Overly Devoted Archivist Uncategorized amy pond, doctor who, eve moneypenny, james bond 0 Comments

I’m noticing an annoying trend when it comes to female characters: they are frequently knocked if they chose a ‘female’ career path-

1) Amy Pond in Doctor Who chooses to be a model. She appears to like it, she’s clearly the boss (she even has her own PA, who is male), and young girls look up to her.

2) Eve in Skyfall chooses to stop her field work and take a desk job. This is MI6, the desk jobs are vitally important- where exactly does Bond get all his information from?

But people were disgusted! Why? I’m not saying either franchise is unproblematic, they are- but why judge fictional women for making life choices real women make every day? What’s so bad about being a model or a secretary? (and if Eve was a man, we’d almost certainly call her ‘an administrator’.) Amy gets to be a role model due to her celebrity (look at her interaction with the little girl in Closing Time), to be her own boss and to have some fun that she frankly deserves. Eve gets to hold the threads of a high-powered, hugely important organisation in her hands-

But even if they didn’t have those things, even if Amy and Eve were for whatever reason shelf-stackers or waitresses, why is a ‘good job’ the only indicator of a person’s quality? Amy saved a Star Whale, Eve defended her country…but we only care about what their job titles are?