Dear DW fans who hate Rose because of “how she treated Mickey”…
…you’re jerks, and misogynistic ones at that. I wrote this for something else, but I wanted to post it here because I feel like I need to get this out. I’ve always been sort of mystified by people who say they hateRose Tyler solely because of how she supposedly treated Mickey Smith badly in series 1. And I’m here to call bullshit on it now.
I just rewatched s1 the other day, and… I came out of it wanting to kick Mickey in the balls for the way he treated Rose. He was possessive, he objectified her, he was an ass to her on many occasions, especially when it came to the Doctor — he was jealous and selfish, and he clearly didn’t care about what Rose wanted in any case, only what he did. If he’d had his way, knowing that she had the option to explore all of time and space and have fantastic adventures and feel important like she never had in her ordinary life, he would have chosen to keep her there, to tie her down to being a miserable, bored shop-girl living on a council estate and forever wondering what it would have been like if she’d gone with the Doctor. And he continues to feel this way, obviously, even when she comes back in, for example, “Boomtown” and is clearly loving her life and the adventures she’s having, and so on. He acts like he’s owed something by her, even after he tells her he’s gotten a new girlfriend — he (and the fandom!) still act like Rose is being unreasonable in not wanting to go back to a hotel and have sex with him ten minutes after he says he’s got a new girlfriend.
And well, that’s not exactly the only indicator of how little he cares for Rose as a person— it was evident from day one, when Rose has just been seconds away from being killed in the explosion of her workplace, but all Mickey can think of is that there’s a game on at the pub. He doesn’t give a shit what she wants out of her own life, only that she stays with him and will have sex with him whenever he wants (in the first episode she wants to use his computer and he says “any excuse to get you into the bedroom,” and in “Boomtown” his first thought is to get a hotel room, presumably to have sex). He doesn’t care that she wants to see the universe, he cares that she’s traveling with a man and enjoys his company. He doesn’t care that she’s loving what she’s doing and is happy, he cares that she’s not going right back to regular life with him. It’s selfish.
Which isn’t to say, of course, that Rose shouldn’t have broken it off with him much, much sooner than she did. She absolutely should have. She was not really nice to Mickey. But I can’t find it in myself to blame her. There were things she should have done and didn’t, but that doesn’t make the way Mickey treats her or acts about her okay, either. People act like he’s some goddamned martyr, when really he’s an immature, possessive man who doesn’t want Rose to achieve more than he has because it makes him feel small — that’s the vibe I got, anyway. He doesn’t want her traveling time and space — he doesn’t even want to hear about it when she’s home, because he doesn’t like it that she’s off, shock and horror, doing anything without him.
(Tangentially, I wonder how many of the fans who hate Rose for how badly she treated Mickey are the same ones who profess, anon or even openly elsewhere, that if the Doctor came for them they’d go immediately, without even saying goodbye?)
And that has been your daily scheduled rant. You all may be shocked and awed by the fact that I didn’t even address the sexist double-standard involved in supporting Mickey and condemning Rose — I wanted to, but I simply don’t have the time or energy right now. Feel free to fill in the blanks. Cheers!
I love Mickey, but I have come to realise that he was a jerk in Rose, yes. Even Noel Clarke is on record saying he didn’t like his character in Rose.
But, I do think that the ‘any excuse to get you into the bedroom’ line was just boyfriend-girlfriend banter. (I’m more concerned about the ‘don’t read my emails’ line. Unless he was just signed up to something embarrassing, like a Barry Manilow fan club or something.) In Boomtown there are awkward lines like ‘I don’t mind you hanging out with big-ears up there’, which implies she needs his permission to hang out with other men…but…he doesn’t actually suggest they go to a hotel until Rose has admitted she wanted to see him, and there’s nothing else going on that demands Rose’s attention. He also says at some point ‘I’m not going to ask you to leave him because I know that’s not fair’ re: Rose and the Doctor.
And in Parting Of The Ways, even though Rose is understandably stressed, I do think it was a bit harsh to say ‘there’s nothing left for me here…nothing’. Still, I can forgive her that because of the situation. And I think Mickey does show maturity in TPOTW, because when Rose says ‘Maybe we should just lock the door and walk away’ (which I always thought was her quietly testing Mickey) he responds with ‘I’m not having you give up now’, and he helps her pull open the TARDIS when he could have easily walked away.
Okay, basically, the problems with Mickey don’t start til Season Two, because he was generally treated badly by the writers, and that translated into him being treated badly by the Doctor and Rose. I’m far more cross about how Nine and Ten treated Mickey than how Rose treated him. Rose and Mickey were two people ill-suited to each other who grew apart (with immaturity and cross words on both sides, as in most break-ups), but Nine quite frequently bullied Mickey for no reason. And Ten often treated him as a spare part, indicating that he was Rose’s pet (‘I let you keep Mickey!’) which, when you consider the racial dynamics at play there, was kinda…problematic.
And although Mickey can be possessive, there is an in-canon reason for this: everyone he’s ever loved has left him. His father abandoned the family, his mother isn’t around (I’m curious to know exactly what happened to Mickey’s mother), his grandmother died in a household accident he obviously feels incredibly guilty about… the mere fact that his father did a runner would be enough to push anyone into ‘please don’t leave me’ territory.
In conclusion…I’m gonna think on this and come back in fifteen years or so when I’ve formed a coherent opinion. Also, I’m curious to know what the OP thinks of Jackie?