Posted in: BBC, Disney+, Doctor Who, TV | Tagged: babes, bbc, disney, doctor who, Millie Gibson, Ncuti Gatwa, steven moffat

Doctor Who: How Ncuti Gatwa Helped Bring "Babes" to The U.S.

Thanks to Doctor Who, Ncuti Gatwa has helped bring the expression "babes" to the American LGBTQ community, and it's been catching on.

Doctor Who has a tendency to influence culture in unexpected ways aside from inspring many kids to become actors, writers, filmmakers, scientists and mathmaticians. In the UK, it's very common for jokes involving long scarves and Daleks. Former showrunner Steven Moffat introduced the term "timey-wimey" in the series and now it's a common term in Science Fiction circles and storytelling in various other TV series, most recently heard on Star Trek: Prodigy. The most interesting latest effect the series has had recently is that the LGBTQ community in America is now saying "babes" to address each other. Doctor Who has always had a big fan following in the LGBTQ community and Gatwa's new season as the Doctor has driven up that fandom, including in the US. You can thank the latest Doctor Ncuti Gatwa for that.

Gatwa, the Fifteenth Doctor, has been calling Ruby and various people "babes" as a term of endearment in the same way many people might say "dude." However, Gatwa says it with so much charm and camp that he's made it cool for the US LGBTQ community to start doing it. British people might find this surprising because they've been calling each other "babes" since the 1980s. That's "babes" plural instead of the singular "babe," and it's commonly used to address one person at a time rather than several. It has been commonly heard in British TV dramas and comedies since the 1990s.

Members of the LGBTQ community in the UK have been calling each other "babes" since the 1980s, but since then, everyone under the age of 60 in the UK has been saying it to each other, regardless of gender. British couples have been referring to each other as "babes." Teens and twentysomethings have been calling each other "babes" since the 1990s. Even Micky (Noel Clarke) called Rose (Billie Piper) "babes" once in "Rose," the first new episode of the 2005 revival of Doctor Who. It's a wonder that Gatwa is the first Doctor to say it regularly and often in the series in the 19 years of the modern series' run. And to someone British, it's surprising that Americans hadn't noticed it before in nearly thirty years. Well, that situation has now been remedied. You're welcome, America.

You can stream Doctor Who on Disney+ in America to hear the Doctor call everyone "babes."

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