Today, SB is the most positive place I found on the internet…
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Well Doctor Who is a very bad show
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The Broadchurch mom is pretty good at looking like her kid just died. Are we in for a season of Bill mourning?
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I never thought this day would come again but…I’m gonna watch some Doctor Who when this lady takes over.
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Oh shit, that was her in attack the block!? That’s why she looked so familiar.
I now have to catch up on five years of Doctor Who
Honestly, if it was just this that sparked your interest. Don’t unless you really wanna. They’re usually good about each new doctor restarting things enough for new viewers to just jump in with a new compainion who’s a POV who will ask all the Q’s you need.
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I never finished Matt Smiths run and I am curious to see Capaldi’s run with all of the customary highs and many many lows
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The last Capaldi episode I watched was the dark souls one (which i thought was cool).
Capaldi hasn’t clicked with me though I think he’s a really good actor. I think I was mostly just bothered by Clara sticking around for so long. Anyway, yeah, looks like I’ve got some catching up to do.
man doctor who is a ride. it can range from awful and truly fantastic, sometimes even within the same episode. i think i got a bit fed up with it, and that’s why i stopped watching, but maybe i’m ready to pick it up again.
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I’d only bother with the last 3.
Starting in 2014, Moffat actually grew into the show (and hired a brand new, mostly brilliant writing team) and it found something to say. Between 2010-2013, not so much.
This year’s run was less interesting than the previous two, but the Capaldi era overall is a high water mark for the show – much as the Smith era is largely the opposite (Saward aside).
Someone on Reddit posted an analysis of the number of times and ways that all the New Who companions expressed their sexuality, in order to show that, no, Bill’s sexuality was not shoved down our throats; it was actually underplayed compared to nearly every other companion since 2005. The response… went much as you’d expect.
Reddit!
almost all the comments are deleted or moderator comments!
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Yeah, eventually one of the moderators also started getting passive aggressive MRA, which… just.
Here’s an example of some of my own comments that were a bit too firey for prime time. It began when someone started to mock the OP quote, and all the SJWs who think everyone is out to get them.
Well, I’m a middle-class cis het white male. Nobody’s out to get me. I enjoy great privilege in our current society.
That’s the point, though. I’m secure enough to recognize that. Going by your response, you do not seem to share this sense of security.
Who exactly is out to get you? I seem to threaten you. Considering that I’ve done nothing to you personally, it might be worth asking yourself why.
_
While we’re here, exactly what values do you think the Doctor represents?
“What privileges?!?!?!”
I’m white, so I’m unlikely to be attract especial suspicion from authority figures. I’m very unlikely to be shot or turned away at a border. I’m not as likely to be turned down for jobs, or advancement. I’m much more likely to be able to get a loan.
Have you ever heard the term “redlining”? Look it up.
I’m male, so I have no reason to fear sexual violence or harassment. To the extent that I am paid for my work, it will tend to be proportional to my skills. I don’t have to work nearly as hard as a woman would to achieve the same success.
I’m straight, so basically the entirety of culture is set up for me, should I choose to take advantage of it. I’m not particularly macho, so I do feel inundated by the toxic masculinity that poisons so many things that might otherwise be interesting. But, that’s a minor complaint. I’m never, ever going to be a victim of violence or abuse because of my sexuality. I don’t even have to think about it if I don’t want to. Not a bad trade-off.
Which gets to the heart of the issue: I have the privilege to not to have to think about any of this if I don’t choose to. The plight that so many other people face, due to no fault of their own, may as well be invisible to me if I want.
You seem to want it to be invisible. Why? Does it make you uncomfortable to see?
“Look, okay, the Doctor stands for everyone to get along. Not blaming each other for everything.”
Yeah, and for everyone to get along that means affording everyone an equanimical position in life. Denying your own overabundance of privilege is basically a form of oppression. You’re denying that a problem exists, which is the same as being complicit.
I’m super privileged, by virtue of the accident of my birth. I’m not going to pretend I’m not. What I can do is use that privilege to try to redress the balance a bit.
“I’m not insecure! You’re insecure!”
Okay. The original post (I’m having trouble keeping track of which of you posted what, particularly with the missing posts) lashed out at – well, not me in particular, but what seemed to be some imagined “them” that I represented, so let’s just say me – for bringing up structural issues such as privilege. The post dismissed the sentiment behind the quotation above, as people like me just thinking the world was out to get me.
So, well, no. Nobody’s out to get me. I’m sitting high on the cloud here. I can take advantage of nearly anything our current culture has to offer, and I don’t have to work nearly as hard as many other people do. That doesn’t mean I lack my own raft of problems, as anyone does – but these aren’t the same kind of structural problems that, say, someone born into a poor inner-city family would face. Statistics are way against you in a situation like that, and they were deliberately stacked that way. Me, I dig my own holes. For the most part. I more or less have myself to blame.
I have myself to blame for this conversation, while we’re at it. I don’t consider this fun, per se. But, maybe I’ll do some good. I dunno.
It was clear that just bringing up systemic inequality triggered something in the poster, or else they wouldn’t have responded in the way that they did. The question is, what did it trigger, and why? You don’t lash out like that unless you perceive a threat. What was the threat, though? I wasn’t threatening anyone.
These are the questions it would help if people were to ask themselves, and dwell on for a while.
Something about the show making jokes at men’s expense at every opportunity.
You do understand that men are in control of nearly every aspect of society, right?
And that a man wrote nearly every joke that you describe, at his own expense?
“BASLKBNASLDKJASDKJ!!!”
You really seem to be acting like you’re being persecuted here.
Why do you think that?
“You can’t honestly deny that women don’t have their own kind of power!”
I’m sure I can deny. Do explain the great systemic control that women enjoy in our society. I’m all ears.
“I’m not being persecuted! You’re being such a jerk to me, in response to totally harmless comments!”
Is it possible your comments aren’t as harmless as you think they were? Is it possible that might be the point of this whole exercise?
You do seem to be going to great lengths to insist that you are being unfairly wronged, so I think within the context of this conversation the term I chose is appropriate.
“No one lashed out at you, idiot! Stop being so sensitive!”
Well, that’s the thing. I don’t think anyone lashed out at me at all. (I deal with that above, if you’ll notice.) I’ve got nothing to do with the issues at hand. The response, however, certainly engaged negatively with the topic.
“I” thought the world was out to get me, it suggested. Okay. Well, that’s interesting. Let’s look at that accusation.
Ergo, thread.
“BY GOD! MEN HAVE TO WORK TOO, DOING ALL THIS STUFF!”
Okay. Everyone has a hard life. However, men are at the advantage in that compared to women we don’t have to work nearly as hard to achieve the same level of success. This isn’t a matter of opinion; it’s the conclusion of study after study, as well as the personal experience of nearly any woman you might care to ask.
At the same level of success, women are nearly always paid less. They enjoy less systemic support. (See the constant mission to defund planned parenthood – entirely enacted by old white men.) Their own struggles – with sexism, with inequality, with the astounding emotional labor that they’re expected to carry – go practically unheard by the male-dominated society that they live in.
Men make nearly all the laws. Men are nearly all the enforcers of those laws. Men make most of the hiring decisions. Men make most of the business decisions. Not due to some innate superiority, but because that’s the system that men have built to protect themselves.
Instead of looking for exceptions, which I know you’re about to do, look at representation. Women make up half the people in the world. Over half. Look at the board of directors of any random company. Look at the faces of each house of the US Congress. Look at the governors of each of the 50 states. Look at the protagonists of the top 50 major motion pictures from the last decade. What sort of ratio are you seeing? You’ll see a woman here and there – enough that people who are looking to defend the status quo can say, look, there’s one! It’s fine, see!
But, is it?
Seriously, back up a little. When men control nearly every aspect of society – by violent force in many cases, by systemic exclusion in others – and dictate the world in which women are forced to figure out how to fend for themselves, it is fairly obscene to say, “but, men have to go to work too!”
Yes. And? Are you looking for a pat on the back? A prize for meeting the bare minimum expected of you?
When men and women have an equal say in dictating the world that they live in, then let’s continue the conversation.
Something discounting the consensus of basically every social study ever done over the course of decades, because of something about of course people want to protect their own jobs…
Shout out to the guys discounting both science and shared grievance in favor of their own certainty, as men, that women are just fine and are in fact (somehow, very ineffectually) trying to suppress them. Because, you just know so.
That’s more or less the point in this thread. Keep doing my work for me. In your way, this is your redemption.
A passive aggressive quotation of some screed decrying the intolerance of some group, with “sexism” pasted in over every instance of whatever they were being unreasonable about.
Look, man. If you think you’re being unfairly lumped in with bigots, then you can shake that off. If you feel that what I’m saying applies to you, then maybe look at why you feel that way. If you don’t feel that my words have anything to do with you, then they probably don’t.
I am a middle-class straight white dude. That alone puts me in a position of power. I’m pretty confident that, for all my faults, I have a good handle on what that means, and I try to do my best. So when people talk about the horrible things that men do, it doesn’t enter my head that they’re talking about me – unless I recognize the specific behavior in myself. I just nod, knowing exactly what they are referring to.
If I’m hitting a nerve, it may be worth picking at it. Questioning why. Because this isn’t about you.
I think it’s that last one (directed at the mod) that caused someone to go on a rampage of deletion.
Oh yeah, I forgot, I used to occasionally lurk on gallifrey base but stopped three years ago when heads started exploding over the Master’s gender change.
I can only imagine the meltdown happening over there now.
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I watched The Happiness Patrol for the first time the other day and it was pretty rad. Helen A’s breakdown at the end over her puppet thingie’s death got me kind of misty-eyed, I will admit. Kudos to the actor who played her.
Love the Cartmel years.
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Caramel Marzipan.
Happiness Patrol almost feels like it could be a Troughton or late-era Hartnell story. It’s also not too far off from Capaldi’s material…
As it happens, I’m eating this right now…
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I keep thinking that’s Don Draper as a Cylon.
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It…kind of is actually.
I’m sure you know but for those who don’t that is the great Tony Lo Bianco from God Told Me To. I keep meaning to change that pic but it just works idk
I’m still on a Cartmel kick and just finished rewatching The Greatest Show in the Galaxy. Mags would’ve been a dang good companion i think.
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I watched this last month. I wasn’t expecting that many rapping ring masters in a doctor who episode.
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