class

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representativecharacters:

Character: Ram Singh

From: Class (BBC) 

Representation: Disability (Prosthetic leg), Racial (South Asian), Religious (Sikh), Mental Illness (PTSD and depression)

Their Importance: In my opinion Ram is the most well-written character in dramas focused on teens. When introduced he seems to falling into the “jerk popular jock” trope, but is later shown to not be that at all.

The Shadowkin kills his girlfriend and severs his leg and the Doctor replaces it with a bionic one. He struggles with the aftermath of the attack, becoming distant and antisocial, facing pressure from his father and the Coach, having difficulty adjusting to the bionic leg while playing football. He becomes depressed and self destructive, egging on the Dragon and telling it to kill him. Realizing that he doesn’t have to be alone, he becomes closer to the rest of the gang and confides in his father about what happened to his leg. He’s shown being openly emotional and cries in front of his father.

He cares about his ethnicity and religion. When April comments on the fact that he’s a Sikh with short hair, he says that he doesn’t practice Kesh (uncut hair) because of discrimination that Sikhs face during airport security, but he likes that his father does practice it. He still keeps the Kangha (wooden comb) that his father gave him in case he changes his mind. He wears the Kara (metal bracelet), explains the meaning behind it to April. He tells April that there are 30 million Sikhs and she should learn something.

As a South Asian, it was refreshing to see such a wonderful character in science fiction teen drama.

Thanks to @bisexualhermionepond for the write up!

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I’m torn as to whether to watch the rest of Class. I read the plot summaries for the rest of the season and honestly it seems too bleak and depressing and (sigh) triggering for me to really wanna see it.

The characters seem great! They are great! I don’t want to see awful thing after awful thing happen to them!

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certainmusings:

certainmusings:

A few easter eggs some people may have missed in the first episode of Class.

While the direction brought particular attention to the last two names on the Coal Hill Memorial Wall, there are several others worth noticing:

  • Foreman. S. naturally is Susan Foreman, presumably considered dead some time after disappearing in 1963 in An Unearthly Child.
  • Fairchild. A. is a bit more questionable, but may refer to Aubrey Fairchild, the Prime Minister who succeeded Harold Saxon but was later killed in the 2009 Dalek Invasion of Earth in The Stolen Earth. Perhaps he was a Coal Hill School alumnus?
  • Gibson. J. and Hatcher. D. are Joe Gibson and Dudley Hatcher, who were two students at Coal Hill at the same time as Susan, who were killed by “The Cold” in the Telos Novella: Time and Relative.
  • A. Okehurst. was a teacher killed in the same events above.
  • H. Parson is Harvey Parson, the headmaster in 1963. He was taken control of by the Daleks and later exterminated in Remembrance of the Daleks.
  • A. Dunlop is the teacher who came to get Clara in The Magician’s Apprentice. It is unknown when or how he died.

Updated with more references found by people on TARDIS wiki.

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wackd:

sarah531:

Y’know, it’s occurred to me that Class is set in a post-World War III post-Doomsday world, so really people should not be surprised at this sort of thing anymore, alien-attack drills should be mandatory in all schools by now

RTD and Moffat both seem to have decided that the cracks erased memory of all that stuff and aliens are secret again.

But post-cracks there’s been the alien cubes and the Cybermen and… probably a few more things I forgot!

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I foolishly, VERY foolishly, went over to Gallifrey Base and read the comments about Class.

Five minutes of straight white guys complaining about ‘forced diversity’ later, and I have enough disgusted anger to last the entire week.

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thenotoriousscuttlecliff:

sarah531:

Class is very good, but it bugs me because the constant gruesome deaths…really don’t need to happen. Just close the school? Why is the school still open when people are dying literally every day? Why aren’t people freaking out more? Why are people listing Rachel as ‘missing’ when she was obviously killed by the aliens that everyone saw? Why bother keeping that secret?

Like, all anyone would have to do is announce, ‘Okay, the school was hit by an alien attack, they killed a student, everyone is leaving this area and UNIT will come in and monitor it.” Everyone knows about aliens, Earth has suffered at least four alien attacks already! Why are these kids stuck defending the school, and stuck having to watch people constantly be killed in front of them, when there are hundreds of people – Kate, Osgood, Martha, Mickey, UNIT, Torchwood, multitudes of ex-companions – who could help them?!

It’s the Sunnydale effect. Horrible, explainable things happen, school children are murdered left and right and everyone just shrugs and carries on.

Unfortunately that’s one my least favourite tropes ever, so I suspect that as great and relatable as I find the Class characters, I’m gonna find the actual show kinda hard-going. :(

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Class is very good, but it bugs me because the constant gruesome deaths…really don’t need to happen. Just close the school? Why is the school still open when people are dying literally every day? Why aren’t people freaking out more? Why are people listing Rachel as ‘missing’ when she was obviously killed by the aliens that everyone saw? Why bother keeping that secret?

Like, all anyone would have to do is announce, ‘Okay, the school was hit by an alien attack, they killed a student, everyone is leaving this area and UNIT will come in and monitor it.” Everyone knows about aliens, Earth has suffered at least four alien attacks already! Why are these kids stuck defending the school, and stuck having to watch people constantly be killed in front of them, when there are hundreds of people – Kate, Osgood, Martha, Mickey, UNIT, Torchwood, multitudes of ex-companions – who could help them?!

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