Why people are wrong about Doctor Who.

[sebastienne]

A lot of people of whom I am very fond have made the (very valid) deconstruction of Doctor Who as a white middle-class man who goes around the universe telling people how they ought to do things. I have often disclaimed that I choose to circumlegate these issues because of all the good things I get out of Doctor Who fandom, but a recent post on the Doctor Who Society mailing list has caused me to rethink this.

The Doctor's status as a middle-class white man is very tenuous. It is as tenuous as that of a trans man, because a medical examination could "out" him. It is as tenuous as that of a man on the autistic spectrum, because he learns the rules of human interaction as an outsider. His apparent class-status is part of that; he has learnt the best way to get what he wants is to adopt a certain kind of privileged-male arrogance, except when he's adopting some other persona in order to get what he wants. (Because what he wants is generally to avert catastrophe, save lives, etc, I won't begrudge him that too much.)

“How many heterosexual Doctor Who fans does it take to change a lightbulb? Both” provides an excellent analysis of the queerness of Doctor Who fans, and of the show itself, and points to some things that I had never even considered before as to why I love the show so very much.

Sadly, it's also perturbed me a little; is Moffat's tenure actually going to remove some of the Doctor's glorious queerness? While he was functionally asexual, he could be a queer cipher, a Holmesian "other" in a way I'd never fully analysed; but, unless Moffat gives him boyplots as romance-focussed as "The Girl in the Fireplace" and "Silence in the Library", a lot of the ways in which my dear Doctor differs from the standard sci-fi hero are going to be lost. I can take one Irene Adler, but a whole season of them will sadden me.

Comments

[flannelcat.livejournal.com]

I have the similar issues with Simon and River Tam in Firefly - I didn't see the lack of Chinese people in the Firefly universe until it was quite strongly pointed out to me, cos I read Simon and River as Chinese. Except for that part where actually, they're not).

...

You know, I did exactly the same thing?

Or rather, I read River as Chinese, even though I read Simon as British, and had no problem with the notion that they were brother and sister.

Also, the use of Chinese language / dress in the series has painted it as a much more multicultural society than it is - looking at it again, there's no chinese lead-actors, and very few in the background. I'd also painted Inara as Arabic, but turns out Morena Baccarin is Brazilian...

Have you read: http://www.racialicious.com/2009/02/16/joss-whedon-and-the-blurry-line-between-homage-and-appropriation/

(With apologies for derailing the topic)

[mejoff.livejournal.com]

This being because FOX wouldn't let Joss cast the chinese actors he wanted for the role and the arguments over that being one of the many cotributory factors in the show's treatment by that network.