Doctor Who- this might be the last straw even for me.

[TinselAngel]

For fucks sake

Juno Dawson as a writer.

Science fiction (and fantasy) in general has been pretty poor around the trans issue, it amazes me that hundreds of years in the future the transition process is exactly the same, or in magical fantasy period with magical spells people have "gender affirming surgery" hundreds of years before surgery was invented.

I've been thinking about the fantasy "body swap" genre of movies, like Freaky Friday, and there's a small but interesting subset of them with a "sex swap" theme - I think Switch with Ellen Barkin is probably the best known. (It's not brilliant, but I love Barkin's performance and wish she'd done more comedy in her career)

They all have a very similar theme, where a sexist man is transformed into/reincarnated as a woman, has to learn to see the world through a woman's eyes, and grows as a person as a result.

There's an obvious overlap with some cross-dressing movies, or even Mel Gibson's telepathy in What Women Want. I'm thinking of that line at the end of Tootsie where Dustin Hoffman says to Jessica Lange, "I was a far better man with you as a woman than I ever was with a woman as a man".

I'm really struggling to think of FtM transformation movies, and I think at least part of that is that the dynamic is so different, there isn't the obvious moral growth theme. It's almost as if the sexes are different.

surely Dr Who's transition from male to female could've dealt with it a much more imaginative manner

I think if I were showrunner, I might want to do something like the following:

• Address the fact the Doctor has only ever been male in past incarnations. Have it so that just before he regenerates, the Doctor is interrupted in the process or a female character tries to save him with some high-tech method that mixes their DNA or something else that can be hand-waved. Or simply have the Doctor express shock at the change.
• Basically saying Time Lords can change sex during regeneration, but it's very rare. This gives the showrunner two options. If the audience likes a female Doctor, they can say "oh well, this happening once means it's more likely to happen again" or "the Doctor had fun being a woman". If the audience really doesn't like the lore change, the showrunner has an out by saying "the Doctor is male, this was just a weird regeneration glitch."
• Give the Doctor a new set of challenges to overcome. It doesn't have to be preachy.
• Maybe she tries to throw her weight around or convince people of an impending disaster but she gets brushed off in a slightly different way from how she might otherwise have been brushed off.
• The dynamic suddenly changes between the Doctor and a pre-existing companion (kind of like when Rose had to adjust to Ten after Nine). A male companion becomes awkward. A female companion becomes less reserved.
• The TARDIS is confused because it's used to the Doctor being male and isn't sure if this Doctor actually is the Doctor (if you played your cards right you could make this a slightly meta plot point that addresses the audience's own doubts)
• The Doctor having to work around the disadvantages of female biology, showing off her cleverness by getting even smarter.
• Give the new Doctor a distinct personality of her own. Many character archetypes read quite differently depending on whether the character is male or female - that could be really interesting to explore.

It takes work to create a good Doctor and breaking the mould requires serious work to convince people the mould was worth breaking in the first place. Unfortunately, I think a lot of show writers are either lazy or perhaps more charitably, underpaid.

True - and lightbulb moment for me, thank you 💡

Virtual Sexuality would be one of those FtM transformation films, and there are are various scenes about a woman dealing with being in a man's body and how everyone deals with it (there are later twists).

On a different forum I received a lot of negativity for suggesting that Dr Who is trans because they went from male to female. Apparently trans now has to be specifically someone who has had surgery or has the "trans identity" etc (although not the case in reality where men can put on a pink hairband to be considered female by the courts!).

The sex swap fiction actually provides a study of the differences between the sexes instead of the usual trans victimisation depictions.

@LittleMyLittle

Or Dr Who has an idea for defeating the Daleks, no one cares or listens, but her male companion repeats the exact same idea and everyone praises him on what a great idea it is!

It is an interesting point about character archetypes and how they play out depending on the sex of a character. I have long thought about fiction where the title character has a child of the same sex and essentially the child is written as just a copy of the parent. Usually this is done to continue a franchise, with basically the same character, but a younger version.

If I was writing fiction I would probably have the child as the opposite sex because you could then get to study the nature of the character rather than just lazy writing of it just being Character Jr.

@TheCatsTongue

Colleen Gleason has done the Stoker & Holmes series of YA novels, with the premise of Bram Stoker's sister and Sherlock Holmes' niece teaming up to solve mysteries and hunt vampires. I've not read them yet, but it's an interesting idea.

I can't immediately think of any stories where a young man has to live up to his mother's legacy. There must be one or two though - there's a lot that could be done with it.

That's interesting whoever mentioned the fact that stories have been geared more for american audiences. Reminds me of Episodes. Or the Wallace and Grommit people trying to work with an American studio. Wonder what will happen to Bond now Amazon have control.
It risks becoming pap if it tries to please the largest number of people and or just something else entirely if loses touch with its origins.
It's sad for fans with a deep connection to these stories. But like others have said, many will just rewatch old episodes or move on to something else.

It was good that the latest W&G didn't pander to 'American children' or whatever happened with Chicken Run. By 'eck, it didn't even pander to southerners.

He manges to say everything I think about it here.

I do wonder if it will be harder to re-boot in future as two very non doctor who incarnations and 5 series of crap and a bit of a downhill period before that - how much has that eroded a lot of feel good nostalgia that I think brought people in last time.

With starwars and Marvel - I'm at point of complete indifference about any new stuff - though do like Strange New worlds with Star Trek I think that's often been cleverly written and is well cast.

Time travel and the possibility of alternative timelines gives sci-fi a lot of scope for reboots. I liked the Star Trek 'reboot' - an alternative which sat to one side of the 'canon' and the 'prime timeline' rather than messing it up, the only carry-across I can think of is the destruction of Romulus.

Though in the case of Dr Who I fear it needs a total Pam Ewing.

I’m at that same point of indifference too - I can’t feel excitement for any new projects in genre fiction and media.

Even if they announced a new Blade film with Wesley Snipes in it, I’d be worrying about how they would traduce the lore and legacy of Blade because that’s what the current crop of writers do - they denigrate the existing characters and lore to try and elevate their own characters and plot ideas. There’s no sense of building upon the past, they’re more interested in correcting what they see as the problematic aspects of the past and making things come into line with progressive morality. They particularly enjoy creating prequels and origin stories so that they can correct what they perceive as the flaws in a character or a universe from the get go. (Is it noticeable that I’m bitter about how Star Trek is being handled over the last decade?😒)

This is why I’m glad that Doctor Who is taking a break, it desperately needs to so that there’s a chance that people will retain some sense of fondness for it. If it continues on in its current vein, I don’t think it will be remembered with affection.

It's a strange one in the context of a sci-fi TV discussion, but I always felt that the Sex and the City reboot needed Carrie having a son who would be a mix of Big and Carrie and really play on her character. Her having a daughter would've just been a clone of her.

I do actually like a time travel alternative timeline story - just re-watched netflix Bodies and liked it more on second viewing - just how understandable characters motiavations were even when their emotions shifted in different timelines.

DH rewatching Enterprise - which annoyed me first time round with the constant time wars stuff - doesn't seem as annoying this time round so far.

I don't think Marvel multi verse is working - with the exception of spider man Miles Morales two films which are great and Spider-Man: No Way Home which worked.

Dr Who always reworked time and shifted stuff around and sort of works if don't look too close - but timeless child and bi generations so poorly written probably best completely ignored.

I'm in blissful ignorance as to 'timeless child and bi generations' means.

Honestly a reboot after a hiatus can probably most people had given up on the series before then or would be only too willing to pretend whatever it was didn't happen.

To me it’s a circular problem in that well known properties make the main character a woman or person of colour and then can’t bring themselves to actually given them real depth, struggles, and negative traits. This makes character boring as they don’t really change or grow or learn anything. So audiences turn away and then the makers of that property call them racist or sexist. Which is not a way to win fans back. So fans who stuck with it hoping it would get better say fuck it and stop watching.

If a show or film has interesting characters regardless of their identity, it can get an appreciative audience.

One of our favourite shows recently was We are Ladyparts which is about four Muslim women creating a punk band. My son and I loved it though we’re white atheists because all of the characters were interesting and we were invested in their stories. While religion and race and sex played a part in their stories it was still very relatable.

There has been a big mistake made with the push for people being able to 'see themselves' on the screen. I don't need to 'see myself' on screen (in fact, it would be bloody boring). I am more than happy to watch a film set in another country, with a different culture and with people of a different skin tone than I have. I don't care if the main character or all the characters are a different sex from me, either.

What I want is well-written characters, good stories and character development. We have a shared humanity that transcends all this stupid tick-boxing, and the forced 'representation' pushers appear to have forgotten that.

Any writing coach will say, give your protagonist flaws and misbeliefs, and make them suffer all kinds of adversity.

I remember, a few years ago, a podcast discussion between gay male actors talking about how their opportunities had changed. There was a time, especially during the AIDS crisis, when gay characters were tragic victims. Then there was the comedy phase, when every female lead in a romcom had a desexualised gay best friend.

They hoped they were now in the period where being gay was unremarkable enough for them to play any character. But what they really wanted was the chance to play assholes. There are well known actors - Jack Nicholson, Bill Murray - who've built entire careers on playing assholes. Actors love those roles, and the gay actors didn't want to be shut out.

I've just been rewatching the original Planet of the Apes from 1968. It's almost a masterclass in writing, because there are so many themes in there - parallels to racism, animal cruelty, science vs religion - but it never feels like you're being hit over the head.

And Charlton Heston's Taylor is not a completely sympathetic protagonist; and Dr Zaius is a brilliant antagonist because he's not just a villain, he's an intelligent and, by his own lights, principled orangutan who's got a serious point of view.

Totally agree with this, and I also find it really rude to suggest that people "can't be" something if they can't see someone who "looks like them" doing it already. That's totally nonsensical - and what does it say about the people who were the first to do it? It takes away from them that they had the imagination, talent and drive, and less narrow, categorised thinking, to make a go of it.

It is right to include a representative mix of people in things more generally, or not to discriminate against or exclude people for reasons of ethnicity, sex, disability etc. But it's incredibly infantilising to actually tell people they can't do something unless they can see themselves there already. It's possible to be inspired by seeing someone doing something even if they're not exactly like you.

I presume that is why the BBC and others make historical dramas misrepresent British history by making so many characters black?

Edited as I think it is more than that - I think it is about re-writing history.

Well, we all have the live action Snow White to look forward to.

So. I am just wondering.

Being a gay actor, if you wanted to play an asshole, or a villain, or whatever, maybe just play a straight asshole, if the role appears? Don't tie your sexuality to your roles, that seems nuts?

Well, I don't know. Kevin Spacey never seemed to break character.

I think it's more of a problem for black actors. This is a golden age for black actors if you just want to get hired. Not so much if you want to play a complex, interesting character rather than a soulful saint.

I think its more laziness and a fear of trying something new. Its easier to rehash the Tudors yet again and stick some Black people in than it is to commission a writer to find interesting historical stories from other parts of the world, and cast non White actors in those parts. Putting Black people into historical dramas and pretending that they were treated equally is whitewashing over the racism that Black people in Tudor England would have suffered. The TV and film industry is steeped in class prejudice anyway. Its a hotbed of nepotism ( DT has really gone down in my estimation for his hawking of his kids out when he himself didn't come from an acting background. Somehow I thought he would encourage his kids to make their own way, without getting them in on his projects or promoting them on the red carpet, on social media etc but seemingly not.) They may put Black people on screen, but do they commission Black/ Asian etc writers, showrunners, directors, executives?

TBh, I think part of the issue is that even in terms of commissioning projects, they aren't just looking for people with great stories. They just want a lot of them.

I mean - if they want to do a story set in a place like Africa, or Japan, or whatever, there are some great options, both from historical periods or modern stories. These will be very expensive I would think, and possibly finding enough actors to populate said film might be tricky in some cases. It can be done obviously but it's not as simple as putting out a pretty open casting call for something set in Europe.

But it's not surprising that in a country like the UK, or France, or Hong Kong, a majority of the films and TV are set in the UK, France, or Hong Kong, including historical dramas, and the actors used will reflect that.

Right now it feels like there is a desire to keep up a rate of historical productions set in far away places that might not be very realistic or reflective of the population. Like - we wouldn't expect that, would we, from the television industry in Korea, or Nairobi? I know a lot of people who watch Korean TV now, and you know, the people on the shows are all Korean. There seems to be zero push for "representation", even though there are other people from away living in Korea.

More modern settings are much easier, where you have stories set in the UK that reflect the origins of groups that have come more recently, and I think these emerge more naturally. Which is what we should be looking for, good stories coming from good writers.

I disagree it is laziness. It is about suggesting Britain always had a very mixed race demographic, like the way they put transgender characters into everything now too. Black populations in the UK were tiny until the last century. It is a clear political message. One that also ignores the actual story of the Black population of the UK as well. It is the same as setting a story in rural Sudan and making every third villager white.