(no subject)
May. 18th, 2008 03:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynneSo Twin is home, and she brought her Doctor Who DVDs with her. I finally got around to watching the S3 Confidentials, and there was something RTD said about Martha in the Smith and Jones one that sorta struck me.
In the Confidential, RTD said something like how Martha's story is unrequited love, so many people could more easily connect with her than with Rose, who had the most amazing man in the world thinking she was the most amazing woman. And that makes a bunch of sense--no one expects someone as epic as the Doctor to fall in love with them, and who doesn't have experience with unreciprocated crushes?
In that respect, I am not like Rose. I've had one boyfriend in my life, and that ended five years ago. Definitely not the big love of my life.
And in some ways, I am quite a bit like Martha. I'm no med student, but I am in college--I'm the same age Rose is, but already better educated. I come from an upper middle class family, like it seems the Joneses are, and there's several of us, not just me and my mum. I've had a lot of opportunities, and have been able to take advantage of them, like Martha. Even our sense of humor is similar--in The Shakespeare Code, when the Doctor tells her that she could tell people she met Shakespeare and she says "Then I could get sectioned", that's something I might say, or at least think.
But what RTD thought would help me connect with her is instead the source of my disconnect. I've had a bunch of crushes in my life, but one thing I have always been able to do is keep perspective. In the last post I made where I expressed my bafflement with Martha's infatuation, someone mentioned how she was taking all the hints she could find, and that made a lot of sense. With my crushes, I do look for hints that they might like me, but I don't ignore hints--or anvils--in the other direction. In that Confidential, Freema Agyeman says she thinks Martha would have taken the Doctor's shutting down of her flirting as a challenge, and that does give me more insight into the character and why she pursued him even when he said he wasn't interested.
So now I understand Martha a lot better, but while I can sympathize with her, I can't empathize. The way she reacts is just so far from the way I would react that any understanding I have of her is completely intellectual. And that crush is such a big part of her character development in S3, which totally didn't help. In the Confidential, they said Martha (and all contemporary human companions, really) was meant to be the audience's window into this life, that we would experience this stuff through her. Frankly, I found the Doctor much easier to understand, and rather than empathizing with Martha, I empathized with him. This probably means my experience of S3 was quite a bit different from someone who could really get Martha's side of the story.
I like Martha. When I rewatch S3, I like her better now that I can understand her motivations, and I like her in S4. But even now that she's moved past the crush, I think the initial disconnect was too strong, because I still don't feel the love for her that I know many people do.
Also, throughout the Confidentials, whenever David Tennant was speaking (as himself), I was pretty much constantly going "Oh David. You're so cute." *g* Now I'm going to go watch his video diaries, where I imagine that to be an even more constant refrain. :p
In the Confidential, RTD said something like how Martha's story is unrequited love, so many people could more easily connect with her than with Rose, who had the most amazing man in the world thinking she was the most amazing woman. And that makes a bunch of sense--no one expects someone as epic as the Doctor to fall in love with them, and who doesn't have experience with unreciprocated crushes?
In that respect, I am not like Rose. I've had one boyfriend in my life, and that ended five years ago. Definitely not the big love of my life.
And in some ways, I am quite a bit like Martha. I'm no med student, but I am in college--I'm the same age Rose is, but already better educated. I come from an upper middle class family, like it seems the Joneses are, and there's several of us, not just me and my mum. I've had a lot of opportunities, and have been able to take advantage of them, like Martha. Even our sense of humor is similar--in The Shakespeare Code, when the Doctor tells her that she could tell people she met Shakespeare and she says "Then I could get sectioned", that's something I might say, or at least think.
But what RTD thought would help me connect with her is instead the source of my disconnect. I've had a bunch of crushes in my life, but one thing I have always been able to do is keep perspective. In the last post I made where I expressed my bafflement with Martha's infatuation, someone mentioned how she was taking all the hints she could find, and that made a lot of sense. With my crushes, I do look for hints that they might like me, but I don't ignore hints--or anvils--in the other direction. In that Confidential, Freema Agyeman says she thinks Martha would have taken the Doctor's shutting down of her flirting as a challenge, and that does give me more insight into the character and why she pursued him even when he said he wasn't interested.
So now I understand Martha a lot better, but while I can sympathize with her, I can't empathize. The way she reacts is just so far from the way I would react that any understanding I have of her is completely intellectual. And that crush is such a big part of her character development in S3, which totally didn't help. In the Confidential, they said Martha (and all contemporary human companions, really) was meant to be the audience's window into this life, that we would experience this stuff through her. Frankly, I found the Doctor much easier to understand, and rather than empathizing with Martha, I empathized with him. This probably means my experience of S3 was quite a bit different from someone who could really get Martha's side of the story.
I like Martha. When I rewatch S3, I like her better now that I can understand her motivations, and I like her in S4. But even now that she's moved past the crush, I think the initial disconnect was too strong, because I still don't feel the love for her that I know many people do.
Also, throughout the Confidentials, whenever David Tennant was speaking (as himself), I was pretty much constantly going "Oh David. You're so cute." *g* Now I'm going to go watch his video diaries, where I imagine that to be an even more constant refrain. :p
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-05-18 11:36 pm (UTC)On paper, I am her. I could have gone into medicine if I'd wanted (but I have more sense), two nights out is “dangerously close to a social life”, I don't live with my family, I'm the same socio-economic class, all that kind of thing.
I also sympathise with the unrequited love thing. But the thing is, when I first watched s3 I was head-over-heels for my then boyfriend and in complete denial that our relationship was not working and he was no longer interested in me, picking up on all the little signs and ignoring the big ones. And because of that denial, I was convinced I was not like Martha. No way. My boyfriend loved me, we had a real relationship.
So my disconnect with Martha initially was that I was way too similar to her and refused to acknowledge it. These days, when I rewatch, I can't help but notice the similarities so I completely understand her.
Unfortunately for her, because she had the relationship I did, and not the relationship I wish I did, she will never be my favourite simply because DW is my escapism. It's all very well to completely understand what a character's going through — I also know what requited love is and would much rather have that, thanks.
It's not completely the love thing — because Rose isn't me, she has all the character traits I wish I had. Whereas Martha is me, so I pick up on her flaws more easily. That's just the way things are.
(Incidentally, Martha's “this is me, getting out” was aired less than two weeks after I said my final farewells to the ex. Martha Jones is almost spookily me sometimes.)
no subject
Date: 2008-05-18 11:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-19 04:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-19 04:12 am (UTC)On paper, Martha's closer to me than Rose is, and really neither of them react to things quite like I would, but Rose is a closer match, and I can just understand her a whole lot better than I do Martha.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-19 03:19 am (UTC)As for the unrequited love plotline... I guess I've since decided to see that more about Martha's insecurities than anything else. She's smart, she's going to be a doctor, but she constantly compares herself to a woman that she never met and who the Doctor has only said a few words about, and seems to need the Doctor's approval/love in order to validate herself. So the fact that she takes a stand in the end and realizes that she only needs her OWN self-respect is something that I find really positive. In that sense, I can almost explain it away as not having much to do with the Doctor at all.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-19 03:51 am (UTC)*g* I got that bit. She never saw him make a blunder driving the TARDIS, so she would have assumed that he could get her back with maybe only a day or two having passed, where she'd have no difficulty picking up her life. The only time the TARDIS didn't go where the Doctor told it was in Utopia, which was the beginning of the end. Also, I sorta have to wonder about the timing of his asking her. Would she have been so eager if she hadn't just come from another instance of her family's slow implosion? I think wanting to get away from that was a factor in her decision to go with the Doctor. But yeah, I took a year and a half off my university studies, so maybe I can understand wanting time away from that. :p
The unrequired love having to do with Martha's insecurities makes sense. A lot of things about that plotline make sense now, but I only started to understand after other people explained. They make me like her better--like her journey of finding her own self-respect is such a great thing. But the path she took to get there is so foreign to my own experiences and reactions that it's hard to empathize with her, and therefore hard to love her character.