30 Day Doctor Who Challenge - Day 12: Character I like that everyone else hates
Martha “BAMF” Jones
Martha Jones has the unfortunate honor of being the Doctor Who fandom’s character that everyone loves to hate. From what I’ve seen, a lot of people hate her because she dared to have feelings for the Doctor and oftentimes this goes against the pro-Doctor/Rose bias they have acquired. In addition, a lot of fans are letting their love of Rose Tyler cloud their judgement when assessing Martha’s merits, instead of looking at each of them as separate people who contributed different things to The Doctor and the show as a whole.
For me, a lot of the anti-Martha sentiment seems to come from the implicit, unconscious racism that many have, which also explains why when those who unfairly criticize or hate Martha are pressed for elaboration on their position, many of these people immediately try to justify their position by saying that “I miss Rose” or a myriad of very problematic misogynist, slut-shaming or outright racist “reasons”. In the time I’ve spent in the Doctor Who fandom, I’ve only come across about 5 valid criticisms of Martha, all of which blame RTD and his fellow Doctor Who writers for sabotaging Martha’s tenure with their writing(it’s interesting to note that this is something which RTD and even Moffat haven’t done to other companions before or since Martha’s run).
I honestly don’t understand how anyone could dislike her. She’s a nerd just like many of us in the fandom and she has all the traits that a companion should have(badass, smart, curious, brave, etc). Yes she fell in love with the Doctor, but she dealt with her feelings with maturity and class just so she could be a friend to the Doctor. Once things got to be too much for her, as much as she loved to travel with the Doctor, she managed to call it quits and leave with her head held high. Out of all the New Who companions, she’s the only one who left him on her terms when she felt it was her time to go. This simple action of leaving such an amazing life requires so much strength and will power, since the Doctor’s lifestyle seems really desirable to a lot of people(just look at Rose and Donna, who wanted to travel with the Doctor forever because that life was so appealing to them).
Martha Jones is an amazing companion who deserves more credit and consideration than the fandom gives her. She’s an amazing character, the first official non-white companion in the history of this show. Unfortunately she gets overlooked by too many people just because they can’t get over the fact that she’s the companion that comes right after their fave or because Martha Jones goes against any unconscious prejudices people have about how people of color, especially a woman of color should/shouldn’t act.
Martha’s so great. People are assholes.
Why’d you need to have a ‘favorite’ anyway? Rose, Martha and Donna are all great characters, each with their own strengths.
(I know I didn’t mention Amy…I need to watch those episodes again. But I remember her being written in a sucky manner. We’ll see.)
I want to hear what you think of Amy after rewatching!
