frelling_tralk | (no subject)

Doctor Who legend Sylvester McCoy says only a MAN can play the Time Lord

Obviously there's been a backlash against his statements in fandom, but can I be super-unpopular and admit that I'm not sure how I feel about a female Doctor either? Not that I'm agreeing with Sylvester McCoy reasoning though, "If they changed it to be politically correct then it would ruin the dynamics between the doctor and the assistant” doesn't even make sense as an argument when the dynamic between the Doctor and his Companions changes all the time? It's hardly an established dynamic that shouldn't be touched, they all relate to one another differently depending on differing individual personalities?

But anyway, it seems like the popular thing these days in fandom is to root for a female Doctor, and I'm just not sure how I feel about it. The canon suggests that Time Lords have some control over their changes, so why would the Doctor suddenly choose to regenerate as a woman when he has kept a male identity through 12 regenerations, and seems to have always identified as male? I mean I'm not entirely opposed to a female Doctor by any means, but I guess that's why it's a little bit of a sticking point for me at the moment. The argument seems to go that the Doctor is a Time Lord and can easily choose to regenerate as female without it being a big deal, except that he hasn't through 12 regenerations so far, nor have other Time Lord's like River and Romana, so clearly Time Lord's still must have some basic concept of gender and whether they identify as male or female?

Obviously the intro of Missy has changed things by opening up Time Lord society dealing with gender identity differently, but that still all seems a bit vague to me at the moment when this is the first time that we know of (I think?) that a Time Lord has chosen to change their sex, and we don't yet know if the Master had any particular reason for switching. I guess that I'm just stuck on, whatever regeneration they go through, it's always seemed like Time Lord's still keep the same basic core personality in the past, so wouldn't the Doctor (and the Master too I guess) continue thinking of themselves as male? I feel like the lone voice in fandom when it comes to this debate, because it always seems to get painted as only someone really old-fashioned and set in their ways could not want a female Doctor. And Idk, there's definitely some interesting casting choices out there that I could see myself enjoying as the Doctor, but at the same time it does feel to me like it would be kind of a simplistic message if the show did go with "oh we're hired a biological female to play the Doctor, that means that the character is suddenly a woman now and thinks of herself that way". I mean I assume anyway that part of wanting an actress to play the role of the Doctor would include that incarnation of the Doctor starting to identify as female?

I'm certainly not opposed in any way to changing the gender of established characters for reboots, I'm just not sure how to feel about it when it comes to a character from an ongoing television series. I'm a bit of a hypocrite I guess though lol as I have been enjoying the portrayal of Missy as the Master so much that they could probably make a female Doctor work for me just as easily with the right casting, but still is there anyone else out there who also feels a bit unsure with how a female Doctor would work when he's always been portrayed as male? (The Master choosing the female form for this latest regeneration just doesn't cancel out to me the way that it's always been shown to us as working in the past for the Doctor)

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Even though we know that Time Lords can change gender, I still always sort of thought that the ones that never did identified strongly as male or female and that most didn't change because it would be "wrong" for who they were. But then I think the ones that did change, like the one mentioned in The Doctors Wife, were gender fluid or non binary. Or you might have Time Lords born as one gender but they find they don't identify as it and become the opposite gender for the rest of their regenerations. I'm not opposed to a female Doctor per se, but I agree that the character has been consistently male and maybe Time Lords do have gender identity as strongly as we do. That's looking at it from a Watsonian perspective, of course, not a Doylist one. But from a Doylist one, I don't trust the writers to do a female Doctor well anyway.

But then I think the ones that did change, like the one mentioned in The Doctors Wife, were gender fluid or non binary.

Excellent point! Time Lords certainly seem capable of changing gender if they wish too, but it would be odd to me for it to only come up now with the Doctor when he's regenerated as male so many times that it would suggest that he *does* consider himself to be a man? Ditto with River, I can't really picture her as deciding to regenerate into anything but female. Again if the right casting came along then maybe I wouldn't be opposed to it, but it's not something that I'm picturing right now for the character as established