December 25, 2017

Starting tonight, the Doctor will be a woman. 

I pity those narrow-minded, under-educated jerks who are mad that the Doctor will be female. (Learn your history, jerks.)

Cool Whovians: If anyone comes at you, please remind them:

1. The show was designed, directed, and sustained by a Jewish woman and a gay British Indian guy.

2. If there was ever a time when women deserved a female hero with the power to dole out poetic justice on a grand scale, this it. She is long overdue. #metoo 

3. Last semester, I took a Hermeneutics class, and every week, our class discussions reminded me of scenes where the Doctor re-invented interpersonal communication, moments when the Doctor helped two very different groups (species even) truly hear each other.

4. No, her Companion does not have to be a straight male or a gay female. Two female leaders can often be trusted to become a successful team who produce meaningful work. Even the ostriches have learned this year: Some of our (formerly) favorite men cannot be trusted. Many of them have secretly been abusing women for decades.

5. Girls and women have been identifying with male characters/heroes for our whole lives – Moses, Joseph, Paddington, Harry Potter, the Winchesters, to name a few. – because we often do not have many other choices. There are not many Buffy Summers, Veronica Mars, Pippi Longstockings, and Leslie Knopes out there. It won’t be so bad for boys and men to learn to empathize with an imaginary woman. It might even help.

6. Maybe you’ve never watched Doctor Who. Maybe you don’t even like SciFi. Maybe you don’t need a righteous, mindful, fanciful imaginary character to comfort you during the next 3 years (or it could be 7 more years). But – for me – I need Doctor Who to get me through. I will miss Peter Capaldi, and I will miss Pearl Mackie as well.

7. Here, I must thank the talented Jessica Rosenberg who introduced me to the universe of the Doctor, and who continues to answer all of my questions.

This is my favorite part of every December.

Enjoy tonight, my Whovian friends.

 

p.s. As Jodie Whittaker becomes The First Female Doctor, we’re remembering Delia Derbyshire, who composed the theme tune for Doctor Who but was barred from studios due to being a woman. She is now credited as paving the way for women in the music industry.