D/s, Companions, and Doctor Who

I have recently discovered Doctor Who. Since September, I've watched all 6 seasons of the 2005 series, about half of the First Doctor episodes, a series and half of the 4th Doctor, all four seasons of Torchwood, the first cartoon, I've started the Sara Jane Chronicles, and have a tiny Tardis on my desk. This is in... less than 4 months? Yes. Less than 4 months.

I have never fangirled this hard in my life. My experience so far has been terrifying, obsessive, hilarious, fantastic, and feels a little bit like falling head over heels in love (complete with the warm fuzzies of sharing that love with everyone on the internet).

Additionally, I've been reading all sorts of interesting critiques of the most recent series and writers from many different angles. Recently, I was reading a relatively thorough feminist takedown of Moffat's last couple of seasons as compared to RTD's and I found this fascinating. They made a convincing argument that the show has gotten less feminist - which I will agree with to a certain point.

However, I found that a strictly feminist deconstruction only revealed half the story and was, in fact, limiting the discussion. To properly deconstruct the most recent series of Doctor Who from 2005 on, there MUST be a exploration of the D/s dynamic inside the Tardis, how the dominance trait expresses in each of the Companions, and how the show treats with those concepts.

I apologize ahead of time for terminology, but I have been breathing Doctor Who for weeks and my brain is switched into 'analyze all the things' mode.

**Let me make this very clear before I begin: When I am discussing dominance and submission as traits, I am not speaking about sexual dominance and submission. Socially, when you throw people in a room together, they'll sort themselves out into relationships. Each relationship with have shades of social D/s, some more equal than others, and all based around their natural tendencies. I, in expressing the dominant trait, have found that my experience has overarching trends of having power over others by default, sometimes in the weirdest ways.**

Also, this assumes you've watched until the end of season six. So. Spoilers. *grins*

Martha and Rose, Rose and Martha

The first two companions of the 2005 series, Rose and Martha, were both predominantly submissive. For both, they grew into leadership roles - or high-powered consultant roles - with Rose as "the Doctor of her own parallel universe" (I wish I could find the essay in which I found that assessment) and with Martha deeply enmeshed with UNIT, determined to fight the good fight. Competence and leadership in this instance, is not equated with a dominant personality, as giving orders is not the sole purview of dominant personalities. Both leadership and competence are learned skills and it is shown very clearly in both character arcs that they learn their leadership traits.

In fact, Rose herself notes this, in how she has come to view the world differently during her time as a Companion: "You don't just give up. You don’t just let things happen. You make a stand. You say "no." You have the guts to do what's right when everyone else just runs away." [Parting of the Ways. S1E13] She grew herself a backbone, a sense of purpose, passion, and drive.

Martha too takes a stand for herself after a very painful character arc in which she gets to play second-fiddle to a memory. She ends up telling off the Doctor, very politely of course, saying, "So this is me, getting out." [Last of the Time Lords. S3E13] It took an entire season for her to get to that point, to find out that she wasn't 'second best'.

Furthermore, both Martha and Rose seemed content to take their cues from individuals they trusted, and most often neither expected nor demanded behavior from others in general social interaction. The culminating arcs for both of them cast them in ultimate support roles. This can be taken two ways. First - it can be taken in a negative, 'Never as awesome as the man she supports' or it can be taken in a positive, 'She is the crucial linchpin of the plan, which could not succeed without her.'

Part of a feminist critique is that these ultimate support roles are damaging and, as a good friend pointed out, if the submissive, support roles are the only lauded actions for women, that it casts dominant women like me as anomalies and - often - villains. As celebrating only submissive actions casts any other actions as 'wrong'.

To make something clear, however, if a character is consistently portrayed as submissive, that is not inherently bad. It is only when encountering the ubiquity of submissive, female characters where things start to become problematic. When there is no variation nor Crowning Moment of Awesome for characters outside of their submissive roles, that's where things start to bog down.

Additionally, feminism is primarily about valuing both femininity and masculinity equally, not about giving women masculine traits and dumping femininity altogether. Then, too, submission long been closely associated with femininity, culturally if nothing else, and as one has been consistently seen as 'lesser', so too has the other. Because of this, badass roles, even AND especially support roles, performed by submissive-traited characters are something that need to happen. Just because the character becomes badass doesn't mean the submissive part of their makeup is shed like so much dead skin.

In light of this critique, however, taking a view of both characters, Martha and Rose, from the perspective of 'submissive personalities are awesome!' their characters are consistent. There is no sudden, unexpected bending of the knee. Their character growth flows from one beat to the next, resulting in two very powerful women who are feminine, self-possessed, and able get into and out of trouble with aplomb.

Donna

So, then, the first two companions appear submissive-traited. Donna, on the other hand, is a different story. From the very first, she is the ruling center of her own little world, despite the frequency with which her loudmouth insistence is thwarted or how much she suffers from a common Companion's malady, Crippling Self Doubt. As her character arc progresses and her caustic self-absorption mellows, the little instances of she's-in-charge begin to build a case for her to naturally be expressing the dominant trait as more than just a self-defense mechanism.

As the primary example, take Silence in the Library. Donna, through a series of events, marries a charming man with a stutter. At the end of the episode, she makes this comment about it: "I made up the perfect man. Gorgeous, adores me, and hardly able to speak a word. What's that say about me?" The Doctor, preoccupied, responds, "Everything." [Forest of the Dead S4E9]

Immediately after the little exchange, Donna acts offended at the Doctor's response, but this is a perfect example of her being, well, her. In contrast to Rose and Martha, she does demand, she does expect, and when she gets herself into trouble she obstreperously finds her way out of it, or at least tries. All of the Companions are tenacious, but Donna pursues her goals with the expectation the world will bend for her to achieve them.

With respect to the Doctor, however, she is cast in sort of a co-dominant-traited role. The pair of them are 'Partners in Crime', and as such are - for the most point - on equal footing. She demands the day off (in Midnight) and the Doctor potters off on an ill-fated sightseeing tour. The power imbalance inherent in an unrequited love plotline is absent, which - while such a plotline is not necessarily indicative of the submissive trait - leaves Donna free of being placed in a subordinate position. When she is released as a Companion, she snags a man who appears solicitous and willing to take her cues. A small mountain of instances outside of her relationship with the Doctor indicate that she is dominant-traited.

Amy Pond

Amy is flat out, 100% portrayed as dominant. For all of my issues with her as a character, this makes me squee every. single. time. it comes up. For goodness sake, there is even a joke about the Doctor and Rory being 'her boys'. I'm sorry, the Doctor and The Last Centurion are Amy's Boys. This pleases me to no end.

Further evidence takes the form of Rory taking his wife's name, of what they name their daughter, and of Rory and Amy's entirely relationship. There is no doubt of her in-charge-ness with respect to her husband. Further example, which takes this dipping into the realm of very mild kink, she shows up in 'The Christmas Carol' fresh from the honeymoon suite wearing a Sexy Police uniform, with Rory in his Centurion outfit. She leads. He follows. There may or may not be handcuffs and bodyguarding going on. Multiple references are made to how she bullies Rory into dressing up as her fantasies, and she relies on him to support her no matter what side of the galaxy she's on.

Last, but certainly not least, one of the ways she rescues the Doctor is demanding him back into existence. That particular sort of storyline fits right into my cup of kinks.

River Song

River Song is positioned, at the very first, to be dominant-traited, though her expression of those traits with respect to the Doctor start to become a little bit wobbly as the power dynamic of 'who knows more' shifts and changes. She starts her story line at the end of her character arc where she's powerful, knowledgeable, independent, and making jokes about handcuffs (like mother, like daughter?) at inappropriate moments and at the Doctor's expense.

After that, the Doctor invariably comes when she calls. She, too, is simply expects things to go as she plans. When they don't, she expects her backup to be there when she beckons. River, as we see her progressively younger, appears to revel in the little instances where she can exercise her knowledge and her power with respect to others.

Despite her sacrifices, she does not place herself subordinate to anyone but in the most superficial ways. Except - and this is where it's a bit tricky - to the Doctor. Sometimes. When their timelines give him more information about her than she has about him. Or when she feels like it. Which, often, she doesn't.

Strong Female Characters (tm)

Each Companion has gotten gradually more dominant than the last - enough to the point where I'm both curious and hesitant about the Companion after Amy and who ze will be. This dominance creep does not go entirely unappreciated by one such as myself.

However, while I appreciate the portrayal of dominant women in Doctor Who, I question the gradual ramp up of dominance as both a way of differentiating Companions from each other as well as attempt to portray 'stronger' and 'stronger' women.

One of the benefits of being able to compare the showrunners RTD and Moffat means that their individual writing quirks can be contrasted. During the RTD era, we get to see more of the Companion's arc, their character growth both regarding the Doctor as well as regarding their own lives and what they will be like after traveling in the Tardis. On the other hand, in Moffat's first two seasons - five and six -  the female Companions have no arcs outside of their relationships with the Doctor despite them both being ostensibly more badass to begin with.

And this is where it gets complicated. Am I to take this transition from following the Companion's character arcs as development in their own right to really only dealing with them (barring, what I understand, are several shorts on season six's box set) and their arcs with respect to the Doctor as something positive? I've heard it both ways, actually. That this trade-off of focus on the companions for the Doctor means that the show is now, once more, about the Doctor. The framing and focus are different.

This shift of focus away from the ensemble and onto the Doctor and the subsequent women he meets makes me think that Moffat is assuming that a woman's ability to tell the Doctor to STFU is her primary sign of strength. Because they are not as fully realized as Rose, Martha, and Donna, Amy and River are arguably less Strong Female Characters than RTD era Companions, despite the first two being submissive-traited. Amy and River's growth arcs are simply not explored.

But then, too, the plotlines of seasons five and six would have been received very differently - and perhaps quite badly - if Amy and River were not dominant-traited and thus seen as able to deal with anything, no matter how distressing.

Having Amy dominant appears an effort to keep Amy 'strong' but still treat her as, often, a damsel-in-distress. There is a certain amount of confusing and mixing 'strong' and dominant, as if her dominance offsets the fact that she spends most of a season kidnapped and elsewhere, and is given a pregnancy plotline with no screen-time to deal with. The fact that she is dominant and expects her boys to find and rescue her does give a bit of an ice-princess spin. Amy is once more expecting thing to happen, for the world to right itself on the shoulders of the men she believes in. But, for those assuming that she is submissive-traited, her waiting for rescuers takes on different - far more negative - shades of meaning. There is a lot of negative, too, in making it very clear that she is dominant, and then characterizing her as dependent on protectors and willing to wait stubbornly until they show up to make amazing things happen. There begins to be an element of 'Do it for me. Now.' that becomes strength only when she has no one else to do it for her. Which is rarely and is treated as extremely traumatic.

Her character shows very little real growth besides 'picking Rory' and her personality seems to consist of her simply being able to take whatever's thrown at her without flinching. She becomes adaptable more than anything else, and it is when she is ripped from the Doctor's side - in the episode The Girl Who Waited as well as the brief glimpses we get of her after she and Rory leave the Tardis - it is then that she achieves goals on her own merits.

For the first time in the new series, the Doctor doesn't seem to be doing his job of making people better than they were. Amy chooses Rory, yes, but realizing that there isn't anyone else for her but the steadfast man who has loved her all her life doesn't necessarily make her a better person. It is characterized as the better choice, yes, but all of Amy's character development occurs either while she is waiting for the Doctor and after she has left the Doctor. Amy, the most dominant woman portrayed on the modern Doctor Who, is cast as 'The Girl Who Waited'.

Problematics

There are several more ways, rather than just having Amy be characterized as a dominant whose requirements of service from her boys take her into the realm of helpless maiden, that the portrayal of dominance in season five and six are problematic.  

Much of Amy's characterization treats her dominance as a running joke. Her expectation, her dominance, is treated as a personality flaw to be tolerated. It's accompanied by rueful acknowledgment. The joke, however, reflects both on Amy-as-dominant as well as Rory-as-submissive. More than once, I've heard of Rory described as the 'bumbling boyfriend' of Companion Amy Pond, when his characterization is - obvious to me, at least - that of a dedicated submissive man deeply in love. His hopeless puppy eyes, following her around. When he tears up and runs from the room when she offhandedly mentions that she thought he was gay, because he is dedicated to her without making a play for her pants, making it clear that she calls the shots. It's played for laughs, for amusement, and (so help me) some of it is pretty funny.

In casting Rory as 'bumbling' at the beginning of his character arc, it very clearly makes his submission out to be kind of pathetic in the face of Amy's dedicated self-absorption (which is partially the source of her dominance). That's why when he has a growth arc to become the sort of badass helpmate that a dominant woman deserves, I began to adore his character. Then again, I have a soft spot for men willing to go ridiculous lengths for the women they love. He becomes a badass submissive-traited man and is loved for it.

But Amy never really gets over herself, and when she flirts with herself, it's supposed to be hilarious - though I personally find it a little cringeworthy. Everything has to be her way, and there is no room for anyone else. Only the two most epic men in the world are able to hold her attention for very long. (To add a third: I really want her to meet Jack Harkness. Now that would be hilarious.) She ends up very one-note. It happens to be a note I would like, if it wasn't portrayed as a source of hilarity as well as negative.

One of the ways that Amy's dominance is negative is that it is linked to sexual aggression that is, at times, borderline - or depending who you are, not borderline at all - transgressive. She is overtly sexual and, at one point, nearly assaults the Doctor when he drops her off in her room after part of their adventures. Her sexual aggression - which is made clear is part of her dominance - is treated as dangerous and in need of deflection.

River, too, falls into the characterization of dominant women as overtly sexual, though hers varies between aggressive and enthusiastic. River's primary weapon is lipstick of varying kinds - hallucinogenic and poison at the very least. It's a detail that makes me wonder how she can wear it and not be affected, which is ultimately beside the point but still. The Doctor's first kiss with her is filmed with him flailing about, only partially pleased and extremely surprised, making it clear that the action was entirely her own initiative and - at least at the beginning of their interactions - she is the one putting the moves on him. So far, in series five and six, though River gradually changes into a less sure version of herself, she is still often shown as the instigator of intimate touch. Which the Doctor doesn't mind and seems to enjoy, though 11's awkward alien nature means that River more or less must show overt intimate dominance or no-one would be kissing anyone.

The difference between Amy and River and their acceptability as a match for the Doctor, then, appears to be not the simple fact that they are both inclined to start something - which isn't unreasonable for a dominant personality from my perspective - but that Amy's dominance is ramped up enough so that it becomes a dangerous thing for the Doctor because she starts ignoring reciprocal cues. In the same vein of 'if it doesn't fit her world, she pays no attention to it', most of his protests are simply ignored.

A factor in Amy's 'my world, my rules' drive becoming a caricature of itself is the link of dominance to madness. Both Amy and River have had ridiculous childhoods that left them damaged in some way. River grew up as a sociopath, a troublemaker, and someone encouraged to use her sex appeal as a weapon. Amy ends up dismissing most of reality's relevance through her insistence upon the reality of her childhood imaginary friend. Both of them grew up in places that made no sense, with experiences that had holes in them, whether because of the Silence or the Tardis-created crack in reality. Amy is mentioned as having had multiple psychiatrists that she's visited trying to convince her away from her steadfast belief in the Doctor.

A sample of two isn't very many, but Amy and River's dominance is used another signal of their difference. When River regenerates from Mels, her posturing, floofing her hair, and examining her rear end and her subsequent tango and smooch with the Doctor, it's supposed to be a little bit wild and a little bit weird. Her insistence, expectation, dominance is set up as part of that dance. It's some of why the Doctor likes her, but it's also to show that she's a little bit crazy.

Amy's different because she believes in the Doctor and this unshakable faith allows her to impose her will upon reality (until it backfires, of course, which leads me to believe that Moffat knows exactly what sort of character he has created). River is different because she grew up with a laser-focused goal and the training to support her in allowing her to take anything she feels like taking from the universe. For both River and Amy, the two ideas, madness and dominance, are tied together, one supporting the existence of the other, the dominance treated like accepted madness.

River, though, in some of her characterization, leaves me with the impression that she becomes less a character as her role progresses and more of a Black Leather and Lace Fantasy. She is, to put it very simply, amazing. She's better at flying the Tardis than the Doctor, she's good with a gun to the point where she can shoot a Silence without seeing it, she has given me unrealistic expectations about hair (a quote I stole from a tumblr image), is capable, intelligent, ruthless, and deliberately over the top.

It's the over-the top part of her personality that makes her seem more like wish fulfillment than a three-dimensional character, especially in contrast to her cool, competent portrayal as Professor Song in Silence In the Library/Forest of the Dead. She has gradually crept into being a larger-than-life version of herself, a fanboy's version of the perfect woman for the Doctor. Still, her character portrayal as both dominant and the perfect match alleviates some of the problematic pressure framing Amy as dangerous to the Doctor. River is supposed to be ridiculous and fantastic, the Doctor is supposed to see her as ridiculous and fantastic, and River as dominant gets to be just another reason why the Doctor thinks she's ridiculous and fantastic.

Molto Bene

Wrapping up, and to end on a happy note, as far as I can tell Rory loves Amy because she's Amy, because she's dominant, and because he wants to. The Doctor loves the way River is River, the more he gets to know of her. I, for one, love the shit out of Doctor Who as a show because - despite all of the problematic tics - they still have Companions that are dominant women. There's not enough portrayals of dominant women in media, especially sympathetic dominant women, especially not ones we're supposed to love like the iconic Companions.

That said, a clear critique of said portrayals is part of how I must respond. I am not particularly inclined to simply accept Amy as-is because she is imminently relatable for me, nor because I am also a writer and understand how Moffat's characterization are entirely logical from a character-building standpoint. Despite understanding this, I still want to point out some of the patterns that I'm seeing and how they relate to a woman's dominance. I want this particular little trait of mine - which affects all sorts of things that I never realized and am still discovering - to be treated with the same casual understanding that submissive women and dominant men do. That point has not yet come and without a dominant woman's perspective on dominant women in media, the understanding of individuals like myself might never be refined to a point where it can become casual.

From where I'm standing, a feminist critique of the most recent Doctor Who is simply not complete without taking into account dominant and submissive traits. It's another layer of complexity that, when treated as 'all submissive actions for women make us look bad' and 'all dominant actions for women are the only way to have a Strong Female Character' is equally as damaging as 'all dominant actions by women are dangerous' and 'all submissive actions by women are proper'. Doctor Who as a show kind of wobbles around these ideas, touching on issues and then gallivanting off somewhere else. It's an adventure no matter what angle it's viewed from.

Next season, season 7, will have a new Companion - hopefully - and things will change yet again. There will be a new dynamic to the entire wacky experience that may shed new light on Moffat's writing tics and clarify other aspects of characterization. New things to think about, new shows to enjoy, new people to meet. *whews* For a 'kid's' show, Doctor Who sure does engage both the imagination and the analytical centers of my brain.