Doctor Who Vid: When I Was A Boy [Amy, Amy/Rory]

[beccatoria]

I originally planned to post this today in order to get it out there ahead of the new series premiere, but it feels wrong and conspicuous to do so, now, without mentioning Elisabeth Sladen. This is not a vid about Sarah Jane, but it is a vid about a show that would have been much lesser without Elisabeth Sladen. The universe, both fictional and real, is a worse place without her in it.

Title: When I Was A Boy
Video: Doctor Who
Audio: When I Was A Boy // Dar Williams
Summary: Amy Pond was a boy too.

Direct download available here. 51 megs approx. RightClickSaveAs.

Password: vidses

Watch on Vimeo

Cross-posted to vidding and dwfanvids.

Other vids available here.

Comments

[promethia_tenk]

I've loved Amy from the get-go, but somehow in recent months the whole thing has just taken on so much more intensity and color in my mind--thanks in part to some really excellent vids. And now your comment might in fact be some of my favorite meta that I've read on her. Nothing good to add, but all you say seems lovely and right.

Oh Amy, why have I not vidded Amy? <333
Please do--I would love to see your take on her.

In conclusion, we're all fairy tales. And thus, it is really about River?
The WHOLE SHOW is really about River. By which I actually mean that River is about the whole show.

[chaila.livejournal.com]

Yay! It's actually really interesting because I was thinking about Amy earlier today. While I did always like her and enjoy watching her, she did not make me flaily with either meta or character love until her arc came together with all the epic themes at the end of season 5. While I quite often adore female characters that subvert metanarrative expectations or conventions (like River), usually I am still primarily all about the characters in my connecting with stories, in terms of, I don't much care how well the story structure or metanarrative or themes are being set up if I'm not connecting with the characters or identifying with them in some way, emotionally or intellectually. Yet Amy (and River too, to a certain extent, who I obviously LOVE SO MUCH yet who in many ways is not all that much like the characters I tend to fall this hard for) has really become an exception for me; she's a character I actually love SO MUCH MORE because of her role in this metanarrative. I wouldn't say I identify or particularly connect with Amy even, but meta about the themes of the season and the way her particular arc embodies them and makes the whole metanarriatve work makes me just ADORE her. (And I'd very much like to vid her if I could find the right song for any of this!) This whole show really is an exception to all my rules in terms of drawing me in almost primarily with the metanarrative. Prior to the season-ender last year, though I like Amy and Eleven, I was still really watching always and only for River. But when the themes all came together for everyone, I retroactively loved the whole thing with new eyes.

By which I actually mean that River is about the whole show.

Oh, that is such a good way to state it.

[promethia_tenk]

I find Moffat's writing for Who pretty unique, at least amongst the TV I've watched, in how much attention and importance it does place on that meta narrative--on all the layers of narrative, really, in a very traditionally literary way. Symbolism, allusions, all the layering of tropes and themes does contribute substantially to the story, and I find that much of the characterization and character development does happen on those levels just as much as it does on a more realistic level. All of which I suppose makes it more difficult for some people to make a connection with but I know that I love it to teeny tiny bits. So, yes, I am with you in that normally my connection to characters has to be, first and foremost, personal in that way you describe. And yet I'm loving having this new way to engage with them as well.

Interestingly, I'm sort of the opposite from you in respect to how I got into River and Amy. With River I watched the Library episodes just a week or two before the Angels ones, and while I liked her quite a lot and was very intrigued by her, what really grabbed me and prompted me to write about her was the symbolism around her. That balanced out and I became more and more invested in her character as a character as we went along and it became easier to see who she was and to piece together her motivations, but a huge chunk of my involvement with her has always been with that symbolism, which was just more accessible. (ETA: I'm making it sound like I wasn't excited to be watching River during the last season, which is patently not true and I have the squee posts to prove it. But my interest in her meta has always been there and always been deeply ingrained in my understanding of the character.) Amy, on the other hand, I just immediately liked in that personal way that one normally connects to characters and while I enjoyed looking at her storyline and some of her symbolism and themes and discussing them, at the end of the day it kept coming back to "Amy Pond is fantastic, simple as." And I can't say that my fundamental approach to her has changed all that much; I've mostly just deepened in my appreciation.

That said, I would love to see any and all discussion or vids you cared to produce about Amy--I'm a great fan of your perspective on most things.

Prior to the season-ender last year, though I like Amy and Eleven, I was still really watching always and only for River. But when the themes all came together for everyone, I retroactively loved the whole thing with new eyes.
This makes me very, very happy. I find it an astonishing show in almost all ways, and unlike anything else I've ever seen. I am embarrassingly evangelical about it *g* And then I joke sometimes that Steven Moffat has written me a television show and is just being nice in letting the rest of y'all watch it too ;)