In order to fight an ongoing cast of ridiculous kitchen appliances
Jim Wright on the Doctor Who scandal.
So, the new Doctor is … <horrified gasp!> … a WOMAN
A woman.
Can you believe it?
The New Doctor can’t be … <horrified gasp> … a WOMAN!
No no no! The Doctor, a time traveling non human alien from a distance planet in a fictional universe who has regenerated, what? ten? eleven? times now from the dead into a different body in order to fight an ongoing cast of ridiculous kitchen appliances using really, really shitty special effects over, I dunno, 30 years or more, yeah THAT guy, has to be a white dude.
Has. To. Be. A. White. Dude.
Because that’s why you watch this dopey British science fiction show, right?
Sure, you watch it to see the same shit over and over — with British accents, which makes it totally cool despite the goofy story lines and discount special effects. Same shit, over and over. And over. And over. Same guy, just in different skin. Same villains. Same themes. Same episodes. Same shit. Exterminate! Exterminate!
It’s like Star Trek, same five characters, same five episodes, recycled over and over. And over. And over. It’s the plucky Captain, the robot/alien guy with no emotions, the comic relief guy with the funny accent, the ranty emotional guy, and The Knockers. Time travel saves the day. Logic saves the day. Emotion saves the day. The computer goes berserk! And the Ongoing Alien Menace! Repackaged, recycled, over and over. Oh look, it’s the time loop episode again, why doesn’t anybody believe Ranty Emotion Guy!
First the women came for the Ghost Busters, then Star Wars, then the Marvel Universe, now the Doctor is a chick.
Goddamn. WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO NOW? WE’RE IN SOME REAL PRETTY SHIT NOW, AREN’T WE! WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO NOW?
Because, yeah, wouldn’t want to TRY ANYTHING NEW IN OUR OUTER SPACE TIME TRAVELING ADVENTURE. Nope nope nope. Need a white dude. Just an old white British dude. Because that’s why we go time traveling in outer space, right? To see the same stuff we have RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW…
Oh, it is “worse” than that.
The Doctor was previously a man, and is now a woman. So she must be a Trans.
That should bring out some reactions.
It should be possible to call out the misogyny of some fans without attacking the show itself. But that would be a shorter piece, I suppose.
@David Evans #2
Those were exactly my thoughts. I’d have more time for this if it didn’t go off on an ally-alienating rant about Doctor Who, Star Trek and by implication a lot of other sci fi.
The proposed gender change has been talked about for a decade. And other ‘Time lord’ characters have changed genders already. Going back to the recent standard of ‘decorative’ looking, under 30 Drs is to be regretted. Why not a female Doctor of roughly equivalent age (and assumed gravitas) to Capaldi, or Pertwee, or for that matter Hartnell?
Aw, come on, Davids – sci fi isn’t to everyone’s taste, and Wright’s rant is funny, at least I think so. (I say that even though he blocked me on Twitter recently for disputing something he said, after he had invited people to dispute what he was saying.) And “ally-alienating”? What, liking sci fi is a political requirement now?
Ophelia, who knew sci-fi could bring out tone-trolling?
With the Doctor, a lot of the usual excuses why we couldn’t possibly have a non-white male play the role don’t work.
I mean, I’m somewhat sympathetic to the argument that James Bond should be a man. Bond is usually depicted as a role model of sophisticated masculinity and/or the poster child for outdated machismo, depending on your point of view. Arguably, that is a big part of what makes Bond “Bond,” as opposed to just a generic “spy who saves the world.” I’m not saying that’s a persuasive argument — you could do another take on Bond that didn’t require that element, just as the Craig version differed from the others, etc. — but I can see respectable arguments for resisting a female Bond.
With the Doctor, though, I really don’t get it. The entire point of all these different regenerations is that the Doctor doesn’t have to be any particular physical type: he can be old or young, tall or short, thin or not. Even his accent changes.
The Doctor has never been a particularly sexual character — hence the strong fan reactions to the 8th Doctor kissing someone in the Fox telemovie, and mixed feelings over the ambiguous relationship the 9th and 10th had with Rose. Nor has he been a commentary on masculinity; the Doctor is pretty much as oblivious to gender roles as he is to most human customs. Which, ironically, means that despite being about as progressive on gender issues as you could ask someone to be, the Doctor has still enjoyed a lot of male privilege during his interactions with humans, probably often without realizing it. In fact, while I assume the producers will try to avoid the accusation that the show is now all about the Doctor being a woman, I expect it will be pretty hard to avoid that the 13th Doctor is going to find herself in situations where the “look, I’m clever, so start listening to me now” routine that worked so well for her predecessors doesn’t fly any more. Or where the local good guys are constantly looking to her male companion (I’m guessing) to affirm that yes, the Doctor’s plan is a good one.
Well perhaps ‘ally-alienating’ was a bit much… I just meant there are lots of Doctor Who fans who are very supportive of the casting and it seems unnecessary to agree with them before then turning round and more or less saying ‘but you lot are idiots too’. It might not have been intended to be read that way but there’s a line between fun self-deprecation and mockery and more cutting commentary, and this just struck me as going on into rant territory.
Maybe I just came over unusually sensitive and patriotic at ‘dopey British science-fiction show’.
I do like being one of the ‘Davids’ though, like a special club :)
@ John
10 years? Sydney Newman was planning to move towards a female actor in 1986…
Funniest thing I read about this was a commentator who said a women could never be the Dr because Dr Who was a British Male! Apparently the fact that the Dr is not human, let-alone British, and part of the canon is that time lords change sex, colour and personality when they regenerate went woosh over their head.
Dave @ 8 – sorry about your pain then! I just took it as one of those deliberately exaggerated for effect rants, which usually make me laugh.
Ophelia, maybe someone who doesn’t like sci fi should not be going out of his way to criticise a sci fi show. I have zero interest in baseball movies and would therefore not choose to criticise one. If I wanted to discuss misogyny among fans I would do just that.
I don’t recall quite as much fuss over the lead character being female in a different major science fiction television show two decades ago: Captain Janeway on Star Trek:Voyager. Maybe there was and I didn’t notice or don’t remember?
David Evans – why not? What’s wrong with criticizing an example of a genre one doesn’t like?
Sackbut,
There definitely was a backlash over Janeway. Social media wasn’t really a thing yet, and I was never really part of any online Trek communities, but even so I recall seeing some fulminating about political correctness and such. Especially with Voyager having her first officer be (supposedly) Native American, with a black Vulcan security officer, an Asian ensign, and a mixed race chief engineer. Plus the prior series, Deep Space Nine, cast Avery Brooks as the commander, so there was a lot of “oh, I guess the captain after this will be a disabled Indonesian transsexual ha ha ha!” (The next captain was, in fact, a white male — Scott Bakula.)
Janeway also comes in for a large amount of hate among Trek fandom to this date, though I would hesitate to blame misogyny. Voyager was in my opinion the weakest of the series (excluding Enterprise because I only saw a little of it), and the writers really did have Janeway make some controversial decisions, so you can build a case against her in a way that you can’t for the other captains. Which arguably makes her the more interesting character. But I’d better stop before this comment reaches galactic proportions….
Yeah… I was mildly narked by his, “Sci Fi is crap anyway,” stance. But then I am a middle aged SF fan who has heard all this before. SF is a much despised genre – very often unfairly so – and even with the explosion in quality fantasy SF&F TV, the literati still see it as a body of work that it’s fair game to deride. As well as deriding those of us who love it.
And, yeah, if the criticisms made were valid then that’d be one thing. God knows DW and ST – and genre TV in general – have enough faults you can legitimately criticise them for! As, of course, is true of every other genre of TV shows… Sturgeon’s Law: “95% of everything is crud”. But it’s not really what he’s going for, which feels more like cheap shots. I don’t think being uncomfortable that he’s chosen to critique SF and its fans in a stereotypical and inappropriate way is “tone trolling”. What? SF fans don’t have the right to ask for respect for themselves and the genre we love? His comments kind of come across as, “Yeah, the Doctor’s a woman. Complaining is sexist, and anyway this is just a silly TV show from a silly genre, so why take it seriously anyway? Amirite bro?”
I have always loathed the genre known as “literary fiction” – and most of all, the fact it’s adherents see it as somehow more worthy and more challenging than any other genre. Doesn’t mean I can’t see that it has some strengths (though rather less than it’s reputation as The Literary Form would suggest). They all hate SF with a passion for… reasons. Not sure why SF&F gets it in the neck even more than Fantasy, Westerns, Crime etc etc. but after a while, being told you’re immature, adolescent, living your parents’ basement, emotionally backward, socially inept, sexually inexperienced, friendless (which is a real laugh. SF fans could out socialise any other group on the planet. Even with the high number of introverts in our ranks), are ugly, probably have poor hygiene, can’t cope with adult life in the real world… and the genre you love is sterile, panders to the tastes of immature adolescent boys, is poorly written, exists for its fans to reject reality, is all fighting in space.
It may not sound like much but when you’ve put up with these attitudes your entire life, it gets pretty annoying.
I leave you with a quote from the late, great Terry Pratchett:
* the Hugo Award is a prestigious SF book award presented at the World SF Convention each year
David Evans:
Steamshovelmama take note also. Maybe someone who doesn’t know Jim Wright’s work shouldn’t make assumptions. Jim Wright loves sci-fi. He just doesn’t like Dr Who that much. It is possible to love sci-fi and not like Dr Who. I don’t watch Dr Who for the same reason I didn’t watch ST:TNG; I don’t want to encourage the makers of what I consider second-rate (or worse) sci-fi.
Jim is the designer and maker of gifts presented to all the 2015 Hugo Award nominees, at the request of his good and dear friend David Gerrold. And thereby hangs a tale. Read this, you’ll laugh your ass off. It’s a Facebook link. Read the long version.
http://bit.ly/2vigI2i