Thoughts on Doctor who (up to season 3)

[alias_sqbr]

Disclaimer: My "You are too stupid for the internet right now" warning beeper is sounding but I am in a mood to pontificate and the cat's wandered off. Also, spoilers, there's anyone who cares left who hasn't seen it.

So, I just finished Dr Who Season 3. Overall I really enjoyed it, but some bits were just..blah. Wrong. In the end I found the only way to process the arc so far is to see the Doctor as a condescending borderline-sociopath who prefers the company of those who don't challenge his intelligence or power. Still, the second last disk is made of like 99% pure awesome (with 1%: a maid? Really? Ew)

And so finally I can read all the meta I kept seeing on metafandom a year ago. And use it to say what I would but am too dumb to :) Unfortunately a little under half of them are flocked/deleted, which I guess is a sign of how intense the imbroglio got.

So:

Doctor Who and life and death: a nice synopsis of one of the themes of the season, good thinky (I say unthinky-ishly)

Meta: Martha Jones Is a Dork: exactly! I went into this season expecting to hate Rose (the doctor does not have a girlfriend!) and love Martha, and found myself liking them both (I hink there's a rule against that) but identifying much more with Martha because I am in love with David Tennant and he never returns my calls

Dealing with race in New Who: I totally agree that the complete avoidance of dealing with Martha's (or the other black characters) race in the historicals is just jarring (though "The Shakespeare Code" is one big silly anachronism anyway), and invalidates any point they were trying to make with "Daleks in Manhatten". One of my personal bugbears is whitewashing the past so that white/middle class/male etc viewers don't have to think about how nasty and oppressive their group used to be. Also , on a more shallow note, why on earth miss the chance to dress your characters in fancy dress? "Human Nature/Family of Blood" just make everything else look empty and crap and missing David Tennant in pretty clothes by comparison.

Mickey, Martha, and the Message that Doesn't Belong on Who and The myth of colorblindness: more on race in Doctor Who: It was funny for me going in to this show knowing there was this whole explosion in the middle of season 3, and it made me more attentive to portrayals of race than I might otherwise have been. There were many, many times earlier on when I went "Wait, and at this point people were happy with show's portrayal of race, how bad is it going to get?", the repeated themes of stupid cannon fodder slaves and black characters as second best were pretty darn creepy. The weird thing is I wasn't extra-specially offended by season 3 in particular, maybe because I'd already prepared myself for the way Martha is treated (and because I'm white, duh) Also, as a few people have asked: where are all the asians? That's like the constant mantra in tv sf, really :/

And do not get me started on the portrayal of women. The discussion on this post has a thing about the Doctor seeing his companions (and humans in general) as like adorable fluffy kittens: you love them to bits, but they're not really your equals, and you sure as hell wouldn't have sex with them. And of course in this context it makes perfect sense for him to prefer Rose (a young cute non-threatening ball of affectionate energy) to Martha and Jack (who are older, smarter, more sensible and competent, and in the case of Jack are almost a threat)

So, this may be utter crap I renounce later, and I will suck at comments until I feel a bit less stupid. Feel free to disagree (or agree!) anyway :) There's a whole other thing about how this Who compares to the old one but I'm not versed enough in old canon to do it.

Also, two three things that aren't covered above:
-Two different alien generated pig-people-things? With no relationship to each other? What's up with that?
-Have I ever mentioned that I have a soft spot for two friends/enemies who nobody else understands but are torn apart by their opposing/identical natures? No?
-It's a gas mask! I'd seen images from this scene before but it is SO much better in context :)

Comments

[greteldragon.livejournal.com]

Also, as a few people have asked: where are all the asians?

They used up their PC quota on Torchwood, or at least that was my first thought that came to mind.

(Oh god this is probably hilariously insensitive of me, sorry)

[elaran.livejournal.com]

oh LOL.

[tevriel.livejournal.com]

Torchwood is so not PC, if you factor in Tosh as Black Widow, as well as Tosh as Kind Of A Stereotype. Also, Torchwood's ability to address sex issues a lot means Torchwood is heavy on the Really, Do You Understand The Concept Of Consent, Like, At All? meta.

@Sophie:

I think you kind of have to let Doctor Who slide on a lot of the race-in-history stuff with Martha. Because, two things:

1) Kids' show

Yes, adults love it, and it's good for us too, but the BBC view Who as Family Viewing, which means they're not going to get into things that will be too questionable with children. Subtle gay and such they're getting away with, alongside some subtle allusions to racial tensions in The Shakespeare Code and The Family of Blood episodes, but serious racism? Not so much.

All aspects of history are seriously sanitised in Doctor Who, not just race relations.

2) The TARDIS loves us and wants us to be happy

The TARDIS, it is well-established, can enter people's brains. It translates. I could also see a justification for arguing that on some level it translates the existence of Martha Jones, black woman, for most people.

Mostly, though, I think it's the whole "intended to be appropriate for children" factor. If there were regular occurrences of Serious Racism happening in Who, even if presented as a Bad Thing, I wouldn't consider it appropriate viewing for children; "this is Martha, she happens to be black, but LOOK HOW AWESOME SHE IS" is something I'm more comfortable with.

As for where the Asians are: I blinked at this momentarily, and then I remembered I've been watching Japanese science fiction a lot lately, which kind of skews the Asian percentage in my recent TV experiences. (In that there were three white people I can recall in all the episodes of Kamen Rider Kabuto I've watched so far - and they were rude, stupid gaijin in one of the first episodes. It's weird being the minority getting portrayed offensively... but as I have the luxury of being accustomed to NOT being a minority, I don't really care.)

It may be my TV-influenced perception, but for Doctor Who, at least - I just don't get the impression there are that many (people we would call) Asians in England. (I have seen Indian-background-type people refer to themselves as Asian, but I *have* seen Indian-type people in Doctor Who.) Whereas their black population is substantial.

[greteldragon.livejournal.com]

Hm. That was intended as a fairly smartarse comment.

*ponders for a bit*

So is the idea of having an Asian person as the "Asian stereotype" (or a kind of one) better or worse then a show just not having Asian people at all? Especially when your not sure what the intent is.

[wolfhound.livejournal.com]

Im impressed I couldnt watch more than 2 minutes of kamen riders :)

[alias_sqbr]

Yes, adults love it, and it's good for us too, but the BBC view Who as Family Viewing, which means they're not going to get into things that will be too questionable with children. Subtle gay and such they're getting away with, alongside some subtle allusions to racial tensions in The Shakespeare Code and The Family of Blood episodes, but serious racism? Not so much.

All aspects of history are seriously sanitised in Doctor Who, not just race relations.

A certain amount of sanitisation, absolutely. All I want is, say, a bad guy underestimating her because she's black, or someone being slightly racist and then realising she's awesome and taking it back. And not all the time, just more than I got: the depiction in "Human Nature" was about right imo.

And the thing is they used to do this. I haven't watched much Old Who recently, but there was some attempt at deconstructing sexism in the 70s one I watched, and there's several examples given in one of the posts I linked to:
http://calapine.livejournal.com/373940.html?thread=5894068&format=light#t5894068
http://calapine.livejournal.com/373940.html?thread=5906868&format=light#t5906868

Also some examples of easy ways they could have dealt with race without making it a big deal, or depressing:
http://calapine.livejournal.com/373940.html?thread=5883316&format=light#t5883316
http://calapine.livejournal.com/373940.html?thread=5905588&format=light#t5905588

I've been watching Japanese science fiction a lot lately, which kind of skews the Asian percentage in my recent TV experiences

Heh, that doesn't count :)

Mm, I was mostly talking about Indians/Sri Lankans etc, since my in-laws are anglo-indians it's something I'm aware of.
I've seen some but there still don't seem to be that many. *checks Wikipedia* As I thought, there's more asians than people of african descent in London, yet from my admittedly subjective perception that wasn't the look of the show (and I would say the cast overall was more than 70% white, though as has been mentioned they were shooting in almost-entirely-white Wales)

EDIT: Also, I personally think it's vitally important that children be made aware of racism/sexism etc from the past (and present). In a sanitised, simplified, optimistic way, sure, but it's something they need to be aware of, or they're going to come to the "logical" conclusion that black people are just naturally poorer, and that women in the past liked not having any power, etc. I am am continuously grateful to my parents for teaching me about that stuff from a young age.

EDIT 2: Also, as a child, I was continuously annoyed at the terrible inaccuracies and whitewashing of history in things like Dr Who. Stuff like that is one of the reasons I decided all science fiction and fantasy was crap.