Doctor Who?!?

(Pardon the formatting, blogger is doing weird things right now....)



For those who saw my Facebook post, this is a clarification; I was on a mobile device and didn’t feel like taking the time to type a rant out on the phone. For those who didn’t, you didn’t miss much.

Fair warning: Rant incoming. If you’re easily offended, don’t read this. As Scotty once said, “Everyone’s entitled to their opinion.” (and then he punched the guy he disagreed with… bad analogy, perhaps.)

TL;DR synopsis: Peter is upset that the thirteenth Doctor is a woman. Peter is upset because he thinks it damages the character and our understanding of what make men and women unique. Peter is also upset because this is a politically motivated event that doesn’t take a good understanding of the human person into consideration. This move is symptomatic of the identity confusion phenomenon and how the elite want to compel everyone to accept it as normal, by any means necessary. Peter is not upset because he hates women; Peter actually likes women in real life and in fiction. Peter knowns that you likely won’t read this whole post. Peter doesn’t blame you or think you’re an idiot if you disagree, but he might respectfully point out that several of your premises are incorrect. Peter welcomes (well-thought-out) comments and discussion.

The BBC did something today that has made me (and likely a good number of other fans) very upset. They have cast Jodie Whittaker as the next incarnation of the Doctor from the beloved sci-fi franchise, Doctor Who.

Yes, I’m upset that the Doctor is a woman. But before folks start yelling “You’re being misogynistic!” or some slurish variation of that or some other derogatory statement about my mental state, character, religion, background, or family that raised me to think this way, allow me to clarify.

I have no problem – repeat, no problem whatsoever – with female protagonists / leads in stories, regardless of medium. I read books with female protagonists, I watch movies and TV shows with female protagonists, I read comics (few enough as I read) with female protagonists. I don’t care. If the story is good and the character speaks for herself as a character and doesn’t fixate on the fact that she’s a woman, but rather focuses on her as a person; you know, the complete complexity of what it means to be human with all the little parts that constitute that experience (gender being one of them), without taking one part and making it the sole defining factor of who this character is, then I’ll like the story and the character. I’ve read / seen some lovely heroines and I’ve seen awful ones. The spectrum is pretty wide; as it should be.

Also: this is not to be seen as an attack on the actress who has been cast. I know nothing about her and therefore cannot comment on her acting ability. And honestly, my issue currently doesn’t have to do with acting ability. Nor is it an attack on her person; I know nothing about her and cannot make character judgements; nor would I, in this case, as it has nothing to do with her, but rather has everything to do with the principle of the matter.

What I have a problem with is taking a character and forcibly changing them from male to female (I would have a problem the other way too, but I don’t really see that very often [except perhaps the new Ghostbusters *shudder*]). There are several reasons why I find this to be an issue. Let’s go into them, shall we?

1) It demeans women.

Aha! You didn’t think that would be my first point, did you? Basically, what this comes down to is when we make a woman play a feminized version of a male character, it says that a woman has only “made it” when she can do things that men do. Not can she do the things that make her happy, but she has to live up to men’s expectations (or surpass them) to “prove” herself to them, so that she’s “one of the boys.” It makes it about the gender, not the person. In this case, it makes the woman into a political pawn, used by the elite, to try to force social acceptance or change on other people. No one should be used like that! It also reduces a character to his or her gender. Making it all about “I’m a woman and I don’t need help!” removes all the other aspects of a character; most often, it removes parts that make a character relatable: her vulnerability (everyone has this, it’s not unique to female characters, get over yourself), her humour, her talents, her shortcomings, basically, everything that makes her human plays second fiddle to this one thing: her sex. This makes stories about this character become less complex because that’s the only aspect of the character that is allowed to be showcased. On a side note: It also lends itself to moderate Mary Sue-ism, which leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth…




2) It destroys the character.



In this case, the Doctor has a 50 year history. In that time, he has always been, well, a man. He sees the world in that way, his experiences are informed by that, and his character has become part of our cultural psyche that way. There’s no reason to change him, other than a political move. It’s inconsistent with the past (although, through the Moffet years, they have been softening audiences up for this). As some of the actors who have played the Doctor have pointed out: there is a dynamic between the Doctor and his (almost exclusively) female companions that simply cannot be captured in the same way if you swap the roles. The Doctor is amazing, but he bumbles through somethings and, often, misses the important human elements, that the companion brings up, teaches him about, and then helps him implement. This showcases the feminine genius and allows the companion to aid in her own way that adds to the story (sometimes even taking it over, huzzah Clara!). But think if it were swapped. People will begin to say that a man can’t tell a woman what to do or help, because then it shows that the woman isn’t smart enough and is, once again, discriminatory. Also, taking a male template and turning him female will result in personality discrepancies, as some traits don’t translate well.

In addition, there will, undoubtedly, be multiple references and observations about the Doctor’s difference throughout the next series, meaning that this will become the focus for the character, that is her defining characteristic. For me, at least, that makes a character unwatchable as it makes the show no longer about the characters and story, but more about shoving this new change down your through with a rusty iron plunger.





3) It demeans men.

Ok. I know you were expecting this one. How does it do this, you may ask? It continues a trend that I have observed in the media where there are no strong male leads. Take a look at many of the big name movies, comics, or TV shows that are coming out. Most of them have female leads. Having a female lead is not bad, in itself (see above), but the pattern is alarming. It shows how the focus in show business is no longer about making equal roles for men and women, but rather supplanting the male hero role. I can’t have a male lead in a show or a film, because it would be seen as “sexist.” A show is only good if it does something like this, it makes progress if it has a female or otherwise different character. If a new role is a man, it’s stuck in the past, if it’s a woman, it’s “fresh, new, or progressive.” Also, if I say anything about this, I’m a bigot. It’s a quiet display of the fact that being a man is no longer good enough in society, in fact, it’s often negative. Yes, yes, there are many previous male roles, but I’m talking about what’s coming out now, not in the past. Basically, what I have observed it a majority of films today say “men = bad or stupid (sometimes comically so); women = smart, sexy, in-control leaders. This is a gross over-simplification, but it’s there.



4) It removes a role model.

People say “there have been so many male heroes, our girls need role models too, give them some good heroines!” I say, Yes! Our young women, need heroines to look up to. They need women who exemplify what it is to be a good human being in a way that they can relate to. (on a side note: I would also argue that they need to see good male heroes, so they can tell who the good guys are in real life). But with the surplus of new female heroines and the lack of new male heroes and the gender swapping of those who remain, who are the young boys going to look up to? You want them to grow up into good men? They only have these awful men in other shows and movies to see how a man behaves. And “monkey see, monkey do.” If that’s how men behave in the movies, then it must be ok for little Johnny to do so as well.

Sure, there are the past incarnations of the Doctor (and other past male heroes), but with this new one, most younger audiences are going to think of the Doctor as a woman. People today, only live in the present and so, only the current version of a character is likely to speak to them, since that’s all that they see. (Is this the case everywhere? No. But it’s common enough).



5) It will totally mess with the fan base.



This is a somewhat minor point, but you know the terms “teenybopper” or “fangirl” (or even “fanboy” [but that tends to have negative connotations])? This is when a fan, usually a young girl, is infatuated with a character. I’ve seen this with Legolas in the Lord of the Rings, The Doctor, and other folks like Malcom Reynolds. By changing the Doctor into a woman, this factor is removed. While this may lessen the rabies-esque obsession that fans have with the character (and I’m ok with that), it takes that part of the market appeal away and may end up hurting the franchise in the long run. Not an extremely important point, but an observation.



6) It points to a lack of creativity….

This is one of my major problems with the film/television industry for various other reasons, but I’ll apply it here. By doing this change, the powers that be have basically said, we can’t make a new character like this, so we’ll just change this one. Think about it for a second: if you saw characters like “Jane Bond,” “Lady Thor,” or something like that you would know that they just took a previously existing character and swapped a few things, but left it mostly the same.

It takes work to create a new character, with her own motivations, thoughts, feelings, etc. Making a big deal about how this is the “FIRST FEMALE [insert famous male character]” only makes us immediately compare this character to the old one. It tips the audience off that you didn’t actually come up with anything new, you just changed this for some reason (likely a cash grab). It also immediately raises the hackles of people who don’t like this sort of thing because they actually are misogynistic. This doesn’t allow the character to stand on her own merits as she is always standing in comparison, often by the writers and creators themselves.. So, if you’re writing a new story, you can base your new character on aspects of another character, sure… But make her unique, we don’t need carbon copies… They tend to make a stir and then get lost in their own mediocrity and uncreativeness…



7) It damages our perception of men and women.



Men and women are created equal, but different. A man is not a woman and a woman is not a man. They are not inter-changeable. They have similar faculties and abilities, but they aren’t exactly identical. Equal here doesn’t not mean qualitatively identical; it means qualitatively comparable. I won’t go into the details of the differences and awesome uniqueness of both sexes, but suffice it to say that we’re different in abilities, but not in dignity. Making this swap further pushes the notion that there is no difference between men and women (this is the benign version, the more malignant kind is that women are better than men), that each can do, experience, accomplish the same things the other can (although many feminists would be quick to point out that men can’t understand women on certain issues because they “can’t experience it.”). Besides this being patently false, this becomes just another move in the large social push for a moral ambiguity that I find alarming. This reduction of everyone to being exactly the same takes the diversity and uniqueness out of life. It reminds of the Incredibles: “Everybody is special, Dash.” “Which is another way of saying no one is…”

Of course, the writers for Doctor Who could write some fantastic scripts and make side-step several of my points If they are able to, huzzah! That’s some good writing that takes a whole person into account. I do hope that they are able to pull that off. However, it won’t undo the fact that this politically minded decision does damage to the character and to our perception of men and women.

There are, of course, many other things that I could go into. But since I’m not 100% sure that I expressed all of this clearly, I shall stop here.

Side note: Some may say that I’m over-reacting, but I wasn’t wrong when I said this would happen once the showrunners revealed Missy. Food for thought.

If you have any comments or want to discuss this, or point out errors, I welcome a dialogue.

The only thing that I won’t tolerate is degenerating into name-calling or simply emotional arguments. That doesn’t constitute a discussion, it constitutes monkeys throwing poop at each other in the trees, tainting everyone and everything around them.

Thus endeth the rant.