So how do we feel about his use of the word "sexy"? Used by 6+ characters across sherlock and doctor who
Supremely irked when River and Missy use it 😭 it feels like words forced into their mouths tbh.
Well, to be honest, whenever a female character says it, I make a vaguely grossed out face and then try to forget it ever happened. For me, the worst one is Irene Adler in Scandal in Belgravia, but that’s just my personal gut reaction talking. (Especially since she’s... a lesbian... talking about a man... anyway.)
Whenever a male writer has a female character declare that something is “sexy,” well...
It reminds me of the days in high school where dudebros told girls what ‘real women’ are attracted to. Does anyone remember that? Like, some jerk would tell a girl something like, “You might like him now. But once you’re a real woman, you’ll want a real man, not that little boy.” Or, “You girls are always into the jerks, not the nice guys like me.” Or, “Girls like guys with huge muscles, it’s just a biological evolutionary fact.”
The dudebros think they know what women want. And in reality, they couldn’t be more wrong. Women are all different, and are all attracted to things that may wildly differ from individual to individual. Some may not even be attracted to men at all. (Like Irene Adler cough cough.)
With River, or Irene, or Missy, they all say Main Character is sexy with no real differentiation between them. There’s no individual taste that factors into what they consider sexy; it’s just the overwhelming ~sexiness of Main Character that they just can’t resist. Moffat wants Main Character to be sexy, so he has a ton of women say Main Character is sexy. He doesn’t write women to have their own individual, personal ideas of what sexy is, he just thinks of women being irresistibly drawn like moths to the sexy lamp of Main Character that he’s written and thinks that’ll just about do it.
So, yeah. I completely agree with you. The word is not so much forced into their mouths as it is stuffed down their throats.
It bugs me when people say the 50th wasn't a retcon of the Time War. Even you liked it, it was a retcon.
Staunch defensiveness about something they love can make people almost willfully ignore things that they would otherwise accept uncontested. At that point, they are only trying to defend themselves emotionally, and anything you say will be seen as an attack. So the safest and kindest option is usually to disengage in the instances in which this reaction pops up. Nothing will come out of further discussion except hurt feelings and dissatisfaction all around. It’s a sad reality, and I agree with you; it bugs me quite a bit, too.
And yes, it was definitely a canonical retcon of the decisions the Doctor made in the original(?) Time War. Moffat would most likely argue that retconning is a scientific possibility within the Doctor Who universe, just like he did when Amy reset the universe just by remembering stuff. So a fan would then argue: If changing a fixed point (retconning) is proved possible in Doctor Who, then why does it matter that the Time War was retconned? It’s a cool twist that’s allowed by Doctor Who science, after all.
My particular issue with the Time War retcon is that not only does it lessen the emotional character arcs of Nine and Ten, but it also rewrites some of the rules of the sci-fi fantasy Doctor Who universe. It has been stated many, many times in the show that if a fixed point in time is messed with, the universe will collapse. And now all of the rules have shifted for some (no) reason. This, to me, is the basic definition of bad continuity and bad fantasy writing: it knocks me right out of my suspension of disbelief by breaking its own rules.
I'm having trouble with my wifi so I'm not sure if my first ask sent so sorry if this is a repeat :*) I've been on your blog all evening and I really liked your posts about the doctor imprinting on the young girls and such, and my question for you is: do you think Moffat is consciously writing creepy plot lines or do you think he is ignorant to his problematic writing?
Oh no problem, it didn’t repeat or anything. And even if it had, it would’ve been fine anyway. Haha!
Ok this is a difficult question to answer. Like, really difficult. Let me begin by saying it is absolutely impossible to have a concrete answer, because the only one who could have the answer to that question is Moffat himself. And he might not even know. So this is all conjecture.
That said… let me try my hand at an answer.
To counteract this, every writer has to navigate the seas of literature and find their place. They need their own individual stamp on their work, something that transcends industry simplifications like genre or ratings. They need to break free from the shadows of the masters, like Homer or Matsuo Basho, and make something that other people recognize as theirs. Something that other people respond to emotionally, and don’t simply see as a shitty remake of Hamlet.
So what is the style Steven Moffat has fashioned for himself? What does he bring to his writing that differentiates him from Ernest Hemingway, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Stephen King?
Moffat has several distinctive techniques running through his work:
He usually uses dialogue that is fast and snappy that skips over long explanations, relying on quick backgrounds and preconceptions of the characters to allow the audience to flesh them out beyond that. This moves the plot and characters around faster, allowing for quick and funny repartee in an exciting, fast-moving scene. The drawback? Limited onscreen character development.
He also likes to create an atmosphere of horror to increase a scene’s excitement. Usually this is done with a particularly eerie villain, who takes advantage of unsuspecting victims through something seemingly normal. It keeps the characters on their toes, as they have to be on high alert through the whole episode to make sure they are not caught in some monster’s web. A drawback of this technique is that it can be overused and therefore lose its effectiveness as a tension-builder.
Another staple of Moffat’s storytelling is the ‘twist’. There always seems to be a twist in any of Moffat’s scenes that he writes - whether it is a play on words, a purposeful misunderstanding of human social norms, a point of view on someone’s identity, or the entire direction and point of the plot. While this can lead to very interesting, humorous, and unique plots, a drawback to constantly using twists is that there can only be so many before they become repetitive and lose their originality.
All of these techniques point to one thing: he wants to shock and awe. He wants the audience on the edge of their seats with excitement.
But here’s the thing - he has to constantly keep it up. He has to keep making more and more shocking twists, more and more snappy dialogue, more and more creepy insidious villains, because that’s his style he’s built for himself. He plays with more and more social mores, mixing up tons of genre types and characters specifically to ride the edge between formulaic storytelling and shocking, breaking-all-the-rules storytelling.
So what happens? He grasps for more and more shocking plot twists, he tries to up the creepy factors, and he breaks more and more of society’s rules.
This is where the problematic stuff really surfaces.
See, when you’re intent on breaking every single rule of storytelling, you end up using a ton of storytelling cliches. You have to build up a cliche before you break it down. You use cliches like they’re ingredients. Little bit of Caesar here, little bit of Batman over here. Just a pinch of Giving Tree, just a cup of Tuck Everlasting. And presto, you have the Doctor going through multiple character arcs.
Problem is, a lot of cliches? They’re fucked up.
And combining them together for shock value can sometimes lead to stuff getting even more fucked up.
I mean, there’s a longstanding idea of a man going after a woman, trying to woo her over and over, especially if she says no. In reality, this is stalking. But Moffat subtextually says this situation is romantic by setting it up as the meet-cute between two married characters. By utilizing this cliche in this instance, Moffat is perpetrating a poisonous, long-standing patriarchal standard of rape culture and sexual harassment.
The imprinting is similar to that, but I feel like it’s more complicated. It’s a mix of many cliches - girl obsessed with idol since childhood finally meets him, star-crossed lovers get separated, hero saves child, hero gets the girl and they have adventures together - that build into something disturbing. Most of these cliches are fine on their own… But when combined into, say, Amy or River’s plot-line, as a whole they become creepy and abusive.
Basically, instead of just using problematic cliches, he commonly combines individually harmless cliches to make something shocking and usually chock full of offensive subtext. It seems as though Moffat does not realize that some of his cliche combinations result in seriously problematic stuff - almost as if he understands that the plots he creates are shocking, but he does not quite get why.
TLDR, I think Moffat is having too much fun playing with cliches and tropes and genres for his shocking plot devices to realize that he’s sending offensive, problematic messages.
Sorry it took so many words to say that, lol!! Hope I answered your question - though this is only my opinion and is in no way an absolute truth.
first of all: thank you for this blog. <3 second: i stopped watching after the snowmen, after growing increasingly disinterested and more recently, incredibly angry at the direction the show is going. i have a question: do you think doctor who can be salvaged as the show it should be?
Well, thank you for the question!! <3
I have the same problem. Confession - I haven’t watched a single DW episode for a month… It just seems like such a chore.
As to whether Doctor Who is salvageable? Absolutely. Don’t give up hope! Any show can change in any direction. It all depends on the writers. They’re wizards; they make something out of nothing for every episode! Television is one of the most changeable, malleable art forms we have today, reacting to viewers and ratings and reviews from episode to episode. One day, Moffat and his run will be over, and another writer will take up the mantle as showrunner, hire different writers, and the show will regenerate just like the Doctor does. It’s not over. Remember that!! Doctor Who will live on. And it will change, just like it has for decades, and the soul of the show will endure. And maybe, if we’re lucky, it’ll be something we can both love again.
Damn, now I’m gonna cry. Here’s me, sending out waves of love to all of you guys that are suffering along with me. I love you all :,)
speckeh replied to your post: give the Twelfth Doctor a try!
Honestly the first episode is kind of meh. The Robin Hood one I would say to give it a try. It’s the funnier one. But eh. If you don’t want to watch Moffats reign. Then don’t. I am so tempted for us to go to DW HQ and show them Charlie. muwha
I'm not saying they should fire Moffat and hire us but yes I am saying that.
as much as i like to bash Moffat, he said both lines about important people.
He did write both lines. But the first one was during RTD’s era, and that idea of everyone being special pervaded the era. Under Moffat’s era, the feeling seems to be more along the second line.
I know it’s not exact, and you do have a point.
However. When the same screenwriter is writing such conflicting things said by the same character, doesn’t it show something about how the focus of the show has fundamentally changed? From something hopeful and positive to something demeaning and negative?
