Did anyone watch Doctor Who?

[ZeldaFighter]

So on an existential level, I'm confused. 11 Doctors and only 1 woman - it seemed like finally progress had been made. Now we're back to male people playing the role of the teenage daughter (who is explicitly transgender, so I suppose is really OK but now women can't even play the women).

Irl, I'm embarrassed because my husband immediately realised the actor was a transgender woman, whereas I didn't twig at all 😞

Forgot how they go and rescue the women, who really need re-educating. There is the question of removing all the chance of reproducing from a species. Who have done it to themselves in a way.

I thought Jodie Whittaker was massively miscast in the role. When you look at what Michelle Gomez brought to a female Master, and then Jo Martin who had such huge presence on the screen...

Whittaker just seemed to always be out of breath, had no screen presence, never seemed like the smartest in the room. When you think of what could have been from a female doctor!

RTD's stance on disbaled characters never being portrayed as evil is hugely damaging. We've seen priests, clergymen, headteachers, politicians, doctors and others of theirbilk get away with murder (sometimes literally) because of who they are. We also see it with the "that never happens" crowd whenever a trans identifying male commits an atrocity.

And I think being battered over the head with the words "gorgeous" and "beautiful" and "daughter" in relation to Donna's child spoke volumes.

When has the appearance of any other character - male or female - been such a big deal? Trans characters have to be beautiful, doesn't matter about brave or intelligent or brilliant or loyal or any of the other characteristics all the other companions have had. "Beauty" is all that matters.

I commented on the other thread about this. I thought the scene where Donna's Mum asks whether she should be referring to Rose in terms of her looks when she didn't when Rose was Jason really interesting.

When has the appearance of any other character - male or female - been such a big deal? Trans characters have to be beautiful, doesn't matter about brave or intelligent or brilliant or loyal or any of the other characteristics all the other companions have had. "Beauty" is all that matters.

Yes because beauty, more than anything else, is seen as essentially female. And as long as they're seen as female, nothing else actually appears to matter.

People will say that boys are handsome. It's not what I'd call uncommon. I usually ear beautiful for men in a more sexual context.

Is a non-sonic-screwdriver a cis screwdriver?

Donna and the doctor just jumped in the hover- buggy to escape. DC just commented “its always the man driving!”

Donna drove at least once, but I noted she made a comment about being capable of doing so.

I saw the first episode, thought it wasn't too bad overall, all the worst aspects of it obviously involving the honestly-not-a-bloke schoolgirl. As already noted, the focus on (objectively non-existent) beauty is particularly offensive. What message does it send out to the objectively non-beautiful - transition and you'll instantly become god's gift?

I agree, @puffyisgood - it enrages me when I see people fawning over, frankly ugly men, who look even worse when wearing womanface, telling them they are so gorgeous!

I am a frankly ugly woman - overweight, plain, horribly inept when I try to use make up, and I know for damn sure that if I posted a picture of myself, none of these handmaidens and panderers would call me beautiful or stunning. I suppose it could be partly jealousy, but it is also sheer fury at the way some people will drastically lower their standards to suck up to men.

Delusional men pandered to by idiots.

Thought the second episode was much better.

Was discussing with teenage daughter (regularly rolls her eyes at me over trans issues) and she commented on the clunky writing in the pronoun scene as well and how people would be more likely (when discussing another species) to ask 'why are you assuming male' than 'why are you assuming pronouns?' Also she thought that Rose's personality trait was just 'trans' so again lazy clunky writing.

@SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius exactly. I used to be part of a beauty/fashion group on fb, which was supportive and helpful, then it got infiltrated by males in womanface pouting and preening while wearing 'sexy' underwear and revealing clothing who were then ridiculously fawned over by the hand maidens.
"Gawjuss hun'!!

I'm not on board with criticising women's appearance so I'm not on board for criticising a man for not looking pretty enough to be a pretty woman.

I thought Yasmin Finney looked good. Not like a pretty teenage girl but good in YF's own right.

I would love to see our culture develop an aesthic / style tribe for male people who want to wear styles traditionally coded female. I don't think that this does, or should in anyway be seen as, making them actually female.

I think a man saying "I want these lovely, pretty things to be open to men as well as women and BTW, I wear them well!" has a totally valid point. I think a man saying "I want to wear these things because they are something coded for women, and I want to wear women's things" is coming from a different place, one that's bad for women even if the man himself is not consciously motivated by misogynist or fetishistic ideas.

So for me, YF gets 8/10 on the look, 0/10 on the bigger picture.

Wise words, @FlirtsWithRhinos.

SPOILERS (just in case someone hasn't watched ep2 yet)

After the brilliant "posing as vulnerable but actually here for domination" trope of the first episode, we now have "scary monsters who want to take the place of Dr/Donna to gain access to the universe of form and so copy them in inept and grotesque fashion".
Ummmm, thanks Doctor Who, points well made.

So
... like the '80s then?
From Glam Rock to New Romantics THOSE men did exactly what you're describing. And were sex gods to many a teenage girl 😂

It's not new at all.

Yes pretty much (without the wider sexism of that time obvs). I think there was a social trend towards acceptance and even celebration of gender non-conformism that used to be about challenging the whole concept of gender but has been sidetracked into trans genderism, mostly because the people who have been diverted haven't realised yet what they are doing is actually enforcing gender stereotypes not demolishing them.

I remain optimistic this period will come to be seen as a blip in the overall progress towards a genuinely fluid and gender-free world, where the reality of our sex is understood, the social consequences that creates for women are addressed, and everyone is free to wear glitter and a fabulous frock, brylcream and a tux, or all of that together to the office Christmas party.

Gender is essentially a load of sexist crap & the world would be a better place without it.

Annie Lennox was sexy as hell in a tuxedo and back then, nobody was stupid enough to say that if she was wearing that outfit she must be a man.

Worth saying that in the 80s (I was there), being a gender bending eyeliner toting man might have been ok on Top of the Pops but it really wasn't ok out and about in everyday life. Men in makeup were fair targets for men who wanted to prove something to themselves or the rest of the world - targets for slurs and for fists. I won't use the slurs here but anyone my age can fill in the blanks.

What I'm talkign about in the 80s was the early shoots of something that still hasn't really borne fruit IMO - not least because the energy and desire for tolerance has been twisted into supporting the fundamentally regressive concept of (trans) gender identity)

Didn't you get the memo - we're supposed to be 25-35, white, blonde, middleclass, all rosy cheeked, big eyed and smiling as we sooooo bravely take our places on the periphery, rather than being the main character with actual power?

Personally, I'd switch universes and go for a mobility device more like ED-209 in Robocop, just with better stabilisation. Far more useful than a poxy rocket launcher gag that was done in James Bond years ago.

@FlirtsWithRhinos it is wonderful reading your posts. I agree with every word.

I dunno. I was a teenager in the 80s and knew guys in the local band scene and followers. Which at the time had its faction of make up and high heeled boot boys.

Did they get shit for it? Some did. All the rockers/glammies/punks/metallers did to some extent, from the dressers (casuals).

And we are not a cosmopolitan vibrant cool place even now. We’re a fairly done in shithole that the closing of the pits gutted.

They weren't full on Boy George but could give Motley Crue a run for their money.

I am skeptical that the New Romantics et al could ever really morph into a mainstream thing.

I think the whole point of it was pushing boundaries and subverting norms around sex and presentation.The reasons had to do a little with sex itself, and the increasing sexual freedoms of the time, but it was also to a large degree about experiment, surprise, and artistic creativity.

If it became a social norm, it would no longer fulfill those functions.

The other thing that strikes me is that I suspect we have gone past the era where we can see the rejection of sexual boundaries as basically a good thing. It's become clear that a lot of those kinds of boundaries are actually protective, and aren't about some kind of externally imposed, largely arbitrary, psychological suppressive state.

Just watched episode 1 and mostly quite enjoyed it. I knew ahead of time that the actor was male so I can't commment on their appearence but I found the actor's voice unusually convincing as female. Even with voice therapy and practice it's rare to get a convicingly female voice from after someone's voice has broken.

And I think being battered over the head with the words "gorgeous" and "beautiful" and "daughter" in relation to Donna's child spoke volumes.

Banging on about "beautiful" and "daughter" - well it's what people do when they're trying to convince themselves. (It's also a huge feature in transition medicine. Form over function. But probably less relevant here.)

I thought the scene where Donna's Mum asks whether she should be referring to Rose in terms of her looks when she didn't when Rose was Jason really interesting.

Yes it was interesting. Granny seemed to ask interesting questions and I was saddened to see her shut down. Granny seemed to be quite an independent thinker and willing to protect her daughter and grandchild. Her collapse after using the wrong word got to me. I would have expected granny to be less unquestioningly compliant about the "daughter".