Sarkeesian Effect. That would make a great Doctor Who title. Probably something involving Sontarans, or the Mara.

Sounds more like an alien strategem to suck all fun and happiness from the earth causing all humans to become boring and sedentary thus paving the way for an invasion.

[Esquilax]

Nup, confirmed by another study.

I wasn't clear with my intent. I took the study at face value. What I was really getting after was the fact that 'the study' was conducted in the first place. This is a clear sign that there's a professional offense taker at work. Fucking ridiculous.

I dunno, I see it more as a missed opportunity. There's an interesting conversation to be had about certain sexist implications and plotlines in Moffat's work on the show, but that study wasn't interested in having it, in favor of a vaguely correlated quantitative thing. When I saw that the Bechdel Test was the first thing they looked for I just stopped taking the whole thing seriously; it's a good thought experiment, but the Bechdel Test is not a reliable indicator of sexism. It's not even an indicator of sexism at all, as far as I'm concerned.

[Cato]

I dunno, I see it more as a missed opportunity. There's an interesting conversation to be had about certain sexist implications and plotlines in Moffat's work on the show, but that study wasn't interested in having it, in favor of a vaguely correlated quantitative thing. When I saw that the Bechdel Test was the first thing they looked for I just stopped taking the whole thing seriously; it's a good thought experiment, but the Bechdel Test is not a reliable indicator of sexism. It's not even an indicator of sexism at all, as far as I'm concerned.

I agree completely. The Bechdel Test is absurd. It has no way of accounting for dialogue that doesn't pass, but doesn't for non-sexist reasons. Consider the movie Alien. Ripley is one of the strongest female characters in cinema history (personal opinion of course), but I can't think of any dialogue that would pass the Bechel Test. Patently ridiculous.

Better, as you mentioned, to have a dialogue regarding potentially sexist content.

[Esquilax]

I agree completely. The Bechdel Test is absurd. It has no way of accounting for dialogue that doesn't pass, but doesn't for non-sexist reasons. Consider the movie Alien. Ripley is one of the strongest female characters in cinema history (personal opinion of course), but I can't think of any dialogue that would pass the Bechel Test. Patently ridiculous.

Better, as you mentioned, to have a dialogue regarding potentially sexist content.

It's interesting that you mention Alien, since the original comic that gave rise to the test- people forget this, but the whole thing really was just a "huh, it's interesting that that's a true observation," in a comic strip from the eighties- specifically marks Alien as the last movie made that actually passed the test. I guess there were two female characters in it, three if you count the xenomorph.

[I_am_not_mafia]

I dunno, I see it more as a missed opportunity. There's an interesting conversation to be had about certain sexist implications and plotlines in Moffat's work on the show, but that study wasn't interested in having it, in favor of a vaguely correlated quantitative thing. When I saw that the Bechdel Test was the first thing they looked for I just stopped taking the whole thing seriously; it's a good thought experiment, but the Bechdel Test is not a reliable indicator of sexism. It's not even an indicator of sexism at all, as far as I'm concerned.

The Bechdel Test is a reliable indicator though of how women's roles are demeaned. This is a symptom of something that occurs more widely through society is why we have glass ceilings and pay gaps and why traditionally women's work is undervalued..

I think the most obvious example of Doctor Who failing the Bechdel test for me was that haunted house episode where they rescue Clara's descendent from the future. The only time the two women talked alone with each other it was about how they felt about their respective men.

[Esquilax]

The Bechdel Test is a reliable indicator though of how women's roles are demeaned. This is a symptom of something that occurs more widely through society is why we have glass ceilings and pay gaps and why traditionally women's work is undervalued..

I think the most obvious example of Doctor Who failing the Bechdel test for me was that haunted house episode where they rescue Clara's descendent from the future. The only time the two women talked alone with each other it was about how they felt about their respective men.

Kinda? The test has its uses, I'm not denying that, and it's certainly an interesting observation, but I think it's become rather overhyped in comparison to what it can actually show us; it's not this beacon of what is and isn't feminist, just a tool. In isolation it doesn't actually say anything at all about the strength of the female characters or themes of the work; it's very possible to craft a strong, female-oriented piece that only has one female character in it, thus precluding it from passing right off the bat. Conversely, it's possible to construct a cast that's all female, with men never coming up at all, that's still sexist as hell.

What matters is the characters and plots, not the specific, content agnostic arrangement that the Bechdel Test looks for; passing the Bechdel Test should be a single step in discussing a work from a gender perspective, and a lot of people find it easy to just end the conversation at "doesn't pass the test equals sexist." Even the study we were talking about only focused on passing the test and time values, rather than what actually went on during those times, which is sort of the important bit.

[I_am_not_mafia]

I'd agree with that Esquillax. It''s worth lays in it being an observation of a typical cliche or lazy script writing.

Gravity for example doesn't pass the Bechdel test which is ludicrous. So the test certainly has a limited scope and only tests for one thing.

[Aractus]

Nup, confirmed by another study.

I wasn't clear with my intent. I took the study at face value. What I was really getting after was the fact that 'the study' was conducted in the first place. This is a clear sign that there's a professional offense taker at work. Fucking ridiculous.

I don't think so, the first study was done in response to multiple people noting that Moffat is blatantly sexist in Doctor Who and Sherlock (which by the way I don't watch), and looked to objectively assess whether it was true. The other study was inspired by the first study, but looked beyond the constraints of the direct criteria for the Bechdel Test to objectify the observed incidences of sexism further.

RTD isn't perfect either, he introduced openly bisexual characters with no relevance to the plot, and those themes of sexuality were better left out of Doctor Who, or at the very least constrained to plot relevance. Furthermore we know from Eccleston that's he's blatantly classist just as much of the BBC and British society is (which by the way I can prove with the Marmot graph below).

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I don't need the studies to prove it for me - it's been obvious to me since 2010, and I never bothered even reading into people's opinions on it. It's a lot more sexist now than many classic-era series - even though the classic-era Who was rife with the helpless females. That's why Carole Ann Ford left the original show - because of rampant sexism. If we think back to Leela - one of my all-time favourite companions - it became clear that the actress, Louise Jameson, went to great lengths to overcome sexism and actively portray an independently-minded woman. They (including Baker) wanted her to be a weak submissive female, but she wanted to portray a strong female character.

The sexism is there and obvious whenever you notice an interchangeable female character. Missy for example is an interchangeable replacement for River. Both Amy and Clara have partners who the doctor repeatedly belittles in front of the women.

When we're first introduced to River she's intelligent, strong, and independent. But she just regresses from there - overtime we learn she calls the doctor whenever she's in trouble. She never does anything for herself, and can't even decide not to kill the doctor on her own.

[Cyberman]

Both Amy and Clara have partners who the doctor repeatedly belittles in front of the women.

To be fair, that was the purpose for having the character of Danny Pink there in the first place - as a love interest to develop Clara by losing him and a target of the Doctor's derision. At least Rory, in my view the best male companion since Harry, had his own reasons for being there.

[Aractus]

And before I forget, Hartnell would be rolling in his grave if he saw the Vikings episode. Yes, Doctor Who often gets historical accuracy wrong, however they don't usually get it so blatantly wrong, and one of the hallmarks of the early series was the care in which historical settings were portrayed. It is partly a children's show and should be educational in that sense, not reinforcing modern mythology about ancient times. Most mistakes are unintentional, and often subtle. There's nothing subtle about this though: