Overly Devoted Archivist Uncategorized doctor who, jackie tyler, JACKIE YOU ARE WONDERFUL, rose tyler 0 Comments

sarah531:

oodlyenough:

There are probably lots of valid reasons to hate, or at least dislike, Rose Tyler. One of the most valid is probably “I just don’t like her”, because personal preference is a thing that exists and saying “I just don’t like her” doesn’t contain any bullshit sexist or classist reasons for it. So it’s not that everyone needs to love Rose. If you just don’t enjoy her storyline or her personality, hey, it happens.

There are, however, a lot of really invalid reasons to hate her. Such as:

• “She’s useless!” OR sometimes “She was great in s1 but useless in s2!” No she’s not. There are about 30 episodes to contradict this. And her entire series 2 character arc is about her becoming more of a competent hero, not less of one.

• “She’s the reason the universes were collapsing in Journey’s End!” No she’s not. This is never suggested in the entire s4 arc. You’re selectively taking bits and pieces of the text while ignoring others in order to paint Rose as the villain.

• “Her clothes are ugly and I hate her stupid horse face.” Fuck you.

• “She isn’t good enough for the Doctor! It’s unrealistic that the Doctor would love an uneducated shop girl.” Sorry, this right here is some classist bullshit. Love isn’t based on someone’s CV. Being working class and not having a high level of formal education does not mean Rose is unworthy of love, or (perhaps more specifically) unworthy of love from her “betters”. What the fuck? Stop.

• “She was obsessed with the Doctor.” This argument is invalid for a couple of reasons. First, it’s intentionally downplaying/demonizing Rose’s love as “obsession” — and also implying that it was entirely one-sided, as if Rose is latched onto his leg with her claws while he tries to shake her off. That’s a blatant misreading of the text that also has sexist undertones, because if Rose was “obsessed” with the Doctor, the Doctor was sure as fuck even more “obsessed” with Rose. What makes her “obsessed”, anyway? Wanting to be with him? By this same reasoning, pretty much all the companions are “obsessed” with him. Donna wanted to be with him forever, too.

• “She was so mean to poor Mickey! He was such a good boyfriend and she treated him so badly!” It’s really the second part of this that kills it for me. Yes, Rose’s behaviour towards Mickey tended towards selfishness. But you know what? So did his. The Mickey/Rose relationship was dysfunctional and doomed from the off, even if it had once been a sweet and simple teenage thing. Mickey, to put it simply, is not the “perfect boyfriend” that fandom often wants to believe he was. Mickey was selfish, too, desperately clinging to his relationship with Rose and trying to hold her back even after it became clear that it wasn’t working and clear that she wanted someone else. Should Rose have ended it sooner, cleaner? Sure. But Mickey could have, as well. Mickey even starts dating another woman, but is eager to “get a hotel room” as soon as Rose comes home. PERFECT BOYFRIEND, right?But I think the most telling moment in the Mickey/Rose relationship is in the Slitheen two-parter in s1. Mickey is invited to come along on the TARDIS with them, and he turns it down because he’s scared — and then he has the Doctor lie so that he can save face, and continues to guilt-trip Rose over her decision to keep travelling. Sorry, Mickey, but no. If Mickey were really the perfect boyfriend everyone says he is, he could have either a) gone along for at least one trip to see if he could be with Rose in the new direction her life was taking, or b) declined by admitting it wasn’t a lifestyle for him and wishing Rose luck. Instead he chose to lie and guilt-trip her out of pursuing something she’d come to love. That’s pretty shitty.

  So no, Rose didn’t treat him well. But Mickey is a grown-ass man guilty of many of the same things, so hold them both accountable. Painting Rose as the villain and Mickey as the helpless innocent is, frankly, kind of sexist.

• “She’s mean to her mum! How could she leave her alone like that?” Okay, I love Jackie, and definitely one of the intentional tragedies in DW are characters like Jackie, “the ones who get left behind”. Jackie is lonely and that’s sad. But Rose is nineteen years old; she’s growing up and she’s going to leave home. And it’s not as though Rose disappears with the Doctor, never to return. The first 12-month gap is a mistake (and exclusively the Doctor’s fault), and from then on Jackie knows where her daughter is, can call her, and the Doctor and Rose come around for visits sometimes. It’s a bit like taking a job on the other side of the world — is it sad they don’t get to see each other as often anymore? Sure. But Rose has no obligation to stay at home in a life she doesn’t enjoy just because her mother wants her to. Which leads me to…

• “She had everything she wanted in Doomsday and she still wasn’t happy with it!” No, she had everything you think she should’ve wanted in Doomsday. Rose NEVER says she’d be happy in that alternate universe with her mum and dad, or that this is what she wants. She says literally the exact opposite in “Doomsday”, telling Jackie that she wants Jackie and Pete to be happy together but that her life is with the Doctor now. Deciding that because she has money, parents and an ex-boyfriend she should just sit back and be satisfied with something she did not want in the first place is gross, and hey, also kind of sexist. (Are you seeing the pattern here?) This argument says that Rose should just settle for losing the man and the lifestyle she loves because, hey, she has her parents and money and an ex-boyfriend. What? No. No one gets to decide what’s “good enough” for Rose except Rose, and she very plainly did not want the ending she gets in “Doomsday”.

I could go on, honestly, because there are so many (“Rose is the reason Ten went crazy in Waters of Mars!”  …wat) but I think this covers a good portion of them.

So go forth! Hate Rose! Just don’t try to justify it with any of the above bullshit.

My trouble with Rose (well, it’s not really trouble as such…) is that these days I tend to see pretty much the whole thing from Jackie’s POV. (But that’s another story. Also I love Jackie.) So, also Rose is perfectly right to head off with the Doctor and only see Jackie now and again- there’s also that scene in Doomsday, where Rose leaves Jackie on the other side of the wall, knowing she’ll never see her again. (Without even an I love you!) And Pete won’t let Jackie go back, and there’s Rose seemingly mostly okay with this, and it’s just…if I was Jackie in Doomsday, and I never got my daughter back, I’d hate her. I’d love her too, of course…but I’d hate her.

I’d say that scene is more the Doctor’s fault (and to a degree Pete’s as well) than Rose’s. Rose is in the middle of explaining to Jackie why she wants to stay with the Doctor even though she thinks her mum should go to the other universe, and the Doctor (and Pete) cut off the conversation by taking them all to the alternate universe. Rose responds immediately to get back where she wants to be because she’s not taking that shit again (“you’re not doing that to me again”, she says, as she presses the button, obviously meaning POTW) and knows she doesn’t have time to kill. It’s a shitty situation, but I don’t think Rose deserves blame here. The Doctor forced Rose’s hand and Pete not letting Jackie go back is on Pete’s shoulders, not Rose’s.

Rose seems okay with it in for the two minutes it stands probably because she’s relieved to have just made her wishes understood, finally, and also because there isn’t really time to process things. Before Rose even has a chance to really register “I’ll never see my mother again”, she’s stuck in a parallel universe thinking “I’ll never see the Doctor again”.

It’s a sad hypothetical situation, but it’s not Rose’s fault nor is it Rose’s obligation to give up a life she loves to stay with her mother.

I never really warmed to alt!Pete and that’s probably why. I wonder if he ever developed a real relationship with Rose and I reckon he probably didn’t…

But if I was Jackie I’d have fought tooth and nail to get back to my daughter, even if Pete was holding me back. Which is why I think it was a MASSIVE missed opportunity to have Pete go back for Rose and save her life, instead of Jackie…who was the one who vowed she’d protect both Rose and the Doctor until the end of her life.