“Raggedy Man, Goodnight”

Thank you, Matt

A Letter to Doctor Who’s Steven Moffat

Following the announcement of Peter Capaldi as the 12th Doctor, Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat commented on the possibility of Female Doctor or a Doctor of Color. He said:

“It’s absolutely narratively possible. And when it’s the right decision, maybe we’ll do it. But it didn’t feel right to me right now. I didn’t feel enough people wanted it. Oddly enough most people who said they were dead against it – and I know I’ll get in trouble for saying this – were women. They said ‘don’t make him a woman!’ Not that I was influenced by that. I’m influenced by nothing, obviously. What would I say to Helen Mirren? It’s time that a man played the Queen. Step aside for a man!”

I have tried a few times now to address his comments in a variety of ways, but I never really found a way to describe just why I’m bothered by this. This is all I got:

 

Dear Steven Moffat,

Like every Doctor Who fan on the planet, I was so excited for the 12th Doctor announcement. I tried to ignore most of the online guessing, preferring instead to discover this new Doctor in whatever method you and your team devised. See, I’m a fan of yours. I have truly loved the past three seasons and the stories that you’ve had to tell. The Doctor has never been better. His female companions, however, have had better times. While Amy, River, and Clara all have redeeming qualities, you have created three woman that are mostly “problems” for the Doctor to solve, and then once he has solved them, they have become tag-along women defined mostly by their men. Despite my objections to this, I still watch and I am still impressed by your narrative commitments over these three seasons. 

And so there I was, waiting with the rest of the world to see who you had in store for season eight. We were hoping that you would rise to the expectation of this era. We hoped that you would recognize your show for the social and cultural platform that it is and introduce a Doctor that we had not seen before. But instead, you let us down. While I’m a fan of Peter Capaldi’s and I think he will make a good Doctor, I was hoping at long last for a Doctor of color. I’ve written before about not wanting a female Doctor (mostly because, as I already alluded to, I don’t really trust you to write women) but I would have preferred that even to another white male Doctor. 

So we have another white male Doctor, and I think many of us could have gotten on with it, accepted it for what it was, and then just waited until the 13th Doctor. But then you had to ruin it. Following Capaldi’s announcement, you made comments that suggested that you never even considered about a female Doctor or a Doctor of Color. I think it was your comment that you are “influenced by nothing, obviously,” when deciding who the Doctor was. Mr. Moffat, I’m a twenty-something Latina who loves your show. I even made my friends drive me all the way to Cardiff just to go to the Doctor Who Experience. Does my opinion really matter so little? Do the opinions of so many fans and so many viewers who supported a different and progressive Doctor really mean so little to you?  

What really gets me about this comment is that you clearly do not understand the merits of a non-white, non-male Doctor. You address Helen Mirren’s comments about a female Doctor by saying that “It’s time that a man played the Queen. Step aside for a man!” It really saddens me to have to teach you this, but you have been quoted as saying “Step aside for a man” which is almost literally a woman’s worst nightmare, so here goes: women and people of color have been oppressed by white men for far too long. We live in an exciting era where we are finally starting to see some changes. Despite this, women and people of color must fight to achieve the success that white men just naturally expect. The past twenty years have been packed with incredible instances of progressive achievements, but we are not done. We look to build an even more diverse society along with an entertainment industry that reflects it to support and encourage everyone who lives in our society.  

I shouldn’t have to tell you what kind of platform you have. Being the showrunner of Doctor Who means that you have full creative control over the most iconic television show of all time. Men and women of all backgrounds and walks of life watch Doctor Who and look to the Doctor and The Doctor’s companion to reflect a part of their lives and entertain them. You had the opportunity to prove to your audience that you see the struggles of creating a multicultural society and demonstrate your support of these efforts by selecting a female Doctor or a Doctor of color. But instead you chose to bash even the very notion of this kind of Doctor, hurting your audience. 

 So, no, Mr. Moffat, Helen Mirren will not step aside for a man. I will not step aside for a man, and your audience will not step aside for a man. I really cannot put into words how disappointed I am in you, your comments, and your decision. Your comments make me question even watching the show. If you do not appreciate your audience and their opinions, why then should we appreciate you and your work? I’m hurt by your personal opinions and feelings on the matter, but I hoped that you would be able to put that aside for the interest of the show and the audience, let alone your responsibility as a showrunner. But you didn’t. You chose your selfish interest and outdated opinions instead of a conscious message to a progressive society. 

 I don’t really know what else I want to say to you. I hope you take the time to reflect on what you said following the 12th Doctor announcement and analyze what was so hurtful about it. I hope you question and challenge yourself as to why you said that in the first place and where those comments come from. I hope you take the time to re-evaluate your commitment and responsibility to your audience. Doctor Who fans deserve better.

– The Nerdy Girl

Why The Twelfth Doctor Shouldn’t be a Woman (From a Feminist)

When the BBC announced that Matt Smith was leaving Doctor Who this year following the Christmas special, I was at an all-day music festival. It was raining so my friends and I retreated to our apartment to wait out the storm. I checked twitter and lo and behold, Smith’s departure was everywhere. Reflecting on this now, I’m still surprised by my reaction because it was both intrinsic and insane. I freaked out. I terrified my friends (they thought someone had died) and all I could do was pace around the room. In this next hour, news sites continued to announce the Eleventh Doctor’s news and I continued to be mopey and already missed Eleven. In the next hour, it began: who will be the Twelfth Doctor?

(A brief aside before I continue: Could we possibly have had a few more minutes to miss Mr. Smith before everyone started talking about who would follow in his shoes? His own announcement and what it entailed disrupted his own departure. As an avid Doctor Who fan (I still feel weird calling myself a Whovian, but that is for another post), I am curious to see who Eleven will regenerate into come Christmas Day, but part of me only wants to discover that on Christmas Day. Let it be mystery, and until then, let us say good-bye to Eleven.)

Many bloggers, critics, entertainment columnists and the like began compiling lists of who they wanted for Twelve. Many famous names were suggested, many not-so-famous names were suggested, but many suggested that a woman take over the role. Helen Mirren even argued that she’s “so sick of that man with his girl sidekick. I could name at least ten wonderful British actresses who would absolutely kill in that role.” Now, I can’t believe I’m going to disagree with Dame Helen Mirren, but I’m going to disagree with Dame Helen Mirren. I’m tired of The Doctor and his female companion too, but that’s because I’m tired of the way it has been written. Since the Ninth Doctor told Rose Tyler to “RUN” in the 2005 reboot, each companion has mostly served as a romantic interest (with Donna Noble as the lone exception). Even Amy Pond, future mother-in-law to Eleven, spent most of the fifth series confused and wanting The Doctor. Dame Helen, I’m tired of this easy romantic plot too, but I do not think that a female Doctor is the way to do it.

There’s the feminist side of me who loves to see women achieve equal status and more than a man. I love to see a woman take on a man’s role; Lucy Liu, for example, kills it as Joan Watson, the now-female companion to Jonny Lee Miller’s Sherlock Holmes in CBS’s Elementary. But as a Doctor Who fan, I have to disagree in this one case. In Elementary’s case, Miss Watson worked because it was an American re-boot of a popular story where she was always and will always be female in this version of Holmes’ world. We do not have the same framework in Doctor Who. Yes, The Doctor regenerates, but the show does not start over. His past regenerations are all a part of him and his past, and while aspects of him change in each regeneration, The Doctor at his core remains unchanged. At his core, the Doctor is a man. He was born a man, he has regenerated time and time again into a man, and he should stay a man.

Many argue that history and tradition in Who means we must have a white male in the role. Screw history and tradition. White male privilege has played little to no role in history or tradition on this show. I’m talking now about character. As a character, the Doctor is male; it’s a constant between all his regenerations and is central to every decision he makes and how he operates. Perhaps this is taking this too seriously, but I have a hard time with those who think his regeneration could lead to a simple gender swap. Going from man to woman has repercussions for an individual, and even The Doctor cannot avoid that. If the show were will to explore these repercussions and what this means for the Twelfth Doctor, then I would be all for a female Doctor. But I know that the show will not commit in this way. I’m also not comfortable with a female Doctor because I do not trust Steven Moffat or any of the other writers to create a female Twelve. In his past three seasons as showrunner, Moffat has given us incredible stories but he has created women like Amy Pond, who is always followed around by her husband/baby-sitter, Rory, who must give her “permission” to hug other men; Clara Oswald, the new half-written companion who is mostly just sassy and wants to be with Eleven; and River Song, the badass half-Time Lord who starts out as an ass-kicker but has mostly come to be defined by her marriage to the Doctor. I don’t really want to see Moffat’s female Doctor. I can already imagine all the body jokes, the women jokes. Perhaps I could even handle Moffat’s female Doctor if there was a least one female writer on his team, but there has not been a female writer since Helen Raynor in Series Four. If The Doctor is going to be a woman, can’t we at least see some women write her? I’m tired of watching Doctor Who’s women come from the minds of men, I want to see a woman written by a woman.

With all this said, I absolutely support a man of color in the role. Jennifer Ouellette argues for a female Doctor because “It’s a perspective on history he hasn’t experienced yet: that of being the “other” in, shall we say, a less than enlightened time. It changes everything: where he can go, what behavior is appropriate, how others respond to him (both intellectually and sexually).” As I’ve already explained, I don’t agree with this logic in terms of a female Doctor, but her argument still aligns with a Black, Latino, or Muslim Doctor. As a Man of Color, The Doctor will get to experience more than just a new body, he will get to experience the way many of male AND female viewers experience the world.

And then, of course, some might say “why does any of this matter? It’s just a show.” It’s a show, but it is one of the most iconic and famous British television shows of all time. To say that this is just a show is to deny the power of television and media in our society. This matters because we need to see more women in television and in important roles. But I hope that we see this more in roles like John Watson’s transformation into Joan Watson and in more leading roles like Sarah Jane in The Sarah Jane Adventures or Eve Myles in Torchwood. We ladies will take over television, but let’s not rely on characters that already belong to men. We don’t need those roles, we can make our own just fine, thank you very much.

-The Nerdy Girl

The Greatest Photo of the Most Anticipated Event of All Time

Ok, well, that title might be a slight exaggeration (not to me, but you know, if you don’t agree, that’s cool) but David Tennant and Matt Smith (aka 10 and 11) were in the same DW room today.

The 50th Anniversary is months away and yet I can already tell it’s gonna be the best thing on TV all year. If you can’t tell, I’m pretty pumped