Current Contemplation: A Female Doctor Who

New promotional image of Jodie Whittaker as the 13th Doctor

With much anticipation, the BBC finally announced its choice for the 13th Doctor today.

To be honest, since my Bowie obsession took hold in 2016 (and Doctor Who went on hiatus from 2015 until this year) I haven't seen any episodes.  Don't get me wrong - I'm still a Whovian and love the series - but I just haven't been motivated to watch them.  Primarily because Series 9, to me, was the best season of new!Doctor Who ever created.  It was flawless and it featured my favourite companion with my favourite Doctor in some of the best episodes television has to offer.

Peter Capaldi as the 12th Doctor and Jenna Coleman as Clara Oswald in BBC series Doctor Who

As a result, after Clara left I wasn't sure if I wanted to watch the next series.  And soon after my new obsession of David Bowie took over Doctor Who anyways.  But despite being a series and a few specials behind, I've been deeply contemplating this decision to make the Doctor a woman.

It's been a long time coming - that much was obvious from the gender!bend of the Master in series 8 and the massive fan (and internal) demand for more diversity on the show.  It was only a matter of time.  And now that it's been announced there's been a lot of opinions voiced - from adamantly against to zealously for and everything in-between.  So I wanted to throw my hat into the ring, so to speak.

I'll be blunt right from the start: I don't think I want to watch the series with a female Doctor.  But I will also probably watch the show.  Let me elaborate.

I am not anti-feminist.  I am happy that young girls will be able to imagine themselves both as Companion and Doctor with this casting choice.  I believe that female Doctor can be just as successful and interesting as a male Doctor.  I am pro-change in terms of trying different formats, dynamics, and characters on Doctor Who.  I think that Jodie Whittaker will make a fine Doctor and she has all my best to succeed at it.

I just enjoy the what male energy brings to the role of the Doctor more than female energy.

When I say "male energy" I know I am treading tricky territory.  Gender studies is a whole political topic in its own right that I don't want to go into here.  But what I will say is that I do agree that gender is partly a societal construct in terms of assigning certain behaviours, traits, etc. to masculine and feminine.  However, I also believe that there are biological factors that influence what we deem masculine and feminine that no amount of culture can get rid of (medically speaking there is a norm established for what is considered male and female, although mutations of that baseline can be seen).

All of that being said, I'm not quite sure what I mean when I say "male energy".  I still can't pin it down, other than the simple fact that I just enjoy having a leading male in the role.  I'm sure you could do some sort of psycho-analysis on me about that.  Perhaps I secretly don't know how oppressed I am by the patriarchy and society.  I need to be empowered.  Maybe I'm just not acclimated to imagining a woman in an "active" (the "do-er") role because there were so few growing up.  But I don't think so.

I do enjoy stories told by women (after all, I am one).  I believe that women and "female" energy bring something special and unique to the table that men and "male" energy do not.  I think that women can be a valid choice for main characters, and I think that they are just as capable of being cast in an active role.  I know a woman can carry a fan-base just as well as any man (JK Rowling is my favourite author).  I'm just aware enough of my love for the "male-Doctor-typically-female-Companion-dynamic" to admit that with a woman at the core of Doctor Who, I probably won't tune-in.

Perhaps that's no surprise.  Most of my favourite things and obsessions have been with male characters and real life people: Harry Potter, Samwise Gamgee, Dominic Monaghan, Jack Sparrow, Johnny Depp, Ringo Starr, Merlin, Colin Morgan, Sherlock, Benedict Cumberbatch, John Watson, Martin Freeman, The Doctor, David Tennant, Matt Smith, Peter Capaldi, David Bowie, etc.  to name a few.  And maybe part of that is because I'm simply used to stories being told from the male perspective (or at the very least having the man be a central part of the narrative).  There's no shortage of these types of stories at the very least.

But at the same time, I know I enjoy these narratives because I enjoy casting myself in the role of the Companion.  I'm all for wanting girls to know they can be the main character if they so choose.  But for most of my life I can honestly say I've enjoyed the Companion over the Doctor.  Perhaps it's just my personality.  I enjoy being behind the scenes working with people in the spotlight.  If asked where I would cast myself in different situations I would answer with the role of the person brought along on the adventure.

Perhaps the best way to illustrate why is to quote Steven Moffat when he spoke about Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock and Martin Freeman as John Watson in BBC's Sherlock:

Benedict is exotic and extraordinary, [....] he's always going to be exceptional, because he's got an amazing voice and an extraordinary face and that's what makes him special. [...] he's never going to be cast as someone ordinary.  No doubt he could play it, but you'd have to cover up the cheekbones, whereas what Martin Freeman can do is he looks like a very ordinary man and he isn't particularly, Martin himself, but he can find the humour and pathos and poetry in the ordinary.” [x]

Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes and Martin Freeman as John Watson in BBC's Sherlock

And that humour and pathos and poetry in the ordinary is what I love.  Tolkien too describes this phenomenon when characterising his character of Sam Gamgee from Lord of the Rings:

Tolkien called Sam the "chief hero" of the saga in one of his letters: he places special emphasis on Sam's "rustic love" for Rosie, a union that serves to establish a family in which allusions to Elvish wonders ... are combined with the best qualities of traditional Shire-life. [....] Tolkien wrote in a private letter: "My Sam Gamgee is indeed a reflexion of the English soldier, of the privates and batmen I knew in the 1914 war, and recognised as so far superior to myself". [x]

Therefore it is no surprise that Sam Gamgee is my favourite character from Lord of the Rings and John Watson is my favourite characterfrom Sherlock.  On YouTube, Link is my favourite from the duo Rhett and Link, and Phil is my favourite from the duo Dan and Phil.  Ringo Starr is my favourite Beatle, and if I could interact with David Bowie in any capacity, I would've loved to be his either his longtime friend and producer Tony Visconti, loyal guitarist and established collaborator Carlos Alomar, or his personal assistant and best friend Coco Schwab.

Thus, it came as no surprise to me that on Doctor Who I always felt like I could connect the closest with the Companion (regardless of gender).  I loved that by relating to the traditional Companion Role I could go on adventures with the Doctor.  I didn't have to be him.  I didn't want to be him.  I wanted to explore with him.

To be fair, a critique that the genderless Doctor could work in the same way I describe the role of the genderless Companion is valid.  But to me, the main character and the person who adventures with the main character are very different.  I want to be brought along.  I don't need the story to be all about me.  And for me, as previously stated, I have always been fascinated and drawn to narratives that have a male-centric energy at their core even with an abundance of more female-centric ones to chose from today.  So it makes sense to have a male Doctor be the one to draw you in, much like my past obsessions have drawn me in.

But although I don't want to watch a female Doctor, at the same time I feel like I have to.  As a female of colour trying to get a start in media, I am all too aware of the struggles we face to make a dent in the industry.  Women still get paid less than men, and people of colour still get paid less than our Caucasian counterparts.  Therefore I feel like I need to tune-in to this new series of Doctor Who to support their decision to be diverse.  It's insane that there's still a stigma amongst media agencies and studios to make diverse casting (and hiring) decisions.  And I know money/views "talk", so I want to do my part in making sure the call for diversity and representation both on and off screen in media is heard.  But I don't want to feel forced.

And that's what this feels like to me.  Forced.  I feel like to keep my integrity as a female filmmaker I need to tune-in to make my voice heard.  But as an audience member, I don't really care to watch something with a female as the Doctor.  I'm more than happy to watch other female-centric things, but Doctor Who is not one of them.  So now I feel as if I'm in a conundrum that only the Doctor can save me from.

So my two cents? At the end of the day, I'll probably tune-in to keep "fighting the good fight", as it were, for more representation and diversity in media.  But I also won't be ashamed of enjoying the dynamic of a male Doctor/female companion more than this new canon gender-bend.  That's just one Proud-Companion's opinion.

Different Companions of Doctor Who over the decades