Things We Saw Today: Thor Admiring Thor

“A woman named Amanda Abbington”. You mean Martin Freeman’s partner, Amanda Abbington, right? Whole thing is ridiculous.

Stephen Moffat’s writing has some/many problematic elements. But the level of vitriol directed at him is really disproportionate. Especially since he’s more in the ‘clueless but trying’ category rather than the ‘hateful asshole’ category.

Having to remind people that death threats aren’t cool is getting a bit worrying. If people haven’t learnt that by now, there ain’t any hope for them.

Is that right? I don’t keep up on his dating life. Guess that’s why she knows Moffat.

Steven Moffatt is not a misogynist. That’s ridiculous.

I really love it when *men* get to decide what misogyny is and isn’t. That always goes *so* well….

Shoot, DATING life, they’ve been together over a decade and have two kids, and the whole “partner” term is just a technicality, they’re basically married… uh… anyway
Signed, someone who pays entirely too MUCH attention to his love life.
PS– which makes me feel a TINGE guilty about Amanda’s post today, because I admit I myself hated her irrationally until I found out how cool she was. Now she’s awesome and I love her and I incidentally agree fully with her post. I still want to swap husbands with her though.

Haha, I almost wrote Martin Freeman’s wife but felt that might be a bit presumptuous, despite them being together something like 12 years. And yeah, I know the feeling. I have a huge crush on Martin Freeman but Amanda Abbington is just so lovely and adorable. You just can’t dislike her.

I really dont understand what people keep going on about Moffats’ writing. If you look at the broad spectrum, he actually writes really interesting well rounded women. And yes they have faults, and they act on them, but any well rounded character will. Its drama. And death threats about it? Thats just beyond absurd. It goes to the point of feeling free to say anything on the internet that you can’t anywhere else. If they had done that to his face it would be a crime.

There’s of course absolutely no reason to level death threats at a person, that’s just bad behavior, but Moffat’s reactions to criticism about his Doctor Who series has been famously classless and definitely not clueless but trying. He has the internet. It would cost him nothing to get educated on the things about which he is ignorant, so fans can only assume he is lazy or willfully ignorant. That’s going to stir up some anger, especially when you are parting a very loyal fan base from RTD’s series. Obviously he’s got no obligation to please RTD’s fans, but the “change the channel” defense is childish. We are all affected by misogyny on television, whether it’s something we watch or not. It’s something other people watch, it’s in the air, it’s raising a whole new generation of nerds who are being given lower expectations for female characters and being short-changed incredible role models.
And whenever a group of people try to tell Moffat as much, they’re smacked down or drowned out by not only the fans, but the guy who supposedly takes “constructive criticism.” I’ve never ever seen any public grace from Moffat about the very fair and civil criticisms leveled at his series, and honestly being a Doctor Who fan these days with objections to the way the series went feels a lot like screaming into an empty room. Her response fails to see where the frustration comes from, and dismisses the problem, which is probably what made people so angry at her in the first place. Again, we can agree that death threats are bad, but let’s not use the behavior of one or two people to dismiss this issue.

@GraceHelbig isn’t grating my dear Frisky, she’s a genius.

I like you. You have good taste. I’ve just followed you on Twitter, so you don’t think I’m a bot or anything. :)

Its sutch a damn shame that the internet seems to turn so many (presumably normal) poeple into raging hate monsters.
You find a man’s tv writing to be offensive, so the logical solution is to threaten to kill him? and then kill all his friends when they stand up for him?

And I dont have any problem with his writing. I prefer his female characters to RTD’s in Dr Who, to be honest (except Donna. I want to marry Donna).

Good point: Men don’t get to decide this. But some women forget that they also don’t get to decide for all women, or most women, or women in general. Just for themselves. Women are not alike, nor do we all have the same opinions.

You have an
interesting opinion. But others have opinions also. I don’t agree that Moffat’s
treatment of women is sexist. And judging by the popularity of his shows, and
the number of awards they’ve won, one might guess that a great many other women
don’t think so either.

Abbington’s
admirable response was to defend her friend, a man she knows well, against
slurs on his character. A genuine effort at constructive criticism of an
on-going literary work avoids character attacks, makes no mind-reading-type
assumptions about what the author feels and thinks, and offers specific
examples of what might work better in the future. The criticism of Moffat that
I’ve seen, and I’ve taken the time to read and think carefully about a great
deal of it, involves frequent personal insults and broad conclusions drawn from
a very few characters, as well as the application of certain literary analysis
techniques as though they were the equivalent of undisputed moral
standards. Even here you seem to insult Moffat and also everyone else who doesn’t agree with your criticism as being “willfully ignorant.”

But a main point
here, it seems to me, is that a very small percentage of the watchers of
Moffat’s shows are demanding that these popular and critically acclaimed works
be changed to suit them without providing for the opinions of others. And I think that results in a sort of overall impression of entitlement – a
kind of unspoken “the rest of you don’t matter, those who like the
show as it is and those who want the show changed
in other ways (more adventure, less adventure, more episodes on earth, more
outer space, etc. etc. etc.) and even the experienced professionals who make it happen and who critique it.” This impression, correct or incorrect, could be one reason why this particular criticism so
often fails to be taken seriously.

Overread into my point much? I’m really failing to see where in this post, let alone this thread, anyone has insisted that womanhood is or must be a monolith with a shared opinion as to what sexism is and isn’t.

Brian – who I presume to be male (but my apologies if I’m wrong) – decided to define misogyny and dismiss accusations of it all in one fail swoop. Behavior which enables rather than engages sexism. It tends to shut down discussion instead of contributing to it. And god forbid that a man shouldn’t enjoy the privilege of airing their opinions about misogyny…

No, Kifre, I didn’t overread your point at all. It was a quite narrow point, and I agreed with it. Then I went on to expand on it with new comments of my own. Apparently you read my additional comments as a disagreement with something already said, perhaps by you. But not so.

Sorry I misread your comment, then. I was confused as to why you felt the need to direct that particular (fairly obvious) point at me unless you thought that I was somehow asserting otherwise.

I totally know that groom.

While to be totally clear, I don’t think labeling Moffat a misogynist or any such thing is constructive, criticism of Moffat’s work as misogynist or damaging to women and young girls is not a few cranks who are bitter about losing RTD. In fact, there are two sides to this debate, and there have been for some time. I’ve read a great deal of this sort of thing and if you haven’t been able to find adequate reputable sources, I’m glad to point you in the direction of a number of them.
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/helen-lewis-hasteley/2012/01/moffat-sherlock-women
http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2012/09/06/799791/steven-moffat-im-over-your-lady-issues/?mobile=nc

A quote from the man himself you might see around: “There’s this issue you’re not allowed to discuss: that women are needy.
Men can go for longer, more happily, without women. That’s the truth.
We don’t, as little boys, play at being married – we try to avoid it for
as long as possible. Meanwhile women are out there hunting for
husbands.”

And he continues:
“Well, the world is vastly counted in favour of men at every level –
except if you live in a civilised country and you’re sort of educated
and middle-class, because then you’re almost certainly junior in your
relationship and in a state of permanent, crippled apology. Your
preferences are routinely mocked. There’s a huge, unfortunate lack of
respect for anything male.” -http://www.scotsman.com/news/time-lad-scores-with-sex-and-daleks-1-1394833

Maybe I’m making wild assumptions about the motives behind that statement, but it sure seems to me that the man who said those words is willfully ignorant about the state of the subversive patriarchy in our current cultural climate. Our having an opinion about Moffat’s writing does not negate your opinion, but dismissing it outright is not an option anymore, especially since, according to recent press, Doctor Who’s women issues are only getting worse.

Gee, wouldn’t it be simple if we really were talking about a group of people demanding that this TV show be changed to suit them? Except that’s a complete misrepresentation of what’s happening. There’s nothing entitled about disliking the way a group you belong to is portrayed on a television show that huge numbers of people watch. There’s nothing entitled about wishing that things were different or being critical of a show even though a large number of people love it just the way it is. I think though, that there is entitlement in deciding that because the majority of people don’t find the portrayal of women on a show offensive, that it’s not so. That is exactly that kind of attitude that has so many Doctor Who fans so very frustrated. The fact that they find a show they used to love newly offensive and think it’s a bad influence doesn’t matter enough for their arguments to even be heard. Stating my opinion about Doctor Who and having it heard costs no one anything and yet, though my argument has been quite derailed by this comment, I think the majority of frustrated fans are unheard, dismissed, and silenced, and that is what generates probably an unnecessary amount of vitriol. Obviously I can’t understand sending someone death threats, but I can understand where the anger comes from and I think dismissing it once again is the worst possible reaction.

Thanks for the quotes and suggestions – it was courteous of you to take the trouble. As I indicated, I’ve done some research and am familiar with all you mention.

That impression I get of a sense of entitlement comes from, for example, those people I’ve seen who just keep insisting and demanding and repeating themselves long after they’ve made their point and others have replied with a disagreement, from the use of personal/character insults, from the widespread claims that Moffat himself just must be a sexist person because certain kinds of analysis suggest sexist issues in certain episodes, from some rather amazing inaccuracies in the description of Conan Doyle’s Irene Adler character (from Moffat’s “Sherlock”) and then derogatory comments about Moffat based on a comparison to those inaccurate claims, the celebrations of Moffat leaving Twitter (which says pretty plainly that achieving a dialogue leading to change was not the primary aim for those people).

I have personally seen no evidence of any fans being “silenced.” If a person working in the entertainment world chooses not to do what he is being told to do, it doesn’t mean anyone was silenced. I know what being silenced is. I have lived where the law required the firing of any woman, married or not, who got pregnant while an employee of the government. I have worked where my boss (legally) gave my work orders to my husband (with whom he was somewhat acquainted) to be passed along to me so there would no opportunity for me to express an opinion to the boss. I have been in post-graduate classes where all the men were addressed as Mr. So-and-so, whIle I was addressed as “Baby” (even when the roll was called) and told to be quiet if the others weren’t in the mood to hear me speak during class discussions – and where it was entirely legal for those things to happen in a government school.

People with access to computers and blogs and twitter, with the freedom to say almost anything they wish (including making claims about another person’s intentions and motivations) have not been “silenced.” Your arguments are certainly being heard – everywhere, even in the comment section of an article that simply made an objection to death threats.

And I didn’t say that because a majority don’t find a show offensive, that it isn’t so. Obviously it’s quite offensive to you and to some others. Those of us who don’t find it offensive have exactly the same right (not greater and not less) to ask that the show not make the demanded changes as those who are offended to ask that the changes be made. It doesn’t encourage me, however, to believe that you are being somehow unfairly dismissed when you dismiss my stating of my own opinion as having merely “quite derailed” (rather than the respectful “responded to”) your own argument – a phrase worthy of that post-graduate class I mentioned.

I leave any last comment to you.

I added those points while agreeing with you because we were both responding to Brian, and those points (while indeed fairly obvious) are preemptive answers to objections fairly often made by men who attempt to define misogyny to a woman. I am sorry I wasn’t clear enough.