To say being a Martha Jones fan from 2007-2017 was hard would be an understatement. The fandom claimed she was too clingy. Too jealous of Rose. Too bitter. Too bad a companion. For as long as I can remember, Martha Jones wasn’t just an unpopular companion – she was THE unpopular companion. So this recent increase in “my issues with [insert companion of colour here] isn’t about race. Everybody loved Martha Jones!” has me raising an eyebrow. Freema Agyeman as part of Ofcom’s Diversity In Broadcasting Event answered a question on her time as Doctor Who’s first Black companion. She describes her time as “good and bad”. She handled the criticism of Martha as a character “but the racism… yeah, yeah couldn’t rationalise that” as she pauses in the video. In the silence we get a clear answer – Freema Agyeman did not have an easy time as Doctor Who’s first Black companion. So when I see comments about how much she was loved, or how no one knew what Freema was going through when speaking out about the racism she experienced, or “My sus posts about Ryan & Yaz aren’t racist! I loved Martha!” I, and many other Black/mixed Black fans and other fans of colour have bad tastes in our mouths. We remember the real history of how Martha Jones was treated – and her history wasn’t a kind one.
one hundred percent correct, I was on LiveJournal in 2007 and Martha was hated before she was even on the show. I remember when the first pictures of her came out someone said she looked like a “chavvy whore” and that comment made it to LJ icons and the like. And as soon as someone created a Martha fan community, lifeonmartha, someone else made a comm called strifeonmartha to make fun of her and her fans. BEFORE SHE HAD BEEN INTRODUCED. (Life on Martha is actually still there!)
Martha hate lasted well into the Tumblr era of fandom and I can’t believe people are denying it now.
That brief period where everyone was turning characters into Pixar people via toonme appears to be over now. But I found some Doctor Who ones I’d whipped up during said period! And I decided to edit them a little because toonme is, uh, very possibly not designed for anyone but light-skinned blue-eyed people? Tweaked some colours and ended up with-
A very pink cover for Martha Jones! Pink and purple just seem to suit her.
About the original Martha promo shot I used for this cover… I realised when enlarging it that she has blemishes on her skin AND THEY WEREN’T PHOTOSHOPPED OUT! So I didn’t photoshop them out either. Thank you Doctor Who photography people.
Okay so the rewatch of the Doctor Who season 4 finale was a BIG undertaking and loads of the cast and crew joined in! And some wonderful person actually put them all together in a list so the whole watchalong was made easier! Woo!
However, I’m gonna do the same thing I did for some of the other rewatches and put all the most interesting tweets together and in order. (Also I added Georgia Tennant’s tweets because they were friggin’ hilarious.) So first I’ve done The Stolen Earth and tomorrow I’ll do Journey’s End. There’s a wealth of fascinating information in there and well, this blog isn’t called Overly Devoted Archivist for nothing.
(Freema is utterly and totally delightful throughout all of this)
(I absolutely love all the Noel-Freema interactions here. Hey hope springs eternal Mickey and Martha will be back one day…)
It’s here, and I’m so very sad. But since this is canon… Mickey and Martha canonically have a son now, and Luke is married to Sanjay, and Tegan and Nyssa are a couple (wow!) and just, it was lovely to see all these characters again. It really was.
To celebrate the occasion, here’s some of my favourite ladies from fiction!
Row 1: Amy Pond (Doctor Who), Sephy Hadley (Noughts and Crosses), Gamora (Guardians of the Galaxy/MCU), Rose Tico (Star Wars), Elsa (Frozen/Disney), Melissa Chartres (The Last Man on Earth)
Row 2: Eowyn (The Lord of the Rings/Middle Earth), Quinn Ergon (Final Space), The Thirteenth Doctor (Doctor Who), Princess Bubblegum (Adventure Time), Jane Foster (Thor/MCU), Amy Santiago (Brooklyn 99)
Row 3: Brook Soso (Orange is the New Black), Nebula (Guardians of the Galaxy/MCU), Erica Dundee (The Last Man on Earth), Kitty Winter (Sherlock Holmes), Rose Tyler (Doctor Who), Briony Tallis (Atonement)
Row 4: Meredith Quill (Guardians of the Galaxy/MCU), Missandei (Game of Thrones), Rey (Star Wars), Donna Noble (Doctor Who), Carol Pilbasian (The Last Man on Earth), Esmeralda (The Hunchback of Notre Dame/Disney)
Row 5: Sansa Stark (Game of Thrones), Ash Graven (Final Space), Tiana (The Princess and the Frog/Disney), Sophia Burset (Orange is the New Black), Misty (Pokemon), Clara Oswald (Doctor Who)
Row 6: Bill Potts (Doctor Who), Mary Brown (Paddington), Mako Mori (Pacific Rim), Gwen Stacy (Spider-Man), Jackie Tyler (Doctor Who), Ursula Ditkovich (Spider-Man)
Row 7: Yaz Khan (Doctor Who), Mary Jane Watson (Spider-Man), Marceline (Adventure Time), Michelle (10 Cloverfield Lane,), Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow/MCU), Mantis (Guardians of the Galaxy (MCU)
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