Doctor Who and Representations of Colour
submitted by sjaejones
Hey, I saw your call for submissions about Doctor Who and representations of people of colour. I am a person of colour and a pretty huge Whovian, so I thought I’d put in my two cents about it. (Note: I am more familiar with New Who than Classic Who, although I have been slowly catching up on those episodes.)
I think RTD’s reboot of Doctor Who was groundbreaking in many ways, in particular with the inclusion of Martha Jones as a companion. I don’t think I can understate the significance of having a woman of colour as a lead character; if we are given significant roles in television, it’s almost always as the sidekick or ancillary character. We are not given character arcs; we almost usually exist to serve the narratives of the white protagonist as either a help or hindrance.
Now, the way the narrative (and fandom!) treats Martha isn’t perfect; she’s often considered “second-best” when compared to Rose, and in many ways, her story is intertwined with her being the Doctor’s rebound relationship. But Martha has her own journey to undertake, and her travels with the Doctor serve to change her as much as it does to change him. Her story begins with her running away from her family’s problems and ends with her coming back to be strong for them. I would argue too, that Martha leaves the Doctor (and voluntarily!) in a better position than either of his other companions: Rose is trapped and then unceremoniously dumped in a parallel universe with a clone (although, to be fair, I actually ship Rose/TenToo pretty hard) and poor Donna has her memories wiped. Martha walks away from the TARDIS with a renewed purpose in life and the knowledge that she is not second-best; she is her own best. I also love how she takes charge of her future: she asks the man she met on the Year That Never Was out on a date!
Mickey is another character who I find groundbreaking. When we open with episode Rose, we are very casually shown that our lead female is in a relationship with a black man. This is huge; interracial relationships on television are increasing in visibility, but more often than not, we tend to pair people of the same race together. (I am the product of an interracial relationship, and I am in one myself, and yet representations of my sort of romance are still rare.) Of course, Rose leaves Mickey behind for the Doctor (both physically and emotionally), but I appreciate that while Mickey starts as an ancillary character, he too grows and develops and has his own arc, starting in School Reunion and culminating in The Age of Steel when he voluntarily leaves the TARDIS to be a resistance fighter in a parallel universe. When he next see Mickey, we see that he has become a formidable character in his own right.
Now, while I find much to praise in RTD’s treatment of people of colour in Doctor Who, it’s not without problems either. Historically, Classic Who has been subject to exoticism and orientalism (the infamous Fourth Doctor adventure The Talons of Weng Chiang feature white actors in yellowface), and although we might write off those episodes as products of their times, it doesn’t mean exoticism and orientalism don’t sneak into episodes of New Who either. The fortune-teller in Turn Left is an unfortunate example, but even if it’s problematic, I do appreciate that RTD’s tenure had people of colour at all.
Now, between RTD and Moffat, I was surprised to see that the universe had become overwhelmingly heterosexual and white. Other people have discussed at length Moffat’s treatment of sexuality, but I will put forth the question: can you think of any significant characters of colour in the show since The Eleventh Hour? If people of colour do appear in Moffat’s work, they seem to be routinely killed off. In The God Complex, Rita, the potential next companion of whom the Doctor seems to be enamoured is killed. In Closing Time, the first person to die is black. While these little things are not unusual (RTD’s run had its share of casually killing off people of colour—Donna’s first fiancé, for example), it is not balanced out by characters who survive (like Captain Zachary Cross Flane in The Satan Pit) or are given their own significant narratives like Martha and Mickey.
I hope Moffat will try and introduce more characters of colour in the future, but his track records hasn’t been very good on his other shows (The Blind Banker on Sherlock, for example, is a heinous example of orientalism and an egregious use of the yellow scare trope).
Lookie here, I submitted something to Feminist Whoinverse!
