Torchwood

[seeingred]

jaimie2i raises some worthwhile issues over at torch_wood, some of which are, happily, already being addressed by the much-improved second series, notably the tragic underuse of Tosh.

One thing in particular I want to address:

There's also - as I've seen other people mention - the issue of Lisa and Beth. That makes two black women who were pumped full of bullets

Comments

[matthewwolff]

One thing I would like to see in Torchwood would be more South Asian characters. Doctor Who has a much larger percentage of Black characters than there are Britons of African and Carribean descent, so that's great, but there's actually a larger percentage of Desis in the UK.

Does that include South East Asians as well? (Malaysians, Filipinos, Thais, etc.)

[seeingred]

Desis are people whose families came from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and countries in that area.

[frelling_tralk]

but IMHO that's the exact opposite of what the story does: it features a Black woman as "everyman", as standing for humanity and the human race, as the very definition of human.

Agreed. I never saw it as Beth being presented to us the audience in terms of "other", I thought the whole point of the episode was to relate to Beth, and how easy it was to put yourself in her shoes. She was a perfecetly normal human woman, and she had her life and her husband torn away from her, and was struggling to hold on to that and the terrible things that she was discovering. It seemed to me that Beth was a case of portraying the most ordinary person that they could, in order to strengthen the audience connection to her when she finds out the truth.

She was incredibly sympathetic, and as you say, she ultimately dies through her own choice, in order to hold on to her humanity. There have been far worse direct threats to the team than Beth!

[moetushie]

I'd love to see more desis in Torchwood and Doctor Who. I think that Archie in Series 2 was a desi, but that's all. :(. Diversity is more than just black and white. Cool post, it's important to talk about these things.

[aligoestonz]

There's more than that - offhand I can think of
*the aide in 10 Downing Street in Aliens of London
*one of the Controllers in Parting of the Ways
*the Ood Wrangler in The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit
*the scientist in Army of Ghosts / Doomsday
*Martha's fellow med student in Smith and Jones

[poisontaster]

IMHO that's the exact opposite of what the story does: it features a Black woman as "everyman", as standing for humanity and the human race, as the very definition of human.
Oh good heavens, thank you! That's exactly what I've been trying to formulate into words for myself and it's been on the tip of my brain since I read some reaction posts and I haven't been able to articulate it for myself.

[outsdr]

I thought she died a hero.