Sorry for the flippant response before--I am in the middle of an eight day week and wanted to go to bed.
However In talking about our willingness to embrace diversity, it is unfortunate that to show this willingness that we often resort to unintentionally dismissive statements like "I don't care if an individual is (fill in the blank).
Saying I don't care if you are (fill in the blank)-- is very like saying I don't if you are late to a dear friend. Both are statements of entitlement. The later is acceptable entitlement. If a person has made a promise to be at a certain place, at a certain time and you have to wait, then you are entitled to choose to be angry or not to care. Not so with an individual's existence or nature.
I have said similar things, and regretted it especially when the person called me on it. She cared that I was heterosexual, because that the subject at hand were our relationship issues. However her relationship was being tested, and by saying "I don't care if you're gay" I denied her the opportunity to talk openly with me as a friend. I unintentionally put out the suggestion that her sexuality required my approval.
The first part of my post was a response to that.
It is troublesome that fans-- including yours truly-- who embraced stories about the Doctor as a white male going into the past and being accepted as a white Male first and alien second, have expressed the concerns that IF the Doctor has to approach the past or present as a woman or a person of color, the scripts might become about "that"--(That being gender or ethnic appearance.
Could the Doctor, as John Smith have had the exact experiences, including autonomy, the privilege of transforming his Companion into a servant, had he not been white or male? Those scripts were about the experience of an Alien with a white, male appearance. This alien does have the genetic ability to transform his appearance although the confession that he can transform into anything, to define ethnic appearance and gender is dodgy.
In our collective minds, and I'm including myself here--we seem to place gender, skin color, faith into the realm of "The Other".
I don't care and fears that stories might become about that, may signal to an already skittish and sensitive creative staff that WE, (the audience), are not ready to explore all time and space out of the comfort zone of White, male experience, because we are fearful that exploring all time and Space from the POV of a female or Person of Color and confronting life experiences of these very neglected cultures and good majority of humanity might become awkward.
It should not be necessary to establish Why or How the Doctor becomes Black, female, in a story about an eccentric who travels the universe in a Police Call box, but more because of audience comments, I hope they do establish dark skin or ethnic specific features are present in the Doctor's Gallifeyan ancestry.
And --well- I DO care what kind of stories we get, because I'm not at all fond of the idea of the Doctor's experience with the ODD influencing people like Frederick Douglas or Mahatma Gandhi. I didn't like the idea of the Silence behind the decision to explore the moon. (As opposed to the premise in the Transformers that Americans kicked the space race up a notch, because they realize there was something to retrieve on the Moon besides clues to our solar system's beginning.)
As I noted elsewhere in these comments, I feel that even in a female body, the Doctor himself has for so long so apparently identified as male, that we would get not a "woman" Doctor but a transman Doctor of sorts (I feel that the Corsair was implied to be more fluid on that, honestly - and that perhaps the Corsair enjoyed being "she" once in a while, as the Doctor notes, "oh she was a naughty girl!" or the like).
And I would be okay with that I suppose (though I would be leery of the idea of it becoming little more than a joke), but I think trying to make him a "woman" as opposed to "female-bodied" would be a stretch for this particular character. I think that's something some people have missed by saying they want a "woman Doctor" or "female Doctor" - some of them talk as if simply the physical (obvious, external) body controls that, and it does not. Being "female" can be considered in either sex, gender, or both, but the two are not always the same. And one of several common threads with the Doctor - in addition to his restless urge to travel, his intelligence, etc. - is the fact that he always seems to identify, perhaps not loudly but certainly firmly AS a "he". Which is why I feel it would come across as a gimmick for "him" to suddenly regenerate into someone who feels like a "her" on the inside - I feel that the sensation of being female in mind, not just body, is probably radically different from that of the male-gendered perspective, and that therefore, such a plot, while potentially promising, could be very easily bungled and not very easily well-handled. And if it were badly-handled, I could see it becoming a huge disappointment. On the other hand, a male-gendered Doctor in a female body could be interesting for its own reasons... but it would have to, again, be written well. And I feel that while that should be the aim in all scripts, it's a unique challenge to write outside one's usual sex/gender identity combination in any sense, and thus it would be more difficult for them to pull off well. Not impossible, but difficult.
I would like to see the Corsair sometime though, who I picture as a gender-fluid character with a lust for adventure and probably pansexual or bi rather than "hetero" (because how the hell would you define "hetero" going back and forth like that?). Asexual would also be interesting and refreshing, but the implications of "oh, she was a naughty girl!" are that the female-identified iterations at least are... probably not asexual (I almost said "ace", which is a common slang term used by a lot of asexuals to define themselves, but in the context of Who, that would obviously get confusing :P)
Skin color seems like it would change much more easily during regeneration, and seems like something he would barely care about other than not being ginger. I could also see that handled well a lot easier, but maybe that's just me. I would be slightly surprised but not offput if a non-white actor were picked, but would be a little worried if they decided to go physically female - again, just because of the unique challenges.
that we would get not a "woman" Doctor but a transman Doctor of sorts (I feel that the Corsair was implied to be more fluid on that, honestly - and that perhaps the Corsair enjoyed being "she" once in a while, as the Doctor notes, "oh she was a naughty girl!" or the like). I am not certain if the Actor in question should play "a male mind in a female body". The Doctor is male, but he is an alien male and most of the time thehe behaves according to what he feels human are most comfortable with. However if the female actor continues "behaving like the Doctor..." and if the script writers produce scripts for the Doctor, rather than a gender specific character it could be very good.
Now, If Mister Moffat and company write the female Doctor as suddenly developing the urge to settle down with a husband and have babies, I'll simply flip the channel.
No worries. :-) And thanks for the long explanation - I appreciate that.
Just for the first part: I don't habitually say "I don't care ..." to a person's face. ;-) You are completely right, that's rude and what it means is not "I do not care" but it means "you annoyed me, shut up". More or less. Just like I wrote above "nor worries" (and meant it) and not "I don't care if you had a bad week". I think that's exactly where the misunderstanding lies.
If I *write* "I do not care", I meant it as exactly that. "It is not important to me / it is of no relevance / it doesn't matter / because I like you or dislike you for completely other reasons". And I think it's that attitude that, if more people had it, would lead to total equality.
I realize now that maybe the words "I don't care" have such a fixed negative meaning in English that I should really have used other words. Non-native speaker here, sorry. Then again I've had that discussion in German as well, and sometimes hear the argument that "it is important to ME". Yes, I'm well aware that gender/sex/colour/ethnicity is important to the person having that attribute. To some it's more important, to some less. I'm not taking that from them. It's just not something I want to push into the foreground as part of a relationship with that person.
Okay, 'nuff o' that now. It's always so hard to explain that and it's such an emotional topic that I rarely get my point across properly.
However In talking about our willingness to embrace diversity, it is unfortunate that to show this willingness that we often resort to unintentionally dismissive statements like "I don't care if an individual is (fill in the blank).
Saying I don't care if you are (fill in the blank)-- is very like saying I don't if you are late to a dear friend. Both are statements of entitlement. The later is acceptable entitlement. If a person has made a promise to be at a certain place, at a certain time and you have to wait, then you are entitled to choose to be angry or not to care. Not so with an individual's existence or nature.
I have said similar things, and regretted it especially when the person called me on it.
She cared that I was heterosexual, because that the subject at hand were our relationship issues. However her relationship was being tested, and by saying "I don't care if you're gay" I denied her the opportunity to talk openly with me as a friend. I unintentionally put out the suggestion that her sexuality required my approval.
The first part of my post was a response to that.
It is troublesome that fans-- including yours truly-- who embraced stories about the Doctor as a white male going into the past and being accepted as a white Male first and alien second, have expressed the concerns that IF the Doctor has to approach the past or present as a woman or a person of color, the scripts might become about "that"--(That being gender or ethnic appearance.
Could the Doctor, as John Smith have had the exact experiences, including autonomy, the privilege of transforming his Companion into a servant, had he not been white or male?
Those scripts were about the experience of an Alien with a white, male appearance.
This alien does have the genetic ability to transform his appearance although the confession that he can transform into anything, to define ethnic appearance and gender is dodgy.
In our collective minds, and I'm including myself here--we seem to place gender, skin color, faith into the realm of "The Other".
I don't care and fears that stories might become about that, may signal to an already skittish and sensitive creative staff that WE, (the audience), are not ready to explore all time and space out of the comfort zone of White, male experience, because we are fearful that exploring all time and Space from the POV of a female or Person of Color and confronting life experiences of these very neglected cultures and good majority of humanity might become awkward.
It should not be necessary to establish Why or How the Doctor becomes Black, female, in a story about an eccentric who travels the universe in a Police Call box, but more because of audience comments, I hope they do establish dark skin or ethnic specific features are present in the Doctor's Gallifeyan ancestry.
And --well- I DO care what kind of stories we get, because I'm not at all fond of the idea of the Doctor's experience with the ODD influencing people like Frederick Douglas or Mahatma Gandhi. I didn't like the idea of the Silence behind the decision to explore the moon. (As opposed to the premise in the Transformers that Americans kicked the space race up a notch, because they realize there was something to retrieve on the Moon besides clues to our solar system's beginning.)
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And I would be okay with that I suppose (though I would be leery of the idea of it becoming little more than a joke), but I think trying to make him a "woman" as opposed to "female-bodied" would be a stretch for this particular character. I think that's something some people have missed by saying they want a "woman Doctor" or "female Doctor" - some of them talk as if simply the physical (obvious, external) body controls that, and it does not. Being "female" can be considered in either sex, gender, or both, but the two are not always the same. And one of several common threads with the Doctor - in addition to his restless urge to travel, his intelligence, etc. - is the fact that he always seems to identify, perhaps not loudly but certainly firmly AS a "he". Which is why I feel it would come across as a gimmick for "him" to suddenly regenerate into someone who feels like a "her" on the inside - I feel that the sensation of being female in mind, not just body, is probably radically different from that of the male-gendered perspective, and that therefore, such a plot, while potentially promising, could be very easily bungled and not very easily well-handled. And if it were badly-handled, I could see it becoming a huge disappointment. On the other hand, a male-gendered Doctor in a female body could be interesting for its own reasons... but it would have to, again, be written well. And I feel that while that should be the aim in all scripts, it's a unique challenge to write outside one's usual sex/gender identity combination in any sense, and thus it would be more difficult for them to pull off well. Not impossible, but difficult.
I would like to see the Corsair sometime though, who I picture as a gender-fluid character with a lust for adventure and probably pansexual or bi rather than "hetero" (because how the hell would you define "hetero" going back and forth like that?). Asexual would also be interesting and refreshing, but the implications of "oh, she was a naughty girl!" are that the female-identified iterations at least are... probably not asexual (I almost said "ace", which is a common slang term used by a lot of asexuals to define themselves, but in the context of Who, that would obviously get confusing :P)
Skin color seems like it would change much more easily during regeneration, and seems like something he would barely care about other than not being ginger. I could also see that handled well a lot easier, but maybe that's just me. I would be slightly surprised but not offput if a non-white actor were picked, but would be a little worried if they decided to go physically female - again, just because of the unique challenges.
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Now, If Mister Moffat and company write the female Doctor as suddenly developing the urge to settle down with a husband and have babies, I'll simply flip the channel.
Reply
Just for the first part: I don't habitually say "I don't care ..." to a person's face. ;-) You are completely right, that's rude and what it means is not "I do not care" but it means "you annoyed me, shut up". More or less. Just like I wrote above "nor worries" (and meant it) and not "I don't care if you had a bad week". I think that's exactly where the misunderstanding lies.
If I *write* "I do not care", I meant it as exactly that. "It is not important to me / it is of no relevance / it doesn't matter / because I like you or dislike you for completely other reasons". And I think it's that attitude that, if more people had it, would lead to total equality.
I realize now that maybe the words "I don't care" have such a fixed negative meaning in English that I should really have used other words. Non-native speaker here, sorry. Then again I've had that discussion in German as well, and sometimes hear the argument that "it is important to ME". Yes, I'm well aware that gender/sex/colour/ethnicity is important to the person having that attribute. To some it's more important, to some less. I'm not taking that from them. It's just not something I want to push into the foreground as part of a relationship with that person.
Okay, 'nuff o' that now. It's always so hard to explain that and it's such an emotional topic that I rarely get my point across properly.
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