An actor who most of us have not heard of, has done some good character work on TV, and who has never been touted as a possible next Doctor. Probably a younger, male person of colour.
— Andrew Rilstone (@AndrewRilstone) May 7, 2022
The future is here! Ncuti Gatwa is the Doctor. ❤️❤️➕🟦 #DoctorWho
— Doctor Who (@bbcdoctorwho) May 8, 2022
Read more here ➡️ https://t.co/KoxPmoNAdL pic.twitter.com/peKsH6gCjI
Congratulations!
ReplyDeleteHeh! Congratulations. I'll admit my money would have been on a woman.
ReplyDeleteI guess it depends on how many other Tweets you have subsequently deleted. :)
ReplyDeleteBut yeah, that was a good call. I didn't think it would be another woman but I definitely thought it would be much more high profile than that.
Ncuti is quite popular on social media, with many several millions of mostly young followers (whereas Jodie Whittaker more or less avoids social media engagement), and is also considered something of a fashion icon.
ReplyDeleteThe question of "why shouldn't the doctor be (something other than an adult white male)" is sort of pointless, as the answer is clearly "he is whatever the BBC and showrunners feel would be liked by their intended audience and fit the stories they want to tell" and obviously that will change over time as society changes.
A perhaps more fun question is to imagine, within canon, why the DOCTOR chose to incarnate as a white male, or more broadly, a white male with a British accent.
Ignoring the "perhaps he just likes it best" which is no answer, I think the logical in ancon answer must be either:
(a) Galifrey was, initially, *largely* run by white males, based on the approximate makeup of time lords in the scenes we saw, but that begs the question as to why *they* donned those forms. I rather like the argument that it was just a fashion trend that ran for about 50 years there but has now run its course, or possibly was discredited after the Time War.
(b) The doctor liked humans, who had spread through much of the galaxy in "the future". He was personally interested or amused by their past history and society, and seems to have had a special interest in that of UK, an interest doubtless increased after his exile there. White males tended to have a privileged position in a lot of cultures the doctor was interested in visiting or was exiled to, so to operate without unnecessary friction, appearing as one saved him problems.
One might assume the doctor now feels that "contemporary" and more diverse UK culture no longer has the same issues, and a black man or woman who appears in the UK won't have any difficulty gaining trust of government officials, random strangers, etc. in the event of sudden crisis, and thus he/she can afford to try out some new bodies without trouble. The issue might still come up if the doctor time-traveled into less enlightened periods, but given that the doctor avoided traveling into places/times/cultures where being white and male and British might be an insurmountable issue presumably he/she will manage to cope...
@Unknown:
ReplyDeleteI think "why did the Doctor choose to incarnate as a white male so many times" is an odd question. Generally speaking, the show has been quite consistent on the point that the Doctor doesn't choose their physical form at all. In a given Doctor's first episode, they're consistently surprised by what they look like, and sometimes ticked off by some physical traits ("as for the physiognomy… well, nothing's perfect. Have to take the rough with the smooth"… "Shame about the ears"… Matt Smith initially not being sure if he's just turned into a girl).
Granted, Moffat played with the idea that the faces were still drawn from the Doctor's *sub*conscious, so that the transformation into Peter Capaldi wasn't a random throw of the dice, but rather, represented multiple things about the evolution of the Doctor's psyche. Trying to make his immense age more tangible for Clara, borrowing the face of the Pompei survivor to remind himself that the Laws of Time aren't the boss of him, and he should strive to do the Right Thing rather than the Historically Accurate Thing insofar as it is feasible.
But even then, that was clearly an entirely subconscious process, and the Capaldi Doctor himself took some time to figure out what he was trying to tell himself. It's dream-logic, nowhere near the sort of reasoned decision where the sort of social stragegising you suggest could have taken place.
(Now yes, Romana in "Destiny of the Daleks" shows that it is possible to control one's regenerations finely. But the Doctor has, seemingly, never been able to manage it. Makes sense. They're only intermittently any good at flying the TARDIS, and they didn't get very good marks at the Time Lord Academy. Must have flunked controlled-meditative-regeneration class.)