Bad Wolf Meta

Meta about Rose Tyler from Doctor Who

[toptony]

DOCTOR WHO ▹ The End of the World

[jessmariano]

That’s who I am. Now, forget me, Rose Tyler. Go home.

[badwolfmeta]

Rose doesn’t turn away. She keeps staring at these animated mannequins and demanding answers even as she backs away, slowly and steadily. 

And we’ll see this again and again throughout her time traveling with the Doctor. She’s going to stare fear straight in the face and demand it answer her, no matter how scared she is. 

[badwolfmeta]

Okay, but Rose Tyler is ridiculously beautiful.

[badwolfmeta]

The doors are locked. There’s no way back.

Rose is so scared here. She knows that something isn’t right. She knows that things are going--have gone--wrong. 

But the only choice she has is to go forward. So she does.

[badwolfmeta]

I know that I keep going on about how much of Rose’s personality they have to cram into less than 5 minutes of this show and so what they do show is incredibly important. And that’s why I love this little bit right here.

So Rose is walking through this room to get to the Estates Management Department in her quest to find Wilson. And as she gets closer to the door, her steps speed up and she almost jogs to it. (I wish I could make a gif of this but, no only do I not know how to, but I also do all this writing on an older chromebook which mean it’s impossible for me to do so.) While she’s attempting to get into the door she half-jogged to, the main door slams shut. She immediately dashes over to the door and attempts to open it.

The reason I love this, especially considering this is in the part before we meet the Doctor and thus is all about Rose, is that we’re already seeing that she has good instincts. She knows that something isn’t right; she feels it and thus speeds up her steps. And when the door slams shut she doesn’t yell, “Who’s there?” or look at it confusedly or walk to it slowly. The sense of danger that she picked up on as she was walking to the Department door is now full blown and, even though she doesn’t know why, she knows she needs to get out and get out now. 

That she has good instincts, that she reacts well under pressure, these traits could have easily been revealed in a scene with the Doctor. Or they could have had the Doctor grab her as soon as the door slammed, not showing us her reaction. But that’s not what the writers did. The writers very deliberately put this in these first five minutes which are all about Rose.

The fact that she knows when danger is around, the fact that she reacts well to it and doesn’t doubt what she’s feeling, none of this is the Doctor, it’s all Rose and the show goes out of its way to make sure that we know it.

[badwolfmeta]

Rose Tyler, you are one of my all time favorite characters in any form of media. I love you a truly outrageous amount. 

And I know that going down into this room will lead you to so many wonderful, amazing things.

But I am still judging you so fucking hard right now for willingly walking into what is, even before they begin moving, a room full of nothing but nightmare fuel.

I love your fearlessness but I’m still judging you.

[badwolfmeta]

I don’t always think that clothes are an important part of a character but I do think that they’re extremely relevant for Rose, both who she is when the series starts and who she becomes as the series progresses.

As I mentioned previously, the show goes to great lengths to show us that Rose is a very normal girl living a very normal life. This had to be done quickly so that they could move on to the larger plot and the Doctor. They did this by jamming as much information about Rose as they could in two minutes and her clothes were a huge part of that first impression.

Our very first look is actually her pajamas. They’re literally nothing special: a white and gray striped tank top and grey pajama pants. The sort of thing that thousands, if not millions, of people wear to bed and around the house on lazy days.

And then we get the above outfit. What we wear out of the house is important. We might want to say that it’s not but the fact of the matter is that it is. How we dress affects the way that people react to us and this is doubly true for women. It’s not fair, but there it is. Women don’t get dressed for men but we are all very aware of the fact that whatever we wear is going to be judged and, as such, what we choose to wear out of the house is a statement, even if that statement is: fuck everyone else, I’ll wear what I want. 

So, what does Rose’s outfit say about her?

Let’s start with colors. Her color palette is almost a monochrome pink: a medium pink hoodie with a light pink interior over a light pink shirt. I don’t count her baggy dark blue jeans and white sneakers in this palette because I feel jeans and sneakers have become neutral items when they are in their default colors. They are merely there because Rose needed shoes and pants and those were comfortable and would match whatever she chose to wear on the top half of her body. All of this shows us a young woman who values comfort and ease of use more than anything else. The jeans and sneakers are nice because she can throw whatever type of shirt on she wants and she knows that it will work. This, combined with the use of pink in both her room and what she’s wearing, show that she’s is complacent in her life. She’ll buy pink because she’s always bought pink because she’ll always buy pink. 

The only color other than pink is the pastel blue of her hobo purse which also features a loud print splashed across its front. However, seeing as it’s a bag that we only see when she’s traveling too and from work, I feel it’s safe to say it’s her regular bag, not one picked specifically to go with this particular outfit.. Purses are not an accessory to be matched with a new outfit everyday for Rose; they’re a tool to carry her stuff in as she goes about her life and there’s a good chance that she carries this bag no matter what outfit she wears. Even the way she wears the purse, strap crossed over her front instead of hanging off one shoulder, speaks of comfort and convenience; it’s the way people who walk places and travel on public transit wear their bags because it means not only that it won’t slip off at an inconvenient moment but that it can easily be pushed behind or in front of the person if it’s someone else’s way.

Not only does this tell us a lot about Rose’s life but it’s also a great look into Rose’s own headspace when the show starts. This is the outfit of someone who prizes comfort and every day use over fashion. It is also the outfit of someone who isn’t trying anymore. She’s not trying to impress anyone, not even at her job*; she’s a woman just going through the motions of her every day life. It’s a wardrobe of someone who expects that, ten years from now, nothing will have changed, including herself, and thus there’s nothing to do but what she’s always been doing.

Rose is not just a normal girl who has nothing special going for her or about her. She is a normal girl who expects that nothing special will ever happen to her either and her wardrobe reflects that.

*It should be noted that I’ve worked in a store that looks very similar to Rose’s and there is absolutely no way in hell that you would be allowed to show up to work in jeans and a hoodie. However, I acknowledge that they were trying to get a lot about Rose across in a very small amount of time and that needs must sometimes.

[badwolfmeta]

Rose Tyler is a normal girl. This is something that is deliberately highlighted in the opening sequence. They could have focused on anything, anything at all, especially the sci-fi elements or the Doctor. 

But they didn’t.

Instead they focus on Rose, an average girl living a completely normal life. She wakes up in the morning to an annoying alarm clock. She turns it off with a slap and sits up in bed, her hair a riot of peroxide blonde, darker roots showing.. She stumbles out of bed in a tank top and pajama pants, an outfit you would see on a million other girls the world over, surrounded by the detritus that a messy life accumulates. She changes into jeans and hoodie, comfortable clothes, clothes that have obviously been worn over and over again. She moves quickly through her morning, the speed of someone who is running a bit late and does so often. She kisses her Mum, grabs her keys off a cluttered coffee table, says goodbye, and rushes out the door.

But we don’t just see Rose’s normal home life; the creators of Doctor Who take care to show that every aspect of her life is as far from spectacular as it gets. She runs down the bare stairs in a way that speaks of familiarity: familiar turns and familiar steps. She rides the bus and, still running late, stands at the ready to rush off as soon as she is able. She runs across a street to her job, a sales associate at a clothing store. It looks like your average slightly high end department store; the type of store that’s still obviously department store but pricier. It’s the type of place where the employees can rarely afford the clothes that they themselves sell.

Even Rose’s time away from work and home, where people are given the chance to stretch their boundaries, is a litany of normalcy. She has lunch with her boyfriend, Mickey. They are playful and laugh together, a comfortable relationship between people who have known each other for a long while. They kiss, hug, and playfully push one another; their attitude toward one another speaks of comfort and routine. Rose returns to work and they show her organizing clothes, the look on her face the look everyone who works in retail has at the end of the day: that the day was far too long and you’re too tired to even be glad it’s over. The day ends and she starts to leave, chatting with some other girls, when she gets stopped and tasked with one of those last minute errands that so often get given to retail workers when they’re getting ready to go out the door. 

This all happens in a little less than a minute and a half. It is a tremendous amount to put into such a small time period but it is also important because it is the audience’s introduction to the companion of the Doctor. What is shown in these moments is incredibly important to Rose’s character and what is shown is that she is nobody special. She’s just you normal, average girl that you would ignore most of the time or, in the right circumstance, maybe make small talk with. 

Rose is nobody special which is why when she shows herself to be truly exceptional, there’s the promise that everyone can be exceptional, if they’re just given the chance.