Posted in: BBC, Doctor Who, Opinion, TV, TV | Tagged: bbc, doctor who, jodie whittaker, LGBTQ, olly alexander, opinion

Doctor Who Has A Recent History of Dancing Around LGBTQ Question

Last weekend, the British tabloids trumpeted that Olly Alexander, the star of the Emmy-nominated series It's a Sin! would be the next Doctor Who. By Monday of this week, Alexander's agent issued as firm an official denial as you're going to get, albeit with a cheeky and pun-ridden quote from Alexander. We've been on this go-round before. Ever since 2004-2005 when Doctor Who was coming back, the tabloids and pundits kept claiming the latest big LGBTQ star at the time was going to be the next Doctor Who. Back then they declared Julian Clary, then Eddie Izzard would be the next Doctor.

These were the pre-internet version of clickbait, calculated to sell more papers.  And back then we knew it was never going to happen because it's not that the BBC were exactly homophobic, it's that they didn't want to hitch the Doctor Who brand too tightly with an out LGBTQ actor, no matter how much the public loves them. It's a business decision. Olly Alexander is part of that pattern that the British tabloids love to stick to.

Doctor Who always had LGBTQ fans, possibly more than any other Science Fiction franchise. The original version of the show was always heteronormative on the surface, and sexuality was never explicitly discussed. The Doctor was never your everyday strapping, macho hero. He was mysterious, kept more secrets than most people lived entire lifetimes, and possessed an air of outsiderness and Otherness that many LGBTQ kids identified with. The old show kept gender and sexuality away from the surface of the show. When Russell T. Davies revived the show in 2005, he wanted to reflect the present and included LBGTQ characters at every opportunity to the point where homophobes accused him of pushing a "gay agenda" in Doctor Who.

Davies, Steven Moffat, and Chris Chibnall have made it a point to make the show more inclusive with LGBTQ characters. Even now, the BBC has not commented – nor has any columnist anywhere – on the fact that Chibnall has made Whittaker's Doctor LGBTQ – remember when he declared at NY Comic Con that "The Doctor is non-binary"? Everyone has since acted like he never said that. Given that the Doctor can change genders as canon, of course s/he is non-binary! Davies and Moffat had hinted and danced around the issue, but Chibnall made it canon that the Doctor is LGBTQ after all, albeit in a low-key, non-explicit manner. It's not an accident that Whittaker's Doctor has a rainbow stripe on her T-shirt, no matter what colour the T-shirt is.

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