Poll: Doctor Who: Female and/or Non-White Master, Yay or Nay?

[Ruuvan]

How about Samuel L. Jackson?

"I've had enough of these mother-lovin' Daleks on this mother-lovin' planet!" (Plane version right there)

 

[Lilani]

Thanks for putting words in my mouth, insinuating that I don't think people of minorities exsist. And secondly, if you want good minority characters made they need to be designed from the ground up as that race or sexuality. Simply making a character one thing then changing it at random is the definition of tokenism. If you want more diverse Doctor Who characters, fine, but you'd end up with BETTER characters by making new ones, not simply by changing old ones. And with that I'm done responding to you, since you have no respect for my argument by trying to say I don't acknowledge minorities.

I wasn't putting words in your mouth, I was only stating the implication that comes with having a consistently white cast for little reason other than tradition. Doctor Who is a show ABOUT characters changing at random. It has been a vital part of the show for decades, and it has been canon for a while that Time Lords are not bound to any particular gender or form. Based on those canonical mechanics, they'd have to explain why he DOESN'T change more radically.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Watch this, and you tell me!!
<youtube=Do-wDPoC6GM>

But really, I'm down for either, or, and all of the above. If it's well written, it's well written.

 

[Tanis]

I just want the best PERSON for the roll.

Anything else is meaningless to me.

 

[sumanoskae]

The problem is that it's not arbitrary at all to change art for no other reason than to satisfy some lame social agenda. When artists justify their work by saying they "felt like it," what they really mean is that that's the way the artistic vision came to them and that that's the form the end product came out as. You're advocating adding another step in there (namely, the part where we gender/race/whatever swap characters at random) for no real reason. If someone actually does have a brilliant story for the next Zelda game, and if that idea happened to come to them packaged with Link being a female, I'm all for it. What I am against is this insistence that artists "should" simply replace "he's" with "she's" since it wouldn't affect the story. Artists have full authority over their own work, and they're under no special obligation to satisfy diversity quotas; trying to convince artists to do so (which is the entire point of these kinds of threads) smacks of tokenism.

If, as you say, it makes no difference whether a character has some trait or another, and if, as you say, we should all just shut up about it, then why are you trying to defend agenda-based work? The thing is that nobody is "announcing" this "kind of thing" for their games. Instead, random people on the internet are piping up about how they wish Link were a girl, or how it'd be a "nice gesture for diversity" if, say, the next Doctor was a woman. The fact that these thoughts are essentially coming from community members trying to push social agendas rather than from content creators and/or owners of the IP is the problem.

It doesn't matter to the art itself, but we treat it like it does. Nobody bats an eye at the fact that so many game protagonists are the same gender and race, but the second one of them is something other than a white male, it becomes an issue.

Nobody is "Changing" anything; nobody is altering the source material to swap out this or that characters gender or skin tone (Not that it would make a real difference anyway). Link being a girl in one Zelda game doesn't retroactively change the other Zelda games.

Nobody is privy to anyone else's creative process. Artistic vision doesn't just spring fully formed from the head of Zeus; every aspect of the artists personality, including their politics, will affect it in some way. The important thing is that it's up to the artist, and if they want to make a political statement, that's their right; neither you nor me have any right to say that a "Political agenda" is somehow forbidden from entering the process. An artist is allowed to listen to their audience; an artist is allowed to be political with their work if they want to.

I don't recall ever once saying that any character should be of one gender or another, I said it was ultimately unimportant. Why did you infer that I was advocating imposing such a thing when all I suggested is that we ignore it's existence?

How often have you seen someone honestly attempt to convince an artist to do something like this? This thread has nothing to do with saying that The Master should be a woman, in fact all it's doing is polling the audience. Once again, you went from the mere suggestion of a possibility to the imposition of an agenda.

How is "I think this is a good idea" a forceful sentiment? Why are you getting defensive about a suggestion?

As for diversity, the simple fact is that if you work in Hollywood, the amount of leading roles in American movies available to you will be significantly less if you are anything other than a Caucasian male. So yes, the color of their skin is not an important aspect of a character, but Hollywood sure as hell thinks it is.

If every leading character in fiction was middle eastern, would we not stop to ask why? We've just come to accept that 80% of our leads are white men despite the fact that any of them could have just as easily been neither of those things. And this preference is entirely pointless; in fact it's kind of unrealistic.

We shouldn't sacrifice artistic vision for Politics, but that's exactly what we're doing already; we cast our protagonists based on their gender and the color of their skin, the situation is not equal.

And this prejudice has actually INTERRUPTED the artistic vision of some artists; I'm sure we're all familiar with what went down with games like Remember Me and The Last of Us, both of which came under fire by publishers in some manner for attempting to put emphasis on female characters. So the owners of IP DO sometimes push this issue, but they get punished for it when they do.

So when people say it would be nice if this or that character was something other than a white guy, "It doesn't matter" is exactly what they're going for; the point is not to cast more blacks/women/gays/whatever for the sake of it, the point is to stop ignoring these people, to stop playing favorites; when we can just as easily see a main character who is an Asian woman or a Hispanic man as we can a character who is white man, THEN it won't matter.

This shit isn't going to stop until somebody sets a precedent. What I said before is true; it doesn't matter for the story. But we keep pretending it does.

 

[K12]

The idea in general smacks of tokenism. If you took a character and change nothing but their sex you've effectively changed bugger-all. You haven't made some great sweeping message of change, you've just messed with some perfectly fine formulas.

I hear this argument also with making well-known superheroes a different race or color, or even sexuality. However, most of these stories (including Doctor Who) were made during a time when making the characters any other color or gender or sexual orientation wouldn't have been acceptable. All the classic superheroes and TV show characters aren't white males JUST because their creators felt that was the best model for the role. Another factor in that decision is the simple fact that they couldn't have put anybody else in print or on screen, at least as a serious, non-stereotyped character.

Now that we live in an age where other traits like that ARE acceptable, why wouldn't we make changes where it doesn't really matter? Was Superman really so great because he was white? Is the most important feature of the Master being white or male? Why must we continue to subject ourselves to the conventions of 1963 in this manner? I think there are key elements to the formula that make up the Master and the Doctor, but none of them have to do with race, gender, age, or sexual orientation.

Because those conventions from the 60's don't cause any harm? Is there really that much lost from having the Doctor be a straight white british man? And I don't even watch Doctor Who that much, I just think that randomly changing a characters sex/skin color is beyond token.

It might be considered tokenism if they arbitrarily decide "OK the next Doctor/Master will be black". The point is that when casting the next doctor it would be nice if more than just white men were considered. I agree that deliberately excluding a white male actor who would clearly be best for the role would be a bad idea but I can think of a handful of actresses and non white actors who would be great at being the Doctor/Master. Saying "it doesn't matter" should go both ways surely? You might not lose anything by deliberately keeping him a white guy but you don't gain anything either.

Plus the time travel aspect could be interesting. They only quite briefly touched on it with Martha Jones, but it would be interesting to see how a black or female Doctor or Master managed to remain authoritative when travelling back to times when white men were in charge of absolutely everything.

 

[K12]

double post

 

[Ranorak]

Moments before the 9th doctor's regeneration he clearly states:

I might never make sense again! I might have two heads! Or no head! Imagine me with no head - and don't say that's an improvement

And seconds later:

But it's a bit dodgy, this process.
You never know what you're gonna end up with.

After the 10th doctor's regeneration into the 11th, we have this piece of dialogue:

I'm a girl! No, no! I'm not a girl. I'm still not ginger

Indicating that it CAN happen, the doctor doesn't seem so much shock that in can happen, but more that it might have happened to him.

As for skin colour, I only have to point to River Songs' teenage years as Mels. She was black, while the lost girl that we see earlier was white.

So I'm fully convinced that the Doctor could end up as a black female (with no head).
And if they find the right actor for the job, I have zero objections with this change.

 

[Thaluikhain]

So I'm fully convinced that the Doctor could end up as a black female (with no head).
And if they find the right actor for the job, I have zero objections with this change.

I think it might not be a great idea to go straight from always having a one headed white guy, to a headless black woman.

 

[Ranorak]

Eh, I'd generally perfer it if they just made newer characters that were cast as their particular race/sexuality from the beginning, rather then take an established character and change it. It avoids pissing off long time viewers.

Only a huge part of this character is the fact that upon death he changes in a completly different person.
Not only his looks change due to regeneration, but his personallity too.

Yes, he will always be the madman with a box, but personallity wise the 9th and the 11th are totally different.
So, the long time viewers will know that after a regeneration the doctor will be different (The Doctor himself is also afraid of this, and still views regeneration as dying simply because the person he is seazes to exist and a new guy will walk around in his shoes) So, when this change will happen, and his personallity will change, why couldn't it be in the shape of a woman?

 

[Ranorak]

So I'm fully convinced that the Doctor could end up as a black female (with no head).
And if they find the right actor for the job, I have zero objections with this change.

I think it might not be a great idea to go straight from always having a one headed white guy, to a headless black woman.

I hit the reply button to tell you I was joking, but after I pressed it, it seemed a bit redundent to mention that, so I was about to cancel my reply. Until I saw the CAPTCHA message and I had to post.

CAPTCHA: Dalek Asylum

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

My response would be the same if you asked the same question about the Doctor: As long as the actor fits the role, it doesn't matter what gender or skin colour they possess.

 

[elvor0]

As long as there isn't any sexual tension I'll be okay with it.
Jeez, they even did it in that Sherlock Holmes reboot, arch nemesis for centuries but now that they're a girl you just gotta bang em.

Why can't they just be evil?

Is this in the latest series(which I still haven't seen ><), or am I forgetting something? Cos Moriarty would obviously be Holmes' nemesis and he was a dude.

 

[Thaluikhain]

As long as there isn't any sexual tension I'll be okay with it.
Jeez, they even did it in that Sherlock Holmes reboot, arch nemesis for centuries but now that they're a girl you just gotta bang em.

Why can't they just be evil?

Is this in the latest series(which I still haven't seen ><), or am I forgetting something? Cos Moriarty would obviously be Holmes' nemesis and he was a dude.

There are at least 2 competing reboots, one US and one from the UK.

 

[Techno Squidgy]

Non-white? I don't know about the new episodes but wasn't the original master non-white? Regardless of the actor's race he didn't seem to be presented as a typical white man, and could easily have been a Moor, Egyptian or Persian. Not to mention this discussion doesn't even make sense since the Master isn't human.

No The Master isn't human, but the actor/actress who portrays The Master will be, which is why this discussion does make sense. As far as I am personally aware, Time Lord regeneration rules say nothing about the gender or skin tone of the time lord changing during regeneration, but they also don't say anything about it not being possible.

OT:
The only time I'd have a problem with the actor/actress portraying The Master is if they did a bad job of it, or if the character was poorly written. The writers can do what they like with the character, if they do something I don't like, I'll either grit my teeth and bear it, or I'll just not watch it.

 

[elvor0]

As long as there isn't any sexual tension I'll be okay with it.
Jeez, they even did it in that Sherlock Holmes reboot, arch nemesis for centuries but now that they're a girl you just gotta bang em.

Why can't they just be evil?

Is this in the latest series(which I still haven't seen ><), or am I forgetting something? Cos Moriarty would obviously be Holmes' nemesis and he was a dude.

There are at least 2 competing reboots, one US and one from the UK.

Oh yeah, I compeletly forgot the US version existed. And I was expecting Holmes to end up banging fem-Watson! Oh well, they sure showed me. Maybe next time I hear about it, they'll have had a threesome.

 

[Saulkar]

I am going to be in the vast minority but gender does not define a character as much to me as race in this specific circumstance. Gender often matters more to me but not in this instance. By changing his race it would change the atmosphere too much for me, does not mean however, that it cannot/should not be done or cannot be done fantastically. However, it would feel for me much the same way an Asian Blade, Caucasian Black Panther, or African Turok would. I constantly hear how we need to be blind to race but I cannot make myself do it when each one has something different and awesome to offer.

Once again, something a little racy going on there with how a person's upbringing means more than what they looks like but that does not separate them from their origins, something I like to think that we all carry a little bit with us.

CAPTCHA: I want control - No captcha, I do not want control. I am simply voicing my relatively unpopular opinion.

 

[K12]

The idea in general smacks of tokenism. If you took a character and change nothing but their sex you've effectively changed bugger-all. You haven't made some great sweeping message of change, you've just messed with some perfectly fine formulas.

I hear this argument also with making well-known superheroes a different race or color, or even sexuality. However, most of these stories (including Doctor Who) were made during a time when making the characters any other color or gender or sexual orientation wouldn't have been acceptable. All the classic superheroes and TV show characters aren't white males JUST because their creators felt that was the best model for the role. Another factor in that decision is the simple fact that they couldn't have put anybody else in print or on screen, at least as a serious, non-stereotyped character.

Now that we live in an age where other traits like that ARE acceptable, why wouldn't we make changes where it doesn't really matter? Was Superman really so great because he was white? Is the most important feature of the Master being white or male? Why must we continue to subject ourselves to the conventions of 1963 in this manner? I think there are key elements to the formula that make up the Master and the Doctor, but none of them have to do with race, gender, age, or sexual orientation.

Because those conventions from the 60's don't cause any harm? Is there really that much lost from having the Doctor be a straight white british man? And I don't even watch Doctor Who that much, I just think that randomly changing a characters sex/skin color is beyond token.

It might be considered tokenism if they arbitrarily decide "OK the next Doctor/Master will be black". The point is that when casting the next doctor it would be nice if more than just white men were considered. I agree that deliberately excluding a white male actor who would clearly be best for the role would be a bad idea but I can think of a handful of actresses and non white actors who would be great at being the Doctor/Master. Saying "it doesn't matter" should go both ways surely? You might not lose anything by deliberately keeping him a white guy but you don't gain anything either.

Plus the time travel aspect could be interesting. They only quite briefly touched on it with Martha Jones, but it would be interesting to see how a black or female Doctor or Master managed to remain authoritative when travelling back to times when white men were in charge of absolutely everything.

Eh, I'd generally perfer it if they just made newer characters that were cast as their particular race/sexuality from the beginning, rather then take an established character and change it. It avoids pissing off long time viewers.

Maybe, but part of the point of the Doctor and Master is that they change and regenerate so "keeping him the same" means deliberately choosing a different actor to play him who looks similar to the last one. Why should his race and gender be constant but not his apparent age or height etc. The Doctor isn't white and he isn't male... he isn't even human.

I would say that during the original run of the show it may have seemed to get a young person to play the doctor than it would for the Doctor to be female. A lot of people disliked Matt Smith because we was too young. I sort of agreed at the time but he turned out to be really brilliant so it didn't matter. He is still very clearly the Doctor, just a young one.

A black or Asian or female or whatever Doctor could easily still be the Doctor in every important sense so why create unnecessary restrictions for a show that thrives or its ability to ave no real boundaries. Having the Doctor be able to travel to all of space and time but not regenerate as anything other than a white male seems odd to me.