Steven Moffat Talks Doctor Who Showrunner Hate
The saying isn't "The pen's not as cool as the sword..."
Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat gets a lot of criticism. Some of it even from me. In this month’s Doctor Who Magazine (with Osgood on the cover!), Moffat talks about the showrunner hate he’s received as well as some kind advice he received from Neil Gaiman.
On the fans who hate, and the fans who love:
The fact is, you don’t judge the newspaper, or people in general, by the standards of those comments sections, so why would you judge Doctor Who fandom by the occasional attention-seeking ranter? I have always found [fans] to be clever, funny, articulate and more than usually friendly. And perfectly and humorously aware that knowing every detail about an early Saturday evening adventure serial is a pleasant but extremely daft thing to do. May it be daft forever. It is now, and always has been, a game for the civilised and kind. Lone exceptions don’t change that.
On the slings and arrows of the outrageous fortune in getting to write for Doctor Who:
I suppose, being honest – because we’re all human and fragile – some of the blows do land. You know, when you’re tired, in the dark watches of the night, when that hand is grasping for your ankle from under the bed. I guess it must have been hard for JN-T, sometimes, back in the day. I remember, not long ago, feeling a bit grim myself, about some vicious remarks. Stupidly and childishly, I’d let them get to me (ranters rejoice, your aim was true).
On the advice Neil Gaiman gave him:
Neil Gaiman dropped me a gentle note. He said (something like), “They love your shows so much, they think they own them.” I think the point – and the kindly admonishment – was that it’s a privilege to be making shows about which people care so much, and that honour should take care of everything else.
Um … I mean, I know that there are “attention seeking ranters” on the Internet (some of them have even visited this site *gasp*), but a part of me feels like he’s lumping everyone who feels negatively about his work on this show under that category. I’d be curious to get specific with him about what criticism he deems constructive and what he deems “attention-seeking.” He talks about “lone exceptions,” but I live on the Internet, and I’m in Doctor Who fandom up to my eyeballs. There’s a lot of legitimate criticism of his work out there. It’s not a lone exception. So, is he only talking about the really vitriolic stuff?
And note: I’m a big proponent of constructive criticism. We’re all humans with strengths and flaws just trying to get by the best we can, whether we’re running a show or not. Also, remember that there’s a certain advantage we have as fans in that there’s a jillion of us, and only one showrunner per show we like. Let’s think about what it’s like to be on the receiving end of jillions of barbs and not being able to respond to them all individually. Let’s keep the Internet classy, yo. Critique of a show/story? OK. Throwing in personal attacks? Not OK.
But note to showrunners: You’re getting your stories into millions of homes and onto millions of devices all over the world. You have a huge platform that others don’t, and the things you create influence and affect the lives of millions—for better or worse – whether it’s an “early Saturday evening adventure serial” or not. As our Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man learned: With great power there must also come great responsibility.
You might not like “haters,” but you do owe it to fans to try to do right by them; not for economic reasons (ie: they’ll stop watching/boycott/etc), but because there’s an unfair balance there, and you need to be careful what you put into the world. If a writer truly believes that the pen is mightier than the sword—and they usually do—you need to wield that sword-pen carefully. And when the people affected by that pen complain, it might be worthwhile to make an effort to heal their wounds, rather than leaving them out in the field to die.
In other words, just because you receive criticism, doesn’t mean those people are “haters” or “ranters.” Sometimes, you done fucked up. Own that shit and be better.
(via Doctor Who TV; Image by Ewan Roberts on Flickr)
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