Potentially Unpopular 'Doctor Who' Opinion

[andraste]

Rewatching it last night, I was once again reminded that I find the white-washed future of The Ark in Space much more personally disturbing than either The Talons of Weng-Chiang or the new series' intermittent cluelessness about race issues. One thing I really appreciate about the 2005 series over the original is that it has never subjected us to an image of the future where there are no people of colour. I think it bugs me more than usual in The Ark in Space because the story inadvertently makes it look as though Earth in the 30th century is run by white supremacists and the Doctor is helping them resettle the planet.

This is also the reason I cut Heroes so much slack on this front. I vastly prefer to have a show that has characters of colour and sometimes makes a godawful mess of it than one that pretends they don't exist. (Obviously I would appreciate it if a show had characters of colour and always wrote them well, but I can't just watch The Wire all the time.)

Comments

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

No, I can see that. The first time I saw "Ark", I was impressed by the strong female presence, but thinking back, I was a bit ... put off.

[layangabi.livejournal.com]

I vastly prefer to have a show that has characters of colour and sometimes makes a godawful mess of it than one that pretends they don't exist.

Yes and yes. Problematic as Heroes might sometimes be, they're the ones that gave us Mohinder, Hero, Micah, Mr. Nakamura. Ultimately, I think the world of broadcasting is a better place for them being there.

[indiemelece.livejournal.com]

I vastly prefer to have a show that has characters of colour and sometimes makes a godawful mess of it than one that pretends they don't exist.

I definately agree with you. Even though Heroses went all over the place at times, at least they had people of different colors instead of just whites. And they played a decend role in the show instead of getting the short end of the stick like they usually do on DW.

[studyofrunning.livejournal.com]

Hello, I'm a random person that reads who_daily.

I agree. I don't see it as being about the show itself in either case, though. In the old show, they didn't like to let other races on TV much, and that included Doctor Who. Now there are actual quotas for getting black people (and occasionally even, gasp, a minority that isn't black) on TV, and Doctor Who isn't exempt from them. I'm sure they have some control, and certainly they could think more (or maybe less?) about where they put the minorities they include, but I don't think it's really the people running Who that are having the biggest effect here.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Hell! That's a good point. And it's compounded by Sontaran Experiment.

[sabra-n.livejournal.com]

Maybe this is just my particular issues showing, but it's Heroes' sexism that drives me utterly bonkers more than its race representation. And I think it's quite nifty that at least 4 different languages have been spoken on the show, 3 for long enough to need subtitling.