It’s come to a lot of our attention(s?) that Clara Oswald is a severely underappreciated character within the Doctor Who fandom. So, we’ve decided to make Clara Oswald Appreciation Day!
It will be happening on March 5th (because that’s the day that Ellie Oswald died).
You can do pretty much anything involving loving Clara, whether it be making a graphic, gifset, fanmix, fic, fanart, or just crying and screaming at your computer.
It would be really great if we could actually get this off the ground! Make sure to track the tag “Clara appreciation day” for updates!
I’M STILL NOT OVER THE FACT THAT A CYBERMAN HEAD WAS GIVEN MORE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT THAN CLARA HAS EVER HAD
<3
This actually makes me a little sick inside.
Because you are more willing to see character development inside an inanimate object than in a woman?
Clara has had plenty of character development, and has potential for so much more. If you actually need explanation for this, I give you this, this and this as a starter.
Stop trying to find reasons to hate Moffat, and start looking for reasons to love all the female characters we have. There are reasons everywhere, and they aren’t hard to find. There’s plenty of explanations if you’re having trouble, and I’m more than happy to help if you’re trying.
And do you know what the best way to get Moffat (and writers in general) to write more awesome female characters is? Talk about the fantastic bits that already exist. Use examples. Talk about how you love how Clara is a perfect representation of how girls have to contain their bossiness and act sweet and lovely. Talk about how fantastic it would be to see Clara have a relationship with a girl, or River talk about her bisexuality. Talk about what you love, and what you want to see more of.
But first and foremost, stop pretending there’s not brilliant stuff in Doctor Who. Stop pretending an inanimate object has more character development than the girl who is everything I am and want to be.
Seriously, I think I’m resolving not to read any more notes on Doctor Who posts for a good long while. If you can’t see development from the frightened woman in a Russian submarine to the one who flatly demanded the Time Lords do something, anything, to help the man who gave them a sliver of a chance of serving the Time War, maybe the problem isn’t in the writing.
Bold by me
Besides, Clara’s story (and all character development contained therein) isn’t over yet! She still has at least thirteen more episodes to go.
And Handles, being a robot, is presumably just doing what he was programmed to do, and is little more than a prop and far from the bright, wonderful character Clara is…? (Sorry, Handles.)
I went to look through the tags of that Clara-bashing post. (You know, the one where Rose, Amy et al are rolling their eyes at her, because really what fandom needs in general is more ladies hating other ladies.) It’s all the same. Thousands and thousands of the same comment. “I really dislike Clara. Fucking Moffat.”
Um.
What’s Clara done to be dislikable? She’s an awesome person. She’s kind. She’s selfless. She’s a sister-figure to a pair of kids whom the fandom also hates and a bloody good one. She’s called the Doctor out more than once. She respects and gets along with the other women in the Doctor’s life.
But no. The most common complaint I hear about her (and the point of that gifset, I suspect) is that Moffat elevated her above the others by writing her into old Doctor Who history, going back and inserting her into old clips, all that stuff. But this show about a man was literally rewritten to also include a woman and that’s a bad thing?? No? It makes her a Mary Sue? Oh.
This woman- this lovely woman who looks after people, who gives up her most treasured posession because it’s the right thing to do, who has high self-esteem, who insists the Doctor accomodate her responsibilties, who was literally born to save the Doctor BECAUSE SHE CHOSE THAT (this point cannot be overstated, as it goes completely ignored) she’s useless. Worthless. Because she was written by someone dislikable, she must be too.
All those incredible, wonderful things Clara, Amy, River have done? All that bravery and selflessness and complexity – Clara’s choice to do something that made her a mystery to the Doctor, Amy being incredible enough to more than transcend her terrible storyline, River being, oh yes, a Mary Sue (sorry, I can no longer see that as a negative thing) – swept under the rug, every time, in favour of “fucking Moffat” and I love these ladies, I relate to these ladies, and I hate it.
I’m so fucking disappointed in you, Doctor Who fandom. You may not (thank god) have the power and influence that Moffat has, but you definitely have a large portion of the misogyny.
Argh okay NO. I saw something about this post but I hadn’t seen it but I’m just going to explain this as best I can and wait for the arguments to evolve. Okay.
Clara is LITERALLY speaking born time and time again with the sole purpose of saving The Doctor (Oswin Oswald, Clara Oswin Oswald and the remaining echoes). So there’s that.
I also don’t think that any of them would react even sort of like this, not even Rose who would be, in my opinion, the most likely to react poorly.
Every one of these girls saved The Doctor and every one of them could lay claim to being born to save him. On many occassions, they make jokes about how he is useless without them and what would he do without them etc, so none of them would even be surprised that he’d need a woman to save him because he tries hard to be clever but he’s old and sometimes he doesn’t see things the way a younger companion does.
Besides all of that, Martha would just be glad he found someone to travel with. Martha is super underappreciate not only because she is a BAMF but because she is so calm and easy going and she gets that The Doctor needs a companion. Donna a)doesn’t remember him [sorry it hurts me too] and even if she did, she was nothing but nice and happy when she met Rose and Martha and even invited Martha to travel with them. Amy too wouldn’t react like that because 1. she didn’t want him travelling alone and would be glad Clara was out there helping him and 2. her daughter was born to kill The Doctor.
TLDR: Everyone of them was technically born to save The Doctor because they all save him and without them he’d be a million kinds of dead. But Clara particularly was literally born in dozens of lifetimes with the sole purpose of finding and saving his life. These reactions aren’t even really fitting to their characters.
(Thank you.)
Who the hell is looking at Doctor Who and thinking “You know what we really need here? More girl hate!”
Here’s what makes them different: Amy is broken, angry, and scared of responsibility. Clara is responsible and often afraid, but typically adventurous and light-hearted. River is sensual, capable, independent, and self-sacrificing. Their lives do not all revolve around the Doctor. Amy’s life is a struggle between home and adventure, and that is SYMBOLIZED in Rory and the Doctor. Clara lives a perfectly normal, happy home life and jaunts off with the Doctor on Wednesdays. River has a whole life outside of the Doctor, with friends and a profession she loves. Her life kind of revolves around the Doctor, but she was programmed to kill him and then she married him, so it makes sense.
I can say that Rose, Martha, and Donna were all sassy, had low self esteem, and didn’t follow orders. How does that sound? You cannot boil complex characters down to their most basic traits and then say they’re all the same. Rose was very flirty. Donna was very fiery. All of their lives revolved around the Doctor. Rose in particular spent years doing nothing but searching for the Doctor.
This is not a Moffat problem. This isn’t a problem at all. This is an issue entirely made up by fans who want something to complain about.
Emphasis mine
I mean, can you imagine Amy looking after teenage children for a living? (You might have a bit more leeway after Series Six, but I’m still not sure it’d be something she’d ever want to do.) Or Clara being a model? We’ve seen both River and Clara stand over their mother’s grave but it was only Clara crying, River didn’t shed a single tear. Would Amy have ever declared she did something ‘disgracefully’? Would Clara ever call someone ‘stupid face’ as a term of endearment? And so on…
Clara Oswald – “I’ve got no idea who you might be. I’ve never been here before. I’ve never been anywhere like here before. I just saw a little girl who looked like she needed help.”
