Chicks Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who by the Women Who Love It

 

 

As a Doctor Who fan since the summer of 1983, when my eleven-year-old self discovered my “Doctor” in the form of Peter Davison, I perceived my obsession with the show to be a primarily male pastime. Yes, I saw older female fans at local conventions over the next several years, but I never encountered aficionados of the opposite sex in my age group until the revival of the show in 2005. One of these contemporaries is Tara O’Shea, an insightful fellow panelist at the Gallifrey 2008 and 2009 conventions. As a result, it gives me great pleasure to blog about her 2011 Hugo-award-winning book (Best Related Work) Chicks Dig Time Lords – A Celebration of Doctor Who by the Women Who Love It (Mad Norwegian Press 2010), which she co-edited with Lynne M. Thomas.

 

An anthology that is one part academic explorations of the show, mixed with interviews with and chapter contributions with writers and stars connected with the series either in its televised or spin-off media, accompanied with fan memoirs and even a charming Torchwood Babiez comic strip, Chicks Dig Time Lords offers a multifaceted feminist perspective on Doctor Who. Of particular interest to me was the chapter “Martha Jones: Fangirl Blues, by K. Tempest Bradford, who does not shirk from commenting that Tenth Doctor companion Martha Jones, although she adores her, was a weakened character due to unfortunate stereotypical writing, most egregiously positing her as a Mammy-like caretaker for the white, patriarchal Doctor. I have frequently bemoaned Martha’s weak, and borderline racist characterization, to friends and fellow yet skeptical fans, so it was relief to see my critique echoed and well-articulated by Bradford. Martha’s successor in the TARDIS, Donna Noble, is likewise granted a fine theoretical exploration by Helen Kang in her chapter, “Adventures in Ocean-Crossing, Margin-Skating and Feminist Engagement.” Kang argues that Donna complements the Doctor as their relationship is one of equals rather than an unbalanced one in which Donna evinces a romantic need for the Time Lord.

 

The strength and heroic virtues of Classic Series companion Nyssa of Traken is also championed by Francessa Coppa in “Girl Genius: Nyssa of Traken,” as Coppa charts the evolution of the character from her early appearances in the series up until her current adventures in the Big Finish audio dramas. In all three of these chapters, a positive stance is taken toward the respective characters, praising their strengths in light of any weak writing on the predominantly male series scribes’ parts. This stance is refreshing to me as fans and critics will often fall into the trap of pointing out the role of the female companion as a clichéd, dull narrative function that simply relegates women to surrogate voice boxes for the curious viewing audience who may be baffled by some of the show’s intricate sci-fi/fantasy concepts.

 

Concerning the subject of female participants in Doctor Who fan culture, I was greatly enlightened by this text. On a personal level, I often argue that the majority of the new fans of the show since its resurrection are women. I make this assessment based upon the fans I encounter in daily life and at conventions. What I did not know, however, was the struggle that accompanied these fans in the past and the present. At the beginning of Deborah Stanish’s chapter, “My Fandom Regenerates,” she relays a humorous anecdote of an Eagles fan who snubs her love of Doctor Who in a Philly gym. Pointing out the irony of this branded, obsessive football fan judging her type of fandom is Stanish’s inroad to commenting on how, in the “social hierarchy” of “fandoms,” “sports would always be at the top of the pile while media fandom would be regarded as slightly suspect by the mainstream” (31).

 

If having my fears that sports fans think they are better than Whovians decidedly confirmed by Stanish was not sobering enough, I likewise learned from Kate Orman, in “If I Can’t Squee, I Don’t Want to be Part of Your Revolution,” that what she deems “fangirldom” has its online infighting in which they argue over with whom the Doctor should find true love, the strength of female characters, and with one another when emotions burn quite strongly. Gender also inform the art of Doctor Who cosplay, I learned, courtesy of Johanna Mead in “Costuming: More Productive Than Drugs, But Just as Expensive.” I had seen female fans wearing Captain Jack Harness and Captain John (of DW spinoff Torchwood) fame at conventions but had not entirely understood their choice for cosplaying these characters. Thanks to Mead, I discovered that these cosplayers potentially make this choice because, “If the setting [of DW and Torchwood] won’t provide a female equivalent, then female cosplayers will take the male character and make it their own” (59). Since fan appropriation of texts is part of loving a show and finding one’s own response to characters and situations that can be frustrating, I applaud this form of cosplay and its bending of gendered expectations for female fans.

 

In general, for fans and scholars (or the “aca-fan” – media scholar Henry Jenkins’s term combining the two roles) wishing to learn more about female participation in the particular fandom of the Doctor Who universe, Chicks Dig Time Lords provide a comprehensive cross-section of fans, actors, and writers involved in this unique subculture.