David Tennant's Bum

[radiantbaby]

Er, I guess I need to get back to that Doctor Who meme I started. This last week or so, I've been very scattered. Guess I'll try to get to it before bed.

Anyway, speaking of Doctor Who, I received my copy of Chicks Unravel Time in the mail today (along with some tins of sardines and a set of Susanne Somer's Thighmaster and Buttmaster -- don't judge me!). I'm hoping to dig into it more in the coming days (or even when I'm at frolicon next weekend), but so far I started to read the essay entitled 'David Tennant's Bum'.

The subject -- at least in the title -- is something I'm rather fond of and though I'm shirking the tone set up by the publishers by not reading it from the beginning (they purposely chose the order of the essays), I thought it would be a fun starting point.

Well, maybe not.

I'm finding myself twitching with all of the accolades being heaped on the Tenth Doctor in the essay. I mean, overall I do like him as a Doctor, but to praise him for things like how he doesn't balk at or belittle intelligence in others (*cough*Martha*cough*) makes me side-eye it a bit. In fact, it's an essay that is only a few pages long, though its taken me hours to read it through (I'm still not done), because I have to sit the book down and Be Annoyed for a few minutes about how, no, actually the Tenth Doctor let me down as a fan in many ways and while I'm a huge-huge-huge fan of Tennant himself, I really do think that the writing failed his character in the Tenth Doctor and how Ten, at the end of the day, was really quite an ass*. Yes, he had his good moments, and honestly I try to edit the bad ones out in my head, but now that I'm in the era of a much nicer, much more accepting Doctor in Eleven, Ten's shortcomings are all the more glaring to me.

Back when I watched his tenure the first time around, I (mostly) ignored some of his issues, hoping that he would learn from them eventually, that he would grow past the incessant emo man!pain (though admittedly Tennant is ever-so-pretty when he angsts, even if it was a bit overdone) and ill-treatment of most everyone who was not!Rose. That somehow he would be My Doctor again. And in my head!canon he did become that (in the realm of fan fiction fix-it fics, of course), but ultimately it is profoundly sad for me that I never saw that resolution on-screen, that he went out in the end even worse than he ever was (he was frankly dead to me after the ranting at Wilf during his childish tantrum and I just chose to believe the bizarre events of 'The End of Time' were just some sort of fever dream of his). And even the utter glory of David Tennant's bum -- as perfectly shaped as it is -- can't fix that.




* Yes, yes. I know the Doctor has always been a bit of an ass, sometimes in more instances and incarnations than others, but I hate how the show tries to tell me that the Tenth Doctor isn't one, when he clearly is. For example, I watched 'Smith and Jones' again the other night (arguably one of my all-time favorite episodes) and I hate the moment where he rudely dismisses the other medical student with Martha when the hospital is now on the Moon. 'Not her, she'd hold us up' is not something My Doctor would say. I'm so happy for the return of 'You know in 900 years of time and space, I've never met anyone who wasn't important before.' That's my Doctor speaking.

Comments

[chloris.livejournal.com]

Heh. This is definitely a 'your mileage will vary' sort of thing. I love Eleven but I'm of the opinion he is much nastier than Ten and not at all nice. But then I see the Doctor as always being an asshole, just with variations on how he expresses it. Except maybe Two. Two is about the nicest the Doctor has ever been.

[radiantbaby.livejournal.com]

I watched this documentary about film once where one of the directors said 'no two people ever watch the same film' because we always bring our unique perspectives/issues/etc to our viewing experience, thus we see things differently than others. That always fascinates me. It's interesting how we can see such different things and both be right. :)

[tempestsarekind.livejournal.com]

So much yes. There's so much that I loved about Ten, but the bad really ended up outweighing the good for me - precisely because, as you say, the show kept trying to tell me that Ten *didn't* behave badly toward people, and I just couldn't deal with that.

The other day it occurred to me that my *real* defining moment for Eleven is probably when he takes care of Craig in "The Lodger": Eleven is frequently cranky and snappish, and he doesn't go around exclaiming about how wonderfully human humans are, and he spends the whole time he's running around making that tea grousing about how Craig never should have touched the rot in the first place - but then he doesn't hesitate to pat Craig's cheek and tell him he's important - just like he sticks up for "scared Bob," or reassures Elliot that his dyslexia doesn't matter. Ten was all big-picture exclamations, but when it came to dealing with actual individuals, like Martha, or Mickey, or Jack, or even Chantho, he was rubbish. (You should not have to be *reminded* to express sympathy when someone tells you all her people are dead, what the everloving hell.) And it still bothers me that he gets credit for being caring when he so often wasn't.

Likewise, Eleven does some cold, harsh things - but then River tells him that he's going down the wrong path, or Amy tells him that that's not how they do things, or he realizes that he's misjudged a cleric ("I wish I'd known you better" - another favorite moment), or Rory yells that the Doctor is trying to make him into himself... People call him out on stuff, instead of just brushing the whole "destroying Harriet Jones's government with six words and directly leading to Harold Saxon" thing under the rug. Eleven is pointed out as fallible, instead of constantly being the Lonely God, and that makes such a difference for me.

[radiantbaby.livejournal.com]

God, so much yes to your so much yes!

(You should not have to be *reminded* to express sympathy when someone tells you all her people are dead, what the everloving hell.)

I know! Especially when he's always trying to garner sympathy for being the last of his own people. It does get a bit All About Him sometimes, which makes me sad.

You are so right about how differently Eleven and Ten deal with individuals. Yes, Eleven can be a bit rude too, but he can also be very caring and really literally take care of his friends who are in need (I love him with Craig SO MUCH -- and honestly think its sad that it is probably his weight than has made fandom not ship them).

But most importantly, as you said, the show points out that the Doctor is fallible and lets people call him on his shit. Instead of, as we mentioned, telling us Ten was so awesome, but showing us something very different quite often and therefore leading to a disconnect (I have the same exact issue with the portrayal of Rose in the series, but that's a whole other can of worms).

I'm not sure if you've ever seen the 'What We Had' fanvid (http://cherryice.livejournal.com/213248.html) by cherryice, but it really sums up the negative aspects of Ten's character perfectly for me (in fact, I always get really sad and angry when I rewatch it). God, I really want to love him (I do still ship him with Martha, though -- because I'M INSANE), but sometimes he makes it so hard for me. :(

[tempestsarekind.livejournal.com]

Heh. I am possibly the least shippy person on the planet (I think I'm missing the gene), but there were so many moments between Ten and Martha that were SO GOOD to me - which is why I spent so much time writing meta about the two of them in my "martha jones" tag, about how Ten was falling apart and how he could trust Martha to hold him up; how she could be the doctor that *he* needed. And yet there's also the way that he just *forgets* that she has emotions, too, and really doesn't treat her at all well. I never really got back on his side after that, because as cute as he and Donna were together, I couldn't really forgive him for treating Martha the way he did and then offering Donna such easy support and closeness.

I love Eleven and Craig! I'm just so giddily pleased by their buddy comedy whenever they get together. And at the same time, even in the comedy of "The Lodger," the show lets us see that Eleven *can* be thoughtless and hurtful - he doesn't *mean* to steal all the glory from Craig, he's just having a fun time pretending to be a human, but we can see that Craig does still get hurt. I feel like the Ten era was constantly expecting me to care more about the fact that Ten was hurting, and not care about the fact that he hurt people; I feel like the balance is better with Eleven - he can break my heart into tiny pieces, but the show also lets us see when he's going off the rails or doing something questionable.