Long story short: I’ve been a *casual* watcher of “Dr. Who” for 40+ years. From watching it from time to time on PBS back in the 80s – the Tom Baker era, mostly – to catching the revived version in more recent years, I would generally find it amusing if somewhat baffling. The fact that not only was it stories set over multiple episodes, meaning you’re in the dark if you’ve missed any, but that it was terribly *British* meant that it just didn’t quite hit for me. But still, I liked it well enough, and I respect the IP and the fandom.
But not everyone respects the IP or the fandom. This includes the makers of the show these days.
One thing I could always expect from any iteration of The Doctor would be that he was some flavor of “British Man.” Generally some variant of the Brit known as the “boffin,” a weird eccentric science type. But then came the “insufferably smug British woman” variant of the Doctor. And next up… gay sub-Saharan African Doctor, which seems to be meant specifically to annoy the long-time fans. So, yeah, I haven’t felt the urge to watch Dr. Who in a good long while. Recent events have not changed that. In fact, recent efforts by the makers of the show to gaslight fans of the show make me actively uninterested.
The latest nonsense has been the race swapping of historical figure Isaac Newton. For a British show to *intentionally* replace an important English historical figure with an Indian actor seems at best odd, at worst part of a wider ongoing and undeniable effort to replace the English within their own history. But the people behind this have themselves a new strategy to defend their decisions from those who don’t like it:
Behold: pointing out that Newton was English, or Cleopatra was Greek, or Hannibal was Phoenician, has gone from merely being a racist position to now “villainizing minorities.” If you say that so-and-so wasn’t black or Indian or whatever, you are now equating blacks or Indians or whatever with criminals. It is dishonest, it is unhinged, it doesn’t make sense, but it’s what they’ve got.
That’s their argument against those who point out the folly and malignity of race swapping historical figures. What’s their argument *for* doing this? The Dr. Who casting director says:
“It then becomes even more important to give people a voice and for people to be represented, especially for young people growing up who might be trans or from any minority. If they can see themselves on screen, then that can be a huge lifeline for some people. That can make them feel part of the world, which indeed they are.” … “Growing up as a gay man, I’m as aware as anybody else of how this stuff makes you feel when you see it. “
Uh-huh. So he likes to see his little subset “represented.” But he somehow doesn’t understand – or pretends not to – how a large *majority* of people do not like to watch their “representation” getting not just erased, but culturally appropriated and colonized by outsiders who didn’t earn it, don’t deserve it and don’t fit in it.
