Torchwood: Children of the Earth

Fuck you Russel T. Davies

Here be spoilers- don't click open sesame if you don't wanna know



Seriously- I am tired of my favorite sci fi tv shows turning into the land of sucky wrongness at the end. BSG did it, and now Torchwood. Et tu Russel?

Now granted- Torchwood is decidedly more dark and violent than Doctor Who. That's part of the reason I like it. I'm perfectly fine with complicated moral conundrums and with the messiness of humanity. And this little mini-season of Torchwood started off well enough. All the children of the world possessed temporarily by scary alien life, Ianto and Captain Jack trying to figure out what they are to each other, and Gwen being her normal, awesome self. (Actually Gwen is her awesome self throughout- I have no complaints about her).

I liked it, right up until part 5. The thing about science fiction is that it's not only about stories of things that might actually be possible in the near future, but it's about how we can be better (or worse) as people. Doctor Who is ALL about that, about choosing to do the right thing no matter what and about how we always have a choice. But Children of the Earth forgot that, and Gwen points it out.

Which should have been the catalyst for Jack to do better. He's the one quoting the Doctor after all, with his "If you harm one of us you harm us all". And then he kills a child to save the world.

He didn't ask the kid if he was willing (and I think that there might have been a child or two in the world with enough of a martyr complex to agree to it- IF THEY"D BEEN ASKED!), he didn't even tell him what was going to happen. He just stuck him in the middle and melted his brain.

But even before that, no one thinks to ask the people what they want. Just ship off the poor kids as a "gift" cause no one wants to fight a war with an alien.

But no one asked the parents if they would rather fight and die than offer their kids up as a sacrifice. No one asks the kids if some of them would be willing to go off with the aliens, instead they pick the poor schools and load the kids onto buses while soldiers hold their screaming mothers back.

No one is allowed to make their own choice in this whole thing, and that is what is wrong with this whole thing. It was more like watching Keiffer Sutherland on 24 than watching sci fi, and 24 is torture porn for the worst kind of conservatives.

There is always a choice. Always. And only the worst kind of people think they can make that choice for someone else. For the most part, the entire Doctor Who series and it's spin offs have gotten that, not just understood it, but it has been a central theme. This time though, tmissed the fucking boat.

From now on all Marriott hotels will be known as the Rapes-alot hotels

Some of you may have heard this horrific story (trigger warning) of a woman who was raped at gunpoint in front of her 2 little kids in a Marriott hotel parking garage. That would be bad enough, but Marriott has decided that classic victim blaming is the way to go in defending itself from the victim's law suite.

Marriott may or may not be legally responsible for damages. I don't know enough of the specifics. But rather than defend themselves on rational grounds, the company has decided to use the oldest victim blaming/slut shaming techniques in the book.

So I wrote a little email to Marriott's general manager, Joe Kelly. (Shakes has other links up if your in a tea spooning mood). Also, seriously, we all need to find a way to include the Rapes-alot hotels in blogsposts for awhile. Let's show them that victim blaming isn't the way to build solid business practices.

Dear Mr. Kelly:

After reading this horrible story about a woman who was raped at gunpoint in front of her two children in one of your parking garages, I will have to think twice about ever staying in one of your hotels again.

I do understand that sexual violence is incredibly pervasive, and that your hotel isn't responsible for stopping all rapes everywhere. However, your company has made it clear that not only do you not protect your guests, but that you will stoop to the lowest level of rape apologism and victim blaming when something goes wrong. Quite frankly, knowing that if something horrible were to happen to me on one of your properties that I would be doubly victimized not just by a criminal but by your staff as well is enough to make me stay away and to tell all of my friends and family members to stay away. Actually, I think in the future I am going to refer to all Marriott hotels as the Rapes-alot hotels. it has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

Do you think it might possibly have been cheaper to settle with the poor vicitm in this case, rather than accusing her of being complicit in her own rape and dragging her babysitter, pilates instructor, and tennis partners into the case in order to harass her? I mean the PR costs alone to get people to stop calling you the Rapes-alot hotels are going to be astronomical.

Sincerely,
(RQ)

FYI

Me + a box of red vines= 24 hours of stomach badness and heartburn worse than most hangovers.

In the future I shall stick with twizzlers.

That is all

What is misogyny?

The best explanation I've read for it.

And bonus- it was written by a dude (or at least someone with a dudely screen name).

If misogyny was simply a matter of "I hate women" we could clear that up easy enough. But it's deeper and way more twisted than that.