- you won't hurt me -
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I’m writing this in a Submit because it was a tad too long to fit in the ask. It may be a bit disjointed, so if you post it, please feel free to edit it / respond as you see fit.
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I’ve been thinking about this for awhile, the idea of River’s character / River’s bisexuality / etc.
1. Moffat says she’s bisexual, but we don’t see any evidence of it in the show.
2. Moffat says he’s not working towards creating bisexual identity (might be the wrong phrase, what I mean is that tweet from him in response to someone else, from around when he outed her as bi)
3. You can be bisexual without flip-flopping between sexes (i.e. River’s just being with the Doctor doesn’t invalidate her bisexuality)
So I suppose my point or question sort of is - does her sexuality matter? Is it really that important that a bisexual character “fly the bisexual flag,” so to speak? River to me is one of the strongest characters in the show, I feel. You’ve said on multiple occasions that Moffat’s general portrayal of bisexuals as “having too much fun” is offensive, so here’s a bisexual character who’s in a committed relationship. And wouldn’t it be the same if she was outed as bisexual outside the context of the show but was only seen in a relationship with a female?
I suppose my general question is: How important /is/ River’s sexuality to the show in general? We’ve seen that the arc of her story is centered around the Doctor, and doesn’t it make sense then that she’s seen with him?
-Again, sorry if this is jumbled, and I’m sorry if I misunderstood anything you were trying to say before in regards to her character!
Of course, all these points are sort of valid, and everyone is allowed to think whatever they want about the character of River and how she is portrayed. But to me, it’s a matter of having had enough. And I think we’ve covered all of this before, but I will repeat it: River Song as the “flirtatious unreliable bisexual woman” is a trope that is being repeated again and again and again and again and again and again. It’s perfectly fine to have problems with it. No, River’s sexuality isn’t important to she show at large, but when bisexual people have such a hard time to get any visibility in the media at all, it’s really damn annoying when pretty much the little visibility there is turns out to be exactly the same and harmful stereotypes that gives people the completely wrong idea of bisexual people. Go on, give me one example of a bisexual ever who hasn’t been promiscuous, cheating or unreliable. Those characteristics on their own do not always have to be negative, sure, a lot of people are like one or several of those things, but when that’s the ONLY kind of bisexual we see in the media, it gets old pretty quickly.
“We’ve seen that the arc of her story is centered around the Doctor, and doesn’t it make sense then that she’s seen with him?”
This is another thing that we have a problem with and have covered in several posts, the fact that her whole storyline and identity ended up revolving completely around the Doctor is pretty awful. She started out as a cool and independent character, but in the end her whole storyline has been twisted to just revolve around one single man. The fact that her plot revolves around the Doctor is not an argument for only showing her showing any affection or attraction towards the “opposite” sex, it only makes it even more problematic.
Moffat has a history of displaying very little understanding for any sexuality that isn’t heterosexuality, so it’s not a surprise that he keeps getting it wrong. What is frustrating and enraging is when he completely refuses to listen to people who are part of the sexual minorities he insist on including. It’s not difficult getting it right. But he seems more interesting in enforcing harmful stereotypes and using people’s sexualities for cheap laughs and punchlines.
And don’t worry about your post being jumbled, I’m pretty jumbled myself.
- Hallor
Fuck. Off.
River Song as the “flirtatious unreliable bisexual woman” is a trope that is being repeated again and again and again and again and again and again.
So now a bisexual character isn’t fucking allowed to be flirtatious? Seriously??? She has to be demure and let the man come to her because GOD FORBID her personality might coincide with a fucking stereotype??? You know I guess a male character, a straight character they can all be as flirtatious as they fucking like, you can write them in any way you want but now we must IMPOSE RESTRICTIONS on what personality traits queer characters are allowed to have.So what the FUCK, it was all fine and dandy for her to be flirtatious when she might have been straight but as soon as she’s queer, the rules all change! and suddenly, she can’t just be whatever character she is! She has to fit an ANTI-STEREOTYPE so that people don’t get the wrong idea!
How about bi people in general stop being fucking flirtatious in case we accidentally coincide with a stereotype because that would be a fucking disaster.
I could see your point if River was defined by her flirtiness but River is not defined by her flirtiness. What about her kickass gun skills and intelligence and how she goes from this really selfish lost girl to a woman who was the Doctor’s equal or possibly better? Are you even watching the show or just looking for something to complain about?
Go on, give me one example of a bisexual ever who hasn’t been promiscuous, cheating or unreliable
River fucking Song.
This is another thing that we have a problem with and have covered in several posts, the fact that her whole storyline and identity ended up revolving completely around the Doctor is pretty awful. She started out as a cool and independent character, but in the end her whole storyline has been twisted to just revolve around one single man. The fact that her plot revolves around the Doctor is not an argument for only showing her showing any affection or attraction towards the “opposite” sex, it only makes it even more problematic.
OH MY GOD. So she’s not allowed to be promiscuous and she’s not allowed to commit to one single man? And sorry, explain that last sentence to me because what the fuck?
Do you know why this tumblr makes me angry? It’s not that I’m angry on behalf of Moffat. It’s because I literally read that Clara might be a lesbian and groaned inside my head. And not remotely because of how Moffat might write her. It was because of the fact that fandom would always find some way to make her character unacceptable on basis of her queerness or femaleness.
If she’s too feminine she’ll be seen as male-gazey or a female stereotype. If she’s too masculine she’ll be seen as a lesbian stereotype. She will never be able to win and she’ll never be liked, no matter what.
We’re already getting this catch-22 with River Song, since Moffat announced she was bisexual. Suddenly it’s not okay she has a husband and also not okay she flirts, and also not okay that she may at one point have been polyamorous and NOTHING she did when she was seen as straight is okay anymore because suddenly she is no longer a character, she is a representative for all bisexuals and that is fucking bullshit. Get the fuck out.
(via rightnowbb)
In response to this bullshit:
http://orbitingasupernova.tumblr.com/post/23649154029/bisexuality-in-doctor-who-and-the-queerbaiting-antics
“The problem is that otherwise, River’s queerness seems to drift away into the Time Vortex. In fact, one might even say that River Song is Doctorsexual, since she only ever seems to show interest in him. I understand why we get very little insight into River’s life outside of the Doctor, but I don’t have to like it—we don’t see her dating, falling in love, sleeping with anyone who would give credence to that label of bisexuality. Nothing. “
Never mind the fact that tons of bisexuals are in monogamous relationships, River has to PROVE her queerness!
Before when we thought she was straight she was just a character. But now that she’s bisexual she’s a REPRESENTATIVE. She has to REPRESENT ALL BISEXUALS AND DO IT WELL. She has to PROVE WHAT MOFFAT THINKS A BISEXUAL IS. She has to DEFINE HER SEXUALITY and GOD FORBID she should pass as straight by having a monogamous relationship with a man because then she doesn’t count because she isn’t actively demonstrating her queerness. Or, sorry, “giving credence to that label of bisexuality”.
I’m sorry but two things: in fiction and in the real world a person’s sexuality is not defined by who they’re currently shagging. There’s an awesome little cartoon that addresses that here: http://erikamoen.com/comics/queer/nggallery/image/queer-english-version/
Secondly, the point of River’s character is to be a character, not to represent all bisexuals in the most diversely accurate way possible. She doesn’t have to prove her queerness and nor does anybody. She doesn’t have to conform to the polar opposite of every stereotype so that people don’t get the wrong ideas about bisexuals. And just as if I am in a monogamous relationship with a man that does not make me straight and if I’m single that does not make me asexual, River being ‘doctor-sexual’ does not make her a bad bisexual or a bad representation of bisexuals or not a bisexual. So fuck you.
“the Doctor sees a lot of negative bi stereotypes in Miss Song—hypersexuality (every single appearance), flightiness (she doesn’t stick around), bisexuality as a phase (she gets a bit of freedom and goes wild in the Library), incapable of monogamy (see: the Library) [wtf. at most, the doctor and river’s relationship is polyamorous at that time, that does not mean they are INCAPABLE OF MONOGAMY], yay threesomes (telling her father that she fucked the Doctor and a clone of his for her birthday), etc. “
Dude you are JUST AFTER saying that River is ‘Doctor-sexual’. She can’t be monogamous with a man because then she’s not giving credence to the bisexuality label and she can’t be polyamorous with both genders because then she’s a bisexual stereotype (despite the fact that both of these are perfectly realistic, consistent and perfectly fine behaviours). She can’t be sexually charged because then she’s a bisexual stereotype, but if she were asexual and romantic, that’d be a female stereotype. And why shouldn’t she be any of these things? As personality traits they a) are perfectly realistic and b) do not define her. And it bugs me that if she were straight male character you wouldn’t have a problem with any of her behaviour because that would just be the character’s personality, but because she’s a bi female her behaviour has to be down to the bisexuality.
if he didn’t really think about it and was like, “Oh shit I don’t have any real recurring queer characters in my run… uhhhh RIVER! THERE WAS THAT JOKE ABOUT THE FANCYING AND THE SEX, RIGHT??? CANON!” that is what we call queerbaiting. And Steven Moffat: Master Queerbaiter loves doing it—Johnlock, Eleven/Rory, River being a male gaze-y biseuxal, those random few queer characters from AGMGTW who never showed up again ‘cause one of them fucking died, etc.
Queerbaiting is what most shows with (predominantly white) male leads do. Put a little gay subtext in there to stir up interest, and then every so often go to the press, shout NO HOMO NO HOMO NO HOMO at the interviewer, and everything is fine.
How in god’s name is river a ‘male-gazey bisexual’? She’s just a bisexual. Also as far as I can see…the two gay couples in AGMGTW WERE GAY there was nothing no-homo about that at all. Canton was gay/bi/pan, again THERE WAS NO SUBTEXT OR NO-HOMO ABOUT IT he was an out-and-out non-straight guy. So I’m sorry but right now I really don’t get the big fucking deal except that it’s blatantly obvious you’re determined to find something offensive in this and willing to analyse it to hell until you do.
EDIT: Oh and a few more things, though god knows why I’m wasting more time replying to an essay that ends ‘stop being a piece of shit’. Firstly if you got the idea that she was a little bit queer then obviously you must know there was something implicit in the script (actually I know there was, in SITL and in TWORS) unless you honestly thought “Oh, she lived in the same century as Captain Jack so she must be queer as well!” In which case I really am wasting my time here.
Secondly, I don’t know how it makes sense that you think Moffat decided to make her bisexual at the last minute yet was already stereotyping her as a bisexual in Silence In The Library. Make your mind up.
there is VERY little context in the actual script that justifies her queerness
Nothing has to justify a character’s queerness. After all, nothing has to justify a character’s straightness. She’s just queer. And why the hell wouldn’t or shouldn’t she be?
