June 15th, 2008
by
Yonmei
Under the cut, this post contains some spoilers for the most recent episode of Doctor Who, New Who Series 4, episode 10, “Midnight”, broadcast Saturday 14th June 2008.
Nearly 80 years ago, Virginia Woolf wrote: “Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man, at twice its natural size.” (A Room of One’s Own, which you should read if you haven’t already)
Dale Spender and Sally Cline picked this theme up and ran with it in 1987, Reflecting Men at Twice Their Natural Size , one of those books that I wish I had bought six of (because I keep lending it out and not getting it back).
What Woolf alludes to in passing, and what Spender and Cline spend a book outlining and dissecting, is the pattern of male/female behaviour in which women spend time and energy making men feel good about themselves: which time and energy, men do not in general reciprocate.*
I want to write about the crazy mirror of television. And of the TV series I’ve been a fan of for longer than anything else, way back since I was a little Whofan watching Tom Baker. (I am just old enough to remember some of the Elisabeth Sladen episodes when they were first broadcast: Sarah Jane Smith, journalist.)
The Doctor isn’t human, but he has always been male through all his incarnations: and while he has had male companions in his journeys, he is usually accompanied by a girl or a woman: whose function is to be Watson to his Holmes**. When I ran a poll on my journal back in 2006 about why that group “the viewers” wouldn’t accept a woman as the Doctor, several people also pointed that “the viewers” wouldn’t accept a person of oolour as the Doctor – man or woman. (I still think that accepting the Doctor could incarnate as a woman would be a bigger shift, but yeah: people moaned about Tuvok not being a “proper” Vulcan, too.)
“Midnight” was an episode with just the Doctor and nine humans who’d never met him before shut up in a vehicle on a dead planet. Four women, six men (one woman is an unnamed crew member): three crew, seven passengers: three people of colour (one unnamed), two of them crew, one of them the personal assistant to the slightly-daft Professor character: and one woman who identifies herself as the other half of a same-sex relationship (a lesbian divorcee!) in her second or third spoken line.
By the end of the episode, two out of three of the people of colour are dead, and the lesbian has gone homicidally insane and would have killed the Doctor except the only unnamed character in the episode kills herself in order to kill the lesbian and save them all.
When the Doctor departs on this journey across a crystaline, lethal world, he says to Donna “What could possibly go wrong?” Five minutes into the trip, he’s wrecked the entertainment system to force the other passengers to entertain him (and each other) but an hour into the trip, the car is stalled and an unseen, invisible, nameless monster is banging on the outside of the ship. (Unseen, invisible monsters are the sort the BBC Special Effects Department always did best.)
What would have been surprising and funny would be if the Doctor had had a pleasant 8 hour trip to view the sapphire waterfall, nothing more exciting happening than an entertainment breakdown: and then come back to the hotel where Donna had had an exciting adventure. What would have been surprising and unfunny would be if the lesbian divorcee had not been the character singled out for madness and death: if there had been people of colour in the episode who were not in service/subservient positions – who had had names.
We*** see ourselves on TV at best at half our natural size. The couple with the rebellious teenage son were a mixed-sex couple, not a same-sex couple. The elderly Professor was played by David Troughton****, not by Angela Wynter.
Why does it matter? Well, I love Doctor Who. I loved Captain Jack: I even watch Torchwood because I love Jack Harkness. I am sad because the first time I see a woman on Doctor Who explicitly identified as sharing my sexual orientation, she is a sad, scared divorcee who goes mad, is possessed by an alien, and dies at the hand of a nameless black woman who commits suicide to kill her.
And yet; plotwise, it was a better episode than last week’s. And at least the women got to do things: even if it was only die.
But why?
*Yes, obviously, there are exceptions. Comments to this post which have to say about how your boyfriend or you yourself are an exception will be disemvowelled or deleted for massively missing the point.
**It has just occurred to me that one reason why Doctor Watson gets such consistent abuse directed at him by so many fans of Holmes is because he is a man who plays the role of reflecting Holmes at twice his natural size.
***”We” who are not white, straight, male.
****Yes, son of Patrick Troughton. He’s played several bit parts in Doctor Who. Angela Wynter was the most big-name British actress I could think of who is black. She has a long running role on East Enders, if you wondered.
Update Also, no spoilers for next week’s episode, not till it’s broadcast, thank you.
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- More blogging by
Yonmei at
http://yonmei.insanejournal.com
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Filed under TV & Film, Women in Space, female characters, people of colour | Comments (39)
To be fair, the next episode is going to feature Donna and practically no Doctor. This weeks and next weeks were filmed more or less simultaneously so they could squeeze in more episodes.
To be fair, I suppose I didn’t actually say “No spoilers for next week’s episode” (beyond the ones the BBC tries to impose on us with the teaser: and you don’t want to know how much I resent this American import…).
Will update the post.
I don’t dispute your analysis, but I would point out that it was deliberate that we never find out the name of the character who sacrifices herself. Afterwards the survivors are sitting around thinking “she saved us all, and I never knew her name”.
It was perhaps a poor casting/writing decision to make this character a black female. However if they’d reversed it we’d have had “mysterious white male saves the day”. Isn’t that The Doctor?
“Gridlock” had an old married lesbian couple, although they were there to flesh out the world, rather than being important characters in their own right.
Dave: Afterwards the survivors are sitting around thinking “she saved us all, and I never knew her name”.
Yeah, so: they go to the company who runs the bus ride, they find out the name of the woman who died to save them all, and if she has dependents – children, spouse, parents – tell them how she died, tell them how brave their mother/spouse/child was, tell them they owe them for what their mother/spouse/child did. Why are the survivors sitting around pretending this woman came from nowhere and there’s no way they can know her name? She was a company employee!
It was perhaps a poor casting/writing decision to make this character a black female. However if they’d reversed it we’d have had “mysterious white male saves the day”. Isn’t that The Doctor?
It wasn’t just that she was a woman of colour who was never given a name. It was that all the people of colour in this episode were shown in subordinate/service positions – and that “the black character dies to save the white characters” is a cliched trope.
As for the Gridlock couple… I think there’s another trope here (look at the Exceptions on the Nobody Over 50 Is Gay page). There’s a tiny theme of Cute Elderly Lesbian Couple (often not specifically defined as lesbians, at least not onscreen) who show up in various places (Fried Green Tomatoes?) who may express affection towards each other but who are never seen to kiss or any indication given that they’re still having sex.
they find out the name of the woman who died to save them all
This was an RTD epsiode, I’m fully expecting plot-holes you can drive a bus through. I just think that this one was deliberately included for dramatic effect.
Given how talented he’s supposed to be you’d think that Davies would be able to avoid that many clichéd tropes in 45 minutes?
Oh, and yes, the couple in Gridlock are a typical Cute Elderly Lesbian Couple- they’re the first on the list of exceptions.
I just think that this one was deliberately included for dramatic effect.
The dramatic effect being to let us know that none of the survivors – including the Doctor – give a damn about the woman who died to save them all? Yes, well, if you think that was deliberate, I don’t.
Are we not forgetting a fairly important character called Martha Jones here?
As for sitting around thinking “she saved us all, and I never knew her name”, that was before they were rescued. By and large the story line ignores what happened after the rescue. The point surely is that they began to recognise they had seen her purely as a functionary not a person.
In general however, especially given Martha’s importance, I think you would need to demonstrate that this was a consistent bias and not an accidental one that could equally arise because of ‘colour blind’ casting.
I don’t think I’m expressing myself properly. Sorry.
That wasn’t what I meant. The “We didn’t even know his/her name…” cliché isn’t a bad way to end the drama. I think they wanted the effect that has too much to care about the fact that the character used was the most traceable person on the bus, and what that implies.
Wait, what: you’re trying to claim that because there was Martha Jones and Mickey Smith – actually you forgot Mickey Smith, didn’t you? – that makes RTD immune from criticism about institutional racism and use of racist tropes thereafter?
No, Ian, no. Doesn’t work like that. If it did, Joss Whedon could never be criticised by feminists for institutional sexism, and while there are some Jossfans who try to claim that, I’m afraid that one-off kick-ass characters of colour do not automatically exempt a writer forevermore from criticisms of institutional racism.
Especially not after RTD dressed Martha’s mother and sister up as maidservants for the NewWho 3rd series closer…
The point surely is that they began to recognise they had seen her purely as a functionary not a person.
Fat lot of good that does someone who’s dead.
And as for Martha Jones — the first black companion to get a credit in the opening titles, the one who happened to be forced to act as a white man’s maid for MONTHS in the racist England of the 1910s (all because of the Doctor’s KINDNESS, we were told), whose family was subsequently enslaved (her sister and mother also made to dress and work as a maids), the one whom the series treated as a second-best character to a departed white girl, who spent a year walking the world praising a white male character — Martha Jones, wonderful as she is, did not escape the Mammy stereotype treatment, but suffered by it at every turn.
Dave: The “We didn’t even know his/her name…” cliché isn’t a bad way to end the drama.
But that only works when there is no way to find out the character’s name. When the character’s name, address, and survivors’ details are readily discoverable from her employer, ending the story with the survivors sitting round going “we didn’t even know her name” gives the clear message “and we’re not going to bother finding out, either!”
I think they wanted the effect that has too much to care about the fact that the character used was the most traceable person on the bus, and what that implies.
It explodes their “effect”. I think RTD thought the effect would work because he thought of the hostess as a disposable, anonymous character – just another black servant.
Yonmei:
I agree, even without the racism and sexism its dreadful storytelling, I’d draw some parallels with “The Doctor’s Daughter” where the “its only been a week” twist raised all sorts of awkward questions, that spoiled much of what came before.
Thanks for this post. While I was watching, I was thinking it was good there was so much diversity on that shuttle. I never even considered that all the black characters were in the subordinate positions.
However, I did find that the more interesting characters were the possessed woman, the student, the hostess, and the kid. The driver and the engineer did little of interest, and the father was just there as masculine muscle, and I didn’t see the mother doing anything but freaking out.
Maybe the straight white people got to live (with one exception), but most of them didn’t get very large or interesting parts either. (Apart from the Doctor, of course.)
Ide Cyan said: “whose family was subsequently enslaved” – at the same time as the rest of the world!
“the series treated as a second-best character to a departed white girl” – really? – I thought the Doctor was simply in mourning.
Yonmei said: “I think RTD thought the effect would work because he thought of the hostess as a disposable, anonymous character – just another black servant.” He said exactly the opposite in the Confidential programme attached to this episode. She began as a bossy functionary, but in the end became the person who saved everyone else. The fact that no-one knew her name is a commentary on the characters – they are the ones who treated her that way. He also pointed out that this storyline exposed the weaknesses in the Doctor.
Remember also that in the first Ood story the Doctor accepts the deaths of the Ood on the planet as necessary, but by the second story, he recognised his failings.
“Martha Jones, wonderful as she is, did not escape the Mammy stereotype treatment, but suffered by it at every turn.” You are obviously seeing a different Martha Jones to me then – I see a strong, intelligent, independent black woman. You don’t spend a year walking the world the Master had created – on your own – without being pretty damn special.
I thought the Doctor was simply in mourning
this storyline exposed the weaknesses in the Doctor.
by the second story, he recognised his failings.
…this is all exactly what Yonmei is talking about in her original entry: the world as an aggrandising mirror for white, straight males. Other characters’ deaths serve their character growths. Other characters’ neglect is simply a function of their mourning. Other characters’ struggles an opportunity for their education. Etc.
“the world as an aggrandising mirror for white, straight males.” RTD may be male and white, but he certainly isn’t straight!
RTD may be male and white, but he certainly isn’t straight!
Neither is he a character in the episode we’re discussing: he’s the author.
And it does appear that his vaunted refusal to write “a negative take on homosexuality — if the only aspect being portrayed is the trouble, the tears and the angst” does not apply if he’s writing about lesbians.
Where is the negative take on lesbians in this episode (I assume you mean this one)? The Lesley Sharp character identifies herself as lesbian in a very matter of fact way. Her sexuality isn’t a big deal for her or the Doctor. The implication of your argument is that nothing bad can ever happen to any gay/lesbian character. RTD’s approach is for the gay/lesbian characters to simply take their part in the plot in ways that make their sexuality irrelevant.
Queer as Folk was explicitly about gay life in Manchester at a particular period. Doctor Who (and Torchwood) are SF in which some of the characters are not heterosexual. That means some of them will come to a sticky end.
I’m afraid this discussion is getting a bit too post-modern for me. Sorry, but I’m bowing out. I may post on it myself in which case I’ll link back.
[...] also makes my feminist heart go pitter-pat is Yonmei’s review of this past week’s Doctor Who episode (warning, spoilers!) at Feminist SF – The Blog. Actually, feministsf.net as a whole is a [...]
ian: Where is the negative take on lesbians in this episode (I assume you mean this one)?
Did you doze off about five minutes in? The lesbian character is the one who gets her mind eaten, goes homicidal, and is killed to save the Doctor from her hideous evil.
Sorry to spoil it for you, but next time, try to stay awake.
Oh dear oh dear, you really do think that when something awful happens to a lesbian, it is because they are being singled out for that reason…
Definitely time to bow out.
I’m actually with Ian on this one – I’ve seen the episode twice now, and the reference to the character’s sexuality is so fleeting and matter-of-fact it barely registered with me.
Ian, at a guess, you yourself are a straight white male. You have therefore never in your entire life wondered why, when you see other straight white men on TV, they are always possessed by aliens, homicidally insane, or die at the end of the episode. In “Midnight”, there were four white males – Jethro the sulky teenager, his dad, the Professor, and a driver – a range of characters, ages and professions, only one of whom is dead by the end of the episode. You are perfectly used to this range of roles for white men, presented in most TV and films that you watch.
Correct?
Now, let’s reverse this. Suppose that instead there were six women, four men. Seven people of colour, three white people, all in subordinate roles to the people of colour. Suppose that there had been a same-sex couple with a daughter. Suppose that in fact all but one of the characters could be presumed to be lesbian or gay, and that only one – the only straight white man in the episode, and the first man you’d ever seen on Doctor Who who was explicitly stated to be heterosexual – was, by the end of the episode, mad, homicidal, and dead. Suppose that this was normal: that when you see straight men on TV they are usually one-off characters who turn out to be evil and who usually die by the end of the episode.
I suspect that leap of imagination is beyond you right now. But maybe it’ll sink in. Given a few years. Until then, you may be right to not join in discussions where people with more experience than you are talking about things which you don’t comprehend.
lastyearsgirl: and the reference to the character’s sexuality is so fleeting and matter-of-fact it barely registered with me.
And… I guess you’re straight? You’re used to seeing people of your own sexual orientation on TV: it’s nothing new or unusual to you.
Yonmei
1. hv nvr sn sch ptrnsng hp f grbg – vn n th ntrnt s yr lst cmmnt.
2. You know sweet fa about me – about my history, my background.
3. I don’t think in your case it is a failure of imagination – just the opposite. A lesbian character is placed in a TV plot but the story has nothing to do with her sexuality. What happens to her has nothing to do with her sexuality. That is a positive – it means her sexuality is treated as normal. You however construct a vast conspiracy around one small line. You want every lesbian character to be given privileged representation in the plot.
4. As it happens I am straight – but I am also disabled. If I see a character in a wheelchair who is also a villain, or who comes to a sticky end I don’t think this is stereotyping the disabled. I think that there is at least one writer who manages to see past the stereotype and recognise that disabled people live in a world where things happen to them.
5. I hope for the next generation’s sake you are not an academic foisting this garbage on young minds, but I have a sinking feeling you are…
Oh – and as for experience – I saw the very first episode of Doctor Who with William Hartnell and I have followed it ever since. I have been reading science fiction (and every other literary form) for 50 years and politically active for almost as long. thnk t y nd t grw p nd – n th wrds f yr wn wb st – rmmbr tht Cmmnctn tchnqs ncld ndrstndng th flw f n rgmnt, whts gng n wth t, nd mkng sr th dscssn cntns ffctvl. Y hv snglrl fld.
Now I really am going.
ian: You know sweet fa about me – about my history, my background.
And yet, somehow, I deduced – correctly, I might add! – from your incomprehending comments that you are indeed straight, white, and male.
For the rest: well, I think you are now just angrily repeating yourself, unable to understand why you can’t just force me to agree with you.
Now I really am going.
At last.
Someone is wrong on the internet!…
I don’t usually get too involved in interblog spats, or get too bothered when an innocuous comment suddenly blows up into a flame war. However, in this case the post in question is an egregious crock of nonsense, perpetrated I suspect by an academic …
I went back and calculated how much screentime is devoted to the Cassini “sisters”, Alice and May, in the episode “Gridlock”. Here’s a transcript of the episode for reference, though I measured the length of their appearances with the timestamp on the video of the episode. I counted when they’re either onscreen or involved in a scene (ie, Brannigan and the Doctor are talking to or about them).
Total: 2 minutes and 18 seconds.
They touch each other three times: seven seconds holding hands while singing a hymn, a one-second hand on the arm, and then, immediately after the heterosexual couple of Milo and Cheen kiss each other on the lips, the Cassinis hug for three seconds while sitting side by side on separate car seats.
I’m still a little gobsmacked by Russell T. Davies’ smug conviction that he doesn’t do “negative” drama about “homosexuals”. Evidently, in his mind, lesbians don’t count.
*sigh*
I don’t particularly wish to offer an assessment of the episode here (though I’m sure I’ll end up doing, a bit) – I don’t entirely agree with anyone and suspect it would be a fool’s errand to try and change any minds – but I can’t help but feel there’ve been some pretty flawed comments made here.
Wait, what: you’re trying to claim that because there was Martha Jones and Mickey Smith – actually you forgot Mickey Smith, didn’t you? – that makes RTD immune from criticism about institutional racism and use of racist tropes thereafter?
This is a misrepresentation of the point it responds to, which didn’t claim RTD was “immune from criticism” or anything of the sort – merely that “you would need to demonstrate that this was a consistent bias” to make a comment about the writer more broadly. (I’m by no means sure you’d made any such comment at this point, but you seemed happy enough to go with it in your response so I’ll not go any further into that.)
And it does appear that his vaunted refusal to write “a negative take on homosexuality — if the only aspect being portrayed is the trouble, the tears and the angst” does not apply if he’s writing about lesbians.
You could have had a point here – the character did seem to succumb because she was the most emotionally weak, and that was because her relationship had failed, though she seemed pretty clearly defined as extending beyond her romantic interests there – but your subsequent response to questioning on it suggested you had nothing of the sort in mind. Rather, you suggested it was a negative portrayal because she ended up on the receiving end of a bizarre alien… thing. Considering that that was through no fault of her own and every other human outside the cockpit gave in, more or less, to unsympathetic, amoral paranoid groupthink it seems to me she came off quite well. You used a similar little twist later on – you moved from this character being a victim to characters turning out to be evil, which is very different. I don’t know if you’ve been doing it on purpose or not, but either way this sort of thing’s poisoning your credibility for me.
“the black character dies to save the white characters” is a cliched trope.
Just a little thing – the link you included here has nothing at all to do with your comment. In fact, dying first and dying to save others are generally in direct opposition, as the saving traditionally comes pretty late. I don’t really know if the point itself is accurate in general or reflected in Doctor Who (though I suspect not – it does come up rather a lot and I can only think of one other example played by a black actor. And she was a tree. I suspect there may be another in one of the episodes I don’t remember very well, but I can’t actually remember what happened to that character or, indeed, her ethnicity, so all in all she’s not the best example to try and use.) This could well be an honest mistake, but it also smacks of an attempt to provide support for your assertion without actually having to do so. (There is, of course, Secret Option Number Three, that there were plenty of examples of what you were actually talking about on that page and I just didn’t read far enough through the examples. Apologies if so, but I would suggest that you point that sort of thing out in future.)
When the character’s name, address, and survivors’ details are readily discoverable from her employer, ending the story with the survivors sitting round going “we didn’t even know her name” gives the clear message “and we’re not going to bother finding out, either!”
Of course, the survivors could go and find out her name. In fact, it would be strange if the Doctor didn’t – it’s precisely the sort of thing he’d do, which is really why he asked. But the point was – and I thought pretty obviously, given the whole thrust of the episode – that none of them bothered to find out what her name was while she was still alive, when she was just the hostess. It’s easy enough to want to know what someone’s name was when they’ve just sacrificed themselves to save you. The basic thing these people lacked, which caused them to turn on each other so easily, is the sort of empathy that might also have led them to try to find out her name before she did that. Now I appreciate that your discussion of this was in response to other comments which couched the scene in these terms, but that doesn’t give you leave to indulge in such straw-clutching.
Any of these things (if my assessment of your arguments is near the mark) could have been honest errors; any of them could have been quite intentional. Neither possibility fills me with confidence. It’s a shame, because as I said I don’t think I agree with those who think there’s nothing to what you’re saying, and I think with a bit more effort or honesty or detachment or whatever it might be that’s producing this sort of thing by its lack, you’d be producing analysis that I would want to read regularly. On the other hand, of course, I’d rather people were flagging things up that might otherwise go unnoticed than staying silent, even if I find myself frustrated by the way you’ve gone about it here. Whether it’s true or not, it often seems as though you’re more interested in scoring points than in making substantive ones, particularly once you’re engaged in direct argument.
I know this comment has remained rather tied to you alone, Yonmei – I’m not trying to attack you rather than discuss your position, I just thought it best to concentrate on you as the author of the initial post. As you can see I have a tendency to go on a bit; I can only imagine how long I’d be here if I was to cast my net more widely. Similarly, if I’ve been a little too accusatory in tone it’s because I’m a lot more interested in being able to get more from your future posts than I am in assessing this particular episode of Doctor Who. My final apology is for shoddy proof-reading; I’ve spent rather too long on this (procrastination…) and I genuinely cannot afford to go over a comment of such absurd length in fine detail.
I’m sure Sidney Sussex College will provide you with an e-mail to use if you ask, Beep: failing that, you could register with Yahoo or Gmail. I do recommend it, as it sounds if you intend to continue to make use of the Internet; you’ll find it terribly awkward not to have e-mail.
Oops, sorry. E-mail goodness here! Can’t help but find that response a little disconcerting but I’ll let you off as you’re obviously on the side of good.
I love it when these well-meaning trolls drop in to allow us to do things on our own blog. How would we ever get by without them?
I love it when these well-meaning trolls drop in
Yeah, me too. It’s like they really think they run the Internets. ;-)
Sorry if I came off a bit condescending – I’m really very bad at getting the tone right on blog comments, especially on unfamiliar blogs. Similarly, sorry if I was a bit off-topic, and for any and all other offence I’ve caused, water of a duck’s back though it may be.
I stand by some of my points and I’m a little troubled (not in some jumped-up Internet Guardian way, just as a new reader who feels less than welcome) by how speedily you turned to attacking my presumed motivations, but having seen the quality of the comments on other even vaguely political blogs (and not read through my own again yet) I can’t really hold that against you.
Also, I just realised I never thanked you for your initial post, so thank you! Valuable reading even if I don’t quite agree (and that’s always the most valuable kind of reading, isn’t it?). Keep it coming (and I mean that as encouragement, not permission!)
Beep, if you want people to respond to the content of what you said, you need rather urgently to learn how to express yourself better.
Sorry if I came off a bit condescending
And above all, learn not to compound offense with a “sorry if” non-apology.
Yes, I realised I’d done that about fifteen minutes ago, and apologise unreservedly – it is enormously irritating, I know. For what it’s worth, it wasn’t meant as a non-apology; I simply wasn’t sure of the exact nature of my failings and didn’t want to apologise dishonestly. What I really meant was:
I’m sorry that I posted an incoherent, overlong comment in which I allowed minor frustrations about the discussion at hand to hinder both my reasoning and the clarity of my writing. I am doubly sorry that I did so to the point of causing offence, and would like to reassure you that I had no intention of doing so.
If I do become a regular reader and commenter, I’m confident you will see this was a momentary blip. I was going to ask if you could point out specifically what problems you had with my post, but I’ve just reread a small portion of it and in my slightly better-rested state it’s painfully clear…
Finally, I think it’s worth apologising for cluttering up your comments with this nonsense. I’ve irritated you and your readers, and rather distracted from what points I did have. I hope if nothing else you can at least see I was not a troll, but merely a common or garden idiot.
I’m sorry that I posted an incoherent, overlong comment in which I allowed minor frustrations about the discussion at hand to hinder both my reasoning and the clarity of my writing. I am doubly sorry that I did so to the point of causing offence, and would like to reassure you that I had no intention of doing so.
Apology accepted. Thank you: that couldn’t have been easy to write.
I hope if nothing else you can at least see I was not a troll, but merely a common or garden idiot.
Fair enough! I look forward to future comments from you, then.