When “Missy” first debuted in sneak peek pictures of Doctor Who’s season eight, fandom was quick to point out that she looked like pretty much every other femme fatale that Steven Moffat has put on television in a past few years: dark-haired updo, pale, bright lipstick, cheekbones ablaze. Yet while those complaints may be valid, some of the ire directed toward the character is gendered in a distinctly uncomfortable manner.
Spoilers for the Doctor Who season eight finale below.
It has been so exciting to get the Master in a female regeneration. Similar vestments aside, in many ways she seems to be the real femme fatale Moffat was always angling for these past few seasons—it just took some time for him to realize where his favorite trope should obviously live. Adding the Mary Poppins twist makes her extra creepy and appropriate for such an off-the-wall character.
But because Steven Moffat sometimes forgets to give female characters agency or their own stories, there has been a lot of talk about how the Master’s behavior as a woman has been tinged with sexist undertones. Outside of context, I can perhaps see the argument, but within it? Yeah, it doesn’t work for me. Because if you take the long view of the character, there is very little going on here that isn’t stock-and-trade for the Doctor’s “best enemy.”
There was some aggravation over the character changing her name to “the Mistress,” as the name “Master” has no reason to be divided down a gender line. But Missy was clearly using the altered title as a disguise to prevent herself from being recognized ahead of time. There doesn’t appear to be any gendered reasoning behind that move, or even the use of “Time Lady” in the end; it was all pouty-lipped ribbing at the Doctor’s expense. And frankly, the character has had a penchant for disguise throughout the show’s history, even at times when it didn’t service the plot. It’s something the Master has always seemed to enjoy.
The idea that a female Master wouldn’t be so gorgeously vampy is also incorrect. The Master exists (even in the suave, mustached clutches of Roger Delgado) in a place of camp. The Master overdoes everything. The Master fights the Doctor with a broadsword and becomes half-a-cheetah and tries to have the Doctor strangled with a telephone cord and dances to the Scissor Sisters on a flying aircraft carrier. The character is as affected as they come. The insistence that the Master wouldn’t or shouldn’t use a more feminine-specific brand of camp after being gifted a whole new realm of possibilities as a woman is ridiculous. Please, give us all of it.
There also seemed to be an issue with the Master referring to the Doctor as her “boyfriend.” Given that the characters (to our knowledge) have never had a romantic entanglement, the idea that she would suddenly desire to use the term rubbed some fans the wrong way. The mode of thinking was, she’s only doing it because she’s a woman and stereotypes tell us that all women are obsessed with relationships. The Master magically wants to date the Doctor now that she’s female. The Master now refers to the Doctor more intimately because she’s female…. Never mind the fact that the Master once asked the Doctor if he was asking him out on a date when he was a guy.
Is it a problem that the Master only feels comfortable using romantic terminology toward a male Doctor as a woman? We can certainly argue that. But in terms of the Master referring to the Doctor as her “boyfriend” being out of character? That’s straight up wrong. The Master has always viewed the Doctor as her—or his—boyfriend. Always.
No, I’m really sticking to this one.
Okay, we can have another long conversation here about the sexuality of both characters, the potential lack of sexuality in Time Lords overall, the idea of homosocial and homoerotic subtext throughout the show’s history, but that’s not really what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about the fact that, to some extent, the Master has always believed that the Doctor belongs to her. This belief is a driving force for the majority of the character’s actions, stretching all the way back to the Master’s first appearance in the Third Doctor era. Back then, the Time Lords were still in the universe and the Doctor had been grounded by his people, forced to stay on Earth with a TARDIS he couldn’t remember how to pilot.
The Master shows up and tries to take over a bunch of times. The Doctor stops him through a variety of creative methods. Now, wouldn’t it have been easier for the Master to foster his megalomania on another planet where the Doctor wouldn’t interfere with his infernal plans? Of course it would. Why didn’t he? Because he wanted to bother the Doctor. He wanted a playmate to match wits against. While the Doctor was essentially confined to a kennel, the Master showed up on the premise of antagonism and intrigue. I’m gonna do a bad thing! Better stop me!
The jealously factor was one also sited in terms of reactions that were more “ladylike” and the result of the Master now being a woman. As though the Master has never been jealous before. As though the Master has never been specifically jealous of the Doctor’s companions before. Sure, part of the reason that the Master has a track record of abusing companions is because she wants the Doctor to suffer through their suffering. And sometimes the Master tries to get kind of seductive with them as well (poor Jo Grant), or mirror the Doctor’s relationships with them (poor Lucy Saxon). But ultimately? The Master has always hated companions because they get all of the Doctor’s focus and affection. He choses them every time. It’s why (as not cool as it was) Osgood died in the season eight finale—the Doctor made a critical error in potentially offering her a spot on the TARDIS in front of the Master. That’s when the threat of murder comes up, immediately thereafter. The Master only vaguely keeps it together with Clara because she hand-selected Clara to be the Doctor’s companion.
Why would the Master care about any of that in the first place? Well, the idea of them being old school friends started back in the classic series, and only got more pronounced in the new one. Confirmation from John Simm’s run of the character placed their friendship back even before their Time Lord training would have started. The Master was the Doctor’s best friend before any of this companion nonsense. Or perhaps… the Master was the first companion. The Twelfth Doctor’s dialogue in “Death in Heaven” was particularly telling in that regard:
I had a friend once. We ran together when I was little and I thought we were the same. When we grew up, we weren’t.
“We ran together.” A term reserved only ever for companions. And if the Master was there first, wouldn’t it stand to reason that she resents being constantly replaced? Because we know the Master doesn’t hate the Doctor, even if they are “enemies.” The show’s history easily proves that.
There is a well-known line from the show where the Master claims that “a universe without the Doctor scarcely bears thinking about.” Following that utterance, he proceeds to rescue his old friend from a series of traps as four of his incarnations make their way to the Tower of Rassilon. When the Doctor was in his Sixth body, the Master again rescued him from a darker aspect of himself—the Valeyard—who almost had the Doctor imprisoned by the Time Lords for breaking the laws of time travel and committing genocide. The Master came to the Doctor’s defense and proved that he had been framed. Without being called on, by the way.
Still, it’s safe to say that he likes certain versions of the Doctor more than others (just as he seems to tolerate certain companions better than others). While he has never truly come close to ending the Doctor’s life permanently, he had no compunction about bringing the Fourth Doctor’s reign to an end by dropping him off a telescope dish. This brings about the Fifth Doctor, who actually seemed to mix with Anthony Ainley’s version of the Master much better. The Master has a vested interest in their personalities playing well together—further proven by Derek Jacobi’s version of the character regenerating into Simm’s indelibly Tenth Doctor-appropriate incarnation.
This female version of the Master has a perfect push-and-pull with Capaldi. She’s zany and inappropriate and just edgy enough to accommodate the Twelfth Doctor’s darkness. And if you need any further proof of that match, the man who doesn’t like hugging or being touched anymore actually kisses the Master when she offers him some clarity on his continued purpose in the universe. They’re a pair. They always have been.
And now she finally feels right in admitting the purpose of this cosmic game of tag—she wants her friend back.
None of this is out of character. It’s a natural build that the character has been working toward over decades of screen time. The idea that Missy’s actions and verbiage are all the result of her current gender isn’t giving the character the credit she deserves. The Master has been far more melodramatic in previous attempts to get the Doctor’s attention. We all remember the fact that he once made a point of dying in the Doctor’s arms to prove his importance to the man, right? If anything, the Master’s most recent plan was far more direct than anything she’s plotted in years: Lure you out. Be clever. Wish Happy Birthday. Give present. Be friends again.
Being a villain who feels jealousy and possessiveness, who enjoys theatricality, who calls their best enemy their boyfriend, is not an inherently female practice. It is everything the Master already was. Did we ever consider that perhaps it’s just easier to note through a female prism because we are accustomed to heterosexual/social normativity? Because Michelle Gomez’s version of the Master is far from tone deaf—she was created to expand on the story that Doctor Who has been crafting for years.
And I dearly hope she returns for another round.
Emmet Asher-Perrin actually thinks the Master was completely serious when she said “My heart is maintained by the Doctor.” You can bug her on Twitter and read more of her work here and elsewhere.
Your second paragraph is dead on I think. When Matt Smith’s exit was announced and (some) fans started asking for a female Doctor, I’ll bet Moffat slapped himself and realized Madam Kovarian should have been the Master. That would have made the long game with the Silence and Trenzalore and Melody/River so much more interesting.
So we’re spoiling season-level reveals right in the headlines now?
The season’s not even out on DVD yet.
When you put a spoiler in a headline, we all die a little inside. #neveragain
Yeah, Gomez can come back as the Master/Mistress any time she wants.
I agree with ALL OF THIS YES FOREVER.
There’s SO MUCH to potentially say about the Master’s characterization and how traits that are coded as feminine indicate villainy in men, etc, but everything here is absolutely spot-on.
Excellent analysis. I wonder – if the Master’s latest incarnation had been male, might we still be talking about it in friendship terms only? Are we adding romantic perspectives because of the gender switch? With hindsight, we can change our interpretation of the line “are you asking me out on a date” – but I don’t remember thinking of the Master/Doctor relationship as anything more than platonic prior to Missy coming on the scene.
Gosh, that mysterious lady was the Master all along? Whew! Good thing I found that out before watching the last three episodes. Could have been quite a surprise.
I maintain that nothing Missy did was more overtly romantic than that bit in End of Time where they both stare deeply into each other’s eyes and say that they didn’t know where they stood without the other one.
I never thought the problem was with the Master being female — I just don’t like Michelle Gomez’s performance. But then again, I deeply hated John Simm’s performance. There may be an element of camp to the Delgado and Ainley versions of the Master, but they were never clownish. They were more in the vein of Vincent Price, while Simm was more in the vein of Jim Carrey — there’s simply no comparison. I’ve never been able to accept Simm as the Master, and the fact that Gomez’s Mistress is so much like Simm’s Master makes her just as hard to like in the role.
I don’t agree with the objections to the “Time Lady” usage, because it was used in the original series for Romana and others. What needs to be understood is that the “Lord” in “Time Lord” isn’t just in the sense of a being who rules over something, but specifically in the British sense of a member of the society’s noble class. Not all Gallifreyans are Time Lords; the term refers specifically to the Gallifreyan ruling gentry, the nobles. Recall how Danny reacted the first time he heard the Doctor call himself a Time Lord — “You can always spot the aristocracy.” It’s a title rather than a species name. And so you have Time Lords and Time Ladies. Yes, it’s gendered, but it’s hardly new, and it’s hardly an affectation on Missy’s part. It is, in universe, the established term for a female Gallifreyan noble.
Jesus, spoilers much? I haven’t had a chance to watch the damn episodes episode yet. Thanks a lot.
Please change the title so as to stop spoiling it for people who haven’t seen the episodes yet.
When watching the interactions of the Doctor and Master over time and listening to how they describe their long friendship-gone-wrong, I consider the concept of “romantic friendship” between men that we in the West (particularly in America) grew out of over the twentieth century in the age of total war. Where women can still call each other ‘girlfriend’ and have emotionally-charged relationships without genitality, we’ve stripped the ability for men to do so without accusations of homosexuality (look at the modern discussions of even the 19th century friendships of Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Speed, for example, or John Henry Newman and Ambrose St. John). Luckily, we’re starting to come back around to bringing emotion back into men’s friendships, even if straight men aren’t going to be trading “buddy” for “boyfriend” any time soon.
Where this leads me is that the Doctor and the Master are old – really old – and quite aristocratic. We approach looking at their relationship from a late-twentieth century/early-twenty-first century perspective, but there’s in probably more akin to Newman’s & St. John’s (if not King David’s and Jonathan ben Saul’s). The idea of a man’s heart belonging to a male friend rather than to a woman is one that’s been present through Western culture throughout history without necessarily any genital meaning to it (and likewise with women, see various literary sources), and seems likely to be the same case on Gallifrey – especially since we’ve seen in Classic Who that there were periods of centuries (Loom theories not withstanding) without children being born among the upper classes to which the Doctor and Master belonged.
A gender-swap such as the Master/Mistress wouldn’t be unheard-of, as has been mentioned on the show, but it seems to be the case that some Time Lords did so and some did not. To have the Master do so after all this time and mess with the Doctor’s head by playing with how the Doctor should deal with what is quite literally a broken heart for a friend by messing with the gendered nature of that specifically-gendered type of relationship is actually quite devilish. To apply merely modern conceptions of gender to it rather than the shifting conceptions of gender (and male relationships) that would be faced by two individuals who have lived such long lives is to miss out on much of the nuance of what he/she has done with this simple act of regeneration.
But count me among those who want to see Michelle Gomez somehow come back with a goatee next time. Because the Master isn’t the MAster without a goatee – it’s why I could never get behind Simm in the role! ;)
I have to laugh about all of Moffat’s femme fatales looking alike because the first time I saw Missy in that end-of-episode bit where we first see the afterlife I had to aks on facebook if that had been Laura Pulver (Moffat’s Irene Adler). Aditionally, as someone else pointed out
Madam Kovarian was a wasted character that Moffat shoudl have done more with… and probably should have made the Master.
“But Missy was clearly using the altered title as a disguise to prevent herself from being recognized ahead of time.”
She used the altered title to hide her identity from The Doctor for, what, 10 minutes? And only after she had already kissed him and made him feel her binary heart beat. That’s Moffat, barely trying to hide her identity from viewers, not her calculated choice as a character.
I think Gomez is fantastic as The Master, though as I imagine ChristopherLBennett would agree, I wish she was less like Moffat’s cartoonish take on Moriarty. The gender change does not bother me in the least, as gender is not a defining feature of the role, and non-romantic obsessions exist between all varieties of people – including in heterosexual pairings. I do maintain that the change was pure fan service, and that everything added to their dynamic is written in the vein of cursory romantic fan fiction. While it doesn’t bother me that they’re blurring these lines, I wish they had aspired to a greater purpose than “that’d be clever.” If they do clearly redefine her interest in The Doctor as romantic, it had better be a great damn deal better written than this.
I sincerely doubt Moffat put this much thought into the relationship – again, this is the man who wrote Coupling, a series which displays negative levels of sensitivity to such issues.
Coupling was wonderful! That show is 10 years old and still more rude and more honest about relationships than anything I’ve seen on American TV.
Moffat did a great job in the Series 8 finale with strong independent women — including Clara (the ultimate soldier who survived without PTSD), Kate, Osgood, and Missy.
@16: Were we watching the same finale? In what way were Kate and Osgood strong or independent in the episode?
@17 – They were wearing pants, so you could just tell. Hahaha.
Very disappointed in the headline for this article. It’s a huge spoiler for me.
Spoilers eh?
I thought you nailed it; she felt very much in character to me. I’d guessed her identity after the first reveal of her name back in episode 1, and I wasn’t disappointed in the way she carried it off.
“as the name “Master” has no reason to be divided down a gender line.”
No reason, except that’s how the word is defined.
(Oxford Dictionary) “master. chiefly historical. A man who has people working for him, especially servants or slaves“, which is the applicable sense.
Missy had clearly adopted a persona and costume of the Victorian or Edwardian era. It would have been out of character to use some modern PC ungendered perversion of the language.
@20, yeah… no. You are unable to define my reading/watching experience with numbers, because the way I rate something has nothing to do with my knowledge going into it. if I like it, I tend to like it either way. What readers like me treasure is variety of experience.
The first time through a book or movie is a special one for many including me. We experience it differently than we otherwise would, with a sense of wonder and excitement that we’ll never have again. Subsequent watchings and readings take a different tone, and deeper analysis and enjoyment on other levels take over. It’s why I like to re-read and rewatch, for the different flavors. Now there’s one less flavor that some of the readers here will be able to enjoy, and that’s sad.
I mean, I’m one of those people who thinks they’ve been sleeping together all along,* but this is a very good analysis even without that assumption.
Michelle Gomez was amazing, and I saw so much Delgado!Master in her portrayal, in her expressions. I actually didn’t think about the Simm!Master at all, but she’s even a more perfect fit for what he did with the character.
One interaction to add to your list: the absolute best part of Mind of Evil is when the Master straps the Doctor into the Keller machine with an evil laugh. When he thinks he might have killed the Doctor, though, he’s suddenly very worried and hurries to check on him.
* Seriously, given the extent of their entaglement detailed above, why say “ok, as long as they don’t cross the lines of what I, personally, would consider gay!!” when instead you can think about how you’d explain your ex-boyfriend to a bunch of soldiers from 1970s England when you’re an alien from an advanced and very uptight civilization? The Author is Dead, long live queer subtext.
This is so brilliant, so spot on–as usual. This is up there with the piece you wrote a few years back about the logic of regens. You think so well about the length, breadth, and depth of Who.
Clearly Moffat has been thinking about this since Curse of the Fatal Death at least. There’s also that throwaway pun in Time Crash…
I don’t think Missy was trying to prevent herself from being recognized.
Consider how, before the official reveal, she teased the Doctor about knowing who she was. She greeted him affectionately, even intimately. She had him feel her two hearts.
Missy wanted to be recognized. Specifically, she wanted the Doctor to recognize her. They were best friends in childhood, they’ve known each other their entire lives. Missy’s motivation was all about connection with her old friend. And him knowing her, on his own, would have meant so much to her.
They ran together as children. They thought they were the same. They both wish they were still the same. To have someone who knows them, even when wearing a brand new face. They really are the same.
@26: That reminds me — as a rule, on the original series, Time Lords were shown to be able to recognize one another even after a regeneration. It wasn’t explained how — maybe some kind of telepathic sense, maybe just learning to recognize body language, maybe even something pheromonal — but they always recognized one another even when their appearance changed. So the Doctor should’ve been able to recognize the Master in a new body. Did the sex change throw him off that much?
Then again, he was on Trenzalore for a long, long time. Maybe he didn’t recognize the Master because it had been so long since he’d seen him/her.
@27 – Thinking back, Ten didn’t recognize the Master, although that was explained by him being pocket-watched.
Did the Time Lords recognize each other as individuals, or only as fellow Time Lords? And was it an instinctive recognition, or would they have to be paying attention, looking for an individual?
My thought is that it wasn’t the sex change that confused the Doctor. Initially, he wasn’t looking for a Time Lord. And once he recognized the two hearts, it could have been any Time Lord. The Doctor was too astonished to realize he’d found a Time Lord to be able to take the next step of trying to recognize if it was one he knew, let alone the Master. There wasn’t really a recognizable Evil Plot at first, either, to suggest the Master in action.
The Doctor’s attention was simply elsewhere. The sex change didn’t seem to confuse him at all, once he knew Missy and the Master were one and the same, his language handled the transition flawlessly.
@28: They do recognize each other as individuals. In “The Armageddon Factor,” the Time Lord Drax immediately recognized the Fourth Doctor from their days together in the academy.
Then again, the Doctor did not immediately recognize Drax. And in the very next episode, he didn’t recognize Romana when she regenerated. So maybe he’s not as good at it as other Time Lords are.
@28 We see The Doctor not recognize The Master/The Mistress in two regenerations, as well as not recognize himself in the 50th Anniversary episode (where he had always recognized himself, even future regenerations, in the past – before time correcting itself made him forget). I think that the issue has to do with how the Time War effect him. Not just psychologically, mind you, but neurologically. How does his actions in the war and exposure to The Moment (even via the retconning of his own timeline regarding his use of it) affect him as a Time Lord and his connection to the timestream? Maybe he IS like his old friend in that sense of a certain break in his sanity that he’s spent fat too long putting off dealing with (luckily one NOT expressed in genocidal megalomania, but still maintaining a connection to the time vortex in an organic brain has to be precarious…).
@30: As for the Doctor recognizing himself, of course that’s only an issue with his past selves recognizing their future selves. In “The Three Doctors,” the First and Second Doctors both knew they were being sent to help the Third, so they would’ve already known who he was.
In “The Five Doctors,” the First didn’t recognize the Fifth until Turlough said who he was. The First did recognize the Third, but his question “What happened to the little fellow?” indicates that he remembered the events of “The Three Doctors.” And the Second and Third knew who the Fifth was because he responded on the comm screen when they summoned the Doctor. The Third Doctor recognized the Ainley Master, but that was pretty easy given that he had basically the same hairstyle and fashion sense (and normal Time Lord recognition wouldn’t have worked, since the Master was in a Trakenian body at the time rather than a Gallifreyan one).
In “The Two Doctors,” the Second seems to know who the Sixth is as soon as they meet, but that could be because the Sixth is with Jamie, or because they were in telepathic contact earlier. And the Fifth didn’t recognize the Tenth in “Time Crash.”
So really, there’s no clear evidence that the Doctor has ever been able to recognize his future selves.
@alexkingstonismyavatar, “That show is 10 years old and still more rude and more honest about relationships than anything I’ve seen on American TV.” The show is alot older than 10 years old, it is 51 years old, and even though clearly you have only seen new who, the other 8 Doctors are even better than the 5 most recent Doctors.
@32: Pretty sure the reference was to Coupling, which went off the air 10 years ago.
@@@@@ AlanHK: That’s if you don’t take “Master” as an academic title like “Doctor,” which I always thought.
By the way your resentment fairly oozes off the screen.
He IS sort of attracted to bad girls, though he doesn’t trust them. He did say to River Song: “Now I love a bad girl, me. But trust you? Seriously?”
I just want to say that your analysis was remarkably thorough and managed to sort of cleanse away all the issues I have with the Gomez Master… I still don’t like her and I still think she’s utterly undignified as the Master, but at least now I can live with her being an incarnation.
Even if it makes me wish back to the happy days of Eric Roberts…
THANK YOU! This is dead on. I adore Missy and I think she is a totally acceptable version of the Master– a flair for drama, big plots, possibly involved with the Doctor, ect, ect. Speaking of that relationship… BBC is very open about sexuality, (ie River, Jack, those two gay guys in A Good Man Goes to War, Jack, and so on) so anything goes. Thanks for this wonderful article!