Time for a black Doctor Who

[confused2]

Actually long past time. Everybody needs heroes.

[C C]

The sabers are rattling for a female Doctor. They could accomplish both by casting either Noma Dumezweni or Cush Jumbo in the part.

Should Chris Chibnall reboot the series, and it thereby not matter that she was once an assistant in the past, they could bring back Freema Agyeman to play the Doctor. Even if the show isn't rebooted, there's still the precedent of Ramona (one of Tom Baker's companions who was likewise a timelord) having deliberately regenerated with the looks of the Princess Astra character featured in the "The Armageddon Factor" story (1979), who accordingly had also been played by Lalla Ward.

But since DW already has its lowest ratings since it returned circa a dozen years ago, whatever actor Chibnall decides to select will probably be blamed for killing the show (whether they are truly responsible or not). That's a stigma which caused Lara Pulver (back in 2012) to be indecisive about whether she would accept the role if offered to her.

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Jryy, V gnxr vg onpx fyvtugyl. N srj cynprf ner xvpxvat vg nebhaq nf n erzbgr cbffvovyvgl: https://moviepilot.com/p/doctor-who-cast...er/4199871

[Ben the Donkey]

Or perhaps she should be Indian or Pakistani or something.
Dr Who is a TV series originating from the UK, not America; you're confusing your dominant minorities.

But she should also be fat... and really fucking ugly.

I mean if you're going to swing an axe, sharpen that edge with more than one agenda. 
Efficiency still has to count for something, surely.

[Zinjanthropos]

I wonder if around 1000 AD if it was time for a (pick a racial minority) Leif the Lucky. 

Never watched an episode of DW. Hope it all works out for fans of the show.

[C C]

Or perhaps she should be Indian or Pakistani or something. Dr Who is a TV series originating from the UK, not America; you're confusing your dominant minorities.

But has an actor of Indo-Pakistani ethnicity or descent ever played even a guest role in DW's long history? One would surely feel so, given the post-colonial guilt alleviation / seeking redemption tendencies since the show returned. And even all that quarter century or so of DW episodes back during the multiculturally unenlightened days should also lend it at least a statistical possibility.

But none come immediately to mind (though subjective memory hardly counts). Whereas various Black British actors that seem of a lineage of Caribbean or direct African heritage have trooped through the series since it was revived in 2005. Starting with Rose Tyler's boyfriend Mickey Smith (Noel Clarke). So the continued momentum of that seems to be molding speculative opinions on the web, bulldozing over any priority of representation via minority demographics in the UK.

In actuality, though, most of the female candidates being waved around are white -- I only came across a couple opinion pieces entertaining the idea of speeding DW evolution up by merging in this upcoming regeneration both Confused2's wishes and the gender-political expectations.

But she should also be fat... and really fucking ugly. I mean if you're going to swing an axe, sharpen that edge with more than one agenda. Efficiency still has to count for something, surely.

We could even go three up at once in the stages by making her a lesbian, too. Since the taboo in the old version of the show has been kicked out now; i.e., of keeping Doctor Who celibate, asexual, or minus any orientation (exempting the quirk of starting out with a granddaughter). Which was especially applicable to his not getting lecherous toward his often younger traveling companions -- "for the sake of the many kiddies" constituting the television audience.

Which rubs shoulders with another matter. It's well known that the male fans have watched DW over the decades as much because of the "cute" companions of the Timelord as the latter himself. Female viewers in the old days tended to worry more about whether or not this or that version of the Doctor was still exhibiting specific personality traits they liked (such as Tom Baker's humor), than whether Leela's huntress-warrior outfit was still not revealing enough or Sarah Jane Smith was just too petite in one area.

But with a woman DW currently looming (at least speculation wise), the talk is that the companions should be guys (barring those instances when there are two or more companions). Which, in order to hang onto much of the straight male viewership, would seem to require making the Doctor herself a bit on the cute side.

To my retrospective surprise that she was being touted by anyone at all and that she herself even expressed interest in being the Doctor a couple of years ago, that's what might be causing the minor promotion (at least on the other side of the Atlantic) of dual-citizenship Hayley Atwell. (Her being a fraction Native American like me, of course, had nothing to do with I even thinking of her as a distant possibility.)

As a more feasible alternative... Since Freema Agyeman literally was a former traveling companion (i.e., the "cute" qualifications for luring the male viewers already met), that's what would make her a good choice to fill the Doctor's shoes himself the second time around (i.e., should the producers be worried, again, about losing the straight guys in the ratings due to a dominance of male companions henceforth).

I am aware that back when Freema was a companion she was occasionally dissed by some of the troglodyte fans (perhaps covertly because she was black), so that's a nasty-sided factor to have to consider in a balancing act. But since this whole idea of renovating the character of DW for our Millennial socio-political sensibilities is flying quasi-Marixist style into the face of not caring about ratings and profit, anyway... Then it is primarily about creative minds leaping off the cliff for the thrill of achieving white-hetero-male-colonialism-guilt redemption among the general population of fans who are thumping on the podium for these radical transitions. (Which is to say, those quaint celebrations afterwards in the streets where white folk dance and sing: "Praise be, we've carved another notch in the ascent to ideological sainthood! Another measure of ancestral sins washed away!").

[stryder]

How about making him a "Blackhat" then you get something that doesn't imply any racial proposals and will likely rub any authoritarian up the wrong way.

[C C]

How about making him a "Blackhat" then you get something that doesn't imply any racial proposals and will likely rub any authoritarian up the wrong way.

As an extraterrestrial who regenerates a new body when he dies, it's the usual unrealistic sci-fi that he looks like a human being at all; and thereby suffers these Millennial controversies. But the original creators had not worked out what his origin and background was till circa the mid sixties (he could have wound-up being just an Earthly spacetime traveler from the future).

What's startling is that even though DW has been around since 1963, the franchise has remained limited to the single show and a few lesser media like audio, books, comics and merchandise. Multiple Time Lord characters could have been spun off with their own series to accommodate various ethnic groups, sexual orientations, and the ever-growing gender spectrum. Doctor Who even has a daughter who was quickly forgotten and left undeveloped (not to mention that mysterious granddaughter who accompanied him at the very beginning 54 years ago).

There was "Torchwood" and "The Sarah Jane Adventures". But those were kind of like North America's "Gotham" or "Smallville" or "Marvel's Agents of Shield" -- feeding peripherally off the worlds of more commercially valuable icons who either weren't featured themselves or who weren't their future selves yet. Torchwood and SJA didn't accommodate the growing multicultural / multi-pronoun need to exploit the central hero whose loins they sprang from.

I don't know whether the BBC's decades-long conservative attitude about a proliferation of its prize character into a splintering family of diverse Time Lord idols is the result of funding restrictions or internal philosophy or what. Even Canadian studios (in conjunction with MGM) knew how to milk the Stargate franchise and its mythos into more than just the initial Stargate SG-1 team and its exploratory situation.

[confused2]

post-colonial guilt alleviation / seeking redemption tendencies since the show returned. And even all that quarter century or so of DW episodes back during the multiculturally unenlightened days

The OP was inspired by personal guilt. I was driving to work playing chicken with the other drivers and trying not to run any seagulls over when...
I noticed a black child standing at a bus stop. I sort of said to myself "You don't see many of those." as one might when spotting an elk in a region that doesn't normally contain elks. The observer (me) was clearly observed by the observee (him). The result was eye contact. I don't know what he thought I was thinking - the elk thing is bad enough - it was obvious he was upset. In the rear view mirror I saw a kind stranger trying to restrain him as he tried to leave (I guess) to go home and say "I hate this country.".
At the age of 9 I heard "I have a dream...".

... This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned...

For many years I despised 'America' and all Americans for defaulting on that contract. The UK has no legal contract but the moral contract leaves me no alternative but to despise myself.
Hopefully slightly clearer why I might want a black Doctor Who.

[Syne]

No thanks. There's enough superficial pandering as it is. No one is done any favors by co-opting an originally or traditionally white hero...as if blacks don't have or are incapable of creating their own original heroes. Like the talk of a black James Bond, it's welfare (of the bigotry of low expectations sort). Any guilt this sort of thing may be intended to alleviate is the guilt in assuming someone different than yourself could only get there on your coattails.

It's really a shame that Booker T. Washington lost the cultural influence to W.E.B. Du Bois. Instead of blacks having the pride and determination to succeed on their own merit (as MLK said, and by out-competing white men), Du Bois convinced them that black elites could be trusted to get what they wanted from the white man. And we've seen how little gains were made for blacks by Obama.

[Ben the Donkey]

It was clear from the outset, Confuzed2.

But I reiterate, Dr Who is a UK production and is not (or shouldn't be) subject to American mores.

Know what's actually kinda amusing to me?

On Earth, we have several different racial sub-groups all vying for supremacy. Don't even try to argue with me on that - "supremacy" is exactly the right terminology to use.
Give me any argument about racial equality and I'll show you how they're actually about superiority. 

Nothing is about equality - it's all about having their turn. 
"Pass me the ball!".

I think one of the more interesting points about the entire debate is that, at the end of the day, it is the European racial sub types which will be lost.
For all of the who-ha about black rights and wotnot, 50 years from now - there'll be no such thing as a naturally blonde woman. 

For me, it'll be a little like the Mona Lisa being burned. 

*awaiting the Sword of  Damocles...*