The interview: [link]

I just think that he writes complex women better than almost any other male writer, despite himself.

I've seen that before: there are writers who are openly anti-feminist, and who might even say things about women that I disagree with fiercely--and yet in their fiction, they give me multiple women with complicated agendas and importance to the plot.

Granted, there aren't a lot of those writers, but it's more common than you would think. Possibly because actually writing sexist fiction results in bad fiction, or at least fiction with poor characterizations, IMO.

I've seen that before: there are writers who are openly anti-feminist, and who might even say things about women that I disagree with fiercely--and yet in their fiction, they give me multiple women with complicated agendas and importance to the plot.

Dave Sim used to write great women characters.

Amy, is that the article you're saying mitigates the quote? Because I don't see it.

After some foreplay on BBC3, and despite an American remake bombing last year, the clever sitcom about six friends in various states of romantic fulfilment is returning to BBC2 with Steve (Jack Davenport) and Susan (Sarah Alexander) - the couple loosely based on Moffat and his wife, also Susan, the producer of the show - awaiting the birth of their first child. Jane, played by Gina Bellman, is the fantasist, often handed the best lines, like this from the new run: "You can’t expect to come in for a few drinks and end up in my bed like some kind of taxi driver!" Sally (Kate Isitt) is the needy one.

"I don’t know how well women come out of Coupling," says Moffat, the son of a headmaster, who taught English in Greenock before following his original writerly instincts and scoring his first success with Press Gang. "There’s this issue you’re not allowed to discuss: that women are needy. Men can go for longer, more happily, without women. That’s the truth. We don’t, as little boys, play at being married - we try to avoid it for as long as possible. Meanwhile women are out there hunting for husbands."

I mean, he goes on to say:

So, post-New Man, post-Lad, where does the male of the species stand now? "Well, the world is vastly counted in favour of men at every level - except if you live in a civilised country and you’re sort of educated and middle-class, because then you’re almost certainly junior in your relationship and in a state of permanent, crippled apology. Your preferences are routinely mocked. There’s a huge, unfortunate lack of respect for anything male."

If Plei's right, there's stuff missing that makes him look like less of a royal ass, and I'm not finding it there.

I don't think it mitigates the quote, I just knew where to find it.

So, post-New Man, post-Lad, where does the male of the species stand now? "Well, the world is vastly counted in favour of men at every level - except if you live in a civilised country and you’re sort of educated and middle-class, because then you’re almost certainly junior in your relationship and in a state of permanent, crippled apology. Your preferences are routinely mocked. There’s a huge, unfortunate lack of respect for anything male."

Yeah, NSM with the mitigation.

It's the article I cut and pasted from above, so I was wondering what Plei's referring to.

The missing stuff was apparently him bashing his head and giving context for the quotes found in the article.

I can't find it, as I mentioned, which is irritating. (Actually, the really long NYT article on Coupling, Moffat, and Venture probably gives a better picture of what he's trying to say.)

Oh, and I'm sure he's a royal ass. Just not quite the sort of one that he's been painted of late.

It's the article I cut and pasted from above, so I was wondering what Plei's referring to.

Yeah, oops. I'm a crappy multitasker. Never mind. In fact, I'm on the phone right now, and I have no idea what I'm typing.

This is why I usually avoid reading interviews with writers and actors and other creators of my fiction! Too often I'm dismayed by them. But I stopped reading (for example) Dave Sim's work because it started to suck, not because he was a giant ass. As long as I like Moffat's work, I'll keep watching, regardless of what I might think of him personally. The work I've seen of his hasn't struck me as misogynistic. I've never seen Coupling; maybe I'd hate it. But I'd still like Sherlock. There are a lot of misogynistic writers out there, presenting women in way way worse light than Irene Adler. We're not getting rid of them anytime soon. I really don't see Moffat as much of a problem for feminism. Clearly some women find him too misogynistic to deal with, but I don't have to feel the same way.

I don't really care what Moffat thinks. Maybe he is a giant misogynistic ass. Maybe he really does think most women are needy, baby-craving, husband-hunting messes. (I can, honestly, see how a guy could end up thinking that. There are a lot of those women out there.) But all I care about is whether I like his writing; his opinions are Sue Vertue's problem, not mine.

What I'm surprised about is that of the six characters on Coupling, one was sane and adult, and it was a woman. There was a guy who could possibly achieve emotional adulthood, but it would definitely be because that one woman dragged him there. This is not the Moffat character, either. Moffat might dislike that kind of woman (articles make it sound so), but he wrote her well enough to fool me.

Opinions of the creator become important when I'm contributing to their wallet through direct revenue or ratings. I don't want to be responsible for the enrichment of people whose values I abhor, and I'm willing to "lose out" by not seeing/reading the material, or I'll "act out" by purloining it, but I do regard that kind of me caving and not upholding principles as often as I do see it as an act of rebellion.