The problem with Rose
(This is best described as a stream of conciousness.)
Rose isn’t a good role model, or something. I don’t know about that. I hate her selfishness and the way she treated Mickey and Jackie, but…well, I always thought that if I knew Rose in real life, if she was a classmate or something instead of a fictional time traveller, I’d rather like her. Heck, I think I probably do know some Roses.
She’s not a feminist character. She gives up her whole life for a man. One of the Roses I know tells me she’s a feminist. Is Rose Tyler a feminist? Maybe she is. Who knows.
Rose Tyler as a person isn’t all bad. She’s quite good, actually. She’s incredibly selfish, true, but she’s also sweet and funny and very brave and determined and loyal. Rose Tyler as a character…well, that’s the thing, isn’t it?
If my hypothetical daughter told me she admired Rose Tyler, I don’t think I’d mind. So long as she didn’t actually run off with a much older man and make me worry and almost break my heart. But that’s Russell’s fault, not Rose’s. Right? Right…?
January 18, 2009 @ 6:21 am
Good post. I don’t think Rose is a good role model – her selfishness and the way she treats loved ones who are not the Doctor. Her choices (make a caron to get back to the Doctor even thought he told her that just transporting back and forth through a open hole was killing a universe) are bad. And no she isn’t a feminist character in any way and that does borther me. Rose’s problem is (besides being incredibly selfish) that she is immature. Her reactions in SE and JE show her immaturely. She is no longer a 19 year old girl who is getting her eyes opened to the universe. She’s a woman in her 20’s who knows a lot but her main care if only for her selfish wants (being with Ten)
January 19, 2009 @ 1:56 am
I kind of feel like feminism is really making the choice to do what you want. Originally it was the choice of whether to be in the home or in the workplace, but I feel like, Rose is a woman who sees what she wants, what she needs to be happy, and goes for it.
January 19, 2009 @ 2:00 am
sorry i realize i said part of this in my head and didn’t write it out. so continuing so, saying she isn’t feminist in any way strikes a negative chord in me. Just because it’s a different choice, doesn’t make her anti-feminist, just different.
January 19, 2009 @ 6:46 am
but I feel like, Rose is a woman who sees what she wants, what she needs to be happy, and goes for it. But there is a point when that’s a bad thing. Risking two universes (or more) to get back to the man she loved is not so good.
January 19, 2009 @ 7:45 am
But how does that come into her being a feminist or not?
January 18, 2009 @ 7:57 am
Honestly, I think Rose is about the same amount of selfish as any other Doctor’s companion. Martha did leave her mother without any explanation whatsoever a couple of times, just to run off with the Doctor. What I also didn’t like about Martha was her instant falling in love with the Doctor – yes, you get kidnapped to the Moon, the whole hospital is in danger but some guy kisses you and you’re all butterflies in stomach. Come to think of it, Donna, after meeting the Doctor, also kind of forgot the real life and didn’t bother finding a real job or sorting her life, but instead, she focused on finding a way to meet the Doctor again. How exactly is this different from Rose? I understand Rose’s acting, which is commonly understood as selfishness, as her way of growing out of Jackie’s and Mickey’s expectations towards her. Jackie, like Donna’s mother, is always saying that Rose should get a job, and a “normal” life. Well, I think that’s what Donna’s mother would say if she knew where her daughter was. I don’t view Rose as a feminist character but I do think that the show, especially the second season, does a good job of showing the evolution of her character. At first when she begins her travelling with the Doctor, as all companions, she goes “WOW, universe!” but she really grows up and starts making her own decision, is more active. I’ve written a comment about Rose’s evolution somewhere here, like, a month ago. What I’m trying to say (and it’s not easy for me, as English is not my first language) is that I think Rose does grow up as a character and I don’t think about her as selfish – she just refuses to stay passive any longer. For me, she’s all about taking the matters into her own hands. Leaving home is always painful for the parents, so is abandoning a teenage love. There are very few situations in life where everyone can be satisfied. And as for doing it for the Doctor, well. Fighting for the man you love is something I’m gonna second forever and ever. If you met The One, why would you ever give up on trying to meet him again, be with him (especially when you heard him trying to reply like in Doomsday)? And she did kinda want to save the world, too. It just so happened that it coincided with finding the Doctor ;) To finish this, I really hope this topic doesn’t end up being Rose bashing.
January 18, 2009 @ 5:14 pm
I was going to write out a comment, but I think that you said everything that I was planning on saying. Rose saw a life that she liked better — one where what she did mattered, and she chose it. And, yes, she fell in love with the man who introduced her to the life, but she fell in love with the life first. I’m not sure why passively staying in a life that she isn’t happy with for the sake of her mother would make her a better role model.
January 18, 2009 @ 10:02 am
I don´t agree actually. In 1×13 she says she can´t go back to her old life after what she has seen and I completely understand that. Her whole life was pretty boring to begin with. Yes, she had a sweet boyfriend and a caring (if sometimes annoying) mother, but her job was a waste of time and her free time was spent hanging around, doing nothing, wishing for something more. And then the doctor came and he showed her … well, everything. The whole universe. The places she saw, the people she met, the things she did – it must´ve felt like dieing going back into her old life of sleeping, working, eating. So I don´t think she came back for the doctor alone but because she just couldn´t go back into her old life. I feel for Mickey and actually I really love him and yes, Rose treats him not as good as she should. But doesn´t that count for every girl who has a boyfriend and falls in love with someone else? It happens all the time and it doesn´t mean you´re a selfish person.