ext_376750 ([identity profile] penguineggs.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] solitary_summer 2010-01-18 12:30 pm (UTC)

Long comment - part one

I'm not sure I'm finding this line of argument very convincing. Specifically, I disagree about the "nine hysterical women" being a spur of the moment insult and about the conclusions you seek to draw about its "very likely" having been said off the record and its being taken out of context also seem hard to sustain given its history (set out at some length below).

The first instance of RTD losing his rag publically over fan reaction to COE which I'm aware of is here: Entertainment Weekly 24 July 2009 (http://ausiellofiles.ew.com/2009/07/24/backlash-shmacklash-thats-torchwood-creator-russell-t-davies-reaction-to-the-outcry-over-the-death-of-gareth-david-lloyds/). Here the two key passages are:
What do you make of the fan backlash?

DAVIES: It’s not particularly a backlash. What’s actually happening is, well, nothing really to be honest. It’s a few people posting online and getting fans upset. Which is marvelous. It just goes to prove how much they love the character and the actor. People often say, ‘Fans have got their knives out!’ They haven’t got any knives. I haven’t been stabbed. Nothing’s happened. It’s simply a few people typing. I’m glad they’re typing because they’re that involved. But if you can’t handle drama you shouldn’t watch it. Find something else. Go look at poetry. Poetry’s wonderful.
and
Question: One of my readers wondered if you were under pressure to de-gay Torchwood and that’s why you killed him off.

DAVIES: I think you can forget about people picking up gay rights as an issue. It’s rather like children picking up nursery blocks and waving them in the air but having no idea what it entails. We’re talking about issues in my entire life here, not just one small television program. If they did research they’d go and look at the history of gay and lesbian characters that I have put on screen. They should simply grow up, do some research, and stop riding on a bandwagon that they actually don’t know anything about.


Now, that's the kneejerk response, and while it's possible to see those quotes as dismissive and arrogant, they make no inherent assumption about the gender of the fans he's complaining about, but they do make a clear assumption that those fans know nothing about gay rights or homophobia and that they are themselves straight ("do some research").

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