# Is Doctor Who Racist? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 31, 2013, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-doctor-who-racist/659774 "2013-05-31T06:01:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2013, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-doctor-who-racist/659774/41 "2013-06-01T00:24:08Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > Also, the early episodes featuring cave men and women using perfect-vowelled RP accents are absolutely hilarious. The TARDIS’s translation software does that. I mean, they’ve thought of everything, and if they haven’t, they just retcon it in. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2013, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-doctor-who-racist/659774/42 "2013-06-01T01:55:10Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffanys. John Wayne as Genghis Khan. Hell, Johnny Depp as Tonto. > > Not that its an excuse, but we were, and still can be, tone deaf on race. OTOH, sometimes an actor is simply good enough that their performance can transcend boundaries: Linda Hunt in _The Year of Living Dangerously_, for example. ---
**Author:** ![Monkey\_Chews](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/65b543/32.png) [@Monkey\_Chews](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monkey_Chews)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2013, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-doctor-who-racist/659774/43 "2013-06-01T06:53:03Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Wow, have these researchers ever really watched the show? Fanatically, and from what I’ve seen of some of the authors’ other work, rather insightfully. It’s a collection writen in large part by people who deeply love the show. > [@](#): > > I guess the researchers missed Martha’s season? A very self assured woman, a trained physician, and happened to be black. This show is not racist. Is having a black main character the television equivalent of saying “I can’t be racist, some of my best friends are black?” Is Doctor Who racist? Surely like any long-lasting cultural phenomenon, there are a multitude of complex ways Doctor Who engages with race over it’s 50 year history - and even now - and reducing it to a yes or no question is basically meaningless, and avoids a lot of interesting discussion. From what I’ve read about this collection, it’s attempting to look at issues of British media’s treatment of race through the lens of Doctor Who, which is surely a fascinating and valuable discussion to be had. For example, apparently Kate Orman’s essay on _The Talons Of Weng-Chiang_ takes the position that is what most racist about it is not the yellowface make-up of the white actor playing Chang, but that the character he is playing is born out of the Fu Manchu tradition, where Chinese society is represented by dangerous, mystical cults who threaten virtuous white women. I’d like to read more about that stuff. And if there is other revealing stuff in there - about the choice of Doctor’s clothes meant to evoke Victorian time and values, and questioning why that is - then that might be interesting too. Which doesn’t mean I have to like the show any less because these issues are highlighted. But why not be aware of it? And why deny these issues can exist, even in a show that often gets it right? Or, more succinctly, this: > [@MrAtoz](#): > > Given Doctor Who’s fifty year history, and the vast number of differnt people who have been involved with it over those fifty years, I think it would be nothing short of miraculous if the show didn’t have some incidents of racism or sexism. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2013, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-doctor-who-racist/659774/44 "2013-06-01T08:46:27Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > It’s a little more than that in Dr. Who, I am fairly sure almost every single couple is interracial. Specially secondary one episode characters. Off the top of my head: Rose’s mom and dad. Martha’s mom and dad. Clara’s mom and dad. Amy and Rory. Madame Pompadour and the King of France. Sally Sparrow and the guy who ran the video store. The family that Donna stayed with in the dystopian, Doctor-less future. Martha and Mickey. The family of the guy who ran the Doctor website that Rose visited in the first episode. The two survivors of the Doctor’s fan club (although the woman was turned into a paving stone at the end) The original owners of the Torchwood estate. The family who owned the house raided by the kids in “The Empty Child.” The family rescued by the Doctor from the destruction of Pompeii. ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2013, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-doctor-who-racist/659774/45 "2013-06-01T09:06:21Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > Not only are there lots of mixed-race couples, but I’ve always been pleased that LOTS of non-whites are incorporated into the show - and it’s no big deal. In the States, all too often I feel like when you put Indian people into a show, they need to be Indian first, members of the show second. In British telly they are Brits just like everyone else and no one even flickers an eye. One of the other most popular British sci-fi shows of the 80’s and 90’s, Red Dwarf, had black actors playing two of the four main characters _(The Cat and Lister)_ and it wasn’t commented on at all, ‘in-show’ or outside _(at least as far as I recall)_. To the point that I personally never even thought about it until somebody pointed it out _(that’s not a ‘look at how liberal and non-racist I am’ comment, I’m from Northern Ireland a persons religion is/was considered much more important than their race…although sadly that’s changing as sectarianism becomes less overtly acceptable)_. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2013, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-doctor-who-racist/659774/46 "2013-06-04T12:32:50Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > I guess the researchers missed Martha’s season? A very self assured woman, a trained physician, and happened to be black. This show is not racist. Yeah but, to be fair, the Doctor treated Martha like shit. Rose also treated Mickey like shit. (I do not see this as evidence that the show is racist.) Personally I would love to see a female Doctor. I hope they make that happen. It would open up so many interesting possibilities - a male companion? ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2013, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-doctor-who-racist/659774/47 "2013-06-04T19:59:25Z")
> [@olivesmarch4th](#): > > Rose also treated Mickey like shit. I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought that when watching the show. The Doctor also treated Mickey badly as well. Personally Mickey was one of my favourite characters. I have to admit I only watched a couple of series, I lost interest due to the ‘monster of the week’ format and the writer/producer Moffat’s (?) completely unsubtle and irritating preaching. If I want to be lectured at I’ll go to a lecture. The most annoying thing about Moffat’s episodes is that he wrote a _very_ well done short TV series about the return of Christ _(the title of which escapes me)_, so he is obviously a capable writer, something he never brought across in his Doctor Who episodes. > [@olivesmarch4th](#): > > Personally I would love to see a female Doctor. I hope they make that happen. It would open up so many interesting possibilities - a male companion? That would be interesting if they took it in a casual, “Oh, hey, the Doctor’s a woman, that was unexpected” manner and then got on with it, interweaving the difference subtly into the storylines, but you just know that in-show and in the real world it would be high-lighted, debated and analysed into the ground. And re the above, unless things have changed I wouldn’t expect the show’s creators to treat it in anything like a low-key manner. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2013, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-doctor-who-racist/659774/48 "2013-06-04T20:18:32Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > And Ben Kingsley annoyed me as Gandhi, too. At least he is half Indian - but he doesn’t look very much like it! The hell? I can walk down the street and easily find a handful of Indian gentlemen who look just like Sir Ben. Is there some sort of one-drop rule you’re applying here? ---
**Author:** ![Bakhesh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3da27b/32.png) [@Bakhesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bakhesh)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2013, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-doctor-who-racist/659774/49 "2013-06-04T21:34:47Z")
> [@Disposable Hero](#): > > The most annoying thing about Moffat’s episodes is that he wrote a _very_ well done short TV series about the return of Christ _(the title of which escapes me)_, so he is obviously a capable writer, something he never brought across in his Doctor Who episodes. Are you being serious here? I can only assume you missed The Empty Child, The Doctor Dances, The Girl in the Fireplace, Blink, The Pandorica Opens, The Big Bang, A Good man goes to War, Lets Kill Hitler and The Name of the Doctor. ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2013, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-doctor-who-racist/659774/50 "2013-06-04T22:05:13Z")
> [@Bakhesh](#): > > Are you being serious here? I can only assume you missed The Empty Child, The Doctor Dances, The Girl in the Fireplace, Blink, The Pandorica Opens, The Big Bang, A Good man goes to War, Lets Kill Hitler and The Name of the Doctor. I’m 100% serious, I found quite a few of the episodes he wrote nigh-on unwatchable. Just tell me a good story, don’t tell me what I should think about it. Dammit, I meant Rusell T Davies, not Moffat! Mea culpa! ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-doctor-who-racist/659774/51 "2013-06-05T00:34:35Z")
> [@Disposable Hero](#): > > That would be interesting if they took it in a casual, “Oh, hey, the Doctor’s a woman, that was unexpected” manner and then got on with it, interweaving the difference subtly into the storylines, but you just know that in-show and in the real world it would be high-lighted, debated and analysed into the ground. But that’s sort of the point of sci-fi, isn’t it? Yes, The Doctor also treated Mickey like shit and Amy treated Rory like shit in the beginning. It does make you wonder if the writer has an axe to grind regarding women in relationships. ---
**Author:** ![Namkcalb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c89c15/32.png) [@Namkcalb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Namkcalb)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2013, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-doctor-who-racist/659774/52 "2013-06-08T08:19:26Z")
> [@olivesmarch4th](#): > > It does make you wonder if the writer has an axe to grind regarding women in relationships. Russell T. Davies is as gay as Disneyland. I think he probably doesn’t have much experience on the matter. As for blackface/whiteface/yellowface, it’s not always racist to pick the best person for the part. Just [look](https://www.google.com.au/search?safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=STa&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:unofficial&channel=rcs&q=Jenette+Goldstein&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.47534661,d.aGc&biw=1920&bih=953&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=r-iyUYaOM4akigfv54DQDA)at who played Vasquez in Aliens ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2013, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-doctor-who-racist/659774/53 "2013-06-08T15:18:40Z")
> [@Namkcalb](#): > > Russell T. Davies is as gay as Disneyland. I think he probably doesn’t have much experience on the matter. He also didn’t write anything involving Amy & Rory. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-doctor-who-racist/659774.md?page=2)