Martha Jones
This is a continuation of my series exploring sexism in Doctor Who. I want to know why some people hate on Martha Jones and whether it has anything to do with gender or sexism.
Why people love her:
She’s capable, and a fantastic problem-solver
She’s intelligent, hard-working, and independent
She cares for her family
Why people hate her:
Her unrequited love
She’s jealous, whiny, useless, and has no personality
(apparently)
Her high-pitched screamy reactions
Her clothes and hair
What I think about her:
Her unrequited love: When you talk about Martha, you have to
talk about the unrequited love thing. I kind of hate that this has become the
most important thing about Martha, but you really can’t have a discussion of
this sort without bringing it up. Either you hate her for it, or you love her
in spite of it. I suppose there are a few who actually like that element, but
those are rare. And even those people feel the need to speak up in defense of
it, since most everyone else hates it. It’s unfortunate that it overshadows
everything else about Martha. It’s especially unfortunate because I think that
Martha was actually a very good companion. I will readily admit that after
watching Martha’s season the first time over, I wasn’t a fan. I don’t think I
ever hated her, but I did think it was a waste of good Tennant-time. All I
remembered was the unrequited love. After having just re-watched season three,
however, I realized that I love Martha and I’m not ashamed to admit it.
I now realize that my reaction towards Martha was really
tied in with the Doctor’s reaction. There’s some really weird audience logic
here that I don’t think the writers planned for. When we were introduced to the
dynamic between the two characters, we went through a logical evaluation of the
change that went something like this: “The Doctor doesn’t care for Martha. The
Doctor is right. Therefore I don’t care for Martha.” I think the writers were
hoping for something more like this: “The Doctor doesn’t care for Martha. I do
care for Martha. Therefore the Doctor is wrong.” At least I like to think that’s
what they wanted because that is much more interesting to explore than adding a
boring companion and keeping the Doctor exactly the same, which I feel is the alternative.
What makes this season so great is that the Doctor didn’t
stay the same. He went through lots of little changes, mostly internal and not
all for the better. The weird consequence of this was that he kind of ignored
Martha sometimes. He became very reserved and self-absorbed; sometimes when he
was talking, it was like Martha wasn’t even there. Which was boring to me at
the time because his reactions to both Rose and Donna were much more animated
and fun. Now that I know the Doctor a little better and have seen his complex
character arc, I find this part of the show one of the most interesting. It’s a
time of depression for the Doctor, where he is listless and unresponsive and
really has to force himself into carrying on and interacting with the world. This
is an important part of his development and is one of the long roads that leads
him to where he is at the end of the Tennant era, circa Waters of Mars.
So, it’s not Martha’s fault. It’s not that Martha is a bad
person, or even a poorly written character. It’s just that her character’s
story and relationship to the audience was sacrificed for the Doctor’s. It’s
really unfair to Martha that she was sidelined in this way. Which to me makes
it that much more beautiful that she is able to break away at the end of her
season and leave that hurtful relationship. She wasn’t appreciated by the
Doctor and she wasn’t appreciated by us.
Similarly, her unrequited love was the biggest part of her
character because it was the most important thing for the Doctor to go through.
I think it was a big factor in adding to his ego and eventually in his
realizing that he isn’t human and that there are consequences to his actions
that he can’t just ignore the way he ignored Martha. I found a few great
comments about Martha that I’d like to include here:
“. . . I felt that parts of Martha’s
character were undermined in order to further the love triangle. For example,
remember that moment when the Doctor tells Jack that Rose is still alive in
another universe, and Martha gets all jealous about it? As far as the audience
knows, this is the first time Martha finds out what actually happened to Rose.
There’s no moment of comprehension, no moment of sympathy for the Doctor or for Jack, who has
just found out that his friend isn’t dead after all. There isn’t even a moment
of solidarity or loss, which would be natural considering Martha’s cousin
Adeola died in the same battle. Instead, there’s just a moment of petty
jealousy to reinforce the idea that Martha and Rose are competing for the
Doctor’s affection. Yet it felt very out of character for Martha.”
See more at http://whovianfeminism.tumblr.com/post/61545428003/confession-time-i-used-to-hate-martha-jones-used
I think that the writers also gave Martha this story-line
because they thought this was an important thing to address for the audience. Since
our only template at this point for human relationships with the Doctor was a
romantic one, the writers needed to broaden the template, and they chose to do
it slowly. The unrequited love arc was like a transition to a different type of
relationship and a greater understanding of the Doctor. In this way, Martha
became a sort of place-holder between Rose and Donna. Unfortunately, I think
that many audience members see her only as a placeholder and don’t read into
the meaty insight Martha’s story gives us. In case that’s you (as it was me), here
are some thoughts from someone who did read into it:
Martha's story, on the other hand, is one of showing how
experience with the Doctor can enrich your life. Martha is the only modern companion who has no
"magical moment." She is not Bad Wolf, she is not Doctor Donna, she's
not the impossible girl, she doesn't re-originate the universe with a thought.
She is smart, capable, and successful before the Doctor ever gets to her, and,
also unlike every other modern companion, she chooses
to leave him, and in so choosing, gets everything she wants. She achieves
success, she finds love, and she gets to help the Doctor (or at least further
his mission of protecting the earth from outside threats) for the rest of her
life.
Unfortunately, a lot of people get stuck on the "She loves Ten and she
isn't Rose" and ignore the very powerful message of the rest of Martha's
story. The Doctor is, and has always been, a madman with a box. He is not
human. He loves humanity, but he does not understand what it means to be
human. Martha sees this, and she decides to take what she has learned from him
to be a better person. Every other modern companion doesn't understand this and
tries to choose to travel the universe with him forever. And every other
companion, so far, loses everything they have. They might find other happiness
and other lives, but they never get what they really want, which, very
fundamentally, is to be with the Doctor forever.Martha is a great companion and, you're right, she gets a lot of hate because her story lacks the romanticism and tragedy of other stories. More's the pity.”
See more at https://www.reddit.com/r/doctorwho/comments/1t21d2/just_finished_season_3_why_do_people_hate_martha/
So, moving on to her personality (or lack thereof): I happen
to think that Martha does have personality. But even if I didn’t, I would
understand why. It makes sense that she would be the least developed because
she only got one season, compared to other companions who got multiple seasons.
Looking at it that way, I think it’s actually kind of surprising that Martha
has as much personality as she does. Here are some more thoughts that aren’t mine:
“Another interesting thing about 42 is the fact that it is
the only televised story where Martha is a full time solo companion. Before you
ask what sort of drugs I have been taking, look at it logically. Up until this
point she was only a guest on the TARDIS. In the immediate next episode the
Doctor has made himself human so the Doctor-companion dynamic is compromised
due to the absence of the Doctor. Then in the following episode both her and
the Doctor are taken out of the bulk of the narrative in the hugely successful
Blink. The series then concludes with a three-part story and the re-addition of
Jack to the team. My point is that Martha’s time in the TARDIS was short lived
anyway given she only had one series, but it was shorter than most would think.
In retrospect she was probably the companion who spent the least time with the
Doctor, particularly as the narrative always seemed to separate the two, (as
per Gridlock, Evolution of the Daleks, 42, and Human Nature/The Family of
Blood.) Perhaps it would not be too much of a stretch to suggest that the
reason for this was that Martha was his intellectual and emotional equal and
didn’t need as much attention as his previous companion.”
While this is an interesting observation, I would like to point out that according to the infographic
I talked about in this post, Martha does have a higher average speaking time per
episode than Rose. However it is true that a lot of her time is spent without
the Doctor. On the one hand, I like this because it gives her the opportunity
to show how capable, independent, and intelligent she is. If I had to give
Martha one label, it would be problem-solver. I noticed how often she comes up
with solutions on her own in this season, and it’s almost every episode. I don’t
agree with people who say Martha was useless, because she just wasn’t. I think
she saved the Doctor more times than Rose did, and she also supported him
financially and was able to do lots of things without being told exactly what
to do. The episode most cited by naysayers is Human Nature, where the Doctor has lost his memories and Martha
complains that she doesn’t know what to do. First of all, this is a two-part
episode, and Martha takes charge and succeeds in bringing the Doctor back in
the second part. So I think her uncertainty was more for dramatic effect than
anything. Second of all, I think that every companion has a moment (actually
multiple) like this. For Rose it’s the Christmas episode, and for Donna it
happens in The Poison Sky, where she’s
trapped onboard a Sontaran ship without him. So it’s not a flaw in Martha’s
character, but rather something that the writers just like to write about a
lot.
Even though I think of Martha as a capable and skilled
person, she does have some problematic lines that undermine her autonomy and
ability. For instance, she says, “you got me this job” talking about her job
with UNIT. I don’t know why the writers chose to include lines like this. I
think that this is at odds with her actions, which show her to be very capable.
While it may be true that UNIT valued her (at least at first) principally for
her time with the Doctor, it is not true that the Doctor got her the job. She herself
developed and presented the skills and attributes that got her the job, of which
her relationship with the Doctor was one (and really, she was the one who put
in effort to develop the relationship with him and not the other way around). I
personally think that the writers should have paid more attention to the
consequences of those types of lines and either not put them in, or explored
them more. It would be fine if Martha had some sort of complex about being
skilled and qualified, but she didn’t. So don’t make us have one either. Maybe
this had an impact on viewers’ perceptions of her effectiveness and added to
the Martha-hate.
I’ve talked a bit about her jealousy above, so I’ll just talk
about it briefly here. I think the love-triangle thing was dealt with really
sloppily by the writers. Either they weren’t concerned with the fact that it
would make her look bad in front of the audience, or they thought that she
would be redeemed in the audience’s eyes at the end of her season with her
dramatic change. Either way, I think it could have been done better. As for her
“whining,” I reject this objection. I think her (small amount of) whining was
justified. We have all gone through unrequited love and I bet you none of us
was as graceful as she was. Furthermore, the Doctor really did not treat her
very well. He didn’t want her and he wasn’t afraid to show it. It’s not even
just that he wasn’t interested in her romantically, he actually sometimes acted
like he didn’t want her in any capacity—he wanted to be alone. And to top it
off, then he turned around and complained about her to Donna—talk about
whining!
Her voice: I haven’t heard this criticism much, but I
mention it here because it’s something I’m very sensitive to. I’ve been made
fun of for my voice a lot. Specifically that it’s high-pitched and gets louder
and more high-pitched the more emotional I am. I have very little control over
this, and believe me I try not to do it. Maybe it really is annoying. Like
objectively annoying and not culturally annoying. I don’t know. But anyway,
enough about me, because Martha does it too. Sometimes when something crazy
happens her reaction is loud and high-pitched. Sometimes I think it makes it
funny, but sometimes apparently it’s the most annoying thing in the world. This
part of Martha’s personality probably isn’t written in the script. It’s
probably not chosen by the director either; my intuition is that it’s an actor
thing. And I don’t think it’s wrong for Freema to have chosen to portray her
that way. Maybe it wasn’t even a conscious choice and we are actually seeing
the way that Freema reacts to things in real life, which is fine because a lot
of female people do react that way. Actually, I’m pretty convinced that male
people also do this with their voices. I think it’s just a natural thing that
voices do. The issue I have with this is that for some reason, it’s not okay when
Martha does it. And this goes for a lot of people, almost exclusively women,
including myself. I’m just tired of people saying it’s not okay that our voices
do what they naturally do because they reside in a higher register. This is not
a good reason to hate a person.
Her hair and clothes: This one I saw a little more often.
Mostly I think it’s actually more of a consequence of Martha-hate than it is a
reason to hate her even though that’s how people use it. Again, I personally
don’t think it’s a good reason to hate someone and I don’t really know how to
discuss this. Though there is one thing I want to address: I saw some people
saying that they hated Martha because she dressed like a slut. I hope these
people are just internet trolls. First of all, she didn’t. She was fully clothed
at all times, which is more than you can say about the Doctor. Second of all, she
should be free to express her sexuality and her sense of fashion however she
wants. There are better ways to critique a character than trying to slut-shame
her to diminish her credibility and value.
Conclusion
I really like Martha, and it makes me sad to think she is under-appreciated. I wish that the writers had given her arc and development more attention instead of prioritizing the Doctor over her. I think the writing could have been better, and in this particular way it was decidedly not feminist. I do concede that the Doctor is the main character and as such may be "more important." One, there's an easy way to make this feminist: let the Doctor be a woman. And two, we see plenty of shows where secondary characters are given fair character development, so why not in this one? I just think that Martha gets a bad rap, from both the writers and especially the audience. I think it's particularly interesting that she gets much more criticism than the Doctor did in that season.
Anyway, I don’t claim to know everything (or really
anything) about why people love/hate Martha. This is just my thoughts after
re-watching her season a second time. And I know this has been kind of a
defense of Martha, because I do like her a lot. So feel free to tell me in the
comments what you think!
And in case you’re interested, here is a link to my discussions
of the other companions.
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