Tag Archive for genderqueer

Femme Doctors and crossplayers: Not that different

27 February 2012 Courtney Stoker Doctor Who, Fandom Analysis, Pop Culture Analysis, Torchwood

Cross-posted at Geek Feminism.

Post-Gallifrey, I was interviewed at i09 about the phenomenon of femme Doctor cosplay. If you’re not familiar with it, femme cosplay is when female cosplayers alter the costumes of male characters to make them feminine. Femme cosplayers add ruffles, lace, heels, alter the silhouette of a costume (often with a corset), etc.

A femme Jackson Lake A femme Jackson Lake sports a corset and long coat. Photo by Alex Halcyon.

This trend is often contrasted with crossplaying. Crossplayers are usually female cosplayers who alter their bodies to costume as male characters. (Male crossplayers dress as female characters.) Unlike their femme counterparts, they will bind their breasts, wear men’s wigs, and wear makeup designed to mask feminine features. Generally, people think these trends are at odds; they believe that femme Doctors and crossplay Doctors are doing very different things.

A femme Eighth DoctorsquirrelyTONKS is a bit of a femme Doctor superstar at the Gallifrey convention. Photo by Alex Halcyon.

A snippet from the interview:

Both crossplay and femme cosplay draw attention to gender. Women passing as men are destabilizing gender by illustrating how easy it is to perform the opposite gender, by showing that all gender performance is performance, since cosplay is fundamentally performative. Femme cosplay does the same thing: it draws attention to the performance of gender, but this time femininity. [...]

So really, crossplay and femme cosplay are not that different. Both alter their bodies, showing that no matter what gender they are playing, their bodies often don’t match any ideal. While crossplayers wear binders, femme cosplayers wear corsets and heels. But their motivations are the same: they emphasize the performative nature of gender, and thus destabilize it. Women do this more because they have more to gain by destabilizing gender, being at the bottom rung of the gender hierarchy.

I have quite a bit more to say about how I think femme Doctor cosplay (and crossplay) is a feminist critique of Doctor Who and its fan community, so go read it!

two femme fivesTwo femme Fifth Doctors with cropped jackets…and celery! Photo by Alex Halcyon.
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The Doctor as the catalyst for accepting “The Different”

23 February 2012 K.N. Porter Doctor Who, NuWho, Old Who

I took some time to think of how The Doctor has a positive impact on the views we embrace and express in this blog. I looked at the entire series from beginning to the present for an answer. The Doctor in all his incarnations shows an innate joy in exploration and embraces those that are different. How wonderful to have this view, how amazing would it be to emulate this attitude. Instead of fear and loathing, if a person presented themselves as a decent individual they then would be accepted as they are. Be they male, female, gay, straight or whatever they so choose. We as a species could do worse than take this underlying theme and implement it when dealing with our fellow humans. The only skills required are an open mind, the joy of discovery and benevolent acceptance.

Would children discovering their sexuality, thought unacceptable, still feel the need to end their lives if these simple lessons were used? I believe with the use of what I like to call the Whomanity Formula , oppression, abuse  and that ever present villain “Bullying” would certainly become only scary fables.  As a lesbian and mother to a son that just came out, I hope I’m not the only one that observes this underlying thread. I’m not a Pollyanna; please don’t think all I see are butterflies and rainbows. I see many things in the series that should be discussed and addressed. I just wanted to point out the factor that drew me to the series. The unbreakable thread that ties my heart to The Doctor and his companions, no matter what face he wears. I want to learn new things, experience new ideas and see my surroundings through new eyes. I don’t care if they are straight eyes, lesbian eyes, or queer eyes;   The Doctor embraces them all and delights in the degrees of different.

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If the Doctor Were a Woman: A Queerer Doctor Who

23 February 2012 Ritch Ludlow Doctor Who

Barbara Benedetti as the Doctor

In 1985, a fan film was released called The Wrath of Eukor, featuring Barbara Benedetti as the Doctor.  She traveled through time and space and several sequels with a young man she’d picked up in 1911.  I haven’t seen the entirety of these films, and they are rather dreadful, in the wonderful tradition of fan films, but the dynamic between the female Doctor and her companion was delightfully convincing!

For the sake of it, lets pretend we know the Doctor will eventually regenerate into a woman.  Time Lords switching genders became canon in “The Doctor’s Wife”, after all.   So lets take a moment to be optimistic and imagine a world where the Doctor were a woman…

So the Doctor regenerates…”I’m a girl!”

What will this mean for the show?

Joanna Lumley as the Doctor in the 1999 Doctor Who parody "Curse of Fatal Death"

 

For one thing, the companion will probably have to change genders also.  I think having two men or two women alone in the TARDIS can be alienating.  Even as a man, having Craig as the Doctor’s companion once a season, or the all-boys club of End of Time can feel a bit much.  So I imagine we’d likely have a young man, perhaps someone Rory-like, from the 21st century as companion.

I’d love to see a romantic dynamic between a male companion and female Doctor.   Imagine the mysterious woman, with knowledge of all of time and space, and the young chav who pines after her…

Her…

Him?

Hold up.  So the Doctor’s body becomes feminine.  He has breasts, and more pocket room in his trousers.  So…does that make him a woman?  Is it that simple?  Would the Doctor choose to identify as female?  Why should we assume that he would?  Is it so simple to change pronouns for a 1000 year old Time Lord?

I suppose we should assume that if his personality changes as much as it usually does, this shouldn’t be a great leap.  Either way, we will have a transgender or genderqueer character here.  How exciting would that be?!  Alas, my sorrows go out to all the asexuals who feel slightly alienated by a more sexually-driven, modern Doctor, but hooray for so many others!

Can I count the ways in which my Doctor will be queer?

1)   A male who transitioned (very quickly and inexpensively) to female (transgender?)
2)  A woman who would be happy to call herself male again someday (genderqueer?)
3)  A woman who was once in love with other women but perhaps willing to fall in love with men (bisexual/lesbian/pansexual/fluid?)

Barbara Benedetti "still" in the Sixth Doctor's costume

I think for the sake of avoiding the “boys club” or “girls club” (i.e. a lack of gender/sexual diversity), as I mentioned before, we will likely end up with a companion and Doctor who mostly exhibit attraction to the ‘opposite sex’, but nonetheless, we will have these queernesses!  The world will have watched a popular sci-fi hero transition, and feminists and queers will be loving it!  We will have validating moments when our female Doctor occasionally reminisces, “When I was a little boy…”, and so will, more importantly, the children who watch the show.

Keep the cynicism at bay, just a moment longer!

Steven Moffat didn’t believe it was “appropriate” for the Eleventh Doctor to be female, but it sounds more about a lack of confidence that he could pull the regeneration off convincingly.  Yet he also believes it could be done…

“I think about it sometimes and maybe it will happen someday [...] A woman can play the part.”

Which is fair enough.  The first female Doctor should probably be written by a woman or a queer person anyway…

It may take time, because regeneration is so rare in Doctor Who, but I’m optimistic.  After all, we’ve still got five billion years till the shops close.

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