SPOILERS for Doctor Who: The Star Beast
(Sorry, not sorry, for two Doctor Who posts in a row)
Before I get into the topic in the title, I just want to take a moment to celebrate the return of Doctor Who, the final reveal of Tennant2Doc and Donna Noble’s return, and a fabulous reworking of the Star Beast comic originally printed in Dr Who Weekly, for the television series. I really (no, REALLY) enjoyed the latest episode, aired on Saturday night.
One of the great elements in this story was the introduction of Donna’s trans daughter, Rose, played by a young trans actress. Seeing her in a storyline that had very little to do with her being trans, and in which there’s only a few throwaway lines directly referencing it, felt amazing for inclusivity. And Donna’s fierceness in protecting her daughter from bigotry and other dangers, was wonderful to see portrayed.
But it also leads me on to the fact that, somehow, the showrunners of Doctor Who – all of them – are well-meaning but still don’t quite “get” it when it comes to inclusion. Most of “Star Beast” was great, and felt really natural in terms of gender and trans representation.
And then, right at the end, this happened:
Rose “Yes, we know. We know everything. Thanks.”
Donna “And you know nothing! It’s a shame you’re not a woman any more. ‘Cos she’d have understood.”
Rose “You’ve got all that power, but there is a way to get rid of it. Something a male-presenting Time Lord will never understand.”
Donna “Just let it go.”
Rose “We choose – to let it go.”
They’re talking about the “metacrisis”, the thing that means Donna will die from remembering the Doctor but also gives her an amazing amount of knowledge from the Doctor’s own memories. Donna and Rose have both got a share of this through genetics and gestation or something – Rose being Donna’s daughter means she gets a share of the metacrisis, which means Donna isn’t going to die straight away.
So, the metacrisis is indeed a lot of power, too much for a human mind to hold. Rose and Donna together can survive it for a lot longer than either alone could, because it’s shared, but it will kill them both unless the Doctor can fix it. Except, apparently, it never needed fixing because you can just “let it go”.
I’ll leave aside (apart from this ranty sentence) the continuity question of why Donna couldn’t figure this out at the end of Season 3 and save the Doctor the anguish of blocking her memories of their time together (and herself the anguish of being thus violated – she begged him not to do it, saying she’d rather die with those memories than give them up).
What got to me was that somehow a young trans woman (and her cis mother) was nevertheless equating gender with certain personality traits and beliefs. The idea that it is the Doctor’s masculinity that blinded him to this possible resolution feels like a massive chunk of gender essentialism being dropped into the gender politics of the episode, where it really doesn’t belong.
It also presents the uncomfortable implication that Rose is a woman not because that’s who she really is, but because she has a feminine mindset, she doesn’t seek power, she is caring, she has other stereotypically feminine personality traits.
The idea that a man cannot comprehend the idea of giving up power, “letting it go”, just sits wrongly with me. As if no woman ever clung to power in self-destructive ways in the past, and no man ever conceived the idea of letting go or ceasing resistance.
Steven Moffat did a similar thing in his spell in charge of Doctor Who, where certain traits and worldviews were ascribed to genders (and the least said about the trans donkey in “A Town Called Mercy” the better – urgh!). There were several points in Chris Chibnall’s era where the social justice message just felt off, like a crucial element of why we care so much about some issues just hasn’t got through.
Part of me feels like these are men who still view themselves as right-on, progressive campaigners but don’t realise that social justice discourse and activism has moved on since they were young men rebelling against the System. Heck, I’m in my mid-40s now and feel painfully aware that some of the language and ideas that were current and progressive, and shaping my activism, are now at the very least being challenged by new thinking and new questioning.
Chibnall, the youngest of the trio, was born in 1970, so he was probably learning his activism in the late ’80s and ’90s. RTD and Moffat were born in the early 60s, and would have formed their ideas about feminism, sexual politics, and other social justice issues, in the 1980s (indeed, RTD’s “It’s A Sin” in part captures exactly that process, as well as being a poignant drama about the AIDS epidemic). With Moffat it felt painfully clear in several of his shows, that he hasn’t really moved on from then. Chibnall and RTD both give the impression of at least trying to remain informed, but their framework seems to remain shaped by what was current 30 years ago, meaning we get things like “A woman would have understood … just let it go.” A line shaped by an idea from an earlier iteration of gender politics, pushing its way into an episode that mostly at least acknowledges we’re in the 2010s and ’20s.
What I take from this is pretty basic, but worth saying again: social justice, allyship, and all the rest of it, are not things you achieve. There’s always things that are developing, and that require work and engagement, not just using the vocabulary but grasping the ideas behind why vocabulary changes.
Oh yeah, and the new TARDIS interior is petty cool, although I miss the hexagonal/isometric theme. The rectilinear arrangement of the roundels is disappointing to me.
Valery North - Writer 
Thank you for writing this. Watching this episode with my son, I was enjoying it so much until that point. It seemed to be sending him the message “because you are male-presenting, you cannot possibly understand what it means to give up or share power.” Nooooooo! I’m trying so hard to teach him that being male does not preclude him from any positive traits, like sensitivity or empathy or anything else, nor should he assume other people’s traits based on how they express their gender. Thank you for articulating your thoughts on it so well. You gave me more food for thought.
Hi Brooklyn
Thanks for commenting – I know, growing up as a male-presenting person, I found the messages iI was hearing from supposedly progressive teachers and feminists were really discouraging. Although they did give me a basis to say “I don’t want to be a man”, and I am happier embracing my nonbinary self now that I know that nonbinary is a thing! I hope your son grows up to be confidently himself, whatever gender he may or may not choose in the future 🙂
Hasn’t relying on broad gender stereotypes always been offensive? I’m somewhere around Moffat’s age and I’ve always found them offputting. I had thought one of the cool things about eighties pop culture is the way it embraced evading gender stereotypical behaviors.
Hi Dan. I agree that it’s problematic and always has been, but at the same time a lot of the rhetoric around 80s and 90s feminism, at leats as it trickled down to the general populace, framed Patriarchy not as an overarching system but as shaped through the characteristics of men. The lessons were supposedly that women had to be more like men to get ahead, and men should learn to be softer and “more like women”. It had some pretty negative effects on my AMAB self, when I was still very much trying to figure out my gender identity and not really aware that nonbinary was even an option, back then. It’s kind of disappointing to see the same assumptions and rhetoric repeated in what was otherwise a very positive representation of gender and trans identity.