Jodie Whittaker confirmed as new Doctor Who

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Drake
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05 Aug 2017, 2:37 pm

delphirabbit wrote:
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If this was done for creative reasons, we would be learning of it in the episode it happened, then all the talk afterwards would be about how the time was right, how they had great ideas about how this would break new ground, new creative possibilities, and how it was going to shape and impact the Doctor's personality going forward, that would make me excited and make me think it was being done for all the right reasons. This makes me think they're using the platform of Doctor Who as a vehicle, as SJWs try to with everything they try to co-opt, comics, video games, etc. To push an agenda. Doctor Who is visibly being corrupted.


I'm not so sure this is entirely the case, and I don't agree that Who is corrupted. Perhaps the BBC article gives that impression, but journalistic articles are always going to try and tease these zeitgeists and buzzwords for clicks. In fact, I think a female doctor who has been a long time coming and is way overdue. I was surprised they didn't do it last time. Besides, the new actor is never revealed in the episode of regeneration, there's always an announcement of this kind, and the reveal itself was tastefully, artistically done.

The reverse of this thinking is that Doctor Who has always been corrupted by a narrowness of vision which pushed womanhood out of the role. A role of a regenerating alien who should not be beholden to any one gender. Or race, or age, or even species (!) for that matter. The wonderful heart of the Doctor is their innate ability to become practically anything within the sphere of humanoid figuration so this move is indeed long overdue having been stifled by a male-dominated culture thus far. And this is a powerful moment to move the Doctor to female, given the backlash against feminism and SJWs (although I have so far failed to see how being a warrior for social justice is fundamentally a bad thing, since social justice is fundamentally a good thing...).

If I was going to be cynical for a moment, I might say that the BBC have picked now to change things up because ratings have slipped with Capaldi and this is pretty much guaranteed to rocket them back up again. But, whatever the reasoning for the decision, this can only ever be an absolutely excellent thing.

Aside from everything else, I thought this last season gone was really very good with only a couple of duds. Capaldi had some cracking speeches and Bill Potts has proved an exciting companion so far. Maybe could've done without Nardole, but he grew on me as the season went on, especially in the last ep :)

Well, we shall see when Whittaker gets her first outing. I fully expect a few quips about it and then she'll get cracking and we'll all love her. Or at least, we can hope... 8)

I think I'll respond to this in a general fashion. I am puzzled by how you don't think there is corruption in Doctor Who, but I'm happy enough not to dig into that and simply wait and see what they do with the soon to become female Doctor. Then if there is corruption, it can be talked about as it comes instead of us having to both dig back into episodes that have aired months ago.

You might possibly have a point about the press in general, but this is the BBC talking about their own show, that's the difference.

About the can only be absolutely excellent thing, I certainly take issue with that in a present sense, and if in the future they decided the Doctor would be female, that would be just as bad as a male restriction. What I'd like to see, is now that the first female Doctor has been cast, future Doctors, they just recruit without specifying gender. So men and women can apply for the role. Young and old too. More candidates to choose from should mean better Doctors. As it's the BBC though I have doubts they'd do that. But there are certainly ways this could be awful, all the way to killing Doctor Who by drowning it in regressive BS.

SJW is not to be taken literally. I shall call upon my past self to answer your question from this thread of mine:

http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=313897

Drake wrote:
Social Justice Warrior. The name is everything they are not while at the same time what they would have you believe they are. That's the point. The changes they would make would be the complete opposite of social justice, there's no justice here. And the methods they use to try to bring that change are about as far away from what you would associate with a warrior as you can get, especially the positive associations. Sometimes you can at least respect an enemy, the way they conduct themselves. There's nothing to respect here. Pure Machiavellianism. Anything to win. ANYTHING. No level too low to stoop to. Path of least resistance over the right path every single time. The furthest thing in the World from a warrior.

But this subtlety escapes some people. Social Justice Warrior doesn't really sound like a bad thing without context, does it? I wonder if there's a better label for these people. We have some more literal ones like Regressive Left. Crybullies works quite well, but if I hadn't had the context before seeing the word, I wonder if I'd have understood what it means or not? Is it a powerful descriptor to the uninitiated or an oxymoron that doesn't make sense? Is there something better at describing them in a nutshell? Any ideas? Would be useful to have something like that in my back pocket to quickly describe them. I'm not looking to replace SJW. In time, I think the meaning will be widely fully understood.


I'm surprised it was that long ago when I made that thread.

The Bill character was hampered significantly by the awful writing in the early episodes, but she did grow on me. I have no problem with her being one of the companions. Nardole, I'm not really sure. His presence doesn't bother me, but he doesn't add much either.