Gender and Race: 3 Things the new Who has got wrong, and 3 it's got right

[kateorman]

As we pause to catch our breath between seasons, I wanted to jot a few notes about the new Who's record on race and gender. As with any TV show past or present, it's a mixed bag of "tick vg" and "must do better".

Gender and Race: 3 Things the New Who has got wrong

1. The Chino-planet of Shan Shen, which seems to have sprung fully formed from a

Comments

Re: nagging mothers-in-law

[lexifab]

Once is happenstance.

Twice is coincidence.

Three times is...Just who the hell do you have issues with, Russell? :)

Dave

Re: nagging mothers-in-law

[almostwitty]

Nagging mothers is an ye olde stereotype used in British comedy going all the way back to the 1960s. Which isn't right but there ya go.

Dramatically speaking, I suppose it gives the characters a reason to want to escape from their humdrum lives - and if it was a nagging father, it'd probably have more sinister overtones, at least until we get a male companion (!)

[lexifab]

I should also have said: all conclusions comprehensively agreed with. It may not be perfect (yet) but current-era Who definitely does a better job than nearly any other show I can remember seeing of getting non-White characters onscreen, and a *much* better job than its predecessor (I'm looking at you, Li Hsen Chang).

[murasaki_1966]

Why does "exotic" almost always mean "sort-of-Ancient-Chinese"?

[alisoneales]

Hmmmm - I'm not sure that the proportional representation issue is that straightforward. Our population may be 8% non-white overall, but the regional variation is staggering - I was reading yesterday that it's over 30% in London and almost 40% in Leicester, but under 5% in the South West (and I'm assuming that South Wales was included in that) - as the 'Britishness' of the show is (from what I've seen) kind of dually anchored to London and Cardiff, you could forgive it for having a bit of an identity crisis on this front. Nonetheless, it *definitely* does better than much of British TV, particularly soap operas etc., where representation of ethnic minorities still feels extremely tokenistic and overly contrived to me. Not sure about this Chinese planet though. I didn't see it, but it sounds bonkers

[alisoneales]

PS I should just clarify I was thinking specifically about your 'tick vg' on proportional representation, rather than your 'must do better'...

[kateorman]

Great points. I have the rough impression that the UK, the US, and Australia all share the phenomenon where there are a notable proportion of non-White peeps in the major cities, but also large stretches of country which are basically lily-white. Last year I dug up some stats on Wales:The general pallor of Torchwood may partly be explained by the overwhelming Whiteness of Wales. Cardiff has the largest percentage of "ethnic groups other than White British" in Wales, just 12% (compare 40% for London, the most diverse area of Britain; and 6% for Glasgow, Scotland's most diverse city). According to the CRE, Cardiff's largest non-White group are people of South Asian descent, which would include Suzie Costello (played by Indira Varma).
Suzie Costello's an interesting example, actually - Indira Varma's father was Indian and her mother Swiss. Cluelessly, I didn't clock that she was a Desi until I learned the actress' name. Doubly cluelessly, given that I'd already seen her in Kama Sutra and I hadn't had any difficulty identifying her as

[ianracey]

Have you seen the first season of Rome? Indira Varma plays a white woman (though her background's made explicit).

[almostwitty]

For whatever reason, throughout the 1980s and 1990s, black people were more 'efficiently' represented in terms of media and politics than the other minorities. When I was at university, the officer tasked with ensuring representation of minorities was called the Black and Ethnic Minorities Officer. My protestations that singling out Black as something other was wrong was generally met with blank looks.

It can be argued that other minorities were more busy doing their own thing - certainly the South Asian peoples of the UK didn't really begin to shout about their presence until the late 1990s in British TV terms.

As for Shan Shen, I thought it was a relatively benign form of stereotyping - certainly compared to the Dragon Lady/Chan Tho/Japanese schoolgirls thing. But I can go on about that till the cows come home.