#doctorwhofail

I watch a lot of Doctor Who — New Who, yes, but we’re also working our way through the old series (we started with, and recently finished, the 4th/Tom Baker era, and are now on to 5th/Peter Davidson). I also Tweet, um, rather a lot. And so I often find myself tweeting about Doctor Who — and, being the kyriarchy-butt-kicker I like to think I am, I find myself tweeting about when Doctor Who fails. And oh, does it!

I don’t mean the inevitable science-hashing of all scifi (although, really, six minutes in deep space without a helmet before the cold gets to you? how about when your body explodes instantly from the relative pressure differentials??) — I mean the race fails, the “jungle primitives”/”noble savages” played by white folk in bronzer (or green body paint, depending). I mean the gender fails, with the screaming, “hysterical” woman, and the oh-so-calm and stoic men. I mean the disability fails, when physical “disfigurement” leads to “mental instability” leads to murdering everyone in sight. I could go on.

And sometimes, someone asks me why I care about the failures of a 30 year old show. Or says we’ve made such progress, eh? Or explains it away as “different times”.

My answer is: it may be easier to spot the failures from 30 years ago, and perhaps, yes, some few improvements have been made. But do you really think we’re so much better now? Really?

When was the last time you saw a trans woman on the screen, big or little, NOT played by a a cis woman (if the character is supposed to be “good”, but “deceptive”), or a highly masculine cis man (if the character is supposed to be “bad”, or “funny”)?

When was the last time you saw a person in a wheelchair who was not a one-line, one-dimensional character (or caricature)? …who was not played by a physically able-bodied person? (How about all those fancy CGI techniques to portray people with amputations? What, are there really no one-armed actors out there? Somehow, I find that hard to believe.) Or the Innocent Angel(TM), especially a person with Down’s syndrome or the like, whom a TAB must sweep in to rescue, there for the moralizing only.

And we’re still doing it on race, too. How many shows headline American Indians, or Aborigines? How many times do we figure “Japanese, Filipino, [or any other Asian or Asian-ish ethnicity] close enough”? How many women in hijab have you seen outside of the odd episode where they were used to make some Point about “religious oppression” or “cultural tolerance” — used for our ends, rather than fully realized persons/characters with their own reasons for covering, and concerns aside from that one choice?

We might pretend improvements have been made, we might pat ourselves on the back — but everything wrong with my favorite 30-year-old cheap-looking scifi show is still getting done wrong today. Fundamentally, the system that values certain bodies, and ignores others except when useful for its own purposes, still remains. There are no perfect, unproblematical shows: all of us who consume media in any form are complicit to some extent.

This is why I tweet about the failures of old pop media: because all the same problems are here and now, too. If we’re going to watch, we damn well should recognize the inherent flaws, the oppressive, damaging tropes as well. We must hold our entertainment accountable, and be responsible, or we are responsible for supporting the oppression and pain not just of made up characters, but of real people.

The Boychick (who, yes, watches Who with us) may be too young to have deep, nuanced conversations about this yet. (When he asked me “Why are those people green?”, I first, exasperated with the show, said that it was a highly ham-fisted and racist attempt at making a moralistic anti-racist statement, but then, upon his continued perplexion, said “green body paint”. I do give some nod to age-appropriate answers.) But I comment on the failures while watching, and The Man and I discuss the problematical plots, and as he grows, this is what I hope he’ll learn: that media can be enjoyed, loved even, but also can be, and must be, examined critically.