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Overly Devoted Archivist

newtslayer:

highwaytohell-a:

sarah531:

Maybe this speaks to tumblr’s bizarre ‘perfect pure progressive thing/trash awful anti-progressive thing’ dichotomy more than anything else (because a different more unknown white guy will be writing the new Doctor?) , but I’m sort of discouraged that the reaction to the 13th Doctor news from a lot of quarters has been “oh good, I can finally watch this show again, it is Progressive now”. And I don’t want to underplay the huge deal that a female Doctor is, it is a huge deal. But…

Bill Potts was a huge deal too. People who see themselves in her have written about her importance at length. She was (heck, is, she’ll almost definitely be back for the Christmas Special, Pearl Mackie’s been spotted on set) a black, lesbian, working-class co-lead on one of the biggest sci-fi shows ever. Bill beamed out from a lot of the posters and from the children’s tie-in magazines. Bill kissed a girl on television, a full-on passionate overjoyed kiss, during family viewing hour on the BBC. Bill had natural hair. Bill became immortal (by choice) in a world where TV producers almost seem to hate gay characters getting happy endings. Bill was an audience surrogate who represented a lot of Brits who don’t see themselves represented on British TV often. It’s just –

The companion’s the audience surrogate. Everyone was encouraged to see themselves in Bill Potts. And she was the co-lead. That bears repeating. The Doctor’s one lead of Doctor Who and the Companion’s the other one.

If a black, lesbian, working-class co-lead wasn’t enough to get you to Finally Watch The Show Again, why is a white female co-lead what eventually manages to do it?

If a black, lesbian, working-class co-lead wasn’t enough to get you to Finally Watch The Show Again, why is a white female co-lead what eventually manages to do it?

a more articulated version of what I was trying to say yesterday, thank you.
I loved Bill so deeply and was wounded by the way she was treated that all those “I can finally watch DW” messages that have been pouring from twitter and tumblr, mostly coming from white queer people, feel like a personal attack.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that literally nobody ever talked about it so there was no way to know unless you were already watching the show? Why is it that you and all the people that were apparently still keeping up with what was going on with the show never spread the word that this character even existed? LIke, you’re the one here shitting on people for being excited for a female doctor just because there’s a more progressive character there’s a pretty good chance they literally never heard of.


literally nobody ever talked about it….Why is it that you
and all the people that were apparently still keeping
up with what was going on with the show never spread the word that this
character even existed?

LIke, you’re the one here shitting on people for being excited for a female doctor

Source and quote please.

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