But times change and so must I. We all change, when you think about it.
We are all different people all through our lives and that's okay, that's good you've got to keep moving so long as you remember all the people that you used to be.
I will not forget one line of this, not one day, I swear. I will always remember when The Doctor was me...
---The Doctor
Like many Whovians, I sat through a tennis match I wasn’t interested in yesterday in order to watch the live announcement on who the 13th Doctor would be. The speculation began the moment that Peter Capaldi announced that he was leaving this iconic role. Naturally, everyone had opinions as several names were bandied about. Some of the names in rotation were: Kris Marshall, Natalie Dormer, Alexander Siddig, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Sacha Dhawan, Cyril Nri etc. When it came to the casting, the central question always seemed to be would the Doctor remain a man, as he has been for over fifty years, or would he follow Missy’s lead and become a woman?
When it came to conversations about a male Doctor, the challenge seemed to be about whether or not the Doctor would be of colour or be yet another incarnation of straight, cisgender white masculinity. Naturally, the traditionalists spit their damn dummy out at the very idea that the Doctor might no longer be white, even if they were relieved that he could potentially stay male. This of course is the problem with toxic fandom, of which Whovians are only a part of. Think about the character of the Doctor. He sweeps in when things are at their most desperate and he saves the day. The Doctor is always the smartest one in the room, the first to solve the puzzle and if necessary, the one to cast judgement and lay down the law. No wonder people continue to see the Doctor as male - he is the perfect example of our patriarchal power structure.
The majority of heads of state are male, the majority of judges are male, the majority of police officer are also male. These are positions of authority which are responsible for laying down the law, figuring out what went wrong and assigning punishment. For as much as I love the Doctor, he is a cop, politician (president of the world) and finally judge. How could any being embodying these roles and not be considered male, when women are still very much outliers in these careers despite the gains of feminism? Because this bullshit has gone on so long, it reads as traditional; the problem is that no one wants to think about what these damn traditions are based in because to do would be to admit the toxicity not just of a fandom we gleefully participate in but a deep rooted rot in our system.
Even though the series has spent some considerable effort explaining gender through the perspective of Time Lords and actually portrayed two Time Lords changing gender from male to female, traditionalists simply could not, nay would not consider a woman in the role of Doctor. Even as I write this, there are people across the globe pouting, shaking their fists and spitting their dummies out en masse. Some even having the nerve to question why their disapproval of a female Doctor makes them sexist. There is always controversy when a new Doctor is cast. Many were not happy when a relatively unknown Matt Smith was cast as the 11th Doctor; however, by the time he left, many (though I am not part of that group) came to consider Matt Smith as their favourite Doctor (these people are wrong, of course). It’s hardly surprising now that Peter Capaldi is leaving that those who found him to be old, grumpy and just plain too mean to be the Doctor are now all up in their feelings, blowing through boxes of Kleenex, expressing their sorrow at losing him. This is the cycle of how Whovians mourn the loss of one Doctor and prepare for the arrival of a new one. Certainly, no one expected near universal praise for the casting of Jodie Whittaker, but to base that disapproval solely on her gender, rather than, say, her previous work, is SEXIST. In fact it’s undeniable SEXISM.
