rjbuffchix: I wasn't going to get back into this topic but yours is the second post I saw bringing this up...
His sentence immediately before the one about recreating Indy "as a woman, and his sidekick as a gay" was "This is a children's film". That is where I read the implication, as, what other possible relevance does it being a children's film have to do with the point about a character being re-imagined? If OP's sentences had alternatively been something like "This is a film about a character that was originally male and straight. But they're trying to recreate the character as a woman and make the character's sidekick gay", I would still probably groan a bit (since who says a character can't be re-imagined?) but it wouldn't have read as badly.
*shrugs*
borisburke: I appear to have made a poor impression. Saturday night syndrome, I'm afraid. I was 'tired and emotional'. For context, my sister calls me feminist, my gay friends call me darling, and the highlight of my year was seeing Wally Funk finally get her astronaut wings.
I'll rephrase it.
This is a children's film. It's supposed to be an adventure, a romp. Not a sermon. I have no issues with strong female leads or gay characters. I just think this is the wrong place for such overt discrimination and gender politics. Many of the scenes, including the opening scene in the auditorium, seem to have been written specifically to highlight how stupid weak white men oppress smarter and stronger women.
In one scene, the lead and her sidekick are boarding a small riverboat, and they approach with many porters carrying huge quantities of luggage. Johnson (the boat captain) tells her that she can't bring all of that stuff on board. She shows him her single bag, smiles condescendingly at him, and tells him the luggage isn't hers, it's her sidekicks (Tennis racquets and dinner jackets and such). The captain had made an assumption based upon her sex, and was mistaken. And a big show is made of it. The whole scene is completely unrealistic and unnecessary, and serves no purpose other than to make a point about gender politics. The rest of the film plays out in much the same fashion. No opportunity is missed to ram it home.
It's hypocritical too. In America, there's a stereotype that well-spoken British gentlemen are gay. This film just reinforces that stereotype. In reality, Johnson is just as likely to be gay.
I see no reason why a strong female lead needs to behave like a man. Or a gay sidekick needs to behave like an entitled schoolgirl. Not only is it unrealistic, it's insulting to women and gays.
If you remove the politics, what little is left of the film is piss poor and full of holes. I get the impression that the writers only got the job because they were prepared to prostitute themselves on the altar of social justice, and not because they could actually write. A disturbing tendency over the last few years. (Cough.... Doctor Who... Cough...).
I don't have a problem with a female doctor; I have a problem with the doctor not being canonical. Missy should have been the next doctor.
Think about it..
It would not of broken the rule that you can only have 12 regenerations because she 'technically' isn't the doctor.
The character already was fascinating to the audience because while being evil was on the road to redemption and seeing as her and the doctor had this light and the dark relationship she has the ultimate repent -> filling his shoes while not being the best fit for them.
This makes way for both a new fledgling nemisis and because the master (missy) had already found a way around the regeneration limit (making others 'him') the possibiliy for more than what 6 other new 'doctors'.
She would of retained the idea that the Doctor had branched off from the moral narrative of the time lords (who had gone evil) and had an evolving inner moral compass; instead of a shoehorned in one from modern day earth.
Missy should have been the next doctor.
Now the only way to really save the series seems to be turning the holier than thou Jodie Whittaker into the evil counterpart to the master because undoing the current path of redemption is completely imbecilic (because it was instigated by the doctor and the doctor still exists) while to not do so creates an inherent Nemesis vacuum.
So how would you do that? You'd take the idea of utopian morals to their natural extreme of only really working well in lab conditions where everything or should I say everyone is controlled to a point of dystopia because humans aren't naturally good or evil and rigidly forcing them to be good is actually suppression.
But that's just what was grinding my gears about that and ultimately you've got the doctor you've got and they have the ratings/viewers they have. :P