The weekend brought us the return of Steven Moffat’s fixation on mothers in ‘Aslyum of the Daleks.’ The Doctor Who creator cannot seem to tear himself away from this theme, circling around it over and over again in a variety of ways. One wonders how he finds new territory to explore when he’s already gone over it so thoroughly.
‘Aslyum of the Daleks’ took us to a planet used by the Daleks as a dumping ground for their unwanted, an effective prison planet turned mental institution which hadn’t proved as secure as the Daleks might have wanted. Even the Daleks, it appears, have an aversion to allowing mentally ill people out in society. The Doctor was reunited with Amy and Rory in this episode as a result of a Dalek plot which took them to the planet in order to lower the forcefield so they could escape, which would also enable the Daleks to destroy it to clean up their security problem. The catch becomes getting off the planet, requiring a delicate dance with a teleporter to escape before the asylum is ripped apart.
A standard Doctor Who plot with the usual amount of tension and familiar pacing, but ‘Asylum of the Daleks’ also put us squarely into the midst of Amy and Rory’s failing marriage. The Doctor, with his usual compulsion to fix everything around him, manufactured a situation that left the two alone in an attempt to force them to work out their differences, which, of course, they did, but what was revealed in the course of the conversation was a fascinating insight into how Moffat views women.
Or it would be, if Moffat hadn’t made the point a thousand times already.
Rory asserts that he loves Amy more than she loves him and this has always been the case, a statement many viewers would probably agree with. Rory always seems like the person Amy has settled for since she can’t have the Doctor, someone familiar and comfortable but not someone who inspires deep passion in her. While they may have a long history together, it is not a particularly fiery one.
Amy, infuriated, shoots back with the argument that she loves him more; the fracturing of their marriage occurred because she gave him up, not because she left him, as she’d led him to believe. Tearily, Amy explains that she’s infertile as a result of the events depicted in ‘A Good Man Goes to War,’ and because Rory always wanted children, she didn’t want to force him to stay in the marriage. In his usual befuddled way, Rory gawped and mooned about on set for a few moments before they reconciled, affirming to viewers that the pairing was not yet dead.
Moffat has a deep and almost troubling obsession with the idea of motherhood, defining many of his female characters around it and often making disturbing assertions about what motherhood means to women. Amy feels inadequate because she can’t have children, and rather than discussing the situation with Rory, she isolates herself, making a sacrifice on the assumption that it’s what Rory would want. She decides she’s unfit for their marriage on the grounds that she can’t have children, although she explores this primarily in the context of what she thinks Rory wants, not what she herself might desire in life.
While many viewers may have been thinking that there are, of course, many ways to have children, it’s curious that Rory didn’t mention any of them in his response to her. There was nothing to affirm the fact that Amy could still be a mother if they wanted to have children together, even if she wouldn’t physically bear them, even as he rejected the idea that they should separate because she’s infertile. There was an almost sinister acceptance of the premise that Amy can’t be a mother, and no discussion at all of whether she even wants to be one. Her main relationship to motherhood here was in the context of not being able to meet Rory’s wishes, while hers remained obscured.
All of this drama occurred in the curious absence of their daughter, River Song. River’s arc and life story also intersect with Moffat’s strange views about women and mothers; she’s the product of effectively using Amy as an incubator, and we see her in the series mostly as an adult woman with her own life and pursuits. Amy and Rory never have a chance to raise her even though they are her parents, and she’s a distinctly separate entity; she’s very much treated as though she isn’t Amy’s child in any sense because while Amy gave birth to her, she didn’t take part in her upbringing.
The conflict around Amy’s gynecological history, as it were, reveals some confusion in Moffat’s own mind about mothers, parenting, and how women view their bodies and relationships. Amy and Rory already are parents in the genetic sense, much like people who choose to give children up for adoption, and nothing is going to change that. They could still choose to become parents in the sense of raising a child together, it just wouldn’t necessarily be their genetic child, depending on the specifics of Amy’s situation. The path to motherhood isn’t closed for Amy, unless she herself wants it to be, but we don’t know what she wants, because she hasn’t told us.
For Moffat, of course, Amy’s infertility was a convenient plot device to create tension in their marriage, and subsequently in the seventh series. But it’s notable that he chose this, specifically, as a plot device, instead of a number of options. Sometimes it’s the small, seemingly casual decisions made by creators that reveal the most about them. For Moffat, women begin and end with their childbearing abilities, so it seems entirely natural to use the lack thereof to drive a narrative.
Oh, please.
Hardly. Moffat has a history of writing 3 dimensional characters, male and female. The entire run of Coupling and his 3 part miniseries Jeckyll come immediately to mind. But also within Dootor Who there’s River Song, for example, who is not herself defined in terms of her reproductive ability. What about Sally Sparrow? Or even in this same episode what about Oswin?
Given the two seasons worth of character development in Amy & Rory, it is entirely plausible for Amy to have taken the “hard decision” on Rory’s behalf & without his knowledge, still more that this decision would be wrong-headed. Given the two characters had approximately 60 seconds to discuss it this episode, I think they (and Moffat, by extension) can be forgiven for not listing out each of the alternative options available to couples who cannot conceive in the regular manner. It was more important to first re-establish their relationship. Remember also that Moffat writes for the long game – the options you want Amy & Rory to discuss are there to explore over the course of a season or indeed longer. As for “oedipal”? Please. Nowhere does Moffat display a desire to bed his mother through his writing. And even if your argument held water, that would merely define him as narrow minded, not oedipal.
I wouldn’t say Moffat was oedipal, but he definitely has a fixed view of women… It’s quite obvious he has thing for the gun-toting dominatrix type: River Song using firearms (which the Doctor has always despised) and wearing Nazi hats in her underwear… Amy Pond as a kissogram dressed as a copper (and then Amy with a gun, jackboots and an eyepatch!)… Not to mention his well pervy version of ‘The Woman’ from the updated Sherlock series… Now we have the Doctor’s newest companion: portrayed as a kind of Nigella Lawson inside a Dalek! Moffat made rather sexist comments about past companions : saying Janet Fielding (Tegan Jovanka) didn’t ooze sex appeal… So what! Did she have to?! I believe that as long as Moffat is running Doctor Who every companion will be a hottie or ‘dolly bird’… I am just glad RTD ran the show for a while: because Moffat would never had created a character like Donna Noble, and he certainly wouldn’t have chose Catherine Tate…. Not every Who companion has to be sexy, it isn’t James Bond…
Utter drivel.
D – You say “they only have 60 seconds to discuss their problems” like they were randomly placed in that situation, but they weren’t – they were deliberately written into that situation. Moffat could just as easily have written the episode so they had longer to resolve their issues (or resolved them over several episodes) – ah, but that would have meant passing up a chance to make the Doctor look good, which is unthinkable under Moffat. (I think that’s my main problem with the Moffat era – rather than making the Doctor look great IN SPITE of the situation, he contrives the situation to make him look good, which is just lazy writing).
You can’t analyse fictional characters the same way you would analyse real people, because fictional characters are always guided and influenced by the author. Real life doesn’t have to make sense – fiction does. And while I agree that Amy would make a wrong-headed decision, I cannot see Rory agreeing to a divorce without even discussing why they were divorcing.
And yeah, the subtext of “women are powerful because of their working uteruses” that has been going on in Who for a while (remember the Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe?) is really disturbing. What about post-menopausal women? Childfree by choice women? Transwomen? I think Moffat truly believes he’s presenting a positive image of women, but he’s actually erasing a huge number of women by focusing so obsessively on the ability to get pregnant and give birth.
Thinking your partner’s desires are more important than your own != defining yourself by your childbearing abilities.
FWIW, I’m DFAB, infertile, love kids but not interested in having any of my own. Years ago, I deliberately cut off more or less all my friends because I didn’t want to hurt people. And I know someone who broke off a long-relationship after they became disabled, for the supposed benefit of their partner (obviously, infertility is not disability – but same dynamic in Amy’s head, it seems).
Totally agree with you. I cannot stand Amy Pond and none of my friends can either. It isn’t Karen Gillian’s fault, I’m sure she’s a perfectly fine actress but the way the character is written makes me want to throttle Moffat. She’s supposed to love Rory so MUCH, Moffat keeps trying to convince us of this. But we all know she would rather be with the Doctor if she could.
He also completely ruined River Song, a character that started out with so much mystery and so much promise to what she could be. None of his female characters will ever measure up to Rose, Donna or Martha.
Exactly this. Amy and Rory have an ample history of strife, conflict, deception, communication problems, and different life goals that Moffat could have used to explore the questions of maintaining a relationship. He chose to pull out the infertility trope as extra ZOMG! Drama!
Moffat does NOT have a history of writing 3 dimensional characters except maybe to shallow 2 dimensional people! What a joke! And this laughable nonsense of how Moffat always writing for the “Long Game” is so old and cliched it is now downright boring. In fact I often wonder if those writing such rubbish are in fact Moffat’s own agent. lol
I’ve seen clips of those shows and they were awful! The People were stale and boring. But I guess if someone’s life is REALLY boring and they are extremely boring themselves then people who aren’t quite as boring might seem exciting and 3 dimensional to them.
Moffat may indeed write for the so-called long game but just one problem! For those who aren’t some starry-eyed little kid, The “Pay-Off” or the “Big Reveal” never equals the HUGE build-up! Again, to ignorant little kids who haven’t read much or seen ANY other science fiction before in their entire lives, this might seem “So Cool” but to the rest of us, the stories are boring, cliched, sexist and really insulting to our intelligence. And some of us have an IQ of 157!! No Lie! So I have NO PROBLEM understanding what he is TRYING to do. He just keeps failing to do so.
And Yes! Let’s talk about Amy! How insulting! Uh, Transgendered don’t really belong in this topic nor do women who’ve gone through menopause. They are irrelevant! The point was about Women, of child-bearing age, who can’t have children. And not only was it puzzling that Amy was not Mature enough (THANKS TO MOFFAT THE MORON) to discuss her problem with Rory but HELLLLLO?! Rory WAS A NURSE! If there was ANYONE outside of a Medical Doctor to discuss this with a Nurse would be it! But apparently Moffat has NO CLUE what a Nurse even is, does he?
And of course it never occurred to Amy (Moffat) that they could Adopt, or hire a surrogate mother. And River is such a gross joke! Why would they even want to acknowledge her?! And River has her own life?! That’s a good one! Her whole FN Life revolves around the Dr.
Moffat ideas about women are archaic! His ideas about science fiction are archaic! This crap he writes may have been great 60 yrs ago but today they are the ultimate in boring!
Who but a complete moron or someone under the age of 12 didn’t figure out that River was Amy and Rory’s child?!
Oh and as for Amy and Rory being there with the Dr……WHY?! Why were they even there?! Supposedly the Doctor needs his companions BUT they did nothing to help him! They played no part in the solution to the problem! In fact their being there made them part of the problem! At least in the past the companions attempted to help the Dr save the day. Even risking their own life! And to be fair, in the past Amy and Rory had done exactly that! BUT not this time! NO! There was no need for their presence in the entire story! A random couple could have provided as much “Tension” as those two did.
But contrary to the EXTREMELY EASILY IMPRESSED LOT, his stories lack any emotional depth! They are extremely shallow! They are all written mechanically! I write this! YOU WILL CRY! I WRITE THIS! YOU WILL LAUGH! I WRITE THIS! YOU WILL CHEER! And sadly some losers do. While most of us look at that and say H**L NO! I am NOT that easily manipulated! We require Real Characters, interacting in a real manner that most of us can relate to!
Oh and forget that “Oh, it’s ‘Just’ Fiction” GARBAGE! That makes it ten times worst! The BEST FICTION is done with a firm foundation in the world of reality and then the writer builds the situation from there. Even in the world of magic, and dragons the SMART WRITERS create characters that most people are familiar with. NOT MOFFAT! I’ve never met people like the ones he creates! No PAST DOCTOR Would look twice at someone as disgusting as river song.
For those without a brain (or are very young) When normal people talk about “Opposites Attract” they are ONLY talking about the two individuals PERSONALITIES! NOT THEIR MORALS! Sheesh! Who the heck doesn’t know that?! I mean duh! River stands for everything the Dr detests. And as one writer correctly pointed out, This poor Dr is at the mercy of Moffat’s sick desire to embarrass the Dr as much as possible.
Oh and he and river are not married! that sick farce of a marriage lasted less then 5 minutes. Sorry for those who aren’t bright enough to figure that out. They are no more married then Loraine and Biff are at the end of Back to the Future II. When alternate Time Lines are destroyed, EVERYTHING THAT OCCURRED INSIDE OF IT IS DESTROYED OR ERASED FROM EXISTENCE! Anyone babbling about “Oh but they remember” is either a small babbling child or someone who isn’t playing with a full deck!
Oh loved the show for 30 yrs! Not even close to being a troll! Thats what fools call someone when they have nothing remotely intelligent to say.
And what BRAIN-DEAD FOOLS started this nonsense that in order to be a “REAL FAN” one can never criticize the show must have been completely insane! That is just childish babble-talk.
Oh and one doesn’t have to like every season either! Another moronic idea floating around!
But I do not hate Alex or Steven. In fact some of their “Fans” make me worry about their safety. Some (Maybe 2%) are so sick in their obsession that I hope they (Steve and Alex) hire body-guards.
But I do hope Steven leaves Dr Who soon and that he doesn’t get to pick his replacement. Sorry neither But the characters and stories Mark Gratiss writes are almost as bad as Moffats!
Now to be fair (unlike the extremists on EITHER SIDE!) Moffat does have some talent! But he needs someone to edit his work and to clue him in as to how Most women think and feel. I have a feeling the women who work there are either too scared to speak up or they have lived very isolated lives and have no clue how the majority of women think!