Missy holding her compact mirror to look over her shoulder, from Witch's Familiar.

I always seem to remember Missy's little mirror featuring a lot more than it did.


It's called a Compact, in english, I've learned since starting more intense research for this page; Which refers both to the type of object that has makeup in it, makeup and a mirror, or just the little folding mirror. Good to know.
Anyways, I can kind of understand why it left such a disproportionate impact in my memory- it's a powerfully high femme object.


Just think about it- the wrist flourish and gentle cupping it requires, the tilting of the head.
It's an object that elicits a physicality- and makes you see yourself while doing that.


(Witch's) Familiar?

Missy leans into the Doctor's space, showcasing her device in a similar manner, arm outstretched, head tilted, red nailpolish visible in the flurishing hold. This is the Device with which she vapourises people, and she's showing the horrified doctor Her cyberman taking over the world.

Missy uses similar mannerisms for Violence.

I'm not all that big on the whole 'Women Watch Themselves; Women Live In Third Person' narrative; Or at the very least, I find it limited and very Twentieth Century- culture has changed, and if the recent discourse on the 'Performative Male' is any indication, self-objectification and facade are widely found traits in the Gender Market.

Hegemonic masculinity is a life-long entraping preformence too.

Still, I think that notion of Seeing Yourself Gesture enccapsulates something about Missy very well.


There's this great quote about the essence of Camp:

“In my opinion, camp is simply a matter of doing things as if you are doing them. Diving into a swimming pool? Throw your arms heavenward and give it the full Esther Williams treatment. When you dive into a pool as if you are diving into a pool, as opposed to executing an earnest quotidian plop, the result is magical—that pool is transformed from a grody Band Aid–strewn chlorine bath into a veritable LAGOON! Smoking a cigarette? Perform the action as if you are a French existentialist.”

]
— Simon Doonan, Transformer: A Story of Glitter, Glam Rock & Loving Lou Reed"
This is very much the case with Missy; One of my favorite moments is in Death In Heaven, when you can see her eyes moving, an idea forming, and then she crosses the screen to the right position against a gravestone so that she can strike a pose. You can literally see the calculagtion of calculated preformence happening to make sure that If she'll die, she'll die larger than life.
kill

A hot new move the children are calling Killing Myself In Front Of You To Change Your Bond And The Trajectory Of Your Lives Forever.

So- being a preforemnce, being Camp doesn't make something less real. Rather, as the quote explains, it can- Enhance, stretch out. That's what puts Missy in the pantheon of some of the Greatest Queer Gender Representation ever, in my opinion- the showy villain streak as part of the character's own life experience and belief, creating a woman who's clearly delighted by her own performence & existence, eating up every moment of her life. But she's still The Master- there's an element of calculation to it all, and, as we see in s10- limits to what emotion she'll ALLOW herself to show.

A Bit Like Spot Checking a Loud Look:

As long as the Master is dedicated to Cultivating Face and Reputation, even an intentionally negative one, she can afford to look Wild, but not to act without considering apperance, or- not go wild.
The context of her Affecting performence mostly shows, then, what kind of lies and truths she wants to tell.

VAULT ERA

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A png of Missy's bust, in profile, holding up her mirror in ring-laden hands, side-eyeing the viewer- while her eye in the mirror, lightly glowing, looks straight at you. Edited out of some poster.