bookshelfdreams:

mrv3000:

tinyconfusion:

sometimes i think back on rose tyler being the companion to usher in dw to a new generation and she was portrayed by billie piper as a common girl with baggy clothes and messy hair and such uncommon beauty and i’m just like, wow rtd really did give us a wholly imperfect, utterly extraordinary companion and made her the actual hero of the show … the power

This was actually a huge draw for me when I first started watching it. The first thing that we saw was this person with realistic bedhead waking up in a realistically messy room, and I was like YES. It was completely different from the manicured Hollywood version of girls/women that I’ve always seen, and it was so refreshing.

What strikes me as most transgressive about her character is that she’s working class - unambiguously, unapologetically. She doesn’t just wake up in a messy room; she wakes up in a tiny bedroom that barely fits her bed. Her hair is not expertly coiffed, she did it herself with a shitty blow dryer in front of a bathroom mirror with bad lightning. Her clothes, make-up and jewelry scream “late 00′s lower class girl”; she doesn’t have the money to develop a refined taste, but makes do with what she can afford. In all her seasons, she always looks kinda trashy, in a way none of the other companions ever did.

And that’s something I don’t think I have ever seen before, at least not in this kind of fantasy/adventure show. Even if the characters tell us they’re struggling economically, they always have that vague aura of middle/upper class about them, that comes with having an expensive wardrobe, perfect make up, a nice apartment, etc. Rose is different; nothing about her, from her home to her workplace is even remotely glamorous.

Class is something that is so seldom addressed in fiction - when it isn’t the whole point of the story, anyway.

also she has no problem telling the rich to go die. remember when she roasted cassandra