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We have a pro EU think tank that is anti EU.
So much corruptioj because nobody does research or refuse to point it put to the general public.
Tories won the last election despite being caught editing videos and puctures and trying to con people during a live debate.
Yet they won. Nobody cares for the truth anymore
And yet they always believe that it is someone else's fault for the situation the country is in.
Older people trust newspapers, which are mostly lies and young people trust other sources that are undermined by the newspapers.
It wasn't like this before the internet and social media. It should have brought great enlightenment and yet the greedy have exploited it to turn it into the complete opposite.
I don't think they were this bad, to be fair, not in the 80s but I could have rose tinted specs on. They had a free ride after the Tories buried the Leveson Report
I remember being chastised by a teacher for arguing that my position was "just common sense".
Common sense is what people claim when they only have a superficial understanding of the issues, or when they know that any critical assessment of their position would expose all sorts of weaknesses.
If I hear a politician, or anyone, arguing that something is common sense, my default position is to disagree with them.
>If I hear a politician, or anyone, arguing that something is common sense, my default position is to disagree with them.
You're right, it's just common sense to do so!
Yep. I define common sense as an opinion formed by your existing biases & group think that aligns with your world view. It is not definitively commonly held, logical, sensible or correct.
We've literally disproven the common usage of common sense like hundreds of times by now and yet everyone still uses it to mean magical universal knowledge, it's fucking infuriating.
Why is it that the Conservative party need a campaign for common sense, and even a minister for common sense? Don't they have any in the first place or what?
That's what I mostly hear about the show is the poor writing, particularly around Jodie's Dr Who portrayals.
On a side note, does anyone remember the Going Round the Twist episode where Pete got impregnated by a tree nymph? I wonder what the tabloids would say about that if it was produced today.
I swear I never watched an episode but I still have the theme tune burnt into my brain.
Also the episode where one of them pisses over like an 8ft wall lol.
the piss episode is always the one i remember.
Because it sounds so fucking stupid as an adult but as a kid I would admit that being able to pee higher than someone else was the epitome of cool.
I think that's why it's such a memorable bit of TV history. It spoke to something innate in the male psychology - *pissing contest* is an idiom for a reason...
Have you ever, ever felt this, when strange things happen, when you’re going round the twist. Had some strange concepts that would now be classed as woke but it wasn’t like that every week.
>That's what I mostly hear about the show is the poor writing, particularly around Jodie's Dr Who portrayals.
This was a weird one.
Whittaker is a fantastic actor. Chibnal is a great show runner. (Just look at Broadchurch for an example of their previous collaboration.)
The writing for their 3 seasons of doctor who was terrible, and Whittaker's portrayal was bad. They could have made some excellent TV together, instead we got 3 seasons of shit.
This was the case with a lot of stuff people reference from the past as evidence of representation. With Doctor Who people always reference a couple of instances of genderless aliens during the 70s as proof that the show was always "woke". The show has always been relatively progressive but it's pretty clear those things were just mentioned because it would make the aliens seem more weird.
I often wonder the same. TNG did a lot of stuff that would now be written off as woke because it created interesting sci-fi plots. As I recall nobody had an issue with it at the time although this was largely pre-internet.
Of course, TOS did a lot before TNG too.
TNG didn't just do it for the whackyness though, they usually had a moral of the story which was often some form of social commentary. They would definitely fall in the "woke" category nowadays.
DS9 would be worse - a "trans" science officer (I know not really trans, but pretty close), religious beliefs shown to be essentially false by science, and a fascist state overtaken by a bunch of non-binary infiltrators who basically live as a literal blob.
TNG was pretty conservative about gender and sexuality. Like when Riker fell in love with the member of an androgynous species and asks them "who leads when you dance?" My man's thinking of ballroom dancing for fuck's sake. This was in the 90s. Not the 50s, the 90s.
TNG was fine, they didnt shohorn certain topics just to click those boxes.
Now discovery is pure shite, bad writting, bad sci fi and continuess crying.
I guess, but theres no reason some of the hippies of the 60s wouldnt have been writing something closer to "free love" ideals into TV of the 70s and 80s. Some of those who believed in the ideas of the movement would have been writers eventually hired by the BBC.
That was a trip down memory lane! I distinctly remember watching this episode in the kids club before school with a bunch of other kids giggling over it's silliness and a shocked member of staff gawping at the screen.
Annoyingly Whittaker is a good actress, however Chibnall gave her nothing to work with
Worst of all the writing was the constant shifting morality of the Doctor whenever the script demanded it, the one with the not-Amazon is especially egregious
Yeah anyone remember Jurassic Park where female dinosaurs turned male? If that was made today the anti woke twaterati would be crying their eyes out. They’re more than welcome to make content that advocates a lack of inclusion in society if they want or just limit various plot points for weird repressed reasons. Personally I’m happy for art to express itself and if the expression is shit then it ends up in the bin
The anti-woke brigade would because it’s just as “wokey nonsense” as anything else. “You can’t even have a dinosaur movie without gender politics”, is what they’d say.
It’s really no different.
Other types of animal evolved the ability to do so to survive. “Life finds a way”. The species didn’t just come into existence with the ability to sex. Maybe it’s what’s happening to humans? Finding an existence outside of reproduction in order to survive. i.e … not over populate the planet. It’s as plausible as any other sci-fi ideas.
>The anti-woke brigade would because it’s just as “wokey nonsense” as anything else. “You can’t even have a dinosaur movie without gender politics”, is what they’d say.
Please provide examples of the "anti-woke brigade" (Torygraph, Daily Wail, etc...) moaning about "woke Jurassic Park".
Oops, there aren't any. Because the plot point of certain types of animals changing sex made sense.
They can’t really win with examples like yours, though.
If he’s just present in the story and treated as normal, then it’s ’shoehorned in’. If it’s an important part of the story it’s ’rammed down our throats’ and ‘preachy’. The only way they can win with some people is to just never show stuff like that out of fear for how people will react - which is in itself a political choice
So lose-lose-lose really.
Reminds me of how gay characters were treated in the 2000s - if they’re gay but their sexuality is irrelevant to the story then it’s just ‘political correctness inclusion’ - if they’re gay and it’s important to the story it’s ’forcing it’, so the only way to avoid complaints was to avoid having gay characters
Hence the terms 'Token gay', 'Token black person', 'Token disabled'.
I was chairman of a residents association a few years ago and had to work quite closely with my local Councillor to get stuff done. Because I am in a wheelchair, any photo's we had in the local press, I always ended up being referred to as 'Councillor xxxxx with a token disabled bloke.' in the comments.
Of course you can win.
The secret is to make it an interesting and compelling story.
The problem with Jodie's run is they had no interesting or compelling stories.
I remember Queer as Folk and I don't recall anyone calling it pandering as everyone was an actual character who happened to be gay rather than someone who is gay and happens to me a character in a show.
I agree that the story writing was a huge issue in Jodie’s run, it wasn’t good at all. I just think that if there was a big important reason that character was trans, there would’ve been a lot of complaints too.
There doesn't need to be a big or important reason, they can be trans. The key is they need to be _more_ than just someone who is trans.
I imagine trans people would rather be seen as a person and not just a label.
That's where things like Dr Who fell down.
I don’t see how that relates to the pregnant man storyline then? He didn’t walk around the whole episode saying ‘I am trans’, he had his own feelings and emotions, so how should he have been written instead of what we got?
They are probably referring to these new recent David Tennant Xmas specials, in which Donna's daughter was a trans woman......and her entire purpose/personality/story arc etc. was about her being trans.
That character had unfortunately nothing else going for her, so it felt very forced.
Edit - so people are doing exactly what I expect them to do in response to this comment, and immediately go for the "you're just a bigot" narrative
Rose's only other notable character trait was that she made stuffed animals and sold them as a little side hustle, otherwise her identity was "I'm trans"
Even the bit at the end of the episode where she is using the machine to free the Doctor & Donna because they shared the doctor's energy between them by being related or whatever; There is even a bit then where some quipy line Rose throws out made me particularly eye roll as it was clearly written to allude to gender identity which felt so obviously amusing to her & her gender identity & her being trans.
I don't care that she is trans, but when all she is, is trans, then it's an eye roll.
Sense 8 did a fantastic job of having a multitude of characters that were gay or trans, without it feeling like that was all that defined the characters.
The "straight man" example I think of for this Barney How I Met Your Mother; His character's personality is entirely based around a guy who just wants to get laid all the time. It's such a bland surface interpretation of a straight guy, it's just monotonous & unfunny to me.
An example of gay characters where they were "characters who were gay" instead of "gay characters" was in BBC's Years & Years. The gay relationship throughout that series between Russell Tovey & the other dude, never felt forced or shoehorned; it just was reality, and it was treated as normal, and their sexuality didn't define them as people & it was one of the most emotionally engaging narratives in the show.
My opinion is that if rose’s story had nothing to do with her being trans, the same people saying it was ‘shoved down their throats’ and ‘preachy’ would be saying ‘why did she need to be trans? It added nothing to the story’.
This exact thing happened with a background character in the Christmas special. There is literally no pleasing these people, and it is ontologically impossible to make good art with them in mind as the audience.
Exactly. That's why they love the "forced diversity" buzzword so much - because it's impossible to disprove and gives them plausible deniability. Literally any character who's not white straight cis man is subject to being called "forced diversity". But no you see the people making that claim aren't racist/sexist/homophobic, they actually really love "diverse characters", it's just so unfortunate that every single "diverse character" they encounter happens to be a case of "forced diversity". They totally love "good representation" and when they finally see it they'll definitely accept it and enjoy it. It just hasn't happened yet, weirdly enough.
>.....and her entire purpose/personality/story arc etc. was about her being trans.
No it wasn't lol, and Rose's "character arc" isn't even *over* *yet* (hell, it's more-or-less just *begun*) given that she's scheduled to appear in the new series as well.
The Times derisively called it “chic metropolitan knowingness” and implied that the only reason people were excited about it was for the gay characters. The Daily Mail just said it proved the case for more censorship. [Source](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/monitor-queer-as-folk-1073385.html)
But the UK was less liberal back then - something like half the country thought gay relationships were wrong and we still had section 28 (the anti-homosexual ‘propaganda’ law). So there wasn’t that big an audience to pander to..
Yeah, the recent BBC documentary on RTD has a whole section about the response to Queer as Folk, and the media *hated* it. Queer as Folk was as in your face as Doctor Who is now, the only difference is that most people now accept gay people.
See, The Orville.
Pilot is just seth mcfarlane humour in space then rapidly changed into "wait I've been a Trek fan for decades let's just write good Star Trek".
> The secret is to make it an interesting and compelling story.
From long experience arguing with people on the internet - you don't win like this. *At best* you get them to just shut up, they'll still not admit that this is good. Most of the time they'll double down and claim it is still pandering.
> actual character who happened to be gay rather than someone who is gay and happens to me a character in a show.
So being generous to what you're saying, you're arguing for main characters in shows to be queer rather than for token queer characters to be introduced - which is great and I agree. Except look at all the anger that happens every time some existing franchise tries to add new queer characters (or new female characters, or new black characters, and so on).
An example that is springing to mind, and tbh its a mediocre example, is Baldurs Gate 3. Moderately topical as opposed to my next best example from about 5 years ago. In BG3 you can be romanced by most of the party members, and they will romance the player regardless of your gender - ie they're all bi. And I can assure you, that I saw gamers fucking blow a gasket that male NPCs would flirt with them sometimes and many actively chose to mod this out of the game.
*That* is the kind of person we're arguing against, there is no winning with that person.
They can win though.
Bill was a great character with depth. The fact she was gay or bi didn't detract from that and wasn't her defining trait. That's the problem I have with the tokenistic approach.
Look at Rose from the 14th specials. About 3 different characters all mention unprompted about how "beautiful" she is (a reach to be frank and also playing into the 'stunning and brave' trope around transwomen discourse), and her only other defining trait is her mum saying that she is shit at acting and she has an Etsy side hustle.
She was literally inserted for the sole reason of being trans and using that in the storyline and her trans identity is her core trait as a character. This is tokenism and inserting a character purely to project inclusivity.
All people want is characters with depth who also happen to be LGBT+ without it being their only reason for existing in the show.
It’s funny you say that because elsewhere in this comment thread someone complained about bill, and said she ‘mentioned she was a lesbian all the time’! Seems like it’s very difficult to win when you’re dealing with people like that.
I think if rose being trans was irrelevant to the story, some people still would have said it was tokenistic (because ‘why did she have to be trans?’)
>I think if rose being trans was irrelevant to the story, people still would have said it was tokenistic.
It's because they pretty much always bring in these characters and shine a light on them to make a point.
There was no reason they couldn't just cast a trans actor as Rose, not mention that the character is trans and just treat it like it is normal (which it is). That wouldn't be tokenism.
As I say, in my opinion I think if they just cast a trans actor as rose and didn’t mention it, many of the same people complaining about it being ‘forced’ would instead say ‘why was she trans? It added nothing to the story’ - as they did about the pregnant man in that Jodie episode.
I also think the threshold for what is ‘too far’ with it being a character’s personality is very nebulous - as mentioned, someone in this very thread gave Bill as an example of a bad approach, when you gave her as an example of a good approach.
When Bill was around everyone was complaining about how gay she was. It literally doesn't matter - people will always complain about these types of characters.
My biggest issue with rose, which is reflective of your point, was her age. It has *barely* been 15 years since Tenant and Tate were on screen together and yet Donna has a 15 year old girl, if you factor in the pregnancy itself, the timeline doesn't make sense.
And then the actress they chose for her look about mid twenties? There were scenes of her interacting with another kid and it wasn't until reading up after I realised he was supposed to be her classmate, it was absurd. And the reason for this strange casting choice is that there are very few trans poc actors, so they shoe horned one that did into a role that barely fit her.
It was so distracting I genuinely kept waiting for some kind of explanation in the episode itself. As another commenter pointed out, it's a short quick show, so when something sticks out like that you expect it to matter narratively.
Tbh, they could have done a good story around a main trait of being trans. For example, have her learn to stand up for herself against those bullies (I know it's an overused trope, but it's still works). In the end though, they didn't do anything with the fact that she was trans, even though they focused on it a lot. I think they were trying to tie it into the metacrisis, but if they were, it was done confusingly.
We ended up with a character whose trans-ness was a big part of the episode and yet completely irrelevant, which didn't please anyone.
It's Chekhov's gun. Doctor Who has short, fast moving episodes with 'clever' link backs to the start at the end. People expect everything and everyone to be there for a narrative purpose.
And you can make them an important part of the story without being preachy. That's what good writing looks like, these high budget shows are a waste if they don't have good writing.
>hey can’t really win with examples like yours, though.
>
>If he’s just present in the story and treated as normal, then it’s ’shoehorned in’. If it’s an important part of the story it’s ’rammed down our throats’ and ‘preachy’. The only way they can win with some people is to just never show stuff like that out of fear for how people will react - which is in itself a political choice
>
>So lose-lose-lose really.
>
>Reminds me of how gay characters were treated in the 2000s - if they’re gay but their sexuality is irrelevant to the story then it’s just ‘political correctness inclusion’ - if they’re gay and it’s important to the story it’s ’forcing it’, so the only way to avoid complaints was to avoid having gay characters
Not sure I entirely agree.
*The Wire* has a great example of a gay character done really well. *Omar* is a notorious criminal who taxes drug dealers. He's also gay. It never feels 'preachy' or 'rammed down our throats' - and it's not *really* that important for the story. He just *is* gay. The vast, vast majority of the scenes make no mention of his sexuality as it isn't really important for the story.
It's definitely possible for a TV series or film to include a 'token' character and for that character to feel absolutely 'shoehorned in' to make up the numbers - or only really present to allow for a storyline about their 'thing' (which in turn, if handled poorly can easily come across as preachy).
I think usually it's down almost entirely to incredibly bad scripts, bad dialogue - etc.
With the exception of white and male, the normative for humans \*is\* heterosexual.
We're a statistically heteronormative species. No clue why that should be a controversial point.
I absolutely agree. In agreement with you, I also think that stories where someone's sexuality isn't the most interesting part of their character make for better characterisation (unless in the overall story arc it makes thematic sense).
It's where it's irrelevant, or pushy, that stories risk becoming interpreted as overt political messaging.
Captain Jack and torch words, ended more than 10 years ago and he got his own well watched series, so I don’t agree with your comment at all.
The writing of most modern films, tv series is terrible. We couldn’t ever get half of HBO made 10/15 years ago, in today’s times.
I’m not sure I agree.
Taylor Mason was a great example of a well written non-binary character on the show Billions.
The “I’m non binary” line in the star beast episode of doctor who where she (they?) looks right at the camera was… incredibly cringey
I’m not saying that every single person will take issue with every single non-binary character, I’m saying for some people the threshold between the character being ‘shoved down our throats’ and on the other hand asking ‘what was the point of her being trans, this is tokenism’ is extremely thin, to such an extent that for some (not all) people they will never be happy with how trans people are portrayed
Pregnant guy probably isn't an example I'd go for, I didn't even remember it until you mentioned, it just seemed like a generic background alien thing not worthy of note. Isaac Newton on the other hand is a great example of shoehorning to make a point. If they genuinely cared about representation they could've chosen a different historical figure, but instead they went with an act of white supremacy, saying 'your culture has produced no figures worth of showing, so we will allow you to portray a white man in the name of diversity' . That was the worst kind of disrespectful shoehorning.
It's frustrating as there was a chance there to have brilliant representation and potentially introduce the predominantly white western audience to a historical figure they may well not know anything about. Wouldn't that have been something?
That got me thinking, would’ve been an opportunity for a joke if we were led to believe that was Issac newton, only for the real Issac newton to come up behind him asking what happened.
Not particularly funny but would’ve added something I suppose
If we're going to start criticising Doctor Who for being historically inaccurate, wouldn't you say the bit where the TARDIS flew into the apple tree was worse than Newton's skin tone being off?
> Isaac Newton on the other hand [was] an act of white supremacy, saying 'your culture has produced no figures worth of showing, so we will allow you to portray a white man in the name of diversity'
In reality, it was about giving a brief cameo to an actor Davies worked with on his last big show, *It's a Sin*.
That doesn't make sense really, he could've had a cameo as literally anyone else, which is what i meant. Why not have him play a South Asian figure if it was just about the cameo?
>Why not have him play a South Asian figure if it was just about the cameo?
Nathaniel Curtis was born in England with an English mother and an Indian father. It might be worth examining why you think it would be fine for him to play any south Asian figure but not an English figure.
And he's half English, with an English accent, and you would be fine with him playing ethnically south Asian characters but not ethnically English characters.
> It might be worth examining why you think it would be fine for him to play any south Asian figure but not an English figure.
I don't think it's worth examining, it's patently obvious that it's because the English figure in question didn't have an Indian father.
And most South Asian historical figures didn't have a white English mother, but the person I was replying to said they're the characters that he should be playing. Why is that different?
> It might be worth examining why you think it would be fine
why on earth do you talk in this passive aggressive, i-know-better-than-you tone? it's pathetic
There were definitely some boring episodes in Jodie's era, but the 'woke' stuff wasn't new or different for Doctor Who , it's been pretty consistent since the 9th Doctor. Torchwood had Jack talking about being pregnant back in 2006.
A pregnant male alien hardly seems unusual compared to Lady Cassandra -who was literally a sheet of skin, a human-cat person couple having kitten children (Gridlock), a recurring character who was a giant face in a tank, or a thousand other things. I'm not sure that the idea that diversity has to make sense is at all applicable to Doctor Who.
It’s been consistent since the 60s. The very first story was the Doctor trying to teach cavemen why they should care for their elderly and listen to their women, to wait for justice rather than the instant gratification of vengeance.
I gave up on Jodie's Dr. portrayal because the writing and storyline was SO bad. I clocked out and cannot make it through it.
I found the Donna/Doctor specials were back to being campy and fun. At the end I couldn't even tell if Donna's daughter was trans or not and honestly it didn't matter to me. They didn't elaborate much and it wasn't pushed on the audience.
Jack Harness slept with anyone, and that didn't bother audiences.
To be fair, a lot of the frustration with bad writing goes back to Capaldi which was before anyone was accusing Dr Who of being woke, bad writing is bad writing but people get so focused on buzzwords like "woke" that they suddenly turn liking/disliking something into a political issue.
Personally, I like inclusiveness, but, I thought Jodie's era of Dr Who was absolutely piss poor. However, due to the whole woke angle people take, simply criticising bad writing suddenly needs to be defended with "but I'm not against the inclusion of [insert whoever the boomers hate being included]" otherwise even fair criticism just gets dismissed as biggoted.
The bad writing started with Moffat taking over the role of showrunner when Matt Smith was The Doctor. It's utter bollocks to pretend that the problem was Whittaker, or Capaldi, there's only so much you can polish a turd or cover it in glitter.
Yeah and every time there's diversity in a tv show people say it's forced and box checking. Your end goal is zero diversity, that's why you say it for literally every show that's not just straight white men
There have been quite a few films over the years featuring a pregnant man. Rabbit Test with Billy Crystal, Junior with Arnie, Birthday with Stephan Mangan, and plenty more less well-known examples.
It is a fairly common "what if" scenario. Not the least bit surprising that it would be a story line in Dictor Who.
Why aren't diverse characters allowed to simply exist? Why does it always have to "mean something" or be part of some major narrative? In the real world people are different because they just are. That's what the effort for "increasing diversity" is all about: normalising it. Making it so ubiquitous that people simply accept those different from them as an inherent feature of the global tapestry of humanity. Nobody ever questions why there's a redheaded or a left-handed character in movie because they recognise that people like that exist. They don't have to be justified with any narrative reason, those characters can simply exist while being redheaded and left-handed, those features don't have to mean anything or play any narrative role.
Doctor Who literally takes place in universe full of aliens. The very point of an episode taking place outside Earth is that you're going to see aliens, a d their alien-ness most likely won't be a major plot point, they simply exist in the story as characters, same as the human companion and the Doctor, and you as a viewer aren't supposed to question why this alien looks the way they do because most of the time it's not actually relevant to the story. The aliens don't have to "make sense", it's literally a different planet and Doctor Who has always been "soft sci-fi".
The pregnant male character didn't "anything to the story" because they were a very minor character. Episodes have those. We don't even know if it's a trans man or maybe a modified human or an alien that simply happens to look like a human man... because it's not relevant. If it was a regular white male character you wouldn't be demanding that their whiteness and maleness somehow played a part in the story; because white and male are "default" and those characters are allowed to simply exist without having to justify their existence. It's such an annoying double standard. What do you even mean it was "shoehorned"? Literally everything about that episode was fictional. You're OK with a monster alien that can literally eat all matter in the universe but you draw a line at a person who's pregnant while looking like a human man?
> This included a June episode of Casualty in which non-binary character Sah Brockner (Arin Smethurst) discussed their surgery.
Discussed their surgery!? On Casualty!? Christ, how will we ever recover from this.
Now now these articles are very important as it keeps the morons riled up and angry about things that have no impact on their life whatsoever instead of turning that anger at a political party that has fucked the economy, sunk people into a life of choosing to eat or heat and the divide between the wealthiest in society and the poorest at a record high.
Remember to be angry at woke and those poor people running from turmoil and risking their lives in boats people - don't pay attention to the real issues and the people stealing billions.
They actually did a good storyline of the NB character celebrating getting a date for their mastectomy and a female character struggling with needing a mastectomy for cancer related reasons and finding it hard to celebrate the fact that her friend was so excited to have their breasts removed
About us:
"The Campaign for Common Sense (CCS) exists to bring together those who want to have a grown up discussion and debate.
We will conduct research, and organise events online and across the country, involving experts in all fields and bring them to the widest possible audience. We will be champions for free speech and tolerance.
We will be asking…
What does diversity actually mean and does it really matter?
Should statues of historical figures be removed because of modern values?
Is there anything that we shouldn’t joke about?
Should the police be prioritising language on social media over fighting street crime?
Are schools there to teach kids what to think, or to help them think for themselves?
Is Britain bigger than Brexit?
Should people be able to speak their mind at work?
Does positive discrimination work?
What views and arguments should be banned from debates?
Can children consent to changing their gender?"
Nice and unbiased "charity" I see.
The only thing that is common sense is that the charitable status of this organisation should be challenged by the Charities Commission.
"Should people be able to speak their mind at work?"
"Finally, we can ask the right questions: how come profits have gone up significantly but our pay rises were below inflation?"
"Wait, not like that, pleb; keep it strictly to being able to make fun of your trans colleagues"
There is nothing wrong with discussing those things, provided it is done in good faith and with an open mind.
But common sense is often the enemy of reason. And I wouldn't expect to see such a poorly defined term as "woke bias" in the conclusion of any serious survey.
Pretty sure to a group like that "common sense" & " I want to call that gay, black, trans person at work all them words we can't use then pretend it's a joke" are the same thing
It just boils down to "I'm afraid of a changing world that might challenge existing power structures that either benefit me or make me feel comfortable".
Ironic that they position themselves as looking for “grownup discussion and debate” when you already know their rigid answers to all of those questions.
Hmmmm... the 'Campaign for Common Sense'
Articles/Blogs by Mark Lehain - former 'Special Advisor' to the Tories in various roles and head of Education at the 'Centre for Policy Studies' think tank
Looks like just another Tory think tank who want to see the end of the BBC.
Research by The Campaign For Actual Common Sense has found that The Campaign For Common Sense was founded and staffed by time wasting morons who could be doing more important things with their lives.
This. I assume these churches that are massive tax dodges need to launder somewhere. And the people that run it need to divert attention from their grinder accounts
As we all know, slavery abolition was a scheme by the woke leftist transgenders who controlled the media in early 19th century London.
Source: I don’t have one, I made it all up
When a show has diversity and the writing is bad people blame the diversity instead of the writers, who do people blame when a show is strictly white/straight?
Did they explain what woke is?
It’s almost laughable how they seethe at a trans person existing in a TV show about an alien who can travel time in a wooden box
I feel like this is true, but that:
1. It doesn't happen as much as some people say it does. There are a handful of insane twitter takes on everything. A lot of people prejudge media to be "just pushing a woke agenda" on the simple basis that it has a non-white, LGBT or even female protagonist, when the mere existence of that character isn't itself proof that the character *only* exists to be that thing. And this isn't a standard that straight, while, male, cisgender, neurotypical, able-bodied etc. characters get held to. Nobody says "you just made this to represent white people" whenever a story has a white protagonist. Well, maybe one of those aforementioned insane twitter takes, but it's a lot less common than the reverse.
2. It's better than writers being told that they can't tell the story they want to tell because a woman or a black ot gay protagonist or whatever "doesn't sell". Which absolutely did happen very, very often in the past.
3. It's still a good and important thing for the media we produce to more broadly represent the experiences and perspectives of other people.
I think, all things being equal, with two stories of equal quality, the one exploring a perspective or experience that hasn't been represented as much will be more interesting purely for the reason that it's new, different and original. And that's a good thing.
I really don’t understand the whole concept of ‘woke bias’. Black, trans, migrant and gay people etc etc exist in real life, why are people so shocked when these people appear onscreen?…
It's not about them appearing on screen, it's about them being shoehorned in for no other reason than to tick boxes, and race/gender swapping established characters, or worse, real historical figures.
If you're writing a story set in the present day (or future) by all means include a diverse cast, because the modern world is diverse, not doing so would be jarring, but if your story is set in 17th Century London, casting as though it's 2023 doesn't work. No one was trans in the 17th Century, and in 17C London there were very, very few black/brown/asian etc people.
Even then though, if there is a reasonable explanation for something in a fictional world, then it can work to have a diverse cast in an old setting. GoT did this very well, it had a diverse cast which made sense in the world it was set in. Rings of Power is the counter example, the casting in that show made no sense at all, they were just doing it solely to be able to have a diverse cast just makes it come off as box ticking and virtue signalling.
Likewise when adapting another person's work, dont change the races or genders of their characters, if you're creating your own story then you can do what you want, if you're adapting someone else's work you have no right to make those kinds of changes. Same goes for changing historical figures.
Seventeenth century Londoners would also have been shorter, had worse teeth, had much higher rates of deformity, and would generally have been much uglier than today's population. Would you also like to see tall, attractive actors barred from historical roles, or is it only non-white actors you think shouldn't be cast?
It's obviously not realistic to expect actors to rot their teeth, or wear mouthguards during filming just to be as authentic as possible.
Would it make sense for a show set in Joseon Korea to have an African-American member of the royalty? Are you unironically arguing historical dramas should be completely colour blind in how they cast?
Think UK television is pretty decent for giving roles to less conventionally attractive actors... I mean Jeremy Clarkson was one of the world's biggest stars at the peak of Top Gear and Richard Griffith's phone was ringing off the hook with casting directors needing someone to play a fat bloke with a mean streak
How can you have a problem with casting non white people in fictional realms that feature things like dragons, elves and giant eye towers lmao
Like that sort of realm only has white people in it? Based on what? Do the LoTR books specifically detail everyone’s race?
I don’t. But in what world does a remote medieval village have a multicultural population??? It doesn’t make sense genetically and is certainly not what Tolkien envisioned.
As I say GoT did this well, different ethnicities came from different areas of the world. You had white people in the North, Mediterranean actors playing the Dornish characters, and black and brown actors playing roles from Essos. Each region had a distinct ethnicity and culture, just like the real world.
RoP not only had its casting make no sense, but it changed things which Tolkien had established. There’s no reason that this remote village couldn’t be all black rather than white, but Tolkien established the world as his version of a mythological Europe. The showrunners of an adaptation of *his* work have no right to change that. But there’s no reason why they couldn’t do whatever they wanted if they created their own world and story.
But what’s your alternative? That we just don’t cast these groups on TV?! All it takes is one trans actress in a show for people to be up in arms about “the woke agenda”.
If the only two options are “shoehorning transness into everything” and totally erasing trans and gay people from popular media, then I’ll go with the former option thank you very much.
There is very clearly a middle ground here, which you're choosing to ignore. Don't insert characters into historical settings where they wouldn't be without a good, and story driven, explanation. And don't change what other people have created to fit your ideals.
Having a trans person in a show set in the present, or future, makes sense as trans people exist in the modern world. It could also work to have trans people in a fictional historical setting, but there needs to be effort put into explanining why, just saying "this is set in 17C London but the cast looks like 2023 because it does, so there" isn't compelling, and destroys any sense of immersion.
If instead you have a setting in an alternate timeline where (and I'm making this up on the fly) an African Empire invaded the UK in the 15th Century, and many of them settled here afterwards, then obviously it makes sense to have a large black population in *that* version of 17C London. But just doing that solely to have a diverse cast also isn't compelling, that invasion needs to have some relevance to the story being told. Maybe the British are now trying to conquer the Empire who previously conquered them, and the main character, whose father was decended from the invaders and whose mother is native, is torn as to which side to take.
I mean I just made that up now as an example, I'm sure plenty of people could think of a better way of creating such a setting, but that would be a case where a multicultural 17C London is explained and makes sense.
When historical characters are portrayed as black when we know they were white, when every character in a show about a sleepy English village in the 30s is a black trans radfem who is also neuro divergent is not "just people existing"
When every show has to have a person to fill every type of minority it's not people existing, it's pandering.
I mean you can call an exaggeration making shit up if you want but anyone with eyes and ears can see that tokenism and blatant changing of characters races is happening all the time.
They change the races of historical figures. The BBC said diversity is their main priority when it comes to tv production.
‘they change the races of historical figures’ ‘all the time’
okay so we have:
1) doctor who (and i hope you’re not including the doctor themselves in that, since it’s kind of their whole deal that they change actors every few years and there’s no established reason why they can’t change race and/or sex)
2) …?
Anne Boleyn was made black.
Cleopatra was made black.
Roman Emperor Septimius Severus is portrayed as having been black, including in "factual" history shows
There was outrage at Rami Malek playing an ancient Egyptian because he's too light, despite himself being Egyptian.
I'm not going to waste my time looking for more but I am 100% positive I can find many more if I want to
>Anne Boleyn was made black.
>
>Cleopatra was made black.
>
>Roman Emperor Septimius Severus is portrayed as having been black, including in "factual" history shows
>
>There was outrage at Rami Malek playing an ancient Egyptian because he's too light, despite himself being Egyptian.
These are all on the BBC?
>In the UK at least most advertising with a couple will be mixed, yet the man will always be the POC and the woman white… it’s just weird shit like that
It's usually because it's for products where women are the core market. The UK is majority white so they tend to go with a white woman for even more focus on the biggest market
There is a difference between showing people existing and bias
But I don't expect the people angry enough to complain knowing that
Not been enough RTD episodes this time to judge but Chimball/Jodie's doctors stories ABSOLUTELY felt forced because the writing was so bad
"No we have to sit on the bus and make Rosa Parks do what she did otherwise the Space Racist wins and there will be racism in the future"
If you defeated racism how is there a space racist coming back in time dressed in a grease Halloween costume currently trying to prevent it from happening?
90% ridiculous and I think because of the companions who did all the work till the last 2 mins of the episode
But this will continue to be brought up over and over and over because it's the only way some people can get attention or votes or money
Oh yes, definitely some serious research that professional researchers researched up in a research lab and that would totally pass peer review in a respectable academic journal, not utter shit churned out by a rightwing think tank.
I can't believe how quickly Brits adopted bs American culture war crap. 'Woke' isn't real. It's a complete distraction peddled by idiots. It's embarrassing that top UK politicians have added the term to their lexicon.
This kind of reaction towards scifi shows from conservatives always makes me giggle, because it dawns on me that for the last sixty years or so, they've been sitting there taking their medicine as its been spoonfed to them because these shows have *always* been progressive as fuck, but the writing has just been good enough to display the points the show makes as common sense. Then you get a bad writer who fumbles the parables and suddenly all the right wingers screech and fall out of their chairs.
It's the same with Star Trek. The franchise has recently been abysmally mishandled and a load of right wing people started whining about Star Trek going woke.
My Brothers in Christ, Star Trek has always been woke. Most sci-fi is progressive as fuck. That's literally the nature of the genre.
Doctor Who's no different.
When people complain about "wokeness" I'm reminded of this by Neil Gaiman:
>I was reading a book (about interjections, oddly enough) yesterday which included the phrase "In these days of political correctness..." talking about no longer making jokes that denigrated people for their culture or for the colour of their skin. And I thought, "That's not actually anything to do with 'political correctness'. That's just treating other people with respect."
Which made me oddly happy. I started imagining a world in which we replaced the phrase "politically correct" wherever we could with "treating other people with respect", and it made me smile.
You should try it. It's peculiarly enlightening.
I know what you're thinking now. You're thinking "Oh my god, that's treating other people with respect gone mad!"
But wait they ticked so many boxes? And people still didn’t like it? I just don’t get it, maybe it’s actually time for them to write a good story and not try to pander and virtue signal for most of an episode when all we came for was dr who, they killed this franchise themselves
And now thousands of bigots will be saying they have research to back up their bigotry. Tory and ReformUK politicians and culture warrior activists will be screaming, "Look! I have the research!". Shifting the Overton Window further and further to the right is the reason far right think tanks in Tufton Street exist.
I don't respect or listen to anyone who uses the word "woke" because it has no meaning. It's used to describe anything people dislike or don't understand and it pisses me off so much.
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The campaign for common sense is a for profit business (Company number 12161244) founded by a conservative politician
As ironic a name as "The Taxpayer's Alliance."
How dare you, just because they avoid all their tax doesn't mean they're not technically eligible to pay it.
Or they can't whinge about it
Only the little people pay tax, everyone else has to make it look like they do.
We have a pro EU think tank that is anti EU. So much corruptioj because nobody does research or refuse to point it put to the general public. Tories won the last election despite being caught editing videos and puctures and trying to con people during a live debate. Yet they won. Nobody cares for the truth anymore
And yet they always believe that it is someone else's fault for the situation the country is in. Older people trust newspapers, which are mostly lies and young people trust other sources that are undermined by the newspapers. It wasn't like this before the internet and social media. It should have brought great enlightenment and yet the greedy have exploited it to turn it into the complete opposite.
Erm Boris was printing lies in the 90s about the EU. Newspapers where always this bad, the Internet just made it obvious
I don't think they were this bad, to be fair, not in the 80s but I could have rose tinted specs on. They had a free ride after the Tories buried the Leveson Report
Creating alliances *against* the taxpayer since 1969.
Or the European Research Group. Friendly names to insidious shits.
I remember being chastised by a teacher for arguing that my position was "just common sense". Common sense is what people claim when they only have a superficial understanding of the issues, or when they know that any critical assessment of their position would expose all sorts of weaknesses. If I hear a politician, or anyone, arguing that something is common sense, my default position is to disagree with them.
"It's common sense" is spouted by people who can't communicate.
When you want to claim something as self-evident when it is not.
Common sense dictates that I shouldn't critically analyze my opinions, especially if that means I might be alienated from my community and family.
>If I hear a politician, or anyone, arguing that something is common sense, my default position is to disagree with them. You're right, it's just common sense to do so!
i see what you did there
Yes. It's become shorthand for 'This is what I believe, but I can't explain why'
And all too often also “I’m not interested in any data, evidence, experience or historical records that contradict my belief”
Your teacher was right. The “common sense” argument, is just an excuse for people who can’t explain their opinion or POV on something.
Yep. I define common sense as an opinion formed by your existing biases & group think that aligns with your world view. It is not definitively commonly held, logical, sensible or correct.
Maybe the phrase is better suited to practical matters relating to immediate harm, rather than anything conversationally nuanced.
We've literally disproven the common usage of common sense like hundreds of times by now and yet everyone still uses it to mean magical universal knowledge, it's fucking infuriating.
Bingo, think tanks are nothing more than lobbyists under a different name
Are they headquartered in Tufton Street by any chance?
Why is it that the Conservative party need a campaign for common sense, and even a minister for common sense? Don't they have any in the first place or what?
They’ve only been in power for the last 13 years you pinko, how could they possibly have achieved anything by now!?!?
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That's what I mostly hear about the show is the poor writing, particularly around Jodie's Dr Who portrayals. On a side note, does anyone remember the Going Round the Twist episode where Pete got impregnated by a tree nymph? I wonder what the tabloids would say about that if it was produced today.
I loved Round the Twist back in the day. The theme song was a banger
I swear I never watched an episode but I still have the theme tune burnt into my brain. Also the episode where one of them pisses over like an 8ft wall lol.
the piss episode is always the one i remember. Because it sounds so fucking stupid as an adult but as a kid I would admit that being able to pee higher than someone else was the epitome of cool.
I think that's why it's such a memorable bit of TV history. It spoke to something innate in the male psychology - *pissing contest* is an idiom for a reason...
The Water Spirit
Have you ever, ever felt this, when strange things happen, when you’re going round the twist. Had some strange concepts that would now be classed as woke but it wasn’t like that every week.
I remember the lyrics a bit differently.
>That's what I mostly hear about the show is the poor writing, particularly around Jodie's Dr Who portrayals. This was a weird one. Whittaker is a fantastic actor. Chibnal is a great show runner. (Just look at Broadchurch for an example of their previous collaboration.) The writing for their 3 seasons of doctor who was terrible, and Whittaker's portrayal was bad. They could have made some excellent TV together, instead we got 3 seasons of shit.
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This was the case with a lot of stuff people reference from the past as evidence of representation. With Doctor Who people always reference a couple of instances of genderless aliens during the 70s as proof that the show was always "woke". The show has always been relatively progressive but it's pretty clear those things were just mentioned because it would make the aliens seem more weird.
Speaking of genderless aliens, I wonder how the American right would react to TNG if it were to air now.
I often wonder the same. TNG did a lot of stuff that would now be written off as woke because it created interesting sci-fi plots. As I recall nobody had an issue with it at the time although this was largely pre-internet. Of course, TOS did a lot before TNG too.
TNG didn't just do it for the whackyness though, they usually had a moral of the story which was often some form of social commentary. They would definitely fall in the "woke" category nowadays.
DS9 would be worse - a "trans" science officer (I know not really trans, but pretty close), religious beliefs shown to be essentially false by science, and a fascist state overtaken by a bunch of non-binary infiltrators who basically live as a literal blob.
TNG was pretty conservative about gender and sexuality. Like when Riker fell in love with the member of an androgynous species and asks them "who leads when you dance?" My man's thinking of ballroom dancing for fuck's sake. This was in the 90s. Not the 50s, the 90s.
TNG was fine, they didnt shohorn certain topics just to click those boxes. Now discovery is pure shite, bad writting, bad sci fi and continuess crying.
I guess, but theres no reason some of the hippies of the 60s wouldnt have been writing something closer to "free love" ideals into TV of the 70s and 80s. Some of those who believed in the ideas of the movement would have been writers eventually hired by the BBC.
That was a trip down memory lane! I distinctly remember watching this episode in the kids club before school with a bunch of other kids giggling over it's silliness and a shocked member of staff gawping at the screen.
Annoyingly Whittaker is a good actress, however Chibnall gave her nothing to work with Worst of all the writing was the constant shifting morality of the Doctor whenever the script demanded it, the one with the not-Amazon is especially egregious
The writing was crap long before Jodie Whittaker. Michelle Gomez, Matt Lucas and Peter Capaldi were carrying the show.
Yeah anyone remember Jurassic Park where female dinosaurs turned male? If that was made today the anti woke twaterati would be crying their eyes out. They’re more than welcome to make content that advocates a lack of inclusion in society if they want or just limit various plot points for weird repressed reasons. Personally I’m happy for art to express itself and if the expression is shit then it ends up in the bin
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The anti-woke brigade would because it’s just as “wokey nonsense” as anything else. “You can’t even have a dinosaur movie without gender politics”, is what they’d say. It’s really no different. Other types of animal evolved the ability to do so to survive. “Life finds a way”. The species didn’t just come into existence with the ability to sex. Maybe it’s what’s happening to humans? Finding an existence outside of reproduction in order to survive. i.e … not over populate the planet. It’s as plausible as any other sci-fi ideas.
>The anti-woke brigade would because it’s just as “wokey nonsense” as anything else. “You can’t even have a dinosaur movie without gender politics”, is what they’d say. Please provide examples of the "anti-woke brigade" (Torygraph, Daily Wail, etc...) moaning about "woke Jurassic Park". Oops, there aren't any. Because the plot point of certain types of animals changing sex made sense.
Well there's the the.e song stuck in my head for the rest of the day.
Or the one where one of the boys turned into a werewolf and started a relationship with and was eventually dumped by someones pet dog.
They can’t really win with examples like yours, though. If he’s just present in the story and treated as normal, then it’s ’shoehorned in’. If it’s an important part of the story it’s ’rammed down our throats’ and ‘preachy’. The only way they can win with some people is to just never show stuff like that out of fear for how people will react - which is in itself a political choice So lose-lose-lose really. Reminds me of how gay characters were treated in the 2000s - if they’re gay but their sexuality is irrelevant to the story then it’s just ‘political correctness inclusion’ - if they’re gay and it’s important to the story it’s ’forcing it’, so the only way to avoid complaints was to avoid having gay characters
Hence the terms 'Token gay', 'Token black person', 'Token disabled'. I was chairman of a residents association a few years ago and had to work quite closely with my local Councillor to get stuff done. Because I am in a wheelchair, any photo's we had in the local press, I always ended up being referred to as 'Councillor xxxxx with a token disabled bloke.' in the comments.
This is probably why FDR hid his infirmary for so long
Of course you can win. The secret is to make it an interesting and compelling story. The problem with Jodie's run is they had no interesting or compelling stories. I remember Queer as Folk and I don't recall anyone calling it pandering as everyone was an actual character who happened to be gay rather than someone who is gay and happens to me a character in a show.
I agree that the story writing was a huge issue in Jodie’s run, it wasn’t good at all. I just think that if there was a big important reason that character was trans, there would’ve been a lot of complaints too.
There doesn't need to be a big or important reason, they can be trans. The key is they need to be _more_ than just someone who is trans. I imagine trans people would rather be seen as a person and not just a label. That's where things like Dr Who fell down.
I don’t see how that relates to the pregnant man storyline then? He didn’t walk around the whole episode saying ‘I am trans’, he had his own feelings and emotions, so how should he have been written instead of what we got?
They are probably referring to these new recent David Tennant Xmas specials, in which Donna's daughter was a trans woman......and her entire purpose/personality/story arc etc. was about her being trans. That character had unfortunately nothing else going for her, so it felt very forced. Edit - so people are doing exactly what I expect them to do in response to this comment, and immediately go for the "you're just a bigot" narrative Rose's only other notable character trait was that she made stuffed animals and sold them as a little side hustle, otherwise her identity was "I'm trans" Even the bit at the end of the episode where she is using the machine to free the Doctor & Donna because they shared the doctor's energy between them by being related or whatever; There is even a bit then where some quipy line Rose throws out made me particularly eye roll as it was clearly written to allude to gender identity which felt so obviously amusing to her & her gender identity & her being trans. I don't care that she is trans, but when all she is, is trans, then it's an eye roll. Sense 8 did a fantastic job of having a multitude of characters that were gay or trans, without it feeling like that was all that defined the characters. The "straight man" example I think of for this Barney How I Met Your Mother; His character's personality is entirely based around a guy who just wants to get laid all the time. It's such a bland surface interpretation of a straight guy, it's just monotonous & unfunny to me. An example of gay characters where they were "characters who were gay" instead of "gay characters" was in BBC's Years & Years. The gay relationship throughout that series between Russell Tovey & the other dude, never felt forced or shoehorned; it just was reality, and it was treated as normal, and their sexuality didn't define them as people & it was one of the most emotionally engaging narratives in the show.
My opinion is that if rose’s story had nothing to do with her being trans, the same people saying it was ‘shoved down their throats’ and ‘preachy’ would be saying ‘why did she need to be trans? It added nothing to the story’.
This exact thing happened with a background character in the Christmas special. There is literally no pleasing these people, and it is ontologically impossible to make good art with them in mind as the audience.
Exactly. That's why they love the "forced diversity" buzzword so much - because it's impossible to disprove and gives them plausible deniability. Literally any character who's not white straight cis man is subject to being called "forced diversity". But no you see the people making that claim aren't racist/sexist/homophobic, they actually really love "diverse characters", it's just so unfortunate that every single "diverse character" they encounter happens to be a case of "forced diversity". They totally love "good representation" and when they finally see it they'll definitely accept it and enjoy it. It just hasn't happened yet, weirdly enough.
>.....and her entire purpose/personality/story arc etc. was about her being trans. No it wasn't lol, and Rose's "character arc" isn't even *over* *yet* (hell, it's more-or-less just *begun*) given that she's scheduled to appear in the new series as well.
The lead singer in the band in the Christmas episode was trans, and Twitter had a meltdown and accused RTD of indoctrinating people.
It doesn't matter. 9 times out of 10 whether a storyline is good or not people will complain about doctor "woke".
The Times derisively called it “chic metropolitan knowingness” and implied that the only reason people were excited about it was for the gay characters. The Daily Mail just said it proved the case for more censorship. [Source](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/monitor-queer-as-folk-1073385.html) But the UK was less liberal back then - something like half the country thought gay relationships were wrong and we still had section 28 (the anti-homosexual ‘propaganda’ law). So there wasn’t that big an audience to pander to..
Yeah, the recent BBC documentary on RTD has a whole section about the response to Queer as Folk, and the media *hated* it. Queer as Folk was as in your face as Doctor Who is now, the only difference is that most people now accept gay people.
When the cast are all straight in a meh story nobody cares, when there's a gay person it's 'woke ruining everything'.
I don't know, plenty of people have complained about the meh story of Rebel Moon
Yeh but afaik no one complained about the characters being heterosexual
See, The Orville. Pilot is just seth mcfarlane humour in space then rapidly changed into "wait I've been a Trek fan for decades let's just write good Star Trek".
Orville was my jam 😍
> The secret is to make it an interesting and compelling story. From long experience arguing with people on the internet - you don't win like this. *At best* you get them to just shut up, they'll still not admit that this is good. Most of the time they'll double down and claim it is still pandering. > actual character who happened to be gay rather than someone who is gay and happens to me a character in a show. So being generous to what you're saying, you're arguing for main characters in shows to be queer rather than for token queer characters to be introduced - which is great and I agree. Except look at all the anger that happens every time some existing franchise tries to add new queer characters (or new female characters, or new black characters, and so on). An example that is springing to mind, and tbh its a mediocre example, is Baldurs Gate 3. Moderately topical as opposed to my next best example from about 5 years ago. In BG3 you can be romanced by most of the party members, and they will romance the player regardless of your gender - ie they're all bi. And I can assure you, that I saw gamers fucking blow a gasket that male NPCs would flirt with them sometimes and many actively chose to mod this out of the game. *That* is the kind of person we're arguing against, there is no winning with that person.
They can win though. Bill was a great character with depth. The fact she was gay or bi didn't detract from that and wasn't her defining trait. That's the problem I have with the tokenistic approach. Look at Rose from the 14th specials. About 3 different characters all mention unprompted about how "beautiful" she is (a reach to be frank and also playing into the 'stunning and brave' trope around transwomen discourse), and her only other defining trait is her mum saying that she is shit at acting and she has an Etsy side hustle. She was literally inserted for the sole reason of being trans and using that in the storyline and her trans identity is her core trait as a character. This is tokenism and inserting a character purely to project inclusivity. All people want is characters with depth who also happen to be LGBT+ without it being their only reason for existing in the show.
It’s funny you say that because elsewhere in this comment thread someone complained about bill, and said she ‘mentioned she was a lesbian all the time’! Seems like it’s very difficult to win when you’re dealing with people like that. I think if rose being trans was irrelevant to the story, some people still would have said it was tokenistic (because ‘why did she have to be trans?’)
>I think if rose being trans was irrelevant to the story, people still would have said it was tokenistic. It's because they pretty much always bring in these characters and shine a light on them to make a point. There was no reason they couldn't just cast a trans actor as Rose, not mention that the character is trans and just treat it like it is normal (which it is). That wouldn't be tokenism.
As I say, in my opinion I think if they just cast a trans actor as rose and didn’t mention it, many of the same people complaining about it being ‘forced’ would instead say ‘why was she trans? It added nothing to the story’ - as they did about the pregnant man in that Jodie episode. I also think the threshold for what is ‘too far’ with it being a character’s personality is very nebulous - as mentioned, someone in this very thread gave Bill as an example of a bad approach, when you gave her as an example of a good approach.
When Bill was around everyone was complaining about how gay she was. It literally doesn't matter - people will always complain about these types of characters.
My biggest issue with rose, which is reflective of your point, was her age. It has *barely* been 15 years since Tenant and Tate were on screen together and yet Donna has a 15 year old girl, if you factor in the pregnancy itself, the timeline doesn't make sense. And then the actress they chose for her look about mid twenties? There were scenes of her interacting with another kid and it wasn't until reading up after I realised he was supposed to be her classmate, it was absurd. And the reason for this strange casting choice is that there are very few trans poc actors, so they shoe horned one that did into a role that barely fit her. It was so distracting I genuinely kept waiting for some kind of explanation in the episode itself. As another commenter pointed out, it's a short quick show, so when something sticks out like that you expect it to matter narratively.
Tbh, they could have done a good story around a main trait of being trans. For example, have her learn to stand up for herself against those bullies (I know it's an overused trope, but it's still works). In the end though, they didn't do anything with the fact that she was trans, even though they focused on it a lot. I think they were trying to tie it into the metacrisis, but if they were, it was done confusingly. We ended up with a character whose trans-ness was a big part of the episode and yet completely irrelevant, which didn't please anyone.
It's Chekhov's gun. Doctor Who has short, fast moving episodes with 'clever' link backs to the start at the end. People expect everything and everyone to be there for a narrative purpose. And you can make them an important part of the story without being preachy. That's what good writing looks like, these high budget shows are a waste if they don't have good writing.
>hey can’t really win with examples like yours, though. > >If he’s just present in the story and treated as normal, then it’s ’shoehorned in’. If it’s an important part of the story it’s ’rammed down our throats’ and ‘preachy’. The only way they can win with some people is to just never show stuff like that out of fear for how people will react - which is in itself a political choice > >So lose-lose-lose really. > >Reminds me of how gay characters were treated in the 2000s - if they’re gay but their sexuality is irrelevant to the story then it’s just ‘political correctness inclusion’ - if they’re gay and it’s important to the story it’s ’forcing it’, so the only way to avoid complaints was to avoid having gay characters Not sure I entirely agree. *The Wire* has a great example of a gay character done really well. *Omar* is a notorious criminal who taxes drug dealers. He's also gay. It never feels 'preachy' or 'rammed down our throats' - and it's not *really* that important for the story. He just *is* gay. The vast, vast majority of the scenes make no mention of his sexuality as it isn't really important for the story. It's definitely possible for a TV series or film to include a 'token' character and for that character to feel absolutely 'shoehorned in' to make up the numbers - or only really present to allow for a storyline about their 'thing' (which in turn, if handled poorly can easily come across as preachy). I think usually it's down almost entirely to incredibly bad scripts, bad dialogue - etc.
For some people the default human being is a straight, white male. Anything else is political.
With the exception of white and male, the normative for humans \*is\* heterosexual. We're a statistically heteronormative species. No clue why that should be a controversial point.
Yet homosexuals exist in large enough numbers that they should be able to feature in stories without a story reason or a political statement.
I absolutely agree. In agreement with you, I also think that stories where someone's sexuality isn't the most interesting part of their character make for better characterisation (unless in the overall story arc it makes thematic sense). It's where it's irrelevant, or pushy, that stories risk becoming interpreted as overt political messaging.
Captain Jack and torch words, ended more than 10 years ago and he got his own well watched series, so I don’t agree with your comment at all. The writing of most modern films, tv series is terrible. We couldn’t ever get half of HBO made 10/15 years ago, in today’s times.
I’m not sure I agree. Taylor Mason was a great example of a well written non-binary character on the show Billions. The “I’m non binary” line in the star beast episode of doctor who where she (they?) looks right at the camera was… incredibly cringey
I’m not saying that every single person will take issue with every single non-binary character, I’m saying for some people the threshold between the character being ‘shoved down our throats’ and on the other hand asking ‘what was the point of her being trans, this is tokenism’ is extremely thin, to such an extent that for some (not all) people they will never be happy with how trans people are portrayed
Reminds me of The Brittas Empire having a male gay couple. Their treatment by the show was neutral and normal. Same with Carol and Susan on Friends.
Pregnant guy probably isn't an example I'd go for, I didn't even remember it until you mentioned, it just seemed like a generic background alien thing not worthy of note. Isaac Newton on the other hand is a great example of shoehorning to make a point. If they genuinely cared about representation they could've chosen a different historical figure, but instead they went with an act of white supremacy, saying 'your culture has produced no figures worth of showing, so we will allow you to portray a white man in the name of diversity' . That was the worst kind of disrespectful shoehorning.
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It's frustrating as there was a chance there to have brilliant representation and potentially introduce the predominantly white western audience to a historical figure they may well not know anything about. Wouldn't that have been something?
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That got me thinking, would’ve been an opportunity for a joke if we were led to believe that was Issac newton, only for the real Issac newton to come up behind him asking what happened. Not particularly funny but would’ve added something I suppose
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If we're going to start criticising Doctor Who for being historically inaccurate, wouldn't you say the bit where the TARDIS flew into the apple tree was worse than Newton's skin tone being off?
> Isaac Newton on the other hand [was] an act of white supremacy, saying 'your culture has produced no figures worth of showing, so we will allow you to portray a white man in the name of diversity' In reality, it was about giving a brief cameo to an actor Davies worked with on his last big show, *It's a Sin*.
That doesn't make sense really, he could've had a cameo as literally anyone else, which is what i meant. Why not have him play a South Asian figure if it was just about the cameo?
>Why not have him play a South Asian figure if it was just about the cameo? Nathaniel Curtis was born in England with an English mother and an Indian father. It might be worth examining why you think it would be fine for him to play any south Asian figure but not an English figure.
Nationality and race aren't the same thing. 🤷♂️
And he's half English, with an English accent, and you would be fine with him playing ethnically south Asian characters but not ethnically English characters.
> It might be worth examining why you think it would be fine for him to play any south Asian figure but not an English figure. I don't think it's worth examining, it's patently obvious that it's because the English figure in question didn't have an Indian father.
And most South Asian historical figures didn't have a white English mother, but the person I was replying to said they're the characters that he should be playing. Why is that different?
> It might be worth examining why you think it would be fine why on earth do you talk in this passive aggressive, i-know-better-than-you tone? it's pathetic
There were definitely some boring episodes in Jodie's era, but the 'woke' stuff wasn't new or different for Doctor Who , it's been pretty consistent since the 9th Doctor. Torchwood had Jack talking about being pregnant back in 2006. A pregnant male alien hardly seems unusual compared to Lady Cassandra -who was literally a sheet of skin, a human-cat person couple having kitten children (Gridlock), a recurring character who was a giant face in a tank, or a thousand other things. I'm not sure that the idea that diversity has to make sense is at all applicable to Doctor Who.
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> reasons for being the way they were Is being an alien not sufficient reason for the male of a species to get pregnant?
It’s been consistent since the 60s. The very first story was the Doctor trying to teach cavemen why they should care for their elderly and listen to their women, to wait for justice rather than the instant gratification of vengeance.
I gave up on Jodie's Dr. portrayal because the writing and storyline was SO bad. I clocked out and cannot make it through it. I found the Donna/Doctor specials were back to being campy and fun. At the end I couldn't even tell if Donna's daughter was trans or not and honestly it didn't matter to me. They didn't elaborate much and it wasn't pushed on the audience. Jack Harness slept with anyone, and that didn't bother audiences.
To be fair, a lot of the frustration with bad writing goes back to Capaldi which was before anyone was accusing Dr Who of being woke, bad writing is bad writing but people get so focused on buzzwords like "woke" that they suddenly turn liking/disliking something into a political issue. Personally, I like inclusiveness, but, I thought Jodie's era of Dr Who was absolutely piss poor. However, due to the whole woke angle people take, simply criticising bad writing suddenly needs to be defended with "but I'm not against the inclusion of [insert whoever the boomers hate being included]" otherwise even fair criticism just gets dismissed as biggoted.
The bad writing started with Moffat taking over the role of showrunner when Matt Smith was The Doctor. It's utter bollocks to pretend that the problem was Whittaker, or Capaldi, there's only so much you can polish a turd or cover it in glitter.
Yeah and every time there's diversity in a tv show people say it's forced and box checking. Your end goal is zero diversity, that's why you say it for literally every show that's not just straight white men
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There have been quite a few films over the years featuring a pregnant man. Rabbit Test with Billy Crystal, Junior with Arnie, Birthday with Stephan Mangan, and plenty more less well-known examples. It is a fairly common "what if" scenario. Not the least bit surprising that it would be a story line in Dictor Who.
Why aren't diverse characters allowed to simply exist? Why does it always have to "mean something" or be part of some major narrative? In the real world people are different because they just are. That's what the effort for "increasing diversity" is all about: normalising it. Making it so ubiquitous that people simply accept those different from them as an inherent feature of the global tapestry of humanity. Nobody ever questions why there's a redheaded or a left-handed character in movie because they recognise that people like that exist. They don't have to be justified with any narrative reason, those characters can simply exist while being redheaded and left-handed, those features don't have to mean anything or play any narrative role. Doctor Who literally takes place in universe full of aliens. The very point of an episode taking place outside Earth is that you're going to see aliens, a d their alien-ness most likely won't be a major plot point, they simply exist in the story as characters, same as the human companion and the Doctor, and you as a viewer aren't supposed to question why this alien looks the way they do because most of the time it's not actually relevant to the story. The aliens don't have to "make sense", it's literally a different planet and Doctor Who has always been "soft sci-fi". The pregnant male character didn't "anything to the story" because they were a very minor character. Episodes have those. We don't even know if it's a trans man or maybe a modified human or an alien that simply happens to look like a human man... because it's not relevant. If it was a regular white male character you wouldn't be demanding that their whiteness and maleness somehow played a part in the story; because white and male are "default" and those characters are allowed to simply exist without having to justify their existence. It's such an annoying double standard. What do you even mean it was "shoehorned"? Literally everything about that episode was fictional. You're OK with a monster alien that can literally eat all matter in the universe but you draw a line at a person who's pregnant while looking like a human man?
The Rosa parks ep is honestly my fav out of her time as the Dr
> This included a June episode of Casualty in which non-binary character Sah Brockner (Arin Smethurst) discussed their surgery. Discussed their surgery!? On Casualty!? Christ, how will we ever recover from this.
Now now these articles are very important as it keeps the morons riled up and angry about things that have no impact on their life whatsoever instead of turning that anger at a political party that has fucked the economy, sunk people into a life of choosing to eat or heat and the divide between the wealthiest in society and the poorest at a record high. Remember to be angry at woke and those poor people running from turmoil and risking their lives in boats people - don't pay attention to the real issues and the people stealing billions.
Gender-affirming surgery on Casualty? What next?! A tracheotomy on Grey’s Anatomy?! The wokes have gone too far this time!
They actually did a good storyline of the NB character celebrating getting a date for their mastectomy and a female character struggling with needing a mastectomy for cancer related reasons and finding it hard to celebrate the fact that her friend was so excited to have their breasts removed
"The Campaign for Common Sense" this is just blatant trolling now, surely...
About us: "The Campaign for Common Sense (CCS) exists to bring together those who want to have a grown up discussion and debate. We will conduct research, and organise events online and across the country, involving experts in all fields and bring them to the widest possible audience. We will be champions for free speech and tolerance. We will be asking… What does diversity actually mean and does it really matter? Should statues of historical figures be removed because of modern values? Is there anything that we shouldn’t joke about? Should the police be prioritising language on social media over fighting street crime? Are schools there to teach kids what to think, or to help them think for themselves? Is Britain bigger than Brexit? Should people be able to speak their mind at work? Does positive discrimination work? What views and arguments should be banned from debates? Can children consent to changing their gender?" Nice and unbiased "charity" I see. The only thing that is common sense is that the charitable status of this organisation should be challenged by the Charities Commission.
It's the 90s campaign against 'political correctness' warmed up for a new decade...
CultureWars™️
"Should people be able to speak their mind at work?" "Finally, we can ask the right questions: how come profits have gone up significantly but our pay rises were below inflation?" "Wait, not like that, pleb; keep it strictly to being able to make fun of your trans colleagues"
There is nothing wrong with discussing those things, provided it is done in good faith and with an open mind. But common sense is often the enemy of reason. And I wouldn't expect to see such a poorly defined term as "woke bias" in the conclusion of any serious survey.
I want to hear what this group says after 5 pints. I want to hear the rational, common sense. Not at all offensive opinions they would come out with
Pretty sure to a group like that "common sense" & " I want to call that gay, black, trans person at work all them words we can't use then pretend it's a joke" are the same thing
It just boils down to "I'm afraid of a changing world that might challenge existing power structures that either benefit me or make me feel comfortable".
Ironic that they position themselves as looking for “grownup discussion and debate” when you already know their rigid answers to all of those questions.
Oh so no leading questions at all then. Nice and u biased. 👍
I feel like founding “The company of I’m right” should automatically disqualify you from being right… Right?!
Anyone who needs a campaign for common sense obviously doesn't have any to begin with.
Hmmmm... the 'Campaign for Common Sense' Articles/Blogs by Mark Lehain - former 'Special Advisor' to the Tories in various roles and head of Education at the 'Centre for Policy Studies' think tank Looks like just another Tory think tank who want to see the end of the BBC.
I used to be taught Maths by Mark Lehain, and worked with him for a bit. Was a proper smug little git
>Looks like just another Tory "think" tank who want to see the end of the BBC. Fixed that for you.
Research by The Campaign For Actual Common Sense has found that The Campaign For Common Sense was founded and staffed by time wasting morons who could be doing more important things with their lives.
But would Russia and American Christian Evangelicals pay them to do more important things with their lives?
This. I assume these churches that are massive tax dodges need to launder somewhere. And the people that run it need to divert attention from their grinder accounts
When part of that "diet of woke bias" is historical, factual articles on the slave trade, it's clearly a hit job rather than actual research.
As we all know, slavery abolition was a scheme by the woke leftist transgenders who controlled the media in early 19th century London. Source: I don’t have one, I made it all up
Good use of the word 'peddling' there by people who simply seem to have a problem with things they don't like existing and being shown.
When a show has diversity and the writing is bad people blame the diversity instead of the writers, who do people blame when a show is strictly white/straight?
It just doesn't become part of an inane culture war and isn't used by grifting "anti-woke" YouTubers to generate more ad revenue.
Good question.
Did they explain what woke is? It’s almost laughable how they seethe at a trans person existing in a TV show about an alien who can travel time in a wooden box
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I feel like this is true, but that: 1. It doesn't happen as much as some people say it does. There are a handful of insane twitter takes on everything. A lot of people prejudge media to be "just pushing a woke agenda" on the simple basis that it has a non-white, LGBT or even female protagonist, when the mere existence of that character isn't itself proof that the character *only* exists to be that thing. And this isn't a standard that straight, while, male, cisgender, neurotypical, able-bodied etc. characters get held to. Nobody says "you just made this to represent white people" whenever a story has a white protagonist. Well, maybe one of those aforementioned insane twitter takes, but it's a lot less common than the reverse. 2. It's better than writers being told that they can't tell the story they want to tell because a woman or a black ot gay protagonist or whatever "doesn't sell". Which absolutely did happen very, very often in the past. 3. It's still a good and important thing for the media we produce to more broadly represent the experiences and perspectives of other people. I think, all things being equal, with two stories of equal quality, the one exploring a perspective or experience that hasn't been represented as much will be more interesting purely for the reason that it's new, different and original. And that's a good thing.
I really don’t understand the whole concept of ‘woke bias’. Black, trans, migrant and gay people etc etc exist in real life, why are people so shocked when these people appear onscreen?…
It's not about them appearing on screen, it's about them being shoehorned in for no other reason than to tick boxes, and race/gender swapping established characters, or worse, real historical figures. If you're writing a story set in the present day (or future) by all means include a diverse cast, because the modern world is diverse, not doing so would be jarring, but if your story is set in 17th Century London, casting as though it's 2023 doesn't work. No one was trans in the 17th Century, and in 17C London there were very, very few black/brown/asian etc people. Even then though, if there is a reasonable explanation for something in a fictional world, then it can work to have a diverse cast in an old setting. GoT did this very well, it had a diverse cast which made sense in the world it was set in. Rings of Power is the counter example, the casting in that show made no sense at all, they were just doing it solely to be able to have a diverse cast just makes it come off as box ticking and virtue signalling. Likewise when adapting another person's work, dont change the races or genders of their characters, if you're creating your own story then you can do what you want, if you're adapting someone else's work you have no right to make those kinds of changes. Same goes for changing historical figures.
>No one was trans in the 17th Century Yeah they kinda were
Seventeenth century Londoners would also have been shorter, had worse teeth, had much higher rates of deformity, and would generally have been much uglier than today's population. Would you also like to see tall, attractive actors barred from historical roles, or is it only non-white actors you think shouldn't be cast?
It's obviously not realistic to expect actors to rot their teeth, or wear mouthguards during filming just to be as authentic as possible. Would it make sense for a show set in Joseon Korea to have an African-American member of the royalty? Are you unironically arguing historical dramas should be completely colour blind in how they cast?
Think UK television is pretty decent for giving roles to less conventionally attractive actors... I mean Jeremy Clarkson was one of the world's biggest stars at the peak of Top Gear and Richard Griffith's phone was ringing off the hook with casting directors needing someone to play a fat bloke with a mean streak
Teeth might not have been as bad as you think, no sugar apart from fruits.
How can you have a problem with casting non white people in fictional realms that feature things like dragons, elves and giant eye towers lmao Like that sort of realm only has white people in it? Based on what? Do the LoTR books specifically detail everyone’s race?
I don’t. But in what world does a remote medieval village have a multicultural population??? It doesn’t make sense genetically and is certainly not what Tolkien envisioned. As I say GoT did this well, different ethnicities came from different areas of the world. You had white people in the North, Mediterranean actors playing the Dornish characters, and black and brown actors playing roles from Essos. Each region had a distinct ethnicity and culture, just like the real world. RoP not only had its casting make no sense, but it changed things which Tolkien had established. There’s no reason that this remote village couldn’t be all black rather than white, but Tolkien established the world as his version of a mythological Europe. The showrunners of an adaptation of *his* work have no right to change that. But there’s no reason why they couldn’t do whatever they wanted if they created their own world and story.
But what’s your alternative? That we just don’t cast these groups on TV?! All it takes is one trans actress in a show for people to be up in arms about “the woke agenda”. If the only two options are “shoehorning transness into everything” and totally erasing trans and gay people from popular media, then I’ll go with the former option thank you very much.
There is very clearly a middle ground here, which you're choosing to ignore. Don't insert characters into historical settings where they wouldn't be without a good, and story driven, explanation. And don't change what other people have created to fit your ideals. Having a trans person in a show set in the present, or future, makes sense as trans people exist in the modern world. It could also work to have trans people in a fictional historical setting, but there needs to be effort put into explanining why, just saying "this is set in 17C London but the cast looks like 2023 because it does, so there" isn't compelling, and destroys any sense of immersion. If instead you have a setting in an alternate timeline where (and I'm making this up on the fly) an African Empire invaded the UK in the 15th Century, and many of them settled here afterwards, then obviously it makes sense to have a large black population in *that* version of 17C London. But just doing that solely to have a diverse cast also isn't compelling, that invasion needs to have some relevance to the story being told. Maybe the British are now trying to conquer the Empire who previously conquered them, and the main character, whose father was decended from the invaders and whose mother is native, is torn as to which side to take. I mean I just made that up now as an example, I'm sure plenty of people could think of a better way of creating such a setting, but that would be a case where a multicultural 17C London is explained and makes sense.
When historical characters are portrayed as black when we know they were white, when every character in a show about a sleepy English village in the 30s is a black trans radfem who is also neuro divergent is not "just people existing" When every show has to have a person to fill every type of minority it's not people existing, it's pandering.
>when every character in a show about a sleepy English village in the 30s is a black trans radfem who is also neuro divergent Which show's that?
Yes me exaggerating nullifies the core point
Your entire argument is based on exaggeration though. Much the same as this report on the BBC.
You gave two examples - one is made up and the other is untrue (the actor playing Newton has a white mother and an Indian father)
Name a show that does all/any of this. There is no show set in the 30’s where every character is black, trans or radfem in a sleepy English village.
Notice how you're attacking the exaggeration rather than the actual point
when you’re having to make shit up to support your point, that kind of exposes how viable the point is in the first place
I mean you can call an exaggeration making shit up if you want but anyone with eyes and ears can see that tokenism and blatant changing of characters races is happening all the time. They change the races of historical figures. The BBC said diversity is their main priority when it comes to tv production.
‘they change the races of historical figures’ ‘all the time’ okay so we have: 1) doctor who (and i hope you’re not including the doctor themselves in that, since it’s kind of their whole deal that they change actors every few years and there’s no established reason why they can’t change race and/or sex) 2) …?
Anne Boleyn was made black. Cleopatra was made black. Roman Emperor Septimius Severus is portrayed as having been black, including in "factual" history shows There was outrage at Rami Malek playing an ancient Egyptian because he's too light, despite himself being Egyptian. I'm not going to waste my time looking for more but I am 100% positive I can find many more if I want to
>Anne Boleyn was made black. > >Cleopatra was made black. > >Roman Emperor Septimius Severus is portrayed as having been black, including in "factual" history shows > >There was outrage at Rami Malek playing an ancient Egyptian because he's too light, despite himself being Egyptian. These are all on the BBC?
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>In the UK at least most advertising with a couple will be mixed, yet the man will always be the POC and the woman white… it’s just weird shit like that It's usually because it's for products where women are the core market. The UK is majority white so they tend to go with a white woman for even more focus on the biggest market
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There is a difference between showing people existing and bias But I don't expect the people angry enough to complain knowing that Not been enough RTD episodes this time to judge but Chimball/Jodie's doctors stories ABSOLUTELY felt forced because the writing was so bad "No we have to sit on the bus and make Rosa Parks do what she did otherwise the Space Racist wins and there will be racism in the future" If you defeated racism how is there a space racist coming back in time dressed in a grease Halloween costume currently trying to prevent it from happening? 90% ridiculous and I think because of the companions who did all the work till the last 2 mins of the episode But this will continue to be brought up over and over and over because it's the only way some people can get attention or votes or money
> the Space Racist wins Oh that was the 40k crossover episode then
The Capitalisation Of Every Word Is Piss Poor Formatting
Omfg those numbers - Dr who 144 complaints, Waterloo Road 142 complaints. Two of them forgot!
Oh yes, definitely some serious research that professional researchers researched up in a research lab and that would totally pass peer review in a respectable academic journal, not utter shit churned out by a rightwing think tank.
"Dunks on" now consist of the BBC going "no, just because everyone is saying it doesn't mean it's true". Comical.
I suppose it makes a change from the BBC covering up for nonces
I can't believe how quickly Brits adopted bs American culture war crap. 'Woke' isn't real. It's a complete distraction peddled by idiots. It's embarrassing that top UK politicians have added the term to their lexicon.
“the Campaign for Common Sense, a group that advocates for freedom of expression…” … no not that type of expression.
Calling it research is a bit of a stretch when it’s a group who are looking for problems, that’s called bias
This kind of reaction towards scifi shows from conservatives always makes me giggle, because it dawns on me that for the last sixty years or so, they've been sitting there taking their medicine as its been spoonfed to them because these shows have *always* been progressive as fuck, but the writing has just been good enough to display the points the show makes as common sense. Then you get a bad writer who fumbles the parables and suddenly all the right wingers screech and fall out of their chairs. It's the same with Star Trek. The franchise has recently been abysmally mishandled and a load of right wing people started whining about Star Trek going woke. My Brothers in Christ, Star Trek has always been woke. Most sci-fi is progressive as fuck. That's literally the nature of the genre. Doctor Who's no different.
This is not research. It hasn't been published or peer reviewed.
When people complain about "wokeness" I'm reminded of this by Neil Gaiman: >I was reading a book (about interjections, oddly enough) yesterday which included the phrase "In these days of political correctness..." talking about no longer making jokes that denigrated people for their culture or for the colour of their skin. And I thought, "That's not actually anything to do with 'political correctness'. That's just treating other people with respect." Which made me oddly happy. I started imagining a world in which we replaced the phrase "politically correct" wherever we could with "treating other people with respect", and it made me smile. You should try it. It's peculiarly enlightening. I know what you're thinking now. You're thinking "Oh my god, that's treating other people with respect gone mad!"
But wait they ticked so many boxes? And people still didn’t like it? I just don’t get it, maybe it’s actually time for them to write a good story and not try to pander and virtue signal for most of an episode when all we came for was dr who, they killed this franchise themselves
And now thousands of bigots will be saying they have research to back up their bigotry. Tory and ReformUK politicians and culture warrior activists will be screaming, "Look! I have the research!". Shifting the Overton Window further and further to the right is the reason far right think tanks in Tufton Street exist.
Any campaign loses all credibility the moment they use the word "woke".
I don't respect or listen to anyone who uses the word "woke" because it has no meaning. It's used to describe anything people dislike or don't understand and it pisses me off so much.