On Political Correctness and a Female Doctor
Sheesh! You’d think a woman had actually succeeded at becoming President of the United States or something. But apparently this is an even worse infraction against a corner of the glass ceiling, for this has inter-galactic repercussions. The BBC announced this week that Jody Whittaker—an actor with one more X chromosome than any of the previous dozen actors similarly anointed by the powers-that-be of “Doctor Who”—will play the thirteenth incarnation of the Doctor.
And the internet lost it.
Many like me expressed our excitement, while others melted down on any platform available. And, the melters weren’t only males. The biggest charge is that this is just a PC stunt by those liberals running and ruining television. Liberals at the BBC? Horrors! Some tried to argue the impossibility for such a thing, others imagined silly analogies, but they all boiled down to gender essentialism.
Crying “political correctness” is the laziest way to avoid making an argument. It’s an empty phrase that anyone can project any complaint onto. Groups from all political perspectives have ideas that are deemed “correct” and those that are deemed “incorrect” for members of that group to hold. For current-day conservatives, being anti-abortion, anti-birth control, and anti-tax are all “politically correct” positions to hold. But, when people use the phrase, it’s typically conservatives referring to ideas of liberals and progressives that they don’t like: women and minorities should be well-represented in government, workplaces, entertainment, for one idea. Those of us who have been hoping for a Doctor to re-generate into a female have never said that any woman in the role would do. Whovians always want—and almost always get—stellar actors to play the Doctor. And, it looks like we have this time, too. Those loathing this choice, however, seem to think that ANY male actor would be better than ANY female actor. Rather than reasonably argue for why that might be true, they cry “PC!”
I’ve only seen Whittaker in “Broadchurch,” but she does a wonderful job there. As the mother of a murdered child, she has displayed a range of emotions, much restraint under pressure, and a big heart. These are all qualities any Doctor possesses. If she can do it as a grief-stricken mother in a small, coastal English town, she can do it as a roaming Time Lord. A PC publicity stunt, as many called it, would be something like hosting a contest to pick one random female and granting the role to her. Casting an experienced, strong actor is no such thing.
“He’s a Time LORD, not a Time LADY” is something I read more than once. That one can be dispensed with quickly: Time Lord is a race, not a gender. Romana was a female Time Lord; River Song has Time Lord DNA and has re-generated; the Master re-generated into Missy. The Corsair had both male and female incarnations. And, in fact, according to the BBC’s Doctor Who website, in 1986, Sydney Newman—a producer, who worked on the show at the beginning, in the early 1960s—wrote that “At a later stage, Doctor Who should be metamorphosed into a woman.” That was 1986! So, maybe it’s not that liberal political correctness is ruining everything now by throwing a woman into the mix. Maybe it’s that anti-feminist “political correctness” kept it from happening much sooner.
“What’s next? A man playing Miss Marple? Mrs. Holmes?” “Can Wonder Woman be a man next time?” (What is it, anyway, with some men’s resentment of the “Wonder Woman” movie? Like we don’t live in a world in which exist dozens of super hero movies centered on male heroes. Like this summer hasn’t seen the release of yet ANOTHER Spider Man film….). But, okay, I’ll respond: Miss Marple was written by Agatha Christie as a female human, not as a science fiction alien who can change bodies and personalities. But Dr. Watson was written by Conan Doyle as a stodgy middle-aged Englishman and now is a stylish, youngish, Asian-American woman on “Elementary.” I love how Rob Doherty has shaken up the Holmes canon, so, sure, any one of the Jodie Whittaker nay-sayers who has a great rationale and script for a Mr. Marple, go for it!
Wonder Woman is a bit harder since the word “woman” is in her title, and there are thousands of years of mythic history of Amazons being explicitly female. William Marston, Wonder Woman’s creator, brought her to life to give children a positive female role-model. So, there are good reasons for not switching to Wonder Man. (And, the fact that I feel ridiculous writing this paragraph just highlights how ridiculous these questions are.) *Note: after I posted this, a reader informed me that Marvel created a Wonderman in the 1960s. So, that answers that point by Whittaker nay-sayers. I plan to check some of those comics out.
I get that for those who have a strong sense of gender essentialism when it comes to the Doctor, this is a hard moment. I thought Matt Smith was way too young to be the Doctor and was quite dubious, but ended up loving him. I didn’t care for a couple of the Doctors from the Classic era and, with one of them, just stopped watching for awhile. Those who can never accept Jodie Whittaker can do the same. It’s a well-loved show for Whovians, but it is still, a TV show. And, it’s not like there aren’t seasons upon seasons of male Doctors to stream and lose oneself in.
Remember, though, that this is a fictional world. And, fictional worlds are meant to expand our minds and our ideas of what is possible. So, welcome Thirteen! I can’t wait to jump in the TARDIS with you and see where you take us.
