Isn't that always the way?

[trinityvixen]

So, I finally got to see Torchwood: Children of Earth. If this is how they work it when they're not doing full seasons, then, shit, yo, never let them write 13-episode seasons again. It was easily the most compelling Torchwood ever. They tackled big issues, and they--gosh!--dealt with them. Not in that "everyone is forgiven 'cause everyone messes up" way either, which was most shocking of all. I really enjoyed it...

...up until Day Three when I, looking for icons for a totally unrelated fandom, got spoiled for MAJOR PLOT DEVELOPMENTS by someone not putting a spoiler warning on their icon dump and I saw spoiler icons for the series. THANKS A LOT, ICON MAKER.

Seriously, I managed to go a few weeks without being spoiled through vigilance and courtesy of those who'd seen and did everything in their power to give away nothing. The second I let my guard down, boom, spoiled. SIGH.

I did still enjoy the series. I liked how weighty it felt and how it even made me sympathize with some fairly evil folk here and there. (Except that one lady. No spoilers to say that, just, yeah, if you've seen it, you know who I mean.) Over at ivy03's post, I mentioned how very Who it seemed at parts--where perfectly ordinary people got to be amazing, and I really liked that counter-balance to the people who were inherently extraordinary or just powerful who were complete dicks a lot of the time.

I think ivy03 gets into it in more and better detail than I'll ever manage, so go read and comment on her post if you like. (Spoilers, naturally.) The one thing someone brought up that I held onto so I could address it after I'd seen it all was this question raised over at io9: Was Children of Earth homophobic? (Spoilers!)

My short answer is no, but that doesn't mean they didn't slip up a bit. What I mean is, I don't have any issue with them killing a "gay" character. I raise my eyebrow more at the fact that said character's homosexual relationship was constantly teased or derided throughout the miniseries. I like that Ianto was basically not really gay just in love with a guy. That's fairly progressive, to say nothing of how romantic (in the schmoopy and classical sense) it is--the idea that you can overlook your own biological instinct if love is involved. I mean, that's powerful stuff that our heteronormative society can't hardly accept--that you could have romantic feelings for someone of a gender you're not normally attracted to. And that that's okay! That you can go ahead and have that relationship and not really be gay if you really aren't. Love conquers all! There's no evidence this "gay" character really is, was, or ever would have been gay. Not even bi. He just loved one guy enough not to care.

But he did care, and that's where the show went off target. Having Ianto's sister tease him about dating a man was kinda adorable, if only because at the time and later it became clear that she really did it out of love herself (we always tease our siblings, no matter their choices) and because she was desperate to know more about the life he never shared with her. Subsequent engagements on the subject were less kind. I could have done without Clement's "queer" comment entirely. That was just ugly. They lampshade it with Ianto saying it's not the 1960s any more, and that kind of talk speaks to ignorance, but still. That didn't need to be there. That it was played for humor makes it harder to divine the butt of the joke, but I'm certain it was Ianto, given how he's the bristly, fussy type who positively exploded at the comment. (The straight man who loses it is almost always the victim of the humor.) But it could have gone both ways, just as love-conquers-all is my read on what could also be read as they-took-away-a-gay-character-and-just-made-him-conditionally-gay with the whole Jack/Ianto thing.

I have other thoughts on the abuses of power and the ugliness of the ethical choices, but they've been covered by most other people. I might get around to posting them, I might not.

Comments

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I like that Ianto was basically not really gay just in love with a guy. That's fairly progressive.
I kind of disagree with that. At least in Torchwood's special case, where mention has been made of Jack's "pheromones," so it comes of less as "Ianto's love triumphs gender boundaries" than "Jack is just irresistible." This is the guy who has chemistry with robots. It seems like them saying Jack is so irresistible, he even turns straight boys gay.

Also, this "I'm not gay I just love him" characterization is so much a part of early slash fandom that it has an acronym (I've forgotten) and much meta has been spent on it. Basically, it's seen as at best cowardly on the part of the writer, and at worst homophobic. It's a way for writers, usually new to slash, to write slash but still completely deny the validity of being gay. There are many issues with sexual identities, but if you are a man fucking a man, you are bi or gay. You are not straight. Any more than a man who's only ever slept with one person, who happens to be a woman, can claim that he's not straight (or bi). It just seems like--you are doing the act that by definition puts you in a not straight category. To deny that identity, as Ianto does, not just with that conversation with his sis, which is sensitive, and makes sense that Jack's the first guy who turned his head, and can be the starting point of a journey of sexual discovery for Ianto (god, that sounds cheesy), but Ianto also denies the queer label every time it's lobbed at him. It's often said meanly, but his response is "that label doesn't apply" when it should be "that's not something to ridicule a person for."

I've also seen people bemoaning the fact that before that sentence came out of his mouth, Ianto was one of the most positively portrayed bisexuals on tv. In that he dated a woman, he's dating a man, and no comment is made of the switch.

The other thing I could see as possibly homophobic was that, though Jack and Ianto have had some sort of relationship since season one, the story of that relationship has never been addressed. It's taken as fact. You don't see how it develops, or what its boundaries are. Until this mini-series, where they start to discuss those things. Which of course means Ianto has to die. As soon as the gay couple starts talking about actually being a couple? Dead. I see it more, though, as Ianto had to die, not because he was gay, but because he was becoming too serious a love interest for our hero. Like James Bond's wife, he had to go. It was, to coin a phrase, gay man in refrigerator.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I didn't remember about any pheremones. Regardless, it's pretty clear that Ianto has any number of reasons to be attracted to Jack beyond merely being tricked into it. As far as he's concerned, it's a relationship, not just a sex thing.

Basically, it's seen as at best cowardly on the part of the writer, and at worst homophobic. It's a way for writers, usually new to slash, to write slash but still completely deny the validity of being gay. There are many issues with sexual identities, but if you are a man fucking a man, you are bi or gay.

This is what I meant about it being as easy to see it as homophobic as not. However, while I acknowledge this trope of slash, fanfiction is not mainstream. For a show to put that out there--that it's possible to have a romance with a person of an atypical gender (for that character)--is fairly progressive. What slash does and what mainstream fiction does are different things.

That said, I did...pause when they decided to go down the "totes not gai!" route. Before this, I, too, liked the idea--even if it was never explicitly stated--of Ianto being bisexual. I can accept them throwing that over for a different interpretation if it had been done tastefully. Clearly, they did not. They managed more grace about his sexual proclivities by not addressing them than by doing so.

It's often said meanly, but his response is "that label doesn't apply" when it should be "that's not something to ridicule a person for."

So much for Jack's "you people and your labels" speech from season one...

But you've managed to pinpoint the exact problem. The issue is not Ianto's (unless he's the one in denial); it's everybody else's. Making it his problem is why people are thinking it's homophobic. (Very possibly rightly so.) It does not help that Ianto is then summarily killed, as you say. He's very feminized as a character--coffee boy, secretarial skills, all these sorts of things that are usually expected to be done by women. So the fridging is problematic for more than one reason.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I am listening to the linked podcast, which is really interesting. It's made me realize a couple of things.

I do think Ianto's scene with his sister is quite sweet, and, as they point out on the podcast, the beginning of a plot arc towards his acceptance of his changed sexual identity. But since this was a miniseries, that gets squished down to nothing so the taunts from his sister's wife and Clem seem far more harsh than if Ianto had been allowed a chance to grow comfortable enough with his identity to stand up for himself. (One of the people also points out that Clem, who sees the truth of things, flat out calls Ianto a faggot. Not a straight guy who likes just one man. The implication is that gay (or queer) is the truth of Ianto's character.)

They point out that had this arc been drawn out over a season, at the end of which Ianto died, it would not have rung as homophobic. But since it was so condensed, it falls into a very cliched trope about the portrayal of gay characters. It's true--most of what can be read as homophobic about this mini-series (for the record, I don't think it is) comes not from the mini-series itself but from a greater cultural context of how stories about gay characters are told.

Also, they point out that this had higher ratings than any other series of Torchwood, which means a lot of viewers are coming to it new. Which made me realize that most of my problems with it are problems with it as it fits into the context of a serial tv show. As a stand-alone mini-series, I think it works (mostly) great. But as a stand-alone, there is much less investment in characters. As an outgrowth of a series, though, viewers are coming to it with different expectations. That they will be told a good story, yes, but also that they will get to spend time with characters they've grown to care about.

What this felt like to me was moralizing at the detriment of the characters. Clearly the important points of the mini-series are about what people do when confronted with impossible choices. To that end, the Torchwood characters are mostly ancillary and useless. Frobisher is actually the main character here. Even Lois and unnamed military chick have character arcs around this issue.

Jack is the only one of the Torchwood cast who wrestles with the same issues the cabinet does. Gwen and Ianto just exist for action adventure purposes--they start out with a unilateral belief that you do not under any circumstances give in to such demands, and they end with it as well. No change. So I don't think it was the right story to tell with this series, because the telling of it destroyed what two seasons of the show had built up--that is, the fan investment in this universe and these characters. Not only that, but it was more about OCs than the cast anyway, which makes the death of a cast member even more superfluous.

(Also, can I just say? That last part started with the worst voice-over from Gwen ever. Could you actually sit and say that with a straight face? And then we get it again with Rhys recording it. Like--why did you decide that this, when you're trying to be silent and hide children, is the right time to make ominous statements about the Doctor, who you shouldn't even be mentioning in front of civilians? Ugh. Emo Gwen is emo.)

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I just had another thought about this. Ianto, even before the involvement with Jack, could be seen as something of a stereotypical gay character because of his secretarial role and his sharp dressing in suits (I swear you said this somewhere but I can't find it to quote).

Now we've seen Ianto's family, though, which is clearly working class. In rewatching the scene in the first ep where Ianto visits his sister, you can see that when he arrives, she's doing one of those "make money from home" things, as she's stuffing flyers in envelopes for a mailing. So suits to him could be (and frankly, this makes the most sense to me) a way for him to hold himself apart from his lower class background. He's pulled himself up the social ladder, so constantly wearing nice suits seems a way to armor himself in the upper class and distance himself from his origins.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I did mention how feminized Ianto was at your journal I think (or maybe on your last comment?). Part of that was his filling what is a rather stereotypical female sort of role. The issue of class is one I hadn't considered, but that's a fair read on it, too. THe only time we've seen Ianto out of suits was when he first accosted Jack about joining Torchwood (and then he was dressed sort of like a thug, which would explain/connect to the lower class background).

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I think part of why this worked better for me that previous episodes/seasons was how the Torchwood folk, who, really, have proven to be rather repulsive human beings a lot of the time, was that they weren't at the center. My comments about how it seemed like Who at times was about this--the people who are normal are more interesting because they have to wrestle with problems above and beyond what the Torchwood crowd does, save Jack.

So I'm not really upset about the fact that it throws over some parts of the series because the story that was told in CoE was easily better than most of the show so far. You're right that it's obnoxious if you liked the series, but I'm not so invested that I can't be swayed by better writing.

Also, there were three main characters left. At that point, that's fully half of the Torchwood crowd gone, so it's really hard to attach yourself to them regardless. Ianto's never had a character, Gwen is an audience stand-in, and Jack is just so over-the-top...it's hard to really relate to them a lot of the time. They did well to attach Gwen and Rhys, and Ianto and his family, and Jack and his daughter, but these are mostly new relationships even to those who've followed the series. So it still feels really new even if didn't contradict the old stuff. It's getting you coming and going, you know?

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

But that's a problem, though. If the series only works if you hate the main characters. I mean, theoretically, they should be writing for the audience they have, not the one who thinks the show is stupid. Otherwise, what's the point of gaining an audience?

I think the difference is in stand-alones, movies or mini-series, the characters exist to serve the story. In serials, the story exists to serve the characters. Which, you may have noticed, is the reason I almost exclusively watch serial television. This is what I'm getting at every time I look at CoE and say--sure, that character arc worked, but why would you ever do that?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that when a series is not regarded as the creators want it to be, they monkey around with changing characterization. (This has been the problem with Heroes since season one.) So it's not that they're writing for an audience they don't have, more that they might be trying for an audience they think dislikes things they've done (which is still there). I wonder if that isn't the case for Torchwood, and if they haven't, by accident, pleased the wrong sort of group--i.e. they managed to draw back in some of the distanced, skeptical folk (me) and alienate a lot of the harder-core, fandom-supported folk (you).

It's an interesting point about serials vs. miniseries, however, I'd say they did better by character in this than they'd done in a long while. You got a better sense of the lives of the characters that were left than had previously been seen because they were operating in their private spaces and not just at Torchwood. I mean, the phrase "and who is he when he's at home" comes to mind. That's the point--we never really see. We know Jack's been around forever, but the emotional fallout of that was so much better demonstrated by centering on his daughter than in all the flashbacks to the past that ever we saw. Because that's where we see the human and the magical at the same time. It's a relatable moment. Ditto with Ianto. Gwen relying on Andy and Rhys to ground her has been done, but they've rarely been allowed to shine so bright. I think this miniseries got in a lot of character, all things considered. The problem is that some of that just didn't jibe with previous characterization. I'm just willing to give it a pass because the show hasn't been extremely faithful in all of that anyway.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

There were quite lovely character bits, yes. But there are also lovely character bits in The Birds. Then everyone gets pecked to death. I'm not talking about the attention paid to fleshing out the characters so much as the character arcs. In order to tell the story they wanted to tell, they had to kill one character futilely (a non-heroic death was the point, though I still object to it on easy-to-avoid grounds), drive another to despair, and have the last one have a life-altering event, her pregnancy (I do think Gwen's pregnancy is integral to the theme here). All of those things had to happen for the story to work. And as such, all of the characters are ground up to serve it. I'm not advocating a toys-back-in-the-toybox approach to serial tv, but characters need to be put on arcs that allow them to stick around. (And, I always hope, not become despicable fuckwits. Many shows have fallen from my graces because the character arcs written to generate continued drama make the characters into asstards. I'm looking at you ER.)

Interesting that you brought up Heroes, because I was actually thinking about that. I think all serial tv shows have to exist on a spectrum in between a Star Trek TNG, where the characters end the episode in the same place they began it (most of the time), and a mini-series where characters depart the field when their role is done. Heroes is firmly on the mini-series side. The characters in season one have to change so much for the story to work that their stories should have ended after that season (as they were meant to). It was trying to force the characters to stick around after they've been on such a journey that was the essential problem with everything in Heroes after that. Heroes should have been a stand-alone mini-series. As should CoE. If there is a series four of Torchwood, and if they try to force the show back into an episodic format without just entirely replacing the cast, I think you're going to have essentially the same problems Heroes has.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I guess I don't think that the characters were all that decimated. Jack was finally as dark as we've been repeatedly told he was. Ianto's never been characterized enough to be assassinated. And Gwen was still pretty much Gwen. I don't think that any of them were yanked out of any character arc.

Heroes is firmly on the mini-series side.
I suppose that's one way of saying that they completely rewrote characters when they couldn't justify them existing past their obvious sell-by dates. But yeah, if Torchwood comes back, I have a hard time imagining that you can put Jack in any position of authority. I'd also have a hard time accepting Gwen, for all her now-unchallenged seniority, given that she still thinks that Jack can be saved, can still make up for what he did. Fuck that noise, no he cannot. She's as questionable as he if she believes in that kind of redemption. Or, rather, I should say that it would take a major miracle for the show to be written so well as to redeem Jack that I am loath to see them try because I know they'll fail.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I agree that the character arcs for Jack and Gwen are consistent. (Ianto didn't get an arc so much as instant death, though.) But that's not the point. The point is not one of them is usable for an episodic series anymore. Which I tend to see as a problem. For an episodic series.

Gwen does think that Jack hangs the stars, but at the end of CoE, it's questionable if she knows exactly what happened. She may not.