a shitton of the dw fandom didn't ever want a woman to be the doctor, no matter what they claimed, they didn't Actually want what that would mean. They didn't want it to be anything more than some kind of symbolic casting. They wanted a woman to act out the lines but they didn't want whichever woman it was to effect the comfortable narrative the show had fed people for fifty-fiveish years. That's too much woman smell for them, apparently.
Because 13 having a woman cast was an actual part of the narrative. It was something that the doctor, like fans, wanted to ignore and not be an issue but it Was an issue.
13 is like a cautionary tale against toxic femininity. Twelve asked their next regeneration to live laugh love, basically, and in trying to do so Thirteen ended up with a neurosis that mirrors a real patriarchal standard where that's All women are supposed to do. 13 had an actual narrative reason to act this way because of what Twelve said, it wasn't human socialisation, it was an active choice on her part to try and live up to what twelve wished as he died and then the narrative broke her down because of it and showed all the ways that that kind of sentiment is toxic as hell.
Then there was another sect of specifically female fans that were actively angry that Thirteen wasn't their chance to live vicariously and act like the boot on somebody's neck through her as some kind of messed up power fantasy. They wanted toxic masculnity, they wanted her treating people like shit to microdose on it themselves. And yes, I literally had somebody point blank tell me this on one of my posts in like 2019. They were Furious they'd not been given a proxy to relate to who treats people like shit. This is extra wild because while the doctor is many things, they are rarely an example of toxic masculinity.
Side note: Toxic masculinity is not bad because it's a man thing. It's bad because it's bad. Feminism is not there so girls get to be that awful too because #equality. Feminism is there so Nobody gets to be that awful. Wanting a woman in a kids show to act disgustingly as a power trip is wild and just crappy in general.
Instead, 13's (actor's) womanhood actually effected the narrative. But also, it made it abundantly clear sometimes just How casting a woman made basic dw staples come across Really different just by virtue of a woman being there. And people hated that, too. It wasn't supposed to effect the story, right?
Basic doctor and master toxicity and monstrosity? Suddenly there are think pieces on how uniquely awful this all is specifically for that pair, apparently. And they were bad think pieces. And this was just bog standard usual BS for the characters. Frankly, even, it was less awful than what ten and simm did to each other by miles.
imo, the backlash to 13 and dhawan!master was also rather condescending to the audience? This was all absolutely portrayed as awful between them the entire way through and only people who Genuinely think that all television is to be viewed through a lens of giving good representation and not telling stories would ever think the show was saying this was good. And tween/teen audiences (it's basically a YA show) are Not stupid. I was that age during the era of simm and ten, and funnily enough my teenage brain very easily worked out how fucked up their dynamic was even Through the yearning heart eyes they were throwing at each other. To be blunt, it's never that complicated. The most murky it got was with Twissy but owing to the fact that the master was the woman and the doctor the guy, their messy toxic moments are rarely dragged out in fandom to be condemned. People even backbend to make twelve into an abusive monster and ignore Missy's actions. Because man monster woman good, apparently.
Spydoc's narrative actually fairly consistently follows a story of intimate partner violence. Risk of death is Shockingly high when a partner chooses to leave the abuser. Risk of death practically doubles if a man puts his hands around a woman's neck (even when she does grin like a shark as he does it). You could almost view it as an allegory for domestic violence. Not an advertisement. An allegory. But again, killing each other is just basic between those two. It was the casting that made people flinch, and not Only because of the woman issue. The racism being thrown around about Dhawan was and probably still is in some spaces was fucking rancid.
spydoc is inherently uncomfortable in ways so many other best enemies pairs aren't. The casting effected the viewer's perception of the dynamic and made it uncomfortable. A woman being there and following the same dynamic of the men before her made what was easy to digest previously a tough pill to swallow simply by virtue of them Not being any different.
DW is just so much more Comfortable for people when everybody is a white man to lots of people. Adding women complicated things and massive chunks of fandom didn't want a woman to have any kind of noticeable effect on the narrative of the show or on how they had to analyse it, but it Did! Because of course it did! It had to! There was no way it couldn't!
When 13 acts differently because she's forced to because of her body, it was uncomfortable and annoying because suddenly it's not a foregone conclusion that the doctor will swan in and be The Guy in the room because the universe won't forget she's The Woman in the room. When 13 doesn't act differently because she's the same person as every man before her it makes people uncomfortable because the audience views her differently and how she's acting and treated Because she's a girl. Even the things that are the same are different.
So many people spent so much time angry that they never cast a woman and when they did, they hated that they didn't ignore that they'd cast a woman to make everything as comfortable (read: male) as it had been before.
As a woman. Honestly. Why should my discomfort not be portrayed on screen?
jbbartram-illu
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