You might have heard from a few people that the eleventh season of Doctor Who has been a little bit too politically correct for their liking. Reactions from those who aren’t comfortable with the direction the series has taken range from, ‘it’s a bit message heavy’ to almost comical levels of rage, and deliberate attempts to misrepresent the viewing figures. Whilst it’s true that this season has had more ‘pause for thought’ moments and outright political commentary than we’ve seen in the past, to suggest that Doctor Who has never been politically correct is wide of the mark.
Half of the Sylvester McCoy era was, as has been freely admitted by the writers, anti-Thatcher in nature and proud of it. Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor gave a fantastic and impassioned anti-war speech in ‘The Zygon Inversion’ during Season 9. Way back in the 1970s, during the time of Jon Pertwee’s Third Doctor, ‘The Green Death’ taught us all about the dangers of damaging our environment. Nobody complained about political correctness back then, because the term hadn’t been invented.
When you take the time to ask people what they find to be ‘politically correct’ about the show, they’ll either tell you that there’s a disproportionate number of actors from ethnic minorities in the show, too many gay characters, or inaccurate portrayals of history which make either white people or the establishments of the past look bad. We’ll take those objections one at a time.
Firstly, it seems frankly insane to complain about ethnic diversity in a show that’s primarily set in other times and places. Nobody knows what the ethnic makeup of the future will look like. As for races who exist on other planets; anybody claiming that there’s disproportionate representation of minorities there has more pressing issues with reality than just what they’re seeing on their televisions. Yes, Ryan is black. Yes, Yaz has Indian and Asian heritage. At the same time, the Doctor is white, and so is Graham. Martha, who was introduced to the show as a companion way back in 2007, was black. Mickey, who was a part time companion two years earlier, was also black. That didn’t seem to upset anybody at the time. There’s never been an Indian or Asian companion before, but to be honest it seems overdue.
The ‘too many gay characters; argument isn’t new to the show, either. Representation of gay people has been strong on the show ever since Russell T Davies brought it back to television in 2005, and people have been complaining about it for a while. This is despite the fact that Rose and Mickey were in a heterosexual relationship on screen, as were Amy and Rory, Clara and Danny, and even the Doctor and River. Only one full time companion, namely Bill Potts, has been gay. Yes, several of the background characters have been gay, but why this should be a problem if it doesn’t get in the way of storytelling is beyond us. Also, cutting back on characters with gay tendencies would have denied us Captain Jack, and who wants to live in a world without Captain Jack?
The question of ‘inaccurate portrayals of history’ is a difficult one to address. Primarily, these accusations have been leveled at two episodes in particular; ‘Rosa’ and ‘Demons of the Punjab’.
‘Rosa’ does not seem to misrepresent the known facts of the life of Rosa Parks (other than a subplot involving a racist time traveler, but we don’t think that’s what people were complaining about!). It’s an honest re-telling of the story, with the Doctor and her crew doing little more than observing events, and letting Rosa’s story be told. This is the kind of ‘celebrity historical’ that the show has always done, going all the way back to the William Hartnell classic ‘Marco Polo’. Part of the brief of the original show, way back in 1963, was to educate people; and especially children; about important events in history. The show does this by going back to those events and re-telling the tale for a new audience. It did it with ‘Marco Polo’, it did it with ‘The Romans’, it did it with ‘The Massacre Of St. Bartholomew’s Eve’, and it did it with ‘Rosa’.
Perhaps part of the issue is that it’s been some time since the show did historical stories in this way, and people aren’t used to it. There has seemingly been a trend in this season to go back to the show’s roots, and re-introduce the ‘educational’ aspect. ‘Arachnids In The UK’ was, in many ways, a re-telling of ‘The Green Death’. ‘Rosa’ could equally be seen as being done in the same style as ‘Marco Polo’.
Whilst we’re on the topic of ‘Marco Polo’ by the way, it contains one of the best Hartnell scenes ever. He’s gambling against Kublai Khan, wins half of Asia at one point, doubles up in an attempt to win back the TARDIS, and loses everything. The Doctor may not be a natural gambler! We’d love to see them give that story another go, but with a modern twist. Maybe the Doctor could hit Money Reels and try her hand at some online slots there, with the fate of the universe depending on the spin of the reels, and everything coming down to a good bonus round. Hit the jackpot, save the world? If they make that episode next season we want royalties.
As for ‘Demons of the Punjab’; again, that happened. The partition of India happened, the British were largely responsible, and a lot of people died. The fact that the truth isn’t comfortable for some people doesn’t mean it never occurred. The show has never been under any obligation to only visit times in history that make us look good; if anything, it’s providing us a useful window to see our past mistakes so that we might learn from them.
The people who are complaining now probably aren’t going to stop complaining, but when you sit back and actually assess the content, ‘Doctor Who’ isn’t any more or less politically correct than it’s ever been. It’s just ‘Doctor Who’, and long may it continue to be so.