Yes its quite interesting.

It's all about River Song really and it is true that she is entirely defined by her relationship to the Doctor and I think two things at once about that.

On the one hand it is a function of her purpose which is to be something of a mystery. So information about her relationship to any friends or family she might held is deliberately withheld. And that is the innocent explanation.

On the other hand you could well argue that the fact that you have a female character who is entirely defined by her relationship to the Doctor does send rather an odd message particularly as she has been around a long time and hasn't really achieved much development.

I do think on the whole though that New Who has been progressive in a way that Old Who really wasn't. It does cater less to sexist and racist stereotypes. It is easier to do that nowadays but at least it makes the effort. And of course when it does make the effort it still outrages some fans.

I think the bit about River is definitely flawed. She is presented as almost an equal to the Doctor so of course she interacts with him more than other characters.

The fact is this is a show about a man who solves problems and battles monsters. This is only a relevant study if you compare male companions as well. How much does Micky talk to other guys. How often does he but talk about Rose etc.

I'm sure Joan Watson would 'fail' this test too, she ha an almost equal partnership with Holmes in Elementary. But there are episodes where she is only talking to men, most of the police are men etc. Is this sexist then?

Does a woman have to talk to other women to not be seen as a strong role model? She can't be just a character that happens to be female?


Or is this about the fact there aren't enough women in the show?

Would feminists prefer The Doctor was travelling with a shape shifting penguin? How come this penguin isn't interacting with other penguins? He's just fighting monsters with The Doctor??

River Song is by no definition a strong female character the study is right in that. She went from being a great character to being one that was so defined by the Doctor it bordered on gross. Her entire life as presented revolved around him in a way that all but required an intervention! That was possibly one of the worst things Moffat has done as a showrunner/writer. Similarly Amy's life was too defined by the males (the Doctor and Rory) in it. She has very little story that's just her own. At least Clara (as Jenna says) doesn't need the Doctor. I hope she develops a story of her own and that there's no hint of a love interest for her. She doesn't need one.

Having female characters with their own agency AND there being a male lead are by no means mutually exclusive. It's quite possible for the female character to have her own story unconnected to the Doctor. That's more of the issue here than anything. There's never an issue at all with male and female characters having relationships but when that's nearly all their is to the female characters then it's more troublesome.

The Bechdel test certainly isn't a flawless method (as the study points out) but the idea that some people feel that River Song is a strong female character after series 6 is laughable. The quote about her verses Rose is correct - I may not have cared for Rose's character much post series 1 but she is a female character who happens to have a romantic plot line. River Song EXISTED only to have a romantic plot line. That's her purpose in the show. Hence it doesn't matter how many guns she shoots, how tough she is, she's a 2D character and certainly not a strong female.

The funny thing is when this show first came back most people seemed to be concerned hie ineffectual the Doctor was, how Rose was solving the problems all the time.

The show Is called Doctor Who I (personally) want to see him solving the problems. It's pretty obvious that any human (male or female) wouldn't be able to 100% help. If anything they are often there to act as a moral compass, give the human perspective to alien.

River is not perfect and yes her character was somewhat defined by her relationship with the main character, but to me she was probably the mist equal to this alien godlike character since Romana.


The fact is the main character isn't male it's an alien. No one relatable (which the human companion is supposed to be) can ever really solve anything he can't do without making The Doctor's character weaker.

Also I think Amy was a great character and less defined by Rory than Rory was by her.

Same for Micky. Anyway my point is I don't think this is a gender thing I think it is human thing.

River Is Human though of course.


I guess an answer might be to have a human companion from the far far future. Again we risk the companion making the Doctor be less of a hero. Oh the companion has saved the day again.

Thinking out loud here one of my favourite companions is Leela. She's from the past though. But also I like her because she just kicks ass and her lack of modern knowledge makes for some nice interaction. In fact, thinking out loud again, she didn't gave to be female for that to happen. It was the primitive human aspect.

Its the writers fault for daring to just use their imaginations and write characters that fit the narrative they want to create. What they need to do is be given a checklist for things they have to include so as not to offend any section of society because that's what equates to good writing. Therefore a character can't just be female. They have to stand as a totem and example for all females round the world. Same for any character of colour or of a different sexuality. They can't just be well rounded and difficult and complex and multi-faceted as all human beings are. Oh no. They need to be defined by their gender/race/sexuality and stand as an impeccable and non-critical vision of such.

This sort of stuff is all too familiar. Lets not forget when cinemas were picketed by protesters for showing Basic Instinct because that film dared to have a lesbian/bisexual character who was also a murderer. Of course this wasn't intended to say 'all gay women are murderers'. Utter nonsense. It was just part of the characters background. The great irony about this stuff is that rather than celebrating or fighting for equality it only reinforces the prejudice that makes anyone who is viewed as part of a minority group as 'special' and 'other' and as such must be treated differently.

Of course female characters in sci-fi should not be a minority. Its a shame they are. But its an even greater shame that a character like River Song or any female companion to the Doctor should be expected to conform to some perfect narrow minded vision of what some people consider a well written female. Its not River Songs job to represent woman kind. And nor is it Steven Moffats job to appease these fussy small minded offence seekers.

Its why I posted in another thread comments from a self proclaimed 'intersectional feminist' who felt it acceptable to deride Moffat as a 'stupid little white boy'. Swap some of those words and see how acceptable you find it. And the same people accuse Moffat of being prejudiced! You really couldn't make it up.

The best thing is Moffat doesn't listen to this sort of drivel. He ignores it. Just like RTD who ignored the morons who labeled him a 'homophobe'. There are some very silly people out there.

I really think if TV switched overnight and most of the lead roles were occupied by women and most of the subsidiary male characters spent the whole time talking about their relationship with the female characters you would notice the difference.

Yeah. Rose was a really strong and well rounded female character. One who ditched her family and boyfriend (and treated him like utter garbage) for the Doctor. Was desperate for his acceptance and approval. Who even when separated across dimensions chose not to focus on her family whose lives she had irrevocably changed due to her obsession with this man but instead chose to put all her efforts in getting back to him just so she could pout with jealousy that he had moved on, beg again for him to take her and then accept a poor carbon copy on the orders of said man because 'yeah the doctor said so'. Its a heartwarming tale of female empowerment. I don't think.

Amy grew out of the doctor and chose a real life.

River ran rings around him time after time.

Oh but wait she sacrificed herself for the Doctor! Erm maybe this isn't sexism. Maybe its called a love story. A classic love story. How many times have men been portrayed as the sacrificial hero for the sake of their love? All the time. Moffat dares reverse this trend, makes the female charter the hero and the Doctor almost useless and he gets called sexist for doing it? Ok then. That makes sense.

No statistics on episodes featuring Clara I see.

Its almost as if they wanted a certain outcome for their entirely independent and not at all biased 'study'.

Despite the fact all the Clara episodes are available and have been for months they choose to ignore one third of Moffats era.

I wonder why that might be...

That's a true observation. But I'm talking about Doctor Who not all
TV. Doctor Who: About an alien who does amazing things while a human tags along.

I love Doctor Who most when The Doctor is alien and the companion challenges him and his choices. It's THAT interaction. It doesn't matter if the companion is male or female. And it doesn't matter so much how many lines they speak to other characters male or female. That should back up and reflect the companions way of thinking. Not from a gender perspective. But from a 'human' one.

Ok, well thanks for the endorsement and I take your point. My only real disagreement is that Doctor Who is not a documentary about an alien doing amazing things. It is a work of fiction which inevitably reflects the mores of current society and in the past it has endorsed some pretty grim racial and gender stereotypes. But such is my love of the show that I confess to still enjoying Talons of Weng Chiang and Tomb of the Cybermen. At the same time, just because the subject matter falls in the science fiction bit of the spectrum does not mean that it is immune from criticism on the grounds of racism or sexism.

As I say I don't think it is doing too badly these days in that respect but I certainly don't think we should dismiss concerns about the representation of women on the show.

And I speak as somebody who probably couldn't cope with a female Doctor so probably a pretty rubbish feminist.

As you say it reflects society. It's unfair to say it was racist in the past when perhaps society was a little more inclined. It also held the views on gender roles and sexuality of the time I'm sure. That's why we don't accept screaming scared companions now if that's all they would do all episode.

Hopefully society is less inclined to be racist now and it certainly isn't tolerated on TV.

The 'study' on sexism in the OP is talking about this era. Is TV Sexist in 2014?! Well
That is not a question for a Doctor Who forum. That should be asked in the general TV forum.

Is modern Doctor Who sexist in 2014? The study uses character interaction to posit it may be. My point is what types of interactions should there be? An alien is sitting out alien problems (when sometimes) in alien lands. What is the human there for?

Now a question might be why are there so many more female human companions than male ones. Ie is it being sexist in that way. Would Doctor Who be less sexist if there were LESS females in it?

Believe me I wouldn't want to see a male 2014 era human companion solving everything either.

Also I'll just add I really like the Big Finish audios. Charley and Evelyn are two of my favourite characters. They are strong companions. They are female. And I wouldn't be surprised if they would fail those tests in the OP. Although being audio there us naturally more talking and dialogue in general.

That's one of my fears for television in the future; that stories will be written with a sort of checklist in mind. That they'll need to include a character that fits in with at least one race/gender/sexuality/ect so they don't get called out on not having them. Seems something like that would look too artificial.

Is it too much to ask for good characters that are good characters without it being a requirement for them to fit some sort of requirement just so it'll look good on paper?

Forgive me for saying this, but that is absurd. Not only that, it's an absolute and complete contradiction of what's being argued for. The Bechdel check is a checklist of exactly one item, that your characters should not be doing to the exclusion of all else, unless they have an explicit reason to do so.

Authors should be using their imagination - which means they should be able to write female characters that don't fall into lazy habits. As has been pointed out again and again, the Bechdel test isn't, and never has been, a measure of sexism. It's a signpost, if you like, a rough indicator that the writer has failed to think their female characters through, has failed to flesh the writing out, and has fallen into lazy cliche. The reason it's interesting is because it focusses on aspects that are non-obvious.

And that's all it says. The Bechdel test doesn't offer an opinion on whether your female character are talking about shoes or guns, whether they're feisty or timid, managing director or maid, mother or warrior. Women can be all these things and more - but one thing we know is that most of them don't spend all their lives talking about the menfolk. If that's all your characters are doing, there's something wrong.

It can only be interpreted in context - Sex and the City is the classic example. Women are the focus, women are the strongest and most developed characters, and yet generally it fails the test because they're almost exclusively talking about their relationships with men. But that's probably okay, because that's what the series is about. The question is, does Doctor Who have similar grounds to get a free pass?

To a certain extent, I think we've actually got through the worst of that in the last twenty years or so. The Nineties I think were around the time when tokenism and over-sensitivity were at their worst, but I think it was right to bring it to attention so we can adapt and get used to it.

Perhaps then this Bechdel test shouldn't have been used as the main test in a University study on sexism in BBC's Doctor Who?

Overall, it is an odd "test". If I made a romantic comedy in which the women talk about men, the test considers it sexist if I don't have a conversation about shoes or whatever somewhere in there. However, if I make a porn film that completely objectifies women, but I have a brief conversation about shoes, then it is not as sexist as the romantic comedy. Alternatively, I can make a lesbian romantic comedy which is _exactly_ the same as the first one where the women are talking about women with whom they are having relationships instead of men, and, somehow, even if the script is exactly the same as the first one with an all female cast instead of women and men, then it is less sexist.

None of that makes any sense whatsoever.

The "test" is a good shortcut for those who don't want to delve deeper into the subject matter, but it is by no means absolute or definitive (or, arguably, even valid).

No-one has ever claimed it as such. It's like saying that vinegar and ketchup taste good on fried food - but I'm not going to claim that a pH test is the best way to decide what to put on my chips.

Not absurd thank you very much but entirely a fair point. I wasn't addressing the silly spurious little test in my post. I was addressing a wider issue about the writing of fictional characters. And its a point I stand by. I don't know what you think (though I can hazard a guess) but I want my writers and artists to be free to be as creative and imaginative as they dream without being constrained by the petty demands of a committee of the easily offended, the quick to complain but the slow to think. Its a terrifying thought quite frankly. So I'll keep on challenging it.

I wholeheartedly agree with you. I was simply wanting to point out the (hopefully) obvious so that people didn't take it as such.

And, for me, you have described the main difference with characterisation since Steven Moffat took over - he writes the plotlines/story arcs first and then bolts on the characters around them. I think that is ultimately why Amy scored so poorly compared with Rose, Martha and Donna on the Bechdel Test.

Because Clara's time on the show isn't done yet and therefore isn't a fair comparison. She has some traits which are vast improvements over River and Amy though.


Everything in your post is nonsense and shows how far the point whizzed by you.

The difference between Rose and River is that Rose was created as a rounded character who HAPPENED to have a romantic relationship. River EXISTED to have a romantic relationship. She's not a strong female character, she's a 2D trope and frankly her relationship with the Doctor became gross and an insult to the character she'd once been.

Love stories are never a problem but female characters shouldn't exist solely for their love story. It happens far too often and is incredibly lazy writing and should never be applauded.


^ Someone gets it at least!

Similarly women don't exist solely for the men around them and if that's all their representation on screen boils down to then that is a badly written character. Not sure why anyone would want to argue otherwise!


Quite! And the fact that poster is using that as a defence shows how little they know about screenwriting/writing in general. You are told and taught that the character is the key. Read any writing advice and you are told NEVER to fit your characters in around your plot, that it's a common error. It stops your characters being rounded and stops them feeling natural. To suggest this is what Moffat does with his 'imagination' wouldn't exactly be praise!

The Bechdel Test is flawed, so it carries no favour with me.

I mustve missed all the TV series and films you've written...jog my memory?

Nothing nonsensical about my post. Firstly for the study to even compare Rose and River in the is highly dopey as they are different characters there to serve entirely different purposes. That said I already pointed out to you in my post how Rose is nowhere near as well rounded and empowered a character as you make out. If you don't get why I shan't repeat myself.

I've seen plenty of your posts before. You don't like River or the Moffat era. Therefore you are biased and merely seeking to reinforce your original viewpoint. I on the other hand don't like to play era wars because I'm a Doctor Who fan, not an RTD fan or a Tennant Fan or a Piper fan. A fan of the show. Strange concept on here I know. This enables me to look at the similarities and differences between the eras and acknowledge or celebrate them fairly and in a balanced way. And as such I can say this study is nonsense and flawed. Of course its done its job as on here and across the internet its given the Anti-Moffat brigade another rallying point and an excuse to trot out the same old criticisms they repeat ad nauseum in this bizarre attempt to convince those of us that enjoy the show that we shouldn't. So its carried out its aim sadly.