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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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So long as they pick someone who works, I'm happy. I'd be happy with a female Doctor, but I'm not going to froth and cry sexism if the character continues to be male.

But this looks like one of those fandom things I'm better off staying well back from for my own sanity.

I always feel really awkward saying that I don't much want a female Doctor either, because people tend to jump on you and accuse you of being sexist or something. But I don't much want a female Doctor. I'm not sure I could really explain why I feel that way, I just do. I think you've probably hit on most of it here, better than I could articulate. Most people think of themselves a particular way and it just seems unbelievable to me that the Doctor would suddenly start thinking of himself as a woman, and want to stay that way for an entire regeneration.

I feel like making the Doctor female would just be a stunt, sort of, like them trying to be bold and forward-thinking and 'hey, look at us, we're so radical, we changed the Doctor's gender'. But then, watching Missy made me half feel like they only did it so the Master could finally kiss the Doctor and not offend the more traditional audience members. And, yeah, to be new and different and spice things up. *shrugs*

IDK if any of that makes sense, like I said, it's mostly just a gut feeling I have that's hard to put into words.

Actually there's been a previous mention of another Time Lord, the Corsair, who changed sex when they regenerated (that was in "The Doctor's Wife," IIRC.)

As far as I'm concerned, they can cast anyone of any race, ethnicity, age, or gender as the Doctor, so long as they can pull off that essential Doctorness. I think that if Time Lords can change biological sex if they want to, then their concept of gender is probably nothing like the human conception of gender, and it doesn't make sense to say that they 'think of themselves as male' or 'think of themselves as female.' Their society might recognize half a dozen 'genders,' or none.

On the other hand, I'd also be very happy if they brought back Romana or Susan or the Rani or even Jenny, so that we'd have a mostly-female-identified Time Lord around.

I think it'd be interesting to have a woman play the Doctor. Or a POC. So far, the various incarnations seem to have very different ages, but that's about it.

My feeling as regards a female Doctor is...well, the internal consistency of the show. We know there are Time Lords and Time Ladies, and we've never been shown or told, in all the incarnations and episodes, that it is possible for a Gallifreyan to change sex when they regenerate. The whole thing with Missy, we've never had that explained, or how she can even be the Master when we saw the Master fail to regenerate and the Doctor burn his body. So there's some things that need exploring there before it can be used as evidence in the argument.

I think there needs to be a clear divide between wanting a female DOCTOR and wanting a female Time Lord/Lady. My feeling is a bit like Bond. Let's have a gender-flipped Bond! Why not do it? But don't make it the SAME character in the same universe with the same canon and expect us to buy into the internal logic (or lack thereof). Don't give us all the same backstory and history and motivation and personality and expect me to believe he's suddenly spontaneously changed sex. Give me a spin-off, give me an AU, give me a gender-flipped version. But don't just twist the whole decades-long canon and expect me to believe that Bond, or the Doctor, can just suddenly spontaneously change sex, because that's a suspension of disbelief too far.

Besides, what is River if not effectively a female Doctor? If they did try it, the new Doctor would only suffer in comparison...

Edited 2015-08-02 19:04 (UTC)

Okay, I'm a million seasons behind with DW but I've been on the periphery of the fandom (I watched Torchwood when that came out and a lot of the assistants do cameos in that too) and I've seen the up in arms thing and the possibility of a female doctor. Anyway, I don't know who Missy is (I am going to catch up on DW, especially since it's on Netflix) and I've kept my thoughts to myself because internet people love to gang up and attack, BUT...I feel the same as you. I mean, I'm not against feminism or anything, but having a female just to be politically correct rubs me the wrong way (like female quotas). I like many shows with strong female characters, when that's the established premise of the show. But DW is so different from....anything really. Idk. I think I'd rather see a male Doctor with a male companion over a female doctor (sorry, was just watching Torchwood and the dynamic between Jack and Ianto (I mean, even if they didn't have a relationship like they did) was really good. That's just my two cents. But I haven't seen past season 2 (although I've obviously seen the other doctors after through the internet) so maybe I don't count :P

My objection has more to do with contemporary sexism than Gallifreyan biology or culture. The Doctor has to seem alien. My biggest objection to, say, Tennant, was that he never sold alienness to me; my favourite Doctors seem the least human.

I think the alienness stems from a sort of awkwardness, weird features, subtle mannerisms, etc., and that is a thing that tends to be more culturally permissible among male actors than female. I can think of a handful of women who I think would pull it off—Tilda Swinton, Janelle Monae—but in general even the BBC casts for pretty with women and casts for interesting with men. I would, of course, like to see more weird and alien looking women on screen, but that's tangential.

It's also a very visceral reaction because I grew up with the show and the Doctor's always been male. Internalized sexism, I guess, but it's also hugely important to have that kind of archetype and role model. The Doctor's defining characteristics—compassion, intellect over violence, humanism in the philosophical sense—tend to be derided in men, and having the hero of a sci-fi show be all about words over fists is quite rare and significant from a feminist perspective. He shows young boys how they should act, and young girls an expectation of how men should act.

I do really want there to be a POC Doctor, though. Not for a very long time, because I want Capaldi to be the Doctor for a very long time, but for 13. Specifically, Idris Elba.

Curious how you feel about a non-white Doctor? You could make the same argument that the Doctor identifies as/prefers to be white, since all his iterations have been so far.

I have mixed feelings. It's one of the most beloved and coveted roles in Britain and in sci-fi, so it might be nice for someone non-white and/or female to get a chance at it, but they certainly don't HAVE to simply for fairness or equality's sake. And I can see the in-story characterization suggesting that, after 12 regenerations, the Doctor clearly identifies as male (even though that's been dictated by casting decisions that simply excluded females by default and not any actual story considerations).

But I think the reason the demand for a female Doctor has gotten so strong is that no one associated with the show has given a GOOD reason why not, and the reasons Moffat et al give are disingenuous and insulting. "We're just casting the very best PERSON for the job AND THAT PERSON JUST HAPPENS TO BE ANOTHER WHITE DUDE." Really??? And that's something you hear ALL THE TIME in film/TV casting and it's infuriating.

If all they are truly looking for is someone captivating and "carved out of solid star", then surely they'd WANT to expand their search to include as many great actors as possible, regardless of race or gender. Clearly they want credit for openmindedness while not actually making any effort toward diversifying.

There was a throwaway line in "Doctor's Wife" about a time lord that changed genders along with The Master so the seeds have been planted. And, honestly, I think fandom would stop clamoring for it if people would stop making stupid comments like this. I mean, I would love to see it, for the fun of it, but when you tell me I CAN'T? Oh now I DEMAND it LOL.

I mean, seriously, he is supposed to be out of regenerations anyway, according to the original canon, right? This show has rules, but they are pretty wibbly wobbly so I don't find a female doctor to be that much of a stretch.

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The Eleventh Doctor's very first lines (I have bolded the parts relevant to this discussion):

DOCTOR: Legs. I've still got legs. Good. Arms. Hands. Ooo, fingers. Lots of fingers. Ears, yes. Eyes, two. Nose, I've had worse. Chin, blimey. Hair. I'm a girl! No. No. I'm not a girl. And still not ginger. And something else. Something important. I'm, I'm, I'm
(Bang!)
DOCTOR: Ha! Crashing!

I'm not really coming down on any side of the argument, except I don't see why the Doctor shouldn't be female. Clearly he considers it a perfectly logical possibility. (This doesn't mean that he SHOULD become female. But discounting the possibility goes against the show canon.)

Also there have been two female Doctors already:

Joanna Lumley in The Curse of Fatal Death (yes it was for Comic Relief, but she counts just as much as Rowan Atkinson or any of the others), and Arabella Weir in Big Finish (Exile).

Add to that the Corsair (as others have mentioned upthread) and Missy, and Time Lords changing gender is clearly something the species is capable of, and not all that unusual. The Doctor treats Missy no different to how he's always treated the Master. Describes her as simply someone who was once a friend.

To me, it'd come down to the right actor. (I'd love Sue Perkins, although she might be too Tennant-like.)

I don't want a female Doctor. After all the controversy, if we now have a female it becomes about the Doctor being a woman, not about the Doctor being the Doctor. No, thank you.

I also don't see how people think the BBC is obliged to be "politically correct" about this. No.

Also, Moffat's made some interesting comments about gender fluidity on Gallifrey recently, and how the Time Lords likely view gender. So we can rest assured that if it were to happen whilst Moffat were at the helm it wouldn't be a big deal in the script, but can you imagine the media circus around it? God. No.

I always see the Doctors as non-sexual anyway (ie, never noted any sexual chemistry between any doctor and any companion, never shipped a single pairing!) And that makes sense to me because of the Doctor's great age - sex has been outgrown.

My great dream for a Doctor would be Tilda Swinton - it is absolutely believable to me that she could form a link in the current Eccleston-Tennant-Smith-Capaldi continuum. Would love to see her with a young male companion as well.

I think the more traditional side of fandom would have a good shriek of outrage and then get used to it. After all Swinton has already regenerated from man to woman (Orlando!)

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.

I really don't know how to feel about that subject but as I'm not as deep into the fandom as others (you and such), I'm definitely also not really opposed to it in general. I mean, I'm not sure what to feel about that, but I think it would definitely be interesting...

And I'm not completely sure the doctor identifies with any gender anyway... *shrugs* I always felt like that's what differs him from normal humans, that he's identifying himself with being an alien and not exactly a man and such, and I mean, he never did "normal human things" like have sex or such. He loved before (like with Rose and Ten) but for me that's also part of his personality. That when he falls in love he falls for a person, not a gender, and that's why i personally think he doesn't exactly "care" that much...

Not sure how much of it he REALLY can decide himself (like gender), because he always seems so surprised when he sees his face for the first time, so there's that...

TBH I'm a lot more pressed about every version of the Doctor being white than I am about them being male. Is female representation THAT pressing an issue right now? Virtually every major Companion is a woman. Not that I wouldn't be all over a female Doctor. But I ain't surprised this is the go-to issue for all the angry white chicks on Tumblr.

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