Gallifrey One: A Halfassed Con Report

February 19th, 2009 1:43pm by rusty-halo | 15 Comments »

So… yeah. I went to Gallifrey One. The fact that I came home and spent three hours writing a post about a Lymond book probably says all you need to know. I’m just not that into Doctor Who anymore. It’s always sad to leave a fandom, and while I’ve had kind of a miserable experience in this one, I’m also just starting to get to know a lot of interesting people, and I’m sad to drift away so soon. But you can’t force yourself to be interested when you’re just… not.

Which is really too bad because Gallifrey is a great convention. I was so impressed by how well it was run. They had several tracks of programming, with a good mix of topics, and a great array of guests. They were the polar opposite of DragonCon in terms of being welcoming to New Who fans–I never felt out of place for being a fan of the Tenth Doctor, Simm!Master, Rose, slash fic, etc. They really did a great job providing programming for everyone, regardless of whether you’re into the old series, the new series, or both.

I think part of it is that they had so many guests who’ve worked on the new series–it’s a lot harder to spend a whole con ripping on Russell T. Davies when he’s the guy who gave you a job! But also, they’re just welcoming to new fans–they had a panel on women in fandom, on “isms,” they had costuming, fun parties, again just the total inverse of DragonCon.

It wasn’t perfect–some panels started late, there were technical issues, the vocals should’ve been louder (or they should’ve turned down the episode volume) on some of the commentaries. But these are really minor flaws–no convention goes off perfectly, and all things considered I was really impressed with how well-prepared and well-organized the con runners were. The schedule was clear and they stuck to it (with some unfortunate lateness); the layout and signage were clear; the occasional lines were clear and well-managed; the communication from those in charge was honest and straightforward; basically it was just really well done. For a con with 1,300 people to run this smoothly, you know the organizers are doing something right.

I think the episode commentaries were my favorite thing. After that giant essay I wrote, it was cool to hear Keith Temple acknowledge that animal rights were an inspiration for “Planet of the Ood.” Phil Collinson is just overall awesome and I loved seeing him squee that “David Tennant and Billie Piper ended up together” over the “Journey’s End” commentary.

The Masquerade was entertaining. Some of the costumes were really amazing, and while some of the skits were cringe-worthy, others were excellent. (minervamoon and violet_lane, you were both great!) Toby Hadoke’s “Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf” one-man show was very funny and even moving in a kind of cliched way. The “Just a Minute” game show thing hosted by Paul Cornell was funny and done well. I was impressed by how much the guests were relaxed and enjoying themselves–the barrier between fans and professionals was much lower at this con than I’m used to, maybe because so many of the professionals started out as fans. You could just walk around the hotel, go to the lobby and bar, and see everyone hanging out. I was also very impressed with the quality of the audience questions–people actually asked intelligent, interesting things! I didn’t see a single request for a hug or a happy birthday, although it probably helps that I skipped the actor panels.

The Girl!Fandom panel was pretty good. It relied on more essentialist stereotypes than I’m comfortable with–”Girls do fandom this way; boys do fandom that way”–but I liked its acknowledgment that these are cultural differences that come from the differing traditions of female-centric media fandom versus the male-dominated parts of Doctor Who fandom. They discussed the original (horrifically insulting) panel description and the wank over Stephen James Walker stealing episode reviews from LiveJournal to sell in his unauthorized book and then telling women they should be grateful for the privilege. The women talked about the norms of LiveJournal and media fandom and Paul Cornell, the one guy on the panel, tried to explain where the male fans are coming from: lots of them are autistic, and they were made fun of in high school, and they’re terrified of emotion, and and and… and I know he was trying to explain, not to excuse them, but, y’know, we ladies got mocked in high school too and we have to deal with sexism on a daily basis, so these jerks still do not get an ounce of my sympathy. No matter how unpopular they were in high school, they’re still drenched in male privilege. Oh, and they talked about whether we could ever have a female Doctor, and THANK GOD, it was nice to see some people in favor of the notion! rm pointed out the inherent sexism in the argument that the Doctor would be irrevocably changed if his gender changed–as if a woman can’t be strong and independent and weird and embody all the traits that make the Doctor awesome? And spikewriter was great on the panel as well; it was awesome to see her again.

“The -ism Debate: Modern Sensibilities and Biases in the Davies Era” was incredibly embarrassing, though. Um, who picked the panelists for this? Because it was four white guys and Caroline Symcox, who barely spoke. So it was basically four white guys walking in and going “Biased? Russell T. Davies? Impossible! Why are we even having this panel? Let’s talk about old Who instead.” Which… four white guys instantly and cluelessly dismissing all possibility of racism or sexism in about thirty seconds. Yeah, that’s going to be a really well-considered panel. I mean, you guys know that I love RTD and think that his Who is probably the most awesomely progressive TV show that I’ve ever seen, but even I admit that it’s not perfect and am well-aware that there are many arguments against it. They could’ve at least chosen panelists who are familiar with the arguments, who represented more than one perspective. Like, while I don’t think Martha was written in a racist way, a lot of people do, and this was the place to talk about it, not instantly dismiss it as unthinkable. No one even brought up the the Planet of Asian Stereotypes in “Turn Left,” which again, regardless of what I think of it, is at least something to talk about from multiple angles.

There were a couple of moments where the cluelessness really stood out. First, they talked a lot about tokenism in Old Who, which, yes, right on. Then an overweight woman complained about the portrayal of fat people in New Who–that they’re always mocked and end up dead. And the panelists, completely without irony, told her that she should just be glad that they’re portraying overweight people at all. They used the tokenism argument themselves to defend New Who five minutes after criticizing it in Old Who! Make some overweight people into main characters who don’t get ridiculed or killed, and then you can defend the fact that some of them get killed off. But when they all die or get ridiculed, the problem is obvious.

Then there was James Moran’s convoluted defense of his torture-promoting Torchwood episode. He explained that he’s a total anti-torture liberal and that he watches 24 because it’s so absurd that to him it’s a liberal fantasy, a world so black and white, where the answers are so easy, that it has no relation to reality. Which explains his torture-defense… how? Is he saying that Torchwood is meant to be as stupidly simplistic as 24? Or that he really can’t fathom that anyone would take his torture-defense seriously, because it’s so patently absurd, even though he knows perfectly well that the most powerful nation on earth does torture people and uses stuff like 24 as justification? It was just… weird. I like his Doctor Who episode but that Torchwood episode is one of the main things that turned me off the entire series–that as the writing got slightly better, the themes grew exponentially more offensive. Jack being portrayed as justified in torturing people is the reason why I will never be able to get behind that character, no matter how awesomely bisexual he is.

What else? There was a panel on season four, but I left when it started out with a panelist complaining about how Rose was willing to risk destroying universes to get back to the Doctor. It’s like the whole “Spike didn’t go to Africa seeking a soul” argument–patently absurd fannish nonsense that blatantly isn’t canon, and yet gets repeated as fact because it helps justify someone’s bias against a character. People, Russell T. Davies doesn’t have to spell out that Rose was using a method that wouldn’t destroy the universes, because, hello? We got to know Rose Tyler over two seasons and she was someone who fought to protect innocents, who was willing to risk herself to save others–of course she wasn’t going to destroy the universe to get back to her boyfriend! It doesn’t need to be stated in canon because it’s obvious–her method wasn’t tearing holes in the universe because it didn’t work until Davros started doing so. And… seriously, would Pete and alt!Torchwood really help her do something that risky? You REALLY think so? It’s just stupid character hate, and that was the only sunny day, so I took a nap by the pool instead. I think you know you’re over a fandom when you realize that all the old fannish arguments are just… boring.

Oh, something that was good: the writers’ panel that morning was really great. Thoughtful, interesting, insightful, with lots of details and excellent audience questions. My favorite thing about cons is hearing from the writers–they’re really the heart of the show, the creators of the story that we love, far more than the actors who tend to get all the attention.

(Speaking of actors… I’d be happy never to go to a convention with Gareth David-Lloyd ever again. He really is like a mini-Marsters, and I think it’s sad to see all these smart, interesting women shrieking over this unworthy dude who just happened to get an acting job on a show they like. Buuuut, this probably isn’t the place to start in on that….)

Anyway, it sounds like I’m complaining, but really, like I said, the con was well-run and I was impressed by it.

I was getting a bit stir-crazy in the hotel, though, so Sunday night I took a bus with jaydk and our awesome roommate, tardis_stowaway, to Santa Monica, where we ate at Real Food Daily. It was okay, but basically just a version of Angelica Kitchen and probably not worth the 45-minute-each-way bus ride. I wish we’d walked around Santa Monica more, but it was late and we were tired (the closing ceremonies went on forever).

It was sad to see the con end. People seemed to be having so much fun and were really happy. I always hate seeing the con stuff taken down–it’s like this magical fantasy place suddenly turns back into a boring old hotel, the carriage turns back into a pumpkin, you know?

I was sad that I didn’t talk to more people. I was feeling really awkward and shy… I just didn’t have anything to say about Doctor Who, and I really don’t fit in anywhere in this fandom–the feminists hate Rose, and the slashers love Jack, and the Doctor/Master fans are mostly oldschoolers, and … yeah, just, I’m not complaining, it is what it is, I just don’t have a place here. I’m glad that I was able to talk to the lovely minervamoon briefly, although unfortunately I missed violet_lane–I saw her a couple of times in the hallway and her costumes were beautiful. It was great to room with tardis_stowaway–she’s really cool and getting to know her better was one of my favorite aspects.

So… yeah. Overall, it was a good convention and a nice last hurrah to my involvement in Doctor Who fandom.

(who_daily, please don’t link.)

Current Mood: blah