So the new incarnation of the Doctor under the Chibnall era is to be Jodie Whittaker. I'm not too exercised by her gender- it's a positive step, yes, but "generic female" was never going to be on the audition list; it has to be the right individual, regardless of gender. And on that criterion, well, I've hardly seen anything with Jodie Whittaker in. So I'm afraid that, other than to register my equanimity at the prospect of the Doctor being a woman, I've little much to say other than a vague intention to see her in something soon.
We know little of the Chibnall era of Doctor Who yet. Writer's rooms? Season-long stories? Let's see what emerges.
Interestingly, this post is not part of the Doctor Who index. Sadly, since 2022, I have actually not thought on who the next Doctor could be. Not once. It’s not because I think they might be bad. It’s that the reaction to whoever is cast might be an unwinnable stituation. If you were to go with another white male, you will have some saying, “youre being racist/sexist, by having another white man”, and if you were to go with another woman or a non white, you will have complaints, even if well meaning, that “you are being woke or too pc”. Back in 2017, Fan reaction to Whittaker's casting was largely positive, although a sizeable minority felt the Doctor was only ever meant to be male, or criticised the casting as an exercise in political correctness. The concept of Time Lords changing sex upon regeneration was seeded throughout Moffat's tenure as showrunner and the female Master definitely prepared everyone for a female Doctor. I was open to JW’s casting and Chibnall being the show runner but the writing and performance let us down, and timeless child recton kinda ruined JW as the first female Doctor, if the character was originally every gender and race before being 13 white males in a row (Hartnell to Capaldi, also counting John Hurt)
ReplyDeleteI don't tend to index casual posts like this one, where I'm not discussing a particular episode etc. Keeps things simple!
ReplyDeleteit's certainly awkward, diegetically, that the Thirteenth Doctor was preceded by thirteen white males in a row, but times were different in decades past and there's nothing to be done but handwave it.
It's an interesting problem, though, tiresome though culture wars are- at what point would it be unremarkable to cast a white man again? Representation of women and minorities is important, and I'm all in favour of it. But if white men are excluded then this could cause a rather nasty far right backlash, in a world where the silly little boys of the "manosphere" exist. It's awkward.
On the topic of Whittaker and the idea that the Doctor can be any gender or race, it’s a powerful and progressive concept, and I was open to it but the fUGTIVE Doctor and timeless children made it feel undercut as the retcon erases the significance of her being the first female Doctor on screen. Instead of being a groundbreaking shift, it becomes just another part of a long history of incarnations that includes every gender and race already, which some argue waters down the “first” status. Because 13 was NOT the first female Doctor, because they were already a woman and non white before. So Whittaker was techically, thanks to the timeless child recton, not the first female
DeleteWhich all goes to show how Chibnall never thought through what he was doing to the show, its iconography, its very identity.
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