You may recall that the BBC recently announced that the Doctor would be regenerating from Peter Capaldi’s distinctly male form to a – gasp! horror! (fake gasp and horror obviously on my part) – woman, specifically Jodie Whittaker, in this year’s Christmas special.
Quite why this was such a surprise is a mystery; after all, we already had a very gender-fluid Gallifreyan gleefully, and winningly, chewing up the scenery in the form of Missy (Michelle Gomez), the female incarnation of the Doctor’s longtime adversary, The Master.
And yet for the precedent this most certainly set, and even given its 2017 and Doctor Who is a sci-fi icon so anything is possible, a number of fans (very Capaldi-like in gender) kicked up a right royal misogynist stink with hashtags like #notmyDoctor briefly gaining some (very) limited currency.
Leigh Lahav, who I support on Patreon – trust me, you should too; she’s a brilliant animator with a very clever and incisive outlook – and who has given us such gems as Peanuts meets Stranger Things and Frozen is the New Black, decided to make merry with this regressive storm-in-a-social-media-teacup in her latest Whovian effort.
It’s every bit as good as you’d expect even given a male gender-obsessed Dalek who can’t get his tin head around a female Doctor.
It’s hilarious but also very instructive and trust me, puts the idiotic attacks on what is a very fine choice by the BBC firmly into a right perspective.