Boys and Male Role Models

Two Sundays ago it was announced who the thirteenth Doctor would be. I was happy to see that it was a woman, but I couldn’t exactly leap for joy since I found out the news literally because I was about to set foot into church. I knew many things would happen with this news; there would be happy fans, and there would be pissed off fans.

I will admit I was a little disappointed because based on photos on the set of the 2017 Christmas special fans had been under the impression that Kris Marshall would be the next Doctor (my dad and I are very fond of the show Death in Paradise). But I was happy with the news based off the actress’ work on Broadchurch (makes sense for the writers of Broadchurch to bring in an actor they were familiar with and knew what her capabilities were).

I spent a good three hours celebrating, talking with friends about it, joking around about shoes, and wondering if I’m actually being serious if I will cosplay as the Thirteenth Doctor (I probably will). As expected there was backlash from fans that weren’t happy about the gender switch and even a magazine service (I don’t know what The Sun actually does since I don’t live in England) publishing nude photos of Jodie Whittaker from her previous work.

I ignored most of this because I knew that some people wouldn’t be happy, then previous Doctor Peter Davidson said something that caught me attention. “Now that the Doctor is a woman, boys no longer have a good male role model,” (okay I paraphrased that), I scoffed at it at first, but then reading a few facebook comments did make me realize, he is partially right.

The Doctor is a unique role model; he rarely resorts to violence and killing as a solution to his problem, he is never getting into brawls and throwing fists at opponents, he isn’t off chasing after ladies or grabbing ass (he IS very guilty of being able to impress a girl though), his spaceship, the T.A.R.D.I.S., has no offensive capabilities (unless she’s particularly pissed at you) and is in the shape of a Police Call Box and she will drag the Doctor to any place where he is needed to aid people in need.

I’m still gathering thoughts on this, but I do agree there aren’t many male role models who are like the Doctor. You have the choice of being an action hero, or the main protagonist who whines and has a form of angst (either wizard angst of man angst), sometimes you get both (looking at you Barry Allen and Oliver Queen).

Right now the two male role models that do come to mind that are similar to the Doctor are Jean-Luc Picard of Star Trek the Next Generation and Newt Scamander of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Picard would resort to diplomacy most of the time (I’m still watching Star Trek the Next Generation) unless the Borg was involved (and even then his first solution was diplomacy). Newt is quiet, not the most social person in a crowd, but when he does make a friend he is very deeply attached and in compromise for his meek ways Newt has a deep love for magical creatures and shines brightly when sharing his knowledge of them.

The obvious solution to the problem to some people would be to just have a male companion; makes sense since initially there were male companions who filled the heroic role in the show since the Doctor wasn’t always a heroic character (thank you fifty years of character development!) Time till tell if this is the needed solution, or if a female companion with a female Doctor will continue.

In my opinion it shouldn’t really matter, but time will tell.

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A Wrinkle in Time Impressions

Once Upon a time in the distant time of 2001 I was eleven years old and we had a book assigned for the fifth grade class I was in. Little did I know this book would make me want to read more books and would forever change my life and how I viewed the universe and create a dream. The book I speak of is Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. I love this book, it led me to reading it’s sequels A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and the spin off book (sort of) A Ring of Endless Light.

There are sketchbooks I owned that had drawing’s of Mrs.Whatsit  in her non human form, the idea of a tesseract became a concept I kept tabs on growing up and even now think about today as an adult. Despite the heavy emphasis in L’Engle’s work on physics and biology, I was more inspired to focus on writing and literature as I grew up and wanted to write for the YA genre (I ended up with a degree in environmental science).

Then in 2002 it was announced there would be a tv movie of A Wrinkle in Time by Disney. It was awful. L’Engle was asked if it met her expectations, she said “yes. I expected it to be bad, it was.” I only saw a portion of this film, but I didn’t like it. I didn’t like that things were dumbed down for audiences, I didn’t like the acting, I didn’t like the full happy ending presented in the film, and I felt kind of weird seeing Mr.Murrey completely naked a few years later on Queer as Folk.

I expected nothing to be done with A Wrinkle in Time after Madeleine L’Engle passed away mid 2008. I thought this would be the best for the series since her books tackled topics concerning Christianity and science which even more so today is a very touchy subject. Then a few years ago during Frozen it was announced Disney would be adapting A Wrinkle in Time to film again.

This time with Jennifer Lee from Disney’s Frozen was placed in charge of the film. My expectations started to get high; the film went with open casting meaning Meg Murrey and her brother Charles Wallace are now bi-racial. The film also cast Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, and Oprah Winfrey as Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which respectably.

 Despite my stalking both Witherspoon and Kaling’s instagram religiously very little about how the film looked was revealed outside of casting. I was a little curious to see Kaling in the film since I’m use to Kaling portraying divas as opposed to the wise and intellectual Mrs.Who, I even reread some of the book just to imagine Mrs.Who with Kaling’s shrills. I also wasn’t aware Oprah was an actress, but I guess she is.

When the trailer was released yesterday I was very pleased with what I saw and I hope the film does really well next year. I have high hopes for the film because I feel at this time many of the themes of A Wrinkle in Time are relevant concerning communism and there is a need for figures like the Murrey parents who are both religious, but educated and understanding on many issues in the world. And now here is the trailer to Madelein L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time.