Nine hysterical women, misogyny, homophobia and other words we're throwing at each other...

[tencrush]

Okay, this is probably going to be a long one. I've decided to write two posts about the allegations of homophobia people have been throwing at the BBC and RTD in light of Children of Earth. This is the first.

Now, I don't like Russell T Davies, for the various reasons I have been mentioning in this journal for the past few years. I certainly don't think he does himself any favours by describing the male gay readership of a very large internet forum, who are justifiably upset by things that happened in Children of Earth, as "nine hysterical women". On the other hand, though, I know where he's going with that remark.

For the record, I think I'm going to have to make my own position clear, because it's one that differs from a lot of you on my friendslist. I am not a slash fan. I'm a canon fan. I like Jack/Ianto because it's there. If pressed, and if it hadn't been there, I'd probably have shipped Tosh/Ianto, because I don't much like Jack. But yeah, I don't get all excited at the thought of BOYS KISSING. Not, let me make this clear, because I don't like boys kissing, but simply because the idea or the visual of boys kissing doesn't turn me on any more than the idea or visual of a boy and a girl kissing, or indeed girls kissing. I like people kissing. People kissing other people turns me on, but the sex of the people in question matters not a jot to me. I think KISSING is HAWT. Full stop. I noticed the other day that I don't, in fact, have an icon of Jack and Ianto kissing. I've never particularly felt the need to have one, because the kissing aspect of their relationship actually interests me less than all the other subtextual stuff, the stuff I can get my teeth into and dissect and analyse. So, that's me, your mileage may, and probably does, vary. (ETA: Actually, I checked, and that's not true, I do have an icon of them kissing, but I never use it, because I fear the irony of it is lost on people. I haven't used it in so long, I'd forgotten it was there. Silly me.)

Now the thing that's happened in light of Children of Earth is this: people are upset. That's reasonably clear. The problem is, though, that there are various things that happened in Children of Earth that have upset people. The things:

A1 Children of Earth killed Ianto, many will argue for no real reason
A2 Children of Earth killed Jack/Ianto by killing Ianto

B1 Children of Earth sent some weird borderline homophobic messages wrt Ianto's sexuality and resorted to some tired gay tropes in the writing of his death
B2 Children of Earth sent some icky, borderline homophobic messages wrt Jack and Ianto's relationship that came as quite a blow to those who believed they were doing more than shagging and were in fact emotionally involved, and Torchwood, as a whole, sent more of those icky messages wrt the nature of homosexual relationships in general

People are upset about all these things, but here's where it gets tricky, because the fact of the matter is that A was a creative choice that one may or may not agree with, whereas B was not a creative choice so much as an unintentional subtextual message that wasn't picked up on by the creative team, or if it was picked up, was ignored and left to stand. Aside from this, A is also the thing people have reacted to on a highly emotional level, either because they loved Ianto, or because they loved Jack/Ianto or because they love seeing canon slash.

I put these things to you in two seperate points because they are precisely that: TWO SEPARATE THINGS. And what I mean to say by that is that homophobia didn't kill Ianto Jones, nor did it end the Jack/Ianto relationship. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for calling out the powers that be for B1 and 2, and I will, but appropriating the arguments of B and intertwining them with your own personal reasons why you feel the show was WRONG to kill Ianto Jones or end the Jack/Ianto relationship is really quite uncool, and I've always strived to draw a distinct line between the two. The show is NOT homophobic because it killed Ianto, it's not homophobic because it killed off Jack/Ianto, those that made the show did those two things for what they feel were valid reasons that were certainly nothing to do with homophobia, and bandying the word homophobia around, and calling upon the very valid arguments that can be made for B because you want your onscreen slash back, because you are personally upset at the creative decision to kill Ianto, that's really tacky on the same level as using the "gay representation" argument as leverage in your Kirk/Spock agenda, when really your Kirk/Spock agenda is all about wanting to see them kiss because gays turn you on. RTD is an out and proud gay man, of course he's not a homophobe. And anyway, I can think of ten ways off the top of my head of killing Ianto Jones without his sexuality even getting a look-in. I can think of a hundred ways of writing Jack/Ianto without sending weird signals about gayness. The fact that the show didn't employ any of these one-hundred-and-ten ways, that's a bad move on their part, but the fact that they killed him is not in and of itself telling you anything about anyone's homophobia. Stop using that argument because you want the pretty boy back on your screen kissing the other pretty boy and you like looking at the funny, sexy gays. That's not helping anyone's cause any.

What I mean to say is this: There is a very valid discussion to be had about B, but incorporating your emotional reaction and your selfish (and I don't mean that in a bad way, just an objective way) disappointment about A into that discussion, actually invalidates that discussion to a great extent. That discussion is a very real and very important one. The fact that you miss your boykissing is not, in the scheme of things. The reason I bring this up, is because that is precisely what is happening at the moment. That is precisely the reason that RTD calls those who have a problem with CoE "nine hysterical women". What he means by "nine hysterical women" is "slash fans who miss their boykissing", and what this is actually showing, is that RTD will grab your slash goggles and happily hit you around the head with them, and, more importantly, will use them to invalidate the very real points people who are concerned about B are trying to make. That is not helping anyone at all, it is giving him ammunition to ignore the discussion about B. And as we have seen, he will happily use that ammunition. And every time you call him out on the very real homophobic messages he has - unintentionally - sent, whilst at the same time saying "I want my slash back!" or maybe using an icon of two boys kissing that sends the message "I fetishise gays!", you're giving him another reason to ignore you and step out of this important debate. I'm not being judgemental here, and I don't want anyone to take this the wrong way, because I love you all and I know and understand why people are upset, I am equally upset about Ianto's death, you know that. But I think it's important that people start realising what it is they're doing when they demand a return of their canon slash, and demand the return of their teaboy. That demand is being interpreted by the powers that be as a demand to see more boykissing, and that allows Russell to dismiss us as hysterical woman slashers and tune out of any valid points we may be trying to make. And I think that is a great, great shame. (Is he being misogynistic btw by saying "hysterical women"? Yes, of course he is, but not because he has a disdain for women, but because he has a disdain for female slash fans. And to a certain extent, I think it's pretty valid for a gay man to have a slight disdain for anyone who fetishises his sexuality. Just sayin'. Don't worry, I'm not about to turn into an RTD apologist, I still think the man's an asswipe and a crap writer. And by posting this stuff, I'm not saying I have a disdain for female slash fans, whatever floats anyone's boat is fine by me, my fetishes are many and varied and I don't judge anyone on theirs, trust me, I'm not in any position to.)

The problem with Russell T Davies, if anything, is that he is the EXACT OPPOSITE of a homophobe. He is so desperate to show homosexuality as a normal and natural thing that he refuses to accept that this show does not come to us in a cultural bubble, devoid of stereotypes and baggage and messages and ideas that have been forming in the minds of its audience for years and years and years. And so he is unwilling to give the gay relationships any sort of preferential treatment, to spend any more time or effort on portraying them as he would on a heterosexual relationship, he wants so desperately for it to JUST BE NORMAL that he just won't stoop to that. And that's where the problem lies. Because the show isn't received by an ideal-Russell-world of accepting and understanding progressive forward-thinking people, it's out there IN THE WORLD, for ALL to see. But Russell, quite rightly in some respects, doesn't think he's in the business of making an after-school special called "It's OKAY to be GAY!", so Russell refuses to accept that he has any sort of responsibility in how he portrays homosexuality. But he does, like it or not, because that is the world in which we live. Or at least, he does have that responsibility if he wants to keep promoting himself as someone who is pushing the boundaries of the portrayal of homosexuality in the media. If that's how he wants to sell himself, he would do well to pay slightly more attention to the messages his show is sending out. Vehemently denying that he has any such responsibility, and vehemently refusing to even acknowledge that the show might be sending iffy signals into that wider world, that doesn't make him a homophobe, but it also doesn't make him a boundary-pusher, it just makes him incredibly, incredibly naïve. Naïve in a good and terribly well-meaning way, but naïve nonetheless.

Man, this post is long enough already, I'll talk about what those iffy signals were in a later post. I felt I needed to get over my upset about Ianto before being able to talk about those things succinctly, but I'm over it now, and I feel they need to be discussed.

Comments

[jo02]

I think you hurt something in my brain, but I do see the distinctions you are making.
Is there a way then, of getting our message across to the people who count, without it continuing to be misunderstood?
Our message being of course, that they killed off a/our beloved character and that crushed us. Purely and simply, with no other baggage attached.
Because I would have been happy with Ianto surviving and Jack running off. It's Ianto's character I love, even more than the canon slash.

[nobleroman1.livejournal.com]

Exactly, Ianto surviving strong with forward momentum sans a relationship with Jack would have been fine with me. It wasn't the slash that drew me to TW. It was the wonderfully talented GD-L. Yes, I enjoyed him and JB's chemistry, but it was his portrayal as Ianto that truly kept me watching the show (I've ALWAYS been a character/actor fan first. The shows have always been secondary). It's is why when I made my donations to both charities honoring GD-L/"Ianto," I made it quite clear that I was doing so to thank the Actor, not to demand that "Janto" be returned to my screen.

[louiex.livejournal.com]

Mmmm.. as per usual for whenever I read your meta, I'll probably be thinking about this for the better part of the day :D

The only downside of this being a two-headed upset, A and B being two topics a variety of people are talking about, is that unfortunately here on the sex-filled internet A's debate will most likely be the louder one. It's like when there was that bad rash of kitten!Ianto fic where he grew ears and a tail and became frightened of taking a shower; the maturity of some aspects of fandom can plummet in places but then be one that people see more often (I think those fics spammed just about every TW comm and then started a whole trend of similar plots). While it's very valid for us to be upset about B, I'm concerned that -aside from you and a handful of others- those who actually are out there talking about it aren't in a high enough percentage of the fandom to overshadow the ones who are sad and miss their boy snogs.

... I'm still kind of sour at Ianto being the butt of so many LOL HE BE GHEY jokes being more prevalent on screen than a balanced relationship between our HERO and his LOVER.

[tencrush]

I'm still kind of sour at Ianto being the butt of so many LOL HE BE GHEY jokes being more prevalent on screen than a balanced relationship between our HERO and his LOVER.
Word. And THAT is the major thing I have an issue with, not the creative decision to kill him off.

[lorannah.livejournal.com]

Thank you for writing this - I agree 100%. I'm trying to work on a discussion of the portrayal of homosexuality throughout Torchwood and Doctor Who, but have had to take a step back for a while to let myself calm down and be analytical about this and to decide how I want to include Ianto's death. It's obviously going to have to be a major part of the discussion but I don't want it to become tied up with the reactions in A. It's a seperate thing for me - plus, like you, I don't really want Ianto back, though mostly for annoyed selfish reasons.

I'm looking forward to reading the second part of your post.

[ella-caramella.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I'm willing to agree with the idea of RTD being "naive" about the real reason behind the upset fans.

Unless there's a incredible huge misunderstanding out there, which I can't even begin to envision how it could have happened in the first place, I'm completely sure he is insisting on the sexual aspect of the Jack/Ianto relationship with the precise intention to belittle everything that's going on.

Many of those "hysterical women" are already making petty clear that they're upset about the offing of the character of Ianto and not because they're going to miss teh ghey.

The main concern of the upset fans is in fact that by next season Ianto will be completely forgotten and above all replaced by the infamous "new piece os ass".

Now, RTD can be naive all he wants, but how a replacent won't send further extremely negative messages about homosexuality???

Sure they will hide behind the excuse that since Jack is immortal he can't do nothing but going on and find someone else to love.

And there will be many viewers who either won't care or who'll be even pleased to finally see Jack paired with John Hart or being a soulless flirting manslut with no attachment to anyone in particular. Or he will be even paired, either for real of just for UST, with Gwen or another female.

And again, whatever situation they'll come up with regarding Jack's future love interest will be totally sending negative messages about homosexuality.

You think they're so naive that they can't see this?

[tencrush]

I didn't say Russell was being naíve in that respect, I said he was being naïve about his responsibilities in portraying gay relationships. And I think, as you say there, that he is deliberately skewing the argument towards slash fans by saying things like "hysterical women" and by claiming that the people who are upset are upset because there wasn't enough sex, in order to AVOID answering the very real criticism about the B points. And as long as people keep intertwining A and B, Russell will continue to use their arguments as ammo to negate and ignore that valid criticism.

[takenatwork.livejournal.com]

I agree that they are two different arguments, but how to put a discussion about the creative choices of A, in front of the people who matter, I don't know. I wish I did, I would do it. I'll wait for the rest of your piece about B, before commenting further. It goes to one of my real peeves, the simplification of two sides of an argument to just yes or no. After the series ended, I just could not decide who RTD was aiming those gay remarks to, who was supposed to find them funny, what was he trying to say. All I came away with was that it was like watching TV from years ago. So I am intrigued to see your slant on it.

[tencrush]

I think that whole labelling of Ianto thing broke the fourth wall for a lot of people, I know it did for me, it was when Andy said "was he gay" that I truly stopped caring about what was going on on screen, and started trying to analyse WHY it was going on, what the point to it was, where it was going etc.

[noneinnyet.livejournal.com]

I agree with a lot of what you have said. My problem is in a couple of things. The discussion between Rhiannon and Ianto about Jack felt like it did come out of an after-school special called "It's OKAY to be GAY!" I actually would have been fine if Jack and Ianto's relationship continued to play out completely in the background, with just the small looks and touches and the like. The scene between Jack and Ianto before the bomb exploded the Hub would have been OK. Ianto could have been just a bit more straightforward with his sister - a "yes, I'm dating a man, he's my boss, I'm happy, that's all you need to know" would have been acceptable.

Part of this is that it's a sci-fi show and the only reason I've been OK with the amount of Gwen/Rhys that has been shown is that it means more Rhys, whom I quite enjoy. I feel their heterosexual relationship has taken up more time than it needed to and, for the most part, Jack and Ianto's relationship took all of the time it needed to (Side Note: I continue to argue that Ianto's character development as a separate,non-Jack's character development tool severely lacked time before his death). I like some relationship in my sci-fi, it's part of human nature, I just don't like my sci-fi to become about any of the romantic relationships.

All of that being said, valid arguments need to be separated out to keep them valid, yes.

[tencrush]

The discussion between Rhiannon and Ianto about Jack felt like it did come out of an after-school special called "It's OKAY to be GAY!"
It did indeed, but then again those sorts of specials don't usually end with the protagonist dying. Of a virus.

[flohkatie.livejournal.com]

I agree that killing Ianto was not homophobic per se, but it left a very bad taste in my mouse and not only because they killed off my favorite character and in his wake the show I loved.

I tried to picture people who have never seen Torchwood before and when asked who Ianto was, they'll probably say, wasn't he the gay guy who got killed? That is what upsets me, because that's what they achieved with with all these odd remarks.

[tencrush]

Indeed. It's very bad form, especially the message sent to NEW viewers as to who and what Ianto was, it's sickeningly disgusting because he died. And that's why it's so hard to seperate the two, because the fact of him dying is intrinsically linked to the way those remarks and the painting of his character come across. If he hadn't died, those remarks still would have been weird but they wouldn't have cut quite so badly, and the way he handled those remarks would have made us forgive them.

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

I would agree with you if I felt that the killing of Ianto was a creative decision. But I really don't think it was. I still think it was a deliberate move to sanitize the show for a younger American audience. (As well as a convenient trope to get our hero to take action). And killing DA GAY is such a cliche, just as killing the "good" hispanic or black soldier is in any American war movie of the last 30 years)So I see the two issues as interrelated.

If Jack comes back with a new boy-toy, then I'll be happy to say I'm wrong. But my bet is on a hetero Jack. Maybe they'll throw in a little gay reference or two - Jack can comment on a good looking man, much as John commented on the poodle, but I don't think you'll see anything that might offend, as we say in the US, younger or more sensitive viewers.

And when the only thing you know about a character from CoE is that he is DA Gay, and then he's killed off, while Mommy Gwen (aka Sleeps with Anyone Gwen S1 & S2) gets to keep her baby, her man and her future, somethings going on in the subtext. I can't agree that it was done unwittingly. Especially the PC Andy remark at the end. That was a real WTF moment for me.

At the end of the day, I think it boils down to crap writing. RTD doesn't have a canon, doesn't even know or care who his characters are. Their personalities shift drastically between seasons, sometimes between episodes. So in the world of fandom everyone can see what they want without too big a stretch. (not that fans wouldn't do this even without the mess that RTD has created).

I can look at your view of Jack/Ianto and fully endorse its validity. Yea, there seems to be a relationship there, something a little more than shagging. Then I can go read a kareokegal story and say, "yep, she nailed the old Jack from DW and some of CoE." Its all there, and not because RTD is creating complex, multi-layered characters. Its there, because RTD is a hack and doesn't know how to develop characters beyond a single episode. (

I cannot however, find any evidence in any eposide that Jack/Ianto were considering getting married, having babies or picking out china patterns).

Is Ianto the crybaby of Cyberwoman or the Kick Ass Ninja from Day 2-3 CoE?

Is Jack the guy who makes the tough decisions when no one else will, or the clueless moron that confronts the baddest aliens ever without a plan? Or maybe he's the guy who says "I came back...I came back for you."

For me, it doesn't matter. RTD killed any chance of me watching S4 with his deragatory remarks about the fans. But what else could he do? Acknowledge that his sloppy writing confused the fandom? Apoligize for using Ianto as the 'woman in the refrigrator'? Admit that a whole lot of his groundbreaking story was derivative from Quaterman? Explain that he was pressured by BBC Int'l to degay the show? Admit that its all about the almighty dollar, or euro or pound?

[love-jackianto.livejournal.com]

'At the end of the day, I think it boils down to crap writing. RTD doesn't have a canon, doesn't even know or care who his characters are.'
*nods*

[love-jackianto.livejournal.com]

'I think he thinks of himself as so forward thinking that he is ALLOWED to write whatever the hell he wants in the way of gay relationships, and is above criticism for it because of all the marvellous work he's done on QAF or whatever the hell he is touting today as proof of his involvement in 'the cause.'
He thinks that because people keep TELLING him that. In an interview I read the interviewer basically said that if anyone had the right to kill off a gay character it was him.

[ella-caramella.livejournal.com]

That is basically saying:

since I haven't killed anyone for the past 25 years I'm allowed now to make a little homicide, yes?

[andreth47.livejournal.com]

Very cleanly reasoned, and I think you're right on the money.

And if you think it's hard to get people to untangle A and B, try getting them to ignore Ianto's death altogether and discuss CoE's faults apart from this questionable character death. Heh. I've been trying to do that on the TWoP boards for weeks, said attempts being repeatedly derailed by accusations of 'you're just a crazed slash fan'. Blarrgh.

[chasethesun.livejournal.com]

Yeah, unfortunately I've seen a lot of comments solely complaining about 'taking away the Janto' which isn't helpful and illustrates exactly what my problem with COE is. Ianto was reduced to being 'the girl'. He should have been a main character but in COE he was nothing more than a plot device. Which is fine if you're a new viewer with no attachment, but it's disappointing to see your favourite character killed off in such a crappy manner. Killing him off has never been the issue for me, the method has.
The homophobia argument bothers me, simply because it dwarves those I consider to be more valid.

[lukita.livejournal.com]

You say what I've been thinking about and why I'm so upset with CoE. RTD would make a horrible politician since he doesn't seems to understand that when one elects himself as spokesperson for something, people gets peeved when an unintentional message is the exact opposite of what people expects to hear.

One of the reasons I was so sure RTD wouldn't kill Ianto (at least this season) was because of the negative message it could convey, killing off one half of the gay couple as soon as the show hits the mother channel and all the shiny new audience might just comes off as tiny bit homophobic. But what they actually shown was something I didn't think they would do, after all the gay jokes and non-relationship, it was such a slap to the face and a feeling of "whatever happened to no labels" when Andy asked the "was he gay" question.

I could even get behind killing Ianto because of the whole "a man who can't die have no fear" bit if the entire story had been better written or at least applied some Earth Logic.

[meleth.livejournal.com]

RTD is an out and proud gay man, of course he's not a homophobe.

I'm certainly not saying RTD is a homophobe, but just to take this out of context, internalized homophobia can certainly be an issue, even in out and proud members of the queer community.

[tencrush]

Of course it can, but psychoanalysing a guy you've never met will just get you ignored and dismissed as a batshit fan, so it's not really the most helpful starting point if you actually want to adress these issues, just like YOU KILLED MY SLASH!! isn't the most helpful starting point either.

[as1mplegirl.livejournal.com]

I am a slash fan. I don't read a wide variety but when I find some I like I can be a fairly avid reader. I feel slightly unclean at the thought I may fetishish RTD's sexuality. :(

I've read Jack / Ianto slash, interestingly I don't feel I particularly fancy either Barrowman or GDL. To a certain extent part of liking the written stuff is more to do with the characters and using your imagination than the visual but that may probably be the case with a lot of women. We're apparently less visual than men.

What initially attracted me to Torchwood was the character of Jack. Moffat managed to create a character who managed to be massively flirtatious and fairly sexually forward without coming across as a massive twat which is not that easy in my opinion. Also that it was a Doctor Who spin off which I did and still do watch. The potential (not for sex but for emotional development) of the Jack / Ianto relationship was partly what kept me watching, along with the occasional good episode and the Who connection. It was just about the only thing that made Torchwood stand out as anything other than fairly ropey badly written sci-fi.

When I say potential of the relationship, I do mean potential I certainly wasn't squeeing hysterically at what was on screen. Step back and look at how it was portrayed and it was fairly poor. One of the comments at After Elton said the writers made sure they did the bare minimum with the relationship beyond what was necessary to show it was there, and I think that sums it up fairly nicely. If this relationship had been between a man and woman I doubt it would be considered in any way a portrayal of a good relationship or a good portrayal of a relationship of any type.

I hoped that it would be improved and that Ianto would get more development outside it. (I believed the promises that it would be in CoE (more fool me).) Despite the fact that it was partly what kept me watching it was so disappointingly portrayed I got to the stage that I felt Ianto would be better off out of it. That it wasn't doing the character any favours. Prior to CoE my feeling was (based on the assumption that Ianto would be living) that if it wasn't improved in series 3 I'd rather see it end. Preferrably by Ianto leaving Jack. I liked the idea of Ianto being over it and Jack being the one left pining. I hoped Ianto would get a new girlfriend or boyfriend (not in any kind of rebound way) or that he would be single and fantastic.

I say this because I do not feel despite liking slash that I am an hysterical squeeing fan girl who only wants her slash. I did not (unlike the journal author) cry when Ianto died. I do not want him back though I wished the character hadn't died. His death was shit but bringing him back would probably be even shitter and I hate to think what crappy stuff they'd foist on the character then.

WRT RTD I think he likes to portray himself and be seen as, like you say, a boundary pusher. He enjoys the plaudits he gets for sticking gay relationships in Torchwood and Who etc. I think in that case you have to be prepared to take the lumps to a certain extent as well when the people you're garnering praise from feel you've let them down.

And so he is unwilling to give the gay relationships any sort of preferential treatment, to spend any more time or effort on portraying them as he would on a heterosexual relationship, he wants so desperately for it to JUST BE NORMAL that he just won't stoop to that.

I would disagree to a certain extent while I agree the gay relationship didn't get more time and effort in the portrayal than the heterosexual relationship I don't think it got the same. It got less by a long extent.
(cont)

[as1mplegirl.livejournal.com]

(cont from above)
I think RTD was happy to trumpet the fact he had a gay relationship in Torchwood which (prior to CoE anyway) wasn't about being gay and treated as no big thing by the characters. It was a first, a stand out, a unique thing. Probably was all those things trouble is I tend to think that once you had the gay relationship then that was that box ticked. Job done. Move on. No real stepping back and stopping patting himself on the head to actually look at what the writers were actually portraying on screen. How underwritten it was. How you get Jack obviously having committed to women in the past but never showing that level of commitment with Ianto or having any previous male lover we hear about been shown that level of commitment. How you get Gwack and there'd be the Gwen / Rhys / Jack love triangle but not really much thought given to the fact that Jack also had someone and what it said about him that he was making goggle eyes at Gwen whilst he was with them or what his seemingly fairly jealous lover (certainly of other men) thought of it. It was like the Jack / Ianto relationship lived in some completely different universe whilst this was going on.

Essay over. I'm sure there was a point there somewhere.

[alba17.livejournal.com]

He is so desperate to show homosexuality as a normal and natural thing that he refuses to accept that this show does not come to us in a cultural bubble, devoid of stereotypes and baggage and messages and ideas that have been forming in the minds of its audience for years and years and years.

Yep. That's the only explanation. I agree that A is not homophobic.

And I still want my canon slash back, dammit! says fetishizer of gay male sex who will miss the pretty boys kissing on TV, but who also loved Ianto as a character. (And maybe it will come back, with another "piece of ass", heh.)

[srah-scottydog.livejournal.com]

Veerrryyy interesting.
My brain's going to continue pondering this for..oh... ever.

I'm assuming the website you mentioned was After Elton? After reading this I remembered that in their interview with RTD, the interviewer asked a question citing the sadness over not getting to see a real relationship between Jack and Ianto. RTD started to answer, and then turned it around as "I'm assuming you mean sexual relationship" or something to that effect. An answer which I'm now looking at in a new light...

[michele659.livejournal.com]

Yes-this is one of the things that pissed me off about RTD in that interview. Not only does he know how many people were upset (nine) what their emotional state is (hysterical)and what they wanted (more sex onscreen!),he knew what the interviewer was saying! The interviewer was a lot more polite than I would've been. I would've said,"Excuse me,I did NOT mean that. I meant emotional development of the relationship. That's why I SAID emotional development. Had I meant sexual development I would have said so!"
Though in reality-why weren't they ever shown together? Gwen and Rhys were always in bed,and while we never thankfully saw any sexual activity,there was quite a lot of kissing and sensual moments of them in bed together laughing. We saw Owen with Diane making love, saw him in bed with Katie,saw Tosh and Tommy together in bed as well as Tosh with Adam in bed. Yet when Tosh had a same sex relationship you don't see Mary and Tosh in bed together. You see the aftermath of the two of them together,with Mary fully clothed and smoking in a chair,and Tosh covered up like she was ashamed of herself.
And Owen's threesome? Never saw that one. Burn said that Owen had flexibility to his sexuality-the ease with which he propositions Ianto with the end of the world comment illustrates that. I know it was supposed to be funny,which it was because of Ianto's comment,but look at his face. He's totally comfortable with it. But we never see Owen involved with any man. That's ok,I'm just pointing out the differences in the way all the couples and the characters were portrayed.
I think that was more of a marketing ploy than anything else. RTD likes to think of himself as pushing boundaries-which he did with the character of Jack,and the fact that everyone had some sort of bisexual relationship (except for Gwen who had the "aliens made me do it defense").It also was groundbreaking because there was no angst and big drama about people's sexuality. It was not so groundbreaking in the actual portrayal of the couple in the same sex relationship.

[lostakasha.livejournal.com]

Here from the Torchwood newsletter to say brava!! and thank you.

...it just makes him incredibly, incredibly naïve. Naïve in a good and terribly well-meaning way, but naïve nonetheless. Yes, yes, and absolutely yes.

[venusinchains.livejournal.com]

"A1 Children of Earth killed Ianto, many will argue for no real reason"
Hasn't RTD admitted that he did it to 'break' Jack and to show how over-confident Torchwood-especially-Jack are? To which I say, with the right build-up, having Ianto turn his back on Jack could have done the first, and, LIKE WE DIDN'T KNOW THAT ALREADY! - about the second. (Isn't torch_wood's byline 'saving the world from aliens, maybe, if they're quite rubbish ones'? Srsly.)

"A2 Children of Earth killed Jack/Ianto by killing Ianto"
Actually, it started killing Jack/Ianto by giving us yet another persona for Jack. There has always been DrWho!Jack and TW!Jack, but now there's also TWCoE!Jack, who tends to be cold and impersonal (mostly to Ianto) where (as TW!Jack) he was once playful, or at least friendly (though never as carefree as DrWho!Jack).
And, yeah, they were BOTH being pretty stupid to attempt shooting out the bulletproof glass - instead of, idk, coordinating with UNIT to use some of the equipment TW1 obviously had spread out all over London (if Ten's first Christmas special is any clue).

Re: The Death: Cliches all around. An overused cliche in the minds of the writers (according to interviews - to 'break' The Hero) and a homophobic cliche coming across to many of the Ianto fans.

Re: The Sexuality: I can see what they were trying to do, but for anyone who'd been watching the first two seasons, especially for those interested in Ianto's journey, it was too sloppy and crammed into too short a time, without ever reaching a satisfactory conclusion. It merely served to make The Death fit The Dead Gay Trope more smoothly.

Re: In Contrast: Yeah, it was nice to see Gwen and Rhys survive it, in more ways than one. There really couldn't have been one scene like that for Ianto's relationship? One that didn't involve him dying?

~~~~

What really bugs me, as a SF/F fan, is that J/I really was something unique. I know that if I was solely interested in watching boy-kissing (without resorting to porn vids), or girl-kissing, there are shows out there, a few of them with RTDs name attached. BUT, they all tend to be Drama, not SF/F. (I tend to find Drama either mind-numbingly boring or depressing. As a rule, I avoid it.) Looking just at SF/F, if there is a Gay or Lesbian relationship, it tends to be a minor or supporting character OR confined to ONE episode (or both). If there is even one other SF/F TV show out there with The Lead actor or actress in a Somewhat Regular Same Sex Canon Relationship I want to know about it. No, seriously. IS there another one? (No, Xena and Gabrielle never became canon. Neither did Garak and Bashir.) And it does make me sad to assume know that it'll likely be replaced with M/F (Jack/Gwen or Jack/OFC), if there's a S04.

[(Anonymous)]

Hasn't RTD admitted that he did it to 'break' Jack and to show how over-confident Torchwood-especially-Jack are? To which I say, with the right build-up, having Ianto turn his back on Jack could have done the first, and, LIKE WE DIDN'T KNOW THAT ALREADY! - about the second.

I hadn't heard the second reason. I think the first is pure rubbish though. Jack was perfectly willing to sacrifice Jasmine, Mary, Lisa... no "breakage" required. Although it occurred to me, after seeing this list, that none of these were his family. Then I remembered Adam: Jack willingly gave up his only remaining memories of his father--essentially killing him, in his mind--so that Adam would die. That is sacrificing your family, and Jack's face showed the pain of that decision. But he made it and, again, no breakage required. Jack's strong. He does what needs to be done. He didn't need to be broken to sacrifice Steven.

Hey, thank you for this article, Tencrush. I agree with your distinction. One thing that leaves a bad taste in my mouth about CoE is that RTD sacrificed the world he said he was creating: one where one's sexuality didn't matter. I don't remember him saying that he wanted to create a workplace sanctuary outside our normal world where sexual orientation didn't matter; I remember him saying that he wanted the show (i.e., its "world") to demonstrate that one's sexual orientation didn't matter. All of the stuff going on with Ianto and his sister, PC Andy, etc., crushed that world completely.

One reason that it leaves such a bad taste in my mouth is that I think people can learn from TV. Torchwood, which is wildly popular here in the US, had been a vehicle for demonstrating to a population that passes laws denying gays equal rights that a world where sexual orientation doesn't matter *can* exist. Then CoE backed off from that vision and became a validation of the sad way things really are. I think it's ironic that RTD said, in the After Elton interview, that instead of complaining about CoE we should go out and do things like kill prop 8. Well, having Torchwood make such a big deal out of Ianto's sexuality and then killing him (and having Gwen keep her marriage and baby) really doesn't help towards showing people that a society can exist where "Prop 8" isn't an issue, does it? So, RTD, I wish you were out there helping too, but apparently not this time.

(For those not in the US, "Prop 8" was one of those "Defense of Marriage" acts that defined marriage as between one man and one woman.)

[dkwilliams.livejournal.com]

There's a line from a movie - it might be "Field of Dreams" but I can't remember exactly right now - where one of the characters is talking about what he's done in the past and is told to stop waving his credentials around and do something NOW. I want to tell RTD the same thing. It doesn't matter what you do in the past, it matters what you're doing now. Until we get to the point where gay characters are as fully represented in real relationships, doing real jobs, having real lives and deaths that are more than just plot points, I think that writers need to look twice at what they do to their gay characters.

I think about an interview that Chad Allen gave regarding the Donald Strachey Mysteries movies and how they diverge from the books where both Strachey and his lover, Timothy Callahan, play around outside the relationship, to have them in a committed, exclusive relationship in the movies. Chad said it was a deliberate decision, and that he thought that, as an out gay man, he had a responsibility to try to present gays in a positive light. That doesn't mean the gay characters in the Strachey movies are sweetness and light with puppies and kitties. Characters are killed or are murderers, are subject to homophobia from other characters, but it's integral to the plot, and they are not killed as motivation for other characters, or "because they have to be".

[tencrush]

That's a perfect example of someone who realises their work doens't exist in a cultural vacuum and they have a responsibility to educate, without feeling they're being creatively neutered by that responsibility. If you're creative enough, there's no need to feel neutered just because you want to send a certain message. Russell's just not creative enough to do it.

[sugarberi.livejournal.com]

My comments aren't going to be nearly as eloquent as yours. I haven't weighed in on the homophobia charges because I don't know what to say about them and I think it's a distracting issue from the fact that RTD many times makes decisions that suck balls. I think he gets bored easily and doesn't finish well. It's all set up, set up, set up, then suck balls.

Apparently according to him, RTD's first decision for CoE was to kill off Ianto. That fits with spoliers leaked long ago that sounded too wild to believe. Ianto would die, but how was not firmed up. It was changing scenarios to get point A to point B, the foregone conclusion. At one time they supposedly had it as Ianto dies totally in vain (I guess alone somewhere) thinking Jack had betrayed them all. Jack was impotent to prevent Ianto's death. (This is old spoiler stuff from DWF, btw)

So is this the type of stuff RTD thought a TW would enjoy coming right on the heels of losing Tosh & Owen? No, that's right. He doesn't care.

[tencrush]

I too, remember these spoilers and I do think that Russell's main goal with CoE was initialy to kill Ianto, and it seems the rest of the story, at least the playing out of the story in episodes four and five, was written around that.

As many people have pointed out, characterwise Jack didn't NEED to be broken in order to make the decision to sacrifice Stephen, it's very much Jack's way of doing things, and it's very much a part of Jack's established arc that he is the guy that makes these sorts of decisions without having to be goaded into them by the loss of a lover. In fact, it diminishes Jack's entire character that he had to be broken in this way to make this ultimate and morally just sacrifice.

So it seems that Ianto's death was a given, and the justification for it, plotwise, followed AFTER THE FACT. This would explain the amount of times since the airing of CoE that Russell has had to EXPLAIN the justification for it to people who didn't understand. If you have to EXPLAIN why something happened in your story, you've written your story wrong, end of.

[ella-caramella.livejournal.com]

Remember the cut on Ianto's face?

If this interpretation is correct

http://eumelia.livejournal.com/416621.html

they not only labelled him, as a result of facing the real world outside of the Hub and its ugly homophobia.

What they actually did was that they MARKED him as the gay character, despite he himself saying that he was not.

Now, I'm not particularly inclined to read too much meaning into what was going on in Coe and reading people actually trying to find hidden deep meanings in things leaves me perplexed - like ie. the numbers given to Jack and Ianto corpses, 13 and 14, which in some culture should be meant to represent respectively "life" and "death", when the only explanation for those numbers was that 13 is the birthday of John Barrowman's mother and 14 is just the next number aka RANDOMNESS - I'd give the LAMBDA thing the benefit of the doubt, especially since it was there from start to finish, and didn't even give Jack the chance to show some godforbid care for his lover with, I don't know, something like "you've got a cut on your face, here have a plaster" line.

[tencrush]

I'm tempted to believe that the lambda was an intentional marking, yes. I've seen this discussed before. I'm actually tempted to write to the makeup department and ask what the brief was there, because if it is, it implies a level of thought that I didn't think went into the show, and it implies that they were indeed attempting to label Ianto as the Big Gay Hero of the piece, which I would still argue they didn't do very successfully.

[kelticbanshee]

I have read this three times since you posted it. I have gone through the comments. My head hurts, but even so I think you have a really good point there.

As usual, a) sensible comments will follow when brain stops hurting, and b) mind if I link, list of other people's reactions, you know the drill by know I guess, since I keep linking to your thoughts! :)

And looking forward to that next post. Wait,don't tell me it is already up and I missed it?

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[(Anonymous)]

In theory I' d like to inscribe like this too - winsome repeatedly and real endeavour to score a good article... but what can I say... I procrastinate alot and in no way seem to get something done.
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