I am a lifelong Whovian, even before the rebirth of the popular television series back in 2005. It’s just something I’ve grown up with and have learned to love it, as only a nerd can. For those who don’t know, Doctor Who is the quintessentially British science fiction show. It started in 1963 and is one of the longest running television programmes of all time. It follows the travels in time and space of the Doctor, a seemingly human alien with two hearts, and the human companions he chooses to accompany him. The Doctor is a Time Lord. This species has incredibly long life spans and the ability to avoid death by regenerating in a different form with an almost entirely different personality (each Doctor being played by a different actor. This ability of regeneration has caused some controversial (and basically wrong) statements to be made on the subject.
Some people say that the Doctor has to be a white, British man. I’ll tackle the cultural and ethnic part of this first. This is bullshit from the perspective of DW canon. It is possible for Time Lords to regenerate from black to white, as evident in Mels’ transformation into River Song in the episode Let’s Kill Hitler. From a moral perspective this is blatantly racist. Recently actor, Idris Elba was considered for an incarnation of the Doctor and that would have been pretty awesome, though unorthodox. As Jingoistic as it is to say, I personally believe the actor who plays the Doctor should be British. The show is British. It is an element of British culture. Just imagine James Bond being an American and working for the CIA instead of MI6. Imagine Burt Reynolds instead of Roger Moore in that role, it’s a vomit worthy notion. I’ll cite Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, as an example of what happens when a British role goes to an American. The film’s redeeming qualities are Alan Rickman being the most badass Sheriff of Nottingham ever and Morgan Freeman, obviously. However, Kevin Costner’s portrayal of an American Robin Hood, or at least a Robin Hood with an American accent, is laughable at best. Even other nationalities wouldn’t quite fill the role. As much as I was entertained by an Aussie friend of mine’s portrayal of the Doctor as an Australian… But still,it just isn’t right any other way and loses that sense of quintessential Britishness…
Now to sex… People who would be accepting of a black or Asian Doctor say that the Doctor could not possibly be a woman. This is based on fallacies like he can’t regenerate as a woman, which is wrong on so many levels it isn’t even worth going over it, that he would lose the essential elements of Doctor-ness, and sexist stuff, which is also too stupid to illicit a proper response. What makes the Doctor the Doctor is different to everybody who watches the show. There are certain elements that connect each of the Doctors together like a responsibility to save innocence, general curiosity, encyclopedia like knowledge, and a general hatred against the stupid/ignorant, who muck nearly everything up anyway. A woman could very easily have all of these traits and would just bring her own perspective to it like any male actor would. The Fifth Doctor had to deal with people complaining that the Doctor couldn’t be a young man. The Tenth, David Tennant, had to put up with some naysayer’s complaining that a Scot couldn’t be the Doctor. These Doctors have become some of the most popular. A woman actor could very easily pull it off. Also if I were to ever to play the Doctor, I think I would prefer to be the Doctor after a woman because then I could be wondering where my breasts have gone when I regenerate and show surprise in having a penis again. It sounds stupid, but I think it could work. Fish fingers and custard sounds pretty stupid too, but they’ve become symbols of idolatry to the fandom. So yeah, a black British woman Doctor is perfectly acceptable, but PLEASE no Americans!!!! or the French for that matter….
Bit of a shout out to Mike Rugnetta at PBS Idea Channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/pbsideachannel?feature=watch ) and his video on What Does The Doctor Mean to You http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-WtqAD6kMU
A Well Organised Asylum 