the master

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pervertcinnamonroll:

philsandifer:

fromtaiey:

philsandifer:

scriptscribbles:

imforeman:

Steven Moffat: time lords are the most civilised civilisation in the galaxy, they’re billions of years beyond humanity’s petty obsession with gender and it’s associated stereotypes.

Steven Moffat: *turns the master into a misogynistic arsehole, who fixates and obsesses over gender for the entirety of THE VERY SAME STORY* 

Steven Moffat: I am Progressive Person™ 

The Master has always been sexist. In Classic Who. In RTD Who. Missy’s basically the first time the character isn’t.

In Davies’ first Master story, for example, the Master laments that he was “Killed by an insect. A girl. How inappropriate.” Because getting killed by a woman is more shameful, somehow, in the sexist PoV.

Personally, I’m all for using a historically misogynistic character as an embodiment of the sexist/transphobic side of the fandom opposed to gender change in the show, particularly in a story that’s otherwise all for gender change and femininity as the future.

Wait, I’m sorry, is OP attempting to read the Master as an authorial mouthpiece who expresses the moral and political views of the show in contrast with the Doctor?

No, they’re saying it doesn’t make sense for a person from a background without gender roles to discriminate based on gender.

Sure, but it’s still 1) predicated on the assumption that the Master reflects Time Lord values and 2) ignores Bill undercutting the Doctor’s nice speech about the Time Lords by pointing out that they still call themselves lords. 

Why would the Master even need to believe in gender to be misogynistic?

He uses misogyny to hurt people, the same way he used racist imagery to hurt Martha’s family. Of course the idea that he thinks a different colour or gender of hairless ape is inferior to another is absurd – they’re all laughably pathetic. But he knows that these prejudices can effectively and enjoyably inflict pain and express power – for the Master (as for many bigots, whether they admit it or not), that’s the entire point.

So the Master’s basically the Time Lord equivalent of a Reddit troll?

Okay so I gather that you really like Missy, how do you feel about how the gender change was handled?

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big-finish-sketches:

Fantastic. 

The Mistress completely owns her appearance. She delights in being a woman. Being suddenly female isn’t a source of shame or discomfort or even awkwardness for her, it’s an opportunity to completely rock a new style and have a whole lot of fun with it.

Missy presents as female, dresses in girly-girl women’s clothes, insists on being adressed as a Time Lady and having a lady’s name. She enjoys make-up, cute bracelets, pretty nailpolish, she’s even mounted her TCE on the end of the world’s cutest little umbrella. She freely uses a sweet little diminutive for her own name. She loves tea parties and dancing and she’s so completely bouncy and hilarious and confident and in charge. 

And let me tell you — I have never in my life seen a story in which that has happened in any other fandom. Every transformation story or body-switch story I’ve come across so far (and that’s quite a lot, it’s something I definitely have A Thing for) has this obligatory plot point where the newly female character feels all fragile and weak and uncomfortable with their new body. (Obviously — a person’s gender and sex mismatching is hardly fun in real life, and it’s good when it’s represented as realistically uncomfortable in fiction.) But Time Lords and Time Ladies are from a race where transformations are biologically built-in and where their gender, if any, can switch right along with their sex. They can feel perfectly happy about a transformation of this kind — allowing for a revolutionary way of storytelling in which a previously male character is now female and completely fine with it. You know what that is? It’s downright inspiring, it’s intensely empowering. To see someone become female and not feel like it in any way diminishes their character. To see someone having a female body and, despite the current discourse in fiction, feeling one hundred per cent comfortable in their own new skin. 

This, this sort of thing, is exactly what science-fiction is for. To present situations that are impossible in real life, and to show them as something inspiring. Now, I’m not saying the Mistress is a good role model — I mean, she’s an evil megalomaniac and all — but do I love the way she’s written? Hell yes. I love it more than I can possible put into words. 

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