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I've been seeing a bit of Joan-bashing on various journals and comms, springing from two sources: one, a perception of Joan as a 'slut' (I've lost the link, but the term was definitely used) and, more frequently, that she's an unpleasant snob and racist (because she didn't believe that Martha was training to be a doctor).
The first charge is ridiculous, of course. 'Slut' is an appalling, and pretty much meaningless term, but even if you grant the premise that Joan should be censured for not conforming to the most conservative standards of her time (she does blatantly set her cap at John Smith), there's absolutely no grounds for calling her promiscuous. There's no sign that she's interetested in any of the other masters - she just likes John, and as a widow with some experience of life, she knows how to go about matters. Which is just as well, because although John clearly also likes her, he equally obviously hasn't the faintest idea how to go about it, is apparently completley sexually inexperienced, and a bit scared by the whole thing.
If the first charge rested on insisting on judging Joan by a perception of what was appropriate for a woman of her age (well, either that or it was a Martha/Doctor shipper looking for mud to fling), the second seems to me to rest on the opposite. Yes, Joan, for a variety of reasons, isn't motivated to believe Martha - for one thing, she's a tremendous threat, not as a sexual rival in the crude sense, but because she's suggesting that John Smith is just a phantasm, and she does voice her disbelief in terms of sex, race and class - but I'm not sure her scepticism about Martha's medical training is that unreasonable.
( I've been trying to find out how unreasonable or not it is, with some difficulty, as it's not my period. )
So - yes, Joan's very rude, mostly because she's understandably frightened. on a lot of different levels. But given that she's still thinking in the terms of her ages, I don't think we can convict her of overt racism. She has a lot of examined assumptions - but so do we all; they're just different assumptions. It certainly doesn't mean that she would have been unfit as a companion - 'Companion has ideas shaken up' is quite a common motif in Who. The Doctor's offer does illustrate once again for those who didn't realise it that he's really, really bad at relating to humans (although since it's not unrelated to the 'but I still want to be best friends' school of dumping, I suppose we can't entirely blame his Gallifreyan hearts for that piece of insensitivity).
Anyway: thoughts, people?
The first charge is ridiculous, of course. 'Slut' is an appalling, and pretty much meaningless term, but even if you grant the premise that Joan should be censured for not conforming to the most conservative standards of her time (she does blatantly set her cap at John Smith), there's absolutely no grounds for calling her promiscuous. There's no sign that she's interetested in any of the other masters - she just likes John, and as a widow with some experience of life, she knows how to go about matters. Which is just as well, because although John clearly also likes her, he equally obviously hasn't the faintest idea how to go about it, is apparently completley sexually inexperienced, and a bit scared by the whole thing.
If the first charge rested on insisting on judging Joan by a perception of what was appropriate for a woman of her age (well, either that or it was a Martha/Doctor shipper looking for mud to fling), the second seems to me to rest on the opposite. Yes, Joan, for a variety of reasons, isn't motivated to believe Martha - for one thing, she's a tremendous threat, not as a sexual rival in the crude sense, but because she's suggesting that John Smith is just a phantasm, and she does voice her disbelief in terms of sex, race and class - but I'm not sure her scepticism about Martha's medical training is that unreasonable.
( I've been trying to find out how unreasonable or not it is, with some difficulty, as it's not my period. )
So - yes, Joan's very rude, mostly because she's understandably frightened. on a lot of different levels. But given that she's still thinking in the terms of her ages, I don't think we can convict her of overt racism. She has a lot of examined assumptions - but so do we all; they're just different assumptions. It certainly doesn't mean that she would have been unfit as a companion - 'Companion has ideas shaken up' is quite a common motif in Who. The Doctor's offer does illustrate once again for those who didn't realise it that he's really, really bad at relating to humans (although since it's not unrelated to the 'but I still want to be best friends' school of dumping, I suppose we can't entirely blame his Gallifreyan hearts for that piece of insensitivity).
Anyway: thoughts, people?
