A Question on Classic Doctor Who

Again, I'm confused. Jamie suffers a head injury and talks about "The Phantom Piper", some superstition he has from his life in 18th century Scotland. I'm not seeing any racial connotations there. I don't know how superstitious people in 1746 were, but that time period is only 50 years removed from the Salem Witch trials, for example, so I suspect they certainly had a higher level of superstition than we would today.

And that's all that's going on with Jamie. He has no concept of robots or cybernetics (and it's only his second full story as a companion, so he hasn't had time to learn), so he's trying to explain what he's seeing in terms he can understand, while suffering the ill effects of a head injury. I don't see anything offensive about it, and certainly nothing racial in nature.

edited 17th Oct '12 7:27:29 AM by andersonh1

Oh, I see I've used the term race when it's not applicable, I'll got fix that up.

My point with Jamie and the Americans was that the Pedler/Davis duo tend to write cultures broadly. (See also, the Celestial Toymaker). Jamie engages in non-specific superstition that feels vaguely Scottish without being based in actual mythology. (He's not seeing a silver kelpie after all). The Americans bluster and are headstrong.

So, suddenly we've got another set of villains of vague ethnicity, one of whom is Toberman and the other... well, look at his resume! There wasn't colour-blind casting going on. They wanted their troupe of villains to be "swarthy" because that's how they always were in tomb films. They were deliberately playing to race stereotypes, and saying that they weren't is so utterly confusing to me.

Those other cases of race, I'm pretty certain, weren't non-white. Here we've got our first honest-to-god black actor in the show and dear christ. If they wanted to not be racist they could have done a lot better at hiding it. Colour blind casting this show had not. (Aside from one blip in a few stories time. But she, famously, wasn't written to be a person of colour. These others were.)

I do see where you're coming from now, so thanks for explaining that. I get the broad stereotyping complaint, though I'd make a distinction between that and racism, which is the belief that one race is inherently superior to the other. How do you feel about the jokes about Americans and guns in the new series? As an American myself, they don't really bother me, though I'm aware of the stereotyping there. Or how about Moffat's many Scottish jokes when it comes to Amy? Do you think they fall in the same category as the writing from the 60s?

As an aside, Roy Thomas wasn't the first black actor in Doctor Who. How about the black astronaut in The Tenth Planet, played by Earl Cameron? I think he may have been the first major role for a black actor in the series, unless I'm forgetting someone. I know I've seen extras in The Crusades, but no one with a major speaking part. Minorities are certainly under-represented in 60s Doctor Who, but how much of that is due to a lack of black actors in general at the time? Cameron's Wikipedia entry says that he was one of the first black actors to break the "color bar" in the UK, so we're seeing the early days of integration of minorities into television. The Tenth Planet got it right by making the man an astronaut, a highly skilled professional. Tomb of the Cybermen got it wrong, possibly by referencing the old horror films you're talking about.

edited 17th Oct '12 8:45:45 AM by andersonh1

Probably a lot.

It's not that there weren't any black people in Britain before WW 2, but the proportion is tiny. Seriously tiny - in a population of around 40 million, you're talking about maybe 20,000 people total? Mostly settled around the ports, especially the old slave trading ports.

Post WW 2 you've got the period of mass immigration - but most of those immigrants weren't coming over to be actors. So in the 60's you've still got a fairly tiny pool of people.

Added to that, the idea of colour-blind casting hadn't really been invented. So the black actors there were tended to get cast as either black immigrant (usually because the plot was about racism), black American or generic 'foreign'.

edited 17th Oct '12 2:30:06 PM by Bluesqueak

Sorry? Ghostly pipers are pretty common in Scotland. There's the one in Edinburgh Castle, the one at Berwick Castle, the one who's supposed to play at clan weddings, one who somehow manages to play with no fingers ... they could probably manage an entire pipe band of ghost pipers.

As far as I know, the Mac Crimmon pipers didn't have a ghost piper of their own, but Jamie Mc Crimmon doesn't follow the real history of the Mac Crimmon pipers anyway.

I wasn't aware of that, but I reckon they've probably got names and specific things attached to them, right?

Yeah, I've got problems with them — the American stuff is particularly problematic when you consider that most all of their representations are interlinked with political commentary as well, but that's neither here nor there. The "fry something" jokes are just as bad (and to be honest, fairly played out) and then there's the Orientalism in Turn Left...

Moffat's a Scot himself, though.

How many jokes about Americans and guns have there been? I can only think of the one in A Town Called Mercy, which didn't seem like a joke about Americans having guns so much as everyone else being completely inept with them.

How does that excuse it? Am I not able to express homophobia just because I'm gay? That's bullshit.

Well, yes, but I'm not really talking about guns. (As far as I can see, no one is...) Americans being brash and rude can be seen in Dalek, The Sound Of Drums, and even Captain Jack's first appearance plays a bit off the idea. I'm sure there are other times I'm not thinking of too.

A Town Called Mercy is one of the nicest representations they've seen, along with The Angels Take Manhattan.

Most of the Scottish jokes I've seen have either been about the actual experience of being Scottish, or making fun of people who joke about the Scottish.

But fair enough.◊

Don't forget this gem, from The Impossible Astronaut:

Americans are more trigger-happy than Daleks, lol.

edited 18th Oct '12 2:08:11 AM by imadinosaur

So you're okay with Jamie (a Mc Crimmon) being piper to the Mac Larens, even though in real history the Mac Crimmons were pipers to the Mac Leods. [Almost certainly deliberate: if they'd made him a piper to a Mac Leod, they might well have found a real Jamie Mc Crimmon at Culloden].

But you're not okay with them combining British mythology about Ghostly Pipers and British mythology about ghosts appearing as a sign of imminent death-in-the-family, and coming up with a Ghostly Piper who predicts death?

There is nothing particularly un-mythological in Britain about a ghostly piper, and there's nothing un-mythological about a ghost predicting a death. We are overrun with ghosts (especially in Scotland, where a castle isn't a proper castle without at least one ghost). We've got lots. They do all sorts. Go hunting and predict deaths and play at weddings and practice the drums and march in formation.

Incidentally, yes, it is considered okay and non-racist for a Scot to joke about Scottish habits and customs. Self-depreciating humour is also an old British custom.

edited 18th Oct '12 2:34:29 AM by Bluesqueak

Why does that make me think of the Nu Series Master? I think an episode where the Master is haunted should be a thing now.

...Seriously. Douglas Adams had so many jokes about British nationality in the Hitchhiker's books it's amazing. Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman also have a strong self-depreciating streak. Self-depreciating humour is so ingrained in British culture I don't know what British humour would be without it.

edited 18th Oct '12 3:23:00 AM by unnoun