Whoosh, feel the breeze!

[apocalypsos]

So everybody's up in arms about that RTD interview about CoE which, as someone who's never been all that keen on Torchwood anyway, elicited more sympathy in me than rage because ... well, if Kripke said something that tone-deaf about the fans -- and I don't doubt he has, I just can't recall anything off the top of my head right now -- I'd want to punch him square in his smug face. So I feel sorry for TW fans because RTD is a douche. (Not that we didn't all know this already, but still.)

Although I will admit to a bit of squee that a showrunner unrelated to the CW made reference to Wincest. Snide and condescending, that comment, but hey, it's not just weirdo SPN fans on the internet! We also attract self-righteous irritating showrunners. Whether we want them or not.

Then I click over to AfterElton this morning, and they have an interview with RTD about CoE, and ... okay, this pissed me off more that the SPN quote, for some fucking reason.

I think their relationship was beautiful. And it lasted as long as any relationship you see in Torchwood. It’s funny because I know a lot of those people complain in the same breath that you get to see Gwen and Rhys being happy. But equally in the same breath, those same people say they don’t like Gwen and Rhys. So clearly they don’t like the happy characters. So why do they even want the gay people to be the happy characters? I don’t know because the happy characters aren’t the ones they are latching on to.

WOW. Way to miss the fucking point.

I say this admittedly as someone who reads a lot of TW episode reactions even though I don't watch just 'cause, it's not happy characters fandom doesn't like, Rusty. It's spoiled characters. And it's not that people dislike happy characters, it's that people dislike WHO'S happy. Also, it's not Gwen and Rhys. Mostly it just seems to be Gwen. A LOT. And not in a all-female-characters-suck kind of a way, but more in a why-are-you-wasting-time-on-her-when-Tosh-and-Suzie-and-Lois-and-all-the-other-women-are-cooler way.

Just saying.

Comments

[indiana-j.livejournal.com]

The problem with RTD is that he seems to focus on one central "every man" character. I mean, I adore Rose but even I thought that he clung to her way more than he should have (and I'm still pissy about some of the lack of reactions beyond Rose and Doctor in the last episode she was in, argh).

He brought Gwen in so that the audience had a character that was on "their" level and he just kept sticking to her.

[illian.livejournal.com]

Its amazing to me how much tunnel vision there is among the writers, directors and producers as to what their fans actually like. And how well they manage to enrage the same.

AE: So Ianto died in order for Jack to make that final decision about his grandson. To be so damaged he could do something so awful?
RTD: Yeah, that's what it took. I know because it’s a great story. What a fantastic story.

Way to blow your own horn there, sunshine.

Gwen, on her own, doesn't do much for me. She doesn't annoy me but my interest isn't sparked either. Gwen and Rhys on screen, however, manages to interesting, funny, and touching. They feel much more real and like an actual couple.

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

I am SO ANGRY now. RTD just copped to fridging Ianto — and he’s proud of it. ASSHOLE.

ETA: Also, I think it would have been more interesting (i.e. fucked up) if Ianto had been alive when Jack chose to sacrifice Steven. The possibilities for angst! Either Ianto would reject Jack, or he'd stand by him — which would probably freak Jack out.

[t3andcrumpets.livejournal.com]

While on the one hand, RTD totally misses the whole damn point with flying short bus colors (where's Ms. Frizzle when you need her?), the other hand for me is this: he's the head writer/producer/whatever until he steps down. This means he doesn't HAVE to listen to the fans. He could take the time to listen to the input of the fans, but he doesn't have to. None of them do.

It would be kind of like me walking up to, say, Stephen King and saying, "I love 'Carrie', omg, but I hate the Carrie character so much," and expecting him to not look at me like I'm beyond nuts and having me committed for being a nutball fan.

*runs away before I get all beaten up* For the record, though? Killing Ianto was stupid and did not a good plot point in the arc make. And whilst I'm bitter about it, I'm also accepting of the writers' right to do so, even though it's bullshit.

[heather.livejournal.com]

Wow... RTD is a COMPLETE douche.

[pandorablu.livejournal.com]

Wow... that's... ugh. My brain litterealy stopped working because of the rage right there.

He missed the fucking point by A COUNTRY MILE. I don't think he's ever even seen it if that's what he thinks of the fans' relationships with his characters.

[opportunemoment.livejournal.com]

Asdksdkaskl. Oh god. Now I'm really pissed off with him. Because 'clearly they don't like the happy characters' is exactly the thing I've wanted to beat out of the head of everyone writing TV in the last ten years with a big crowbar.

For the record, I like Gwen (better in CoE than ever before, actually) I love Rhys (and always have) and I thought all the Gwen/Rhys was awesome. AND I don't think Jack/Ianto was exactly fated to end well whatever happened. But I'm still pissed off with how CoE turned out. It was a good series, ruined by opportunistic fan-baiting and the totally bizarre idea that people like it when their favourite characters are miserable and/or dead.

[sophie-448.livejournal.com]

WOW.

...

WOW. IDEK.

I was totally fine (and a tiny bit squeeful) with the SPN quote. But reading the whole interview? RTD, you smirking, self-satisfied asshole. There are things he could have said about his narrative decisions that might have made me, if not agree, respect those choices. These words were not those. Telling me what I, as a fan, feel about his story decisions? Implying (oh so subtly) that audience members are totally emotion-driven and couldn't have any reasons related to the actual storyline for disliking it. Yes, Ianto's death GUTTED me. But it's not what made me really angry. I thought Jack's reaction should have taken an ENTIRELY different path.

And for the record I like Gwen. She's not perfect, but I like her, and I LOVE Rhys. And I adore that they get to be happy, in a normal people, arguing over the dishes, kind of way.

AND WOW. "Why do people want the gay characters to be the happy characters?" Way to be borderline homophobic. I hesitate to accuse RTD of any such thing, because TW really is a groundbreaking show in that way, but ... BECAUSE THEY NEVER GET TO BE IN MAINSTREAM MEDIA. THAT'S WHY.

*cough* I probably should have taken this over to my own journal ... heh.

[pie-is-good.livejournal.com]

It's hard to accuse RTD of being homophobic when he's gay himself. ;)

I am not touching this whole issue...I'm just going to walk away from it. Ugh.

[sophie-448.livejournal.com]

Heh, I actually didn't know that. I don't pay a whole lot of attention to the behind the scenes details for any show except SPN. So, sorry about that.

Still stand by everything else, though.

[suaine.livejournal.com]

It's hard to accuse RTD of being homophobic when he's gay himself. ;)

I don't think it is all that hard. He's obviously not a gay basher, saying that would be ridiculous, but a gay man can be homophobic. It happens all the time. We all get lovely internalized issues from growing up in a heterocentric world.

[suaine.livejournal.com]

Taken together the two interviews just make me sad. I liked the guy, dammit. I always thought he was an asshole, but, you know, one who was a little more savvy with fans and people in general.

[fyrdrakken]

So, yeah, I used to have this icon someone made that said, "Russell Davies, you egregious fuckwit." I've been wishing I had it still in my set on occasion recently.

And this is the guy who originally thought he'd do a spinoff show on "Rose Tyler, Defender of the Earth," showing her having a great life and working for the alt!universe's Torchwood and just kind of living the life she'd learned to lead from the Doctor (the idea I think he retooled for Torchwood, pasting Captain Jack in since he could get Barrowman but not Piper), but then he decided it was more romantic to show her on the beach at the very end of s2 being totally shattered and speaking as though her life was over now that she'd lost the guy she'd centered her life around in just the past couple of years. He thinks unrequited loves and doomed relationships are much better and more powerful and romantic than stable happy relationships. He can't see why anyone would want to be around the Doctor unless they're in love with him (and had reinvented Captain Jack for Torchwood as being the Doctor!lite), and can't bear to give up a plot point he's proud of having thought up even when he can't get the right actors and it makes no sense at all for the characters he's having to work with instead. Also, I suspect he was deliberately breaking Torchwood so that there's not enough left to hand over to any showrunners after him. Moffat can have Captain Jack on Who -- after all, he's the one who invented the character -- but Ianto (and Tosh and Owen) are dead, the Hub is gone, and Gwen's got a baby to be tending to. If there's any more Torchwood after this it's got to be a whole new team starting from scratch.

[fyrdrakken]

Really, it just adds to his fail, that the gay writer shows such a stiflingly heteronormative view of relationships.

[quicksylver-btg.livejournal.com]

I'm not disagreeing with the whole RTD is a douche mentality, but I thought Barrowman was leaving after S3. And I've said this elsewhere, but how else were they going to get rid of Cap'n Jack, unless they did the really big dramatic gesture? I guess that's what helps me sleep at night. Otherwise I would start obsessing about how Gwen is a bigger douche than RTD and, if there were any fairness in Tvland, she would have died from alien/Owen stds a long time ago, but now it seems like they are setting her up for her own show...**cough** But that's neither here nor there. Good luck with the job search!

[exsequar.livejournal.com]

.......


sdflksdflkJ:sdlfkjRAGE. What a condescending, arrogant, patronizing DOUCHEHOLE. I swear I'm seeing red right now.

He seems to have this idea that the ONLY way to produce credible drama is to kill all your main characters all the time. If that's the only way you can think of to create tension and belief in the severity of a situation, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG. A lot of shows (A LOT) with dangerous premises go many seasons with a lot of characters that, GASP, don't die! Yet they still manage to have a lot of drama and intensity. NEAR death things are fine, but so is saving them! Ianto's death, narratively, was stupid. There was no reason for him to be in that room. There was no reason for either of them to be, really. It was completely contrived and shoehorned into what was otherwise an incredibly well-told story. I think the consequences for the characters were easily the worst-done part of CoE, and that the rest of it stood on its own as a chilling and horribly real tale of how the world might end.

In conclusion, FUCK YOU TOO RUSTY.