Posted in: BBC, Disney+, Opinion, TV, TV | Tagged: doctor who, elon musk, opinion, trump
Doctor Who: RTD Offers Warning to LGBTQ Community About Trump, Musk
Russell T. Davies (Doctor Who) sent a warning signal to the LGBTQ community about the dangers that Donald Trump and Elon Musk represent.
While a lot of what we've been hearing from Doctor Who Showrunner Russell T. Davies lately has been about Ncuti Gatwa (Fifteenth Doctor), Millie Gibson (Ruby Sunday), and Varada Sethu (Belinda Chandra)-starring second season and what the future might hold for the long-running franchise. But on Friday, during the Gaydio Pride Awards in Manchester, Davies offered an all-too-real warning to the LGBTQ communities in the US and UK that they are facing the "greatest danger I have ever seen" since Donald Trump was elected US president and Elon Musk became a louder voice in the anti-transgender movement.
"As a gay man, I feel like a wave of anger, and violence, and resentment is heading towards us on a vast scale," Davies shared with The Guardian, noting that the increase in hostilities is being felt by the LGBTQ communities in the US and UK. "I've literally seen a difference in the way I'm spoken to as a gay man since that November election, and that's a few months of weaponising hate speech, and the hate speech creeps into the real world." Davies continued, "I'm not being alarmist. I'm 61 years old. I know gay society very, very well, and I think we're in the greatest danger I have ever seen."
During his keynote speech at the Gaydio Pride awards ceremony, Davies also addressed how a "billionaire tech baron" like Musk in the mix with his anti-transgender position (despite Musk having a daughter who's transgender) makes this fight much different than the ones fought by the LGBTQ communities in the past. "I think times are darkening beyond all measure and beyond anything I have seen in my lifetime," Davies told the audience, taking a moment to reflect on how the LGBTQ community mobilized in the 80s to have AIDS acknowledged as being a national health crisis that was impacting all communities. "I want to say it's going to be all rainbows, skipping down the street hand-in-hand, equality, equality, equality," Davies said, sharing how he would've described 2025 being for the LGBTQ community if he was asked back then.
"The threat from America, it's like something at 'The Lord of the Rings.' It's like an evil rising in the West, and it is evil. We've had bad prime ministers, and we've had bad presidents before. What we've never had is a billionaire tech baron openly hating his trans daughter, Davis continued. "We have never had this in the history of the world. It is terrifying because he and the people like him are in control of the facts, they're in control of information, they're in control of what people think, and that is what we're now facing."
As Davies sees it, the LGBTQ community will once again step up to do "what we always do in times of peril, we gather at night" to plan. "What we will do in Elon Musk's world, that we're heading towards, is what artists have always done," Davies added during his comments to The Guardian, "which is to meet in cellars, and plot, and sing, and compose, and paint, and make speeches, and march. If we have to be those rebels in basements yet again, which is when art thrives, then that's what we'll become."
