PIC Donna is not a Revelation

[meddow]

It’s kind of cool sitting back and seeing a good portion of Who fandom realise, that no, Catherine Tate is not going to be the end of the show, and yes, Donna really is quite excellent. On the other hand, a few things about the way people are realising this are bugging me – particularly when people go on about how much Donna has improved since The Runaway Bride.

Thing is:
1. Donna did not scream all the way through The Runaway Bride. She did do an awful lot of yelling throughout the first sixteen minutes (yes, I timed it) – however, yelling loudly is a perfectly valid response to being abducted by aliens while walking down the aisle on your wedding day and then being kidnapped by robot Santas and forced to jump out of a moving vehicle on a motorway.

2. The quiet contemplative Donna that we saw with her Grandfather in Partners in Crime, made two wonderful appearances in TRB. Firstly, at minute sixteen (i.e. at the quarter way though the episode point), in the rooftop scene, and then later in the final scene of the show. Quiet contemplative Donna is not a new invention for Partners in Crime. She already existed.

3. And another thing, why is yelling every now and again a bad thing? The criticism smacks of sexism for me, and always has – as if a woman should be seen and not heard. The Doctor can be loud and ranty every now and again and while we moan about this sometimes, we don’t ever name it as our number one reason why he shouldn’t be a main character.

4. Catherine Tate did not just learn how to act. She was quite magnificent in The Runaway Bride as well. And, strangely enough, she managed to get through that episode as without using a catchphrase as well. The fact that anyone assumed that she would be anything less than a professional actor and force RTD to turn Donna into Lauren Cooper is ridiculous at best and insulting at worst.

Donna has not had a personality overhaul. The only particular change in Donna between the beginning of TRB and the beginning of PIC is that she’s warmed to the Doctor, revamped her outlook on the world and has a new set of priorities, which make her more appealing to the audience. And of course, the brilliance of The Runaway Bride is that we get to witness this character development over the course of the episode. There is very little difference between the Donna at the end of TRB and the Donna we see again in PIC

Okay, rant over (sorry f-list, I know I’m preaching to the converted, but I needed to get it off my chest).

Comments

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

If she was all of those, I guess she'd be allowed to be loud and obnoxious, right?

If she was, she'd probably be "uppity" and "arrogant" like Martha. *hates on people a bit*

[meddow.livejournal.com]

People think Martha's uppity and arrogant?

*Goes off to bang her head against a hard surface*

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

There was a comment in a recent T&C entry that used those exact words. But the mods were on top of it like that, because they're awesomely oppressive towards bashers.

[ragdoll.livejournal.com]

Grrr. Most of the complaints I've seen about Martha are "she can't act", "she's wooden", "she's awful" rather than anything specific about the character (except in "Human Nature/Family of Blood" where apparently she was "too passive" and "wimpy" when being treated like crap by the assorted staff -- even though had she told them off the way they deserved, she would've been tossed out on her arse and not been able to look after the Doctor/John Smith). Poor Martha couldn't win (and neither could Freema).

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

*nod*

I don't know if it's enough to know the next companion of colour will have an easier ride. I love Freema a lot, and I want her to go on and have a magnificent career, just to spite the haters.

[ragdoll.livejournal.com]

I am never quite sure if it's due to her being a companion of colour or just Not-Rose or some annoying combination of both. I think any companion post-Rose would have gotten a lot of flack, except maybe someone like Carey Mulligan who would then have been accused of being just a Rose-clone.

I don't care what the haters say -- Freema is magnificent and isn't going to just disappear because they think she should. I am really hoping Martha gets to bop between DW, SJA and TW over the next few years and that Freema gets other work on top of that (which I'm sure she will). It seems as though the cast and crew adore her (despite the crap that the UK tabloids threw around) and that counts for a lot in my book.

Personally, I think Billie's massively overrated. I've seen her in a number of other things and she seemed to be exactly the same as Rose in all of them (I haven't seen Secret Diary of a Call Girl yet so can't say). I'm sure she's very nice, seems to be very much in love with her husband (who I adore as an actor), etc. but I don't see her going on to be the next Judi Dench. ;)

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

I am never quite sure if it's due to her being a companion of colour or just Not-Rose or some annoying combination of both. I think any companion post-Rose would have gotten a lot of flack, except maybe someone like Carey Mulligan who would then have been accused of being just a Rose-clone.

Likewise. A lot of white, blonde women got the "Oh, I wish she was a companion, she'd be so much better than Freema" tag last year, but then, so did the girl playing Tish. I think Martha's offenses were multiple -- she was black, she was educated, she loved the Doctor, she wasn't sufficiently in awe of him. Something to offend everyone, really. Like you said, she couldn't win.

Freema is magnificent and isn't going to just disappear because they think she should.

I agree, and I hope she does get the opportunity to do non-Who things. Bryan Fuller, producer of Heroes, said fanboyish things about her, which made me happy.

Personally, I think Billie's massively overrated. I've seen her in a number of other things and she seemed to be exactly the same as Rose in all of them (I haven't seen Secret Diary of a Call Girl yet so can't say). I'm sure she's very nice, seems to be very much in love with her husband (who I adore as an actor), etc. but I don't see her going on to be the next Judi Dench.

Now, I adore Billie (I thought she was great in Secret Diary of a Call Girl, but I also thought that was a sitcom, when apparently the rest of the world thought it was meant to be a gritty, realistic look at street prostitution...), but she and Freema are totally different in their approaches. Billie, in real life and on screen, wears her heart on her sleeve, whereas Freema seems relatively reserved. I'm really, really eager to see how they work together, late in season four.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

" I think Martha's offenses were multiple -- she was black, she was educated, she loved the Doctor, she wasn't sufficiently in awe of him. Something to offend everyone, really. Like you said, she couldn't win."

I think you've just beautifully summed up all the reasons why I liked Martha! (though I don't tend to think of her as black - she's 'British' to me)

Let's hope we get to see more of Freema, both on Who and elsewhere.

[meddow.livejournal.com]

Yeah, most of the Martha bashing I've come across has been lobbed at Freema's performance. I really hope Freema's never wandered into fandom, because she's a lovely actress who did a wonderful job and I would hate to think she's read some of the stuff I've seen said about her.

[ragdoll.livejournal.com]

I have a bad feeling the poor girl might have. She was a fan of other science fiction stuff prior to Dr. Who (I just love the fact that she was so into DS9 that she and her sister went to Trek conventions -- and that she (Freema) dressed up as Dax).

I know that a lot of people on cast/crew have accounts at OG/DWF and do read alot of things even when they claim they never go on the internet (*coughDTcough*). I just hope that Freema either ignored the stupid Martha!hate threads or was able to see that the people posting them were idiots.

I have a feeling that part of the reason the Doctor is so apologetic about Martha now is that Russell figured out that the Martha fans were very very unhappy about how things played out. (And I know with absolute authority that he reads quite a lot at DWF)

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

Apparently Freema had to close down her MySpace account due to fandom, but that was because of harrassment by libidinous men, not haters.