The 13th Doctor announced

[The Romulan Republic]

We won't know how good the new season of Doctor Who will be until it comes out. We're speculating.

Quite.

These speculations are based on the trend that the more a media company panders to progressive politics the lower the quality the product it produces.

That is an absolutely massive assumption that you have failed to back up, and probably can't back up, since "quality" is somewhat subjective in entertainment, and if you are opposed to progressive politics, of course you will be inclined to find any work based on progressive politics to be of lower quality as a result.

This can be from a need to tone police and pushing progressive propaganda a la Marvel Comics, or this can be a marketing ploy to create controversy to guarantee viewership from people who will watch it as a form of political statement in to cover up poor writing, plot, and character development a la Ghost Busters. These are no longer isolated incidents; they are now prevalent enough to form a pattern.

Uh huh.

Personally, I think that if you are going to attribute a specific motive to a casting decision, then you need to provide specific evidence that that was, in fact, the case.

And would you, I wonder, raise the same objections to Rightwing messages in media? Like 24's endorsement of torture, for example? Hell, practically every cop and action series shows torture (falsely) as an effective and justified way of gaining intelligence. Or how about the almost omnipresent theme in action films (even in the new Wonder Woman movie, which otherwise seems to be trying to have a progressive message) that people who advocate for peace rather than war are incompetent at best, and evil Quislings at worst?

These themes have been around far more, far longer.

I noticed TRR you have said nothing about the past actions of the BBC especially with regards to the sacking of John Holmes.

I notice you're trying to deflect the topic onto a general discussion of "poor persecuted white men", but just this once, I'll bite.

While I have no objection to a degree of affirmative action to address existing imbalances resulting from discrimination, I would object to firing someone who was already an employee based on race, if that is indeed what occurred.

However, this has little bearing on the subject of Doctor Who, because you have not demonstrated that similar circumstances apply to Jodie Whittaker's hiring, nor that her hiring will have an adverse affect on the quality of the series.

Let me reverse your question and throw it back. Why can't a character remain white and male?

I never said they can't. In fact, as I noted previously, their are some characters where it makes thematic sense for the character to remain a particular race or gender.

However, when there is no narrative or thematic reason why the character must remain a white man (see Doctor Who), then the egalitarian thing to do is to at least give women and minorities an equal shot at the part.

Why does changing the race and gender make it better?

And again, I never said it did, not inherently. That said, I don't think it necessarily makes the character worse either, certainly not in this case, and all other things being equal, I choose the option which gives opportunity to those who have traditionally been denied it.

I do think that it has the potential to make Doctor Who better, both because the show has gotten stuck in a rut, and because questions about the nature of identity when ones' outward appearance has changed are at the thematic heart of the series.

Will you address these arguments? Or continue trying to deflect the topic onto "poor persecuted white men"?

[Antiboyscout]

This is not deflecting. These examples signify the current corporate culture at the BBC. They are evidence that the hiring was likely not out of the idea of creating new stories and themeing but out of political capitulation.

You want a good reason the character will actively make the show worse? PANDERING!
Pandering is the reason these political decisions never pan out. It doesn't matter if it's "Girl Power"(Ghost Busters), stereotyping(chick flicks), or some female writier creating a self-insertion fan-fic Mary Sue fest(Marvel Comics). It never works out.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

But how is that bad?

If you think that this casting decision was the result of "pandering" rather than normal decision processes, will that make the show suck more? Will that make the monster of the week less menacing? Will that make the Power of Love speech less effective? Will that, in any way, hinder your ability to enjoy the show and follow the Doctor's adventures through time and space?

[Antiboyscout]

Yes pandering always degrades the quality of a show. Everyone knows that.

Having the character be a Mary Sue does in fact make the monster of the week less menacing. When the power of love speech is replaced with Girl Power tm it does undermine the message. Having the show stop every ten minutes or so to cram in one more political talking point about how we need to be more inclusive (by excluding people who disagree with us) it does hinder my ability to enjoy fun space-time adventures.

[The Romulan Republic]

Everything has "implications" and the projection upon my motives and feelings again. It's just so boring.

What did I "project" regarding your motives or feelings, beyond noting what you yourself said? In fact, I believe I was quite careful not to attribute any particular motivation to you.

Here are some actual political views of mine: Liberty, equality, fraternity.

See, I believe in all of those things. But I also don't pretend that we actually have equal opportunity, or that liberty and fraternity are concepts that apply equally to everyone in our society. Burying our heads in the sand and pretending that racism and sexism are over and that anyone who says otherwise is just pushing a sinister agenda won't make the problems actually go away. It will only deepen the divides, because those who know, either by education and reason or painful experience, that those problems are not yet solved will rightly conclude that people like you have no interest in actually addressing them.

Racial politics divide us to keep the real division that matters (wealth and opportunity) from being addressed. But we can't have those poor people getting together and actually forming effective political movements now can we? They might get health care, better access to education, better labor laws...

This is descending into borderline conspiracy theorism.

Not everything is a distraction to keep people from seeing the "real" issues. A government or society or political movement can, and indeed must, be able to address more than one problem at a time, and offering a false dilemma where we pretend that its a choice between solving Problem A and Problem B is itself an old trick to divide people and discredit a particular cause. A classic example being the old "We shouldn't spend money on the space program while there's poverty/pollution/insert issue the speaker would rather talk about". Or in this case, pitting white working class voters against women and minorities by telling them that any attempt to address racism and sexism is just a trick by liberals to keep them poor.

I'm then reminded of when Governor O'Malley got such a question during the 2016 election (I believe it was a choice between space and nation-wide high speed rail). He gave the correct answer when he replied that he rejected the question and believed we could do both.

In fact, many of these problems are interrelated, and only by addressing one can we more easily address the others. Just as the space program has benefitted our economy, environmentalism, and our infrastructure, so too will it be impossible to effectively address poverty in America without addressing the racial and gender discrimination that is closely intertwined with it.

You want the debates around racism and sexism to stop being an impediment to addressing poverty? Then you're going to have to address racism and sexism, instead of pretending that they're just a distraction invented by liberals. Pretending that their is no problem will not make it go away, because, to quote Picard again, "Wishing for a thing does not make it so."

But the proles are dumb right?

No one here said that, and I certainly did not.

Now who's projecting motives and feelings onto others?

Working class nobodies who are easily lead to believe that the color of their skin is much more important than the common shared culture and class in society. They can blame everything on those white/black/immigrants/whatever and never read a book or have a thought worth having right?

Congratulations. You've just described the Republican Party's strategy on immigration.

The people who are using bigotry as a tool to distract and divide voters are, by and large, the people promoting bigotry, not the people who then see this and acknowledge that the problem still exists.

The very fact it is cheaper to give a home to a homeless person than to keep them on the street but we don't shows just how much "fuck that guy, I got mine" goes on, and I see NO leadership coming out of either party to fix what is wrong with the country of my birth, the USA.

I agree with you entirely regarding homelessness and the "I've got mine" mentality.

However, while I acknowledge that its off topic, I must strongly disagree with your argument that both major parties are equally at fault. The false equivalency narrative, that both parties are the same, or just as bad as each other, has been repeated ad nauseum in recent years, but it has never been anything other than a dangerous oversimplification, which substitutes a cynical generalization for a nuanced analysis. There are certainly many things to criticize both parties for, but reducing the discussion to "they're just the same" is not only intellectually lazy (or dishonest) but objectively false. The constant repetition of this line (often by third partiers with an obvious ulterior motive, and possibly by Trump supporters who want to use this argument to drive a wedge deeper between progressives and the Democratic Party) is, in my opinion, the most dangerous myth of our time, one which accomplishes absolute nothing but to stifle intelligence discussion of the political issues, obscure complex issues behind a broad generalization, drive voters towards either apathy or extremism, and normalize the worst elements of politics by placing them on an even footing with the best.

I honestly don't care if the Doctor is a man or a woman. I do care if the show is good. Radical changes to the character are more likely to come off as pandering than a positive creative choice and that makes fans concerned, and not unreasonably so considering the variable nature of the show's past quality.

And here we go with the "pandering" accusation again, just like Antiboyscout. As though they couldn't actually think its a good idea to cast a woman, or one that has artistic merit, right? Or that Jodie Whittaker would actually make a good Doctor. They must just be pandering.

I swear, its like you get your talking points from the same memo.

So I am going to ask (and fully expect to be ignored, again):

What evidence do you have that this specific decision is "pandering", or motivated only by politics? Why is that the conclusion that certain people always seem to leap to the moment a woman or minority is cast in a traditionally white male role regardless of circumstances or the artistic merits of the choice? Why is casting a woman automatically treated as sinister? Why is casting a woman, or defending that decision, "political", and thus somehow bad, while vociferously objecting to or criticizing a woman being casted is not?

Why is Jodie Whittaker a poor or suspect choice to play the Doctor, besides the fact that she is a woman? And if its that she is a woman, why does that make her unfit to play this particular role?

Justify your suspicions, your assumptions. Or, if you cannot justify them, concede them.

[Rocketboy1313]

If anyone cares David Tennant talks about the casting on Colbert.
He also talks about "Ducktales".

I don't know why but I can't embed this video.
https://youtu.be/sQPvQgtI-FY

[GandALF]

What evidence do you have that this specific decision is "pandering", or motivated only by politics?

THE. ROMANS.
T H E R O M A N S .
THE ROMANS

They went out of their way to unnecessarily sanitise them for no good reason. Maybe its just history dorks like me that notice these things, but it ruined the episode for me. if that scene wasn't in that episode the next doctor could be a hermaphroditic slug and I wouldn't be worried, but since it was this move looks like part of a bad trend. The show hasn't been as popular since this whole thing could be a ratings stunt that appeals to people's politics.

[The Romulan Republic]

What evidence do you have that this specific decision is "pandering", or motivated only by politics?

THE. ROMANS.
T H E R O M A N S .
THE ROMANS

They went out of their way to unnecessarily sanitise them for no good reason. Maybe its just history dorks like me that notice these things, but it ruined the episode for me. if that scene wasn't in that episode the next doctor could be a hermaphroditic slug and I wouldn't be worried, but since it was this move looks like part of a bad trend. The show hasn't been as popular since this whole thing could be a ratings stunt that appeals to people's politics.

I still haven't seen that episode, so can you give me specifics as to how you feel that the representation of the Romans was politically sanitized?

Broadly speaking, I would say that:

1. This ain't Game of Thrones. Its supposed to be a family show. And while it admittedly hasn't always stayed particularly family-friendly, I'm not surprised that they would tone down certain aspects of history. That doesn't suggest any particular partisan agenda, and if it did, it would be a family values/"think of the children" agenda, which tends to be more associated with the religious right than progressive, feminist, or social justice politics.

For that matter, one could argue that given the fluidity of the timeline in Doctor Who, there's no real reason their Romans can't be a bit different from historical Romans. It would hardly be the biggest continuity issue the series has had, would it?

2. One example does not prove a trend.

3. It may very well be that the BBC writers and execs don't know that much about the period in question, not being, as you put it, history dorks. And while you might say that they should do their research, well... see above.

In which case, its simple ignorance/laziness, not some sort of sinister agenda. I don't defend that, but it doesn't fit the pattern that you describe.

4. Even if the execs were motivated by the idea of a "ratings stunt" or pandering or something similarly inane, that doesn't necessarily mean that a female Doctor is a bad idea, or that the writers won't do a good job, or that Jodie Whittaker would be a bad Doctor. Of course the bosses are most likely going to look for a financial motive before signing off on something. That's always the case, and it doesn't automatically make it a bad idea, or mean that the execution of it will be bad.

I mean, take Star Trek: Voyager. Seven of Nine was a blatant ratings stunt and titillation for male viewers, yet she still ended up being one of the show's better characters (admittedly a low bar for Voyager) despite that.

I've posted again and again on why this is something that makes sense for Doctor Who specifically (and have yet to see anyone raise any objections to Whittaker's credentials as an actor), and yet the critics insist on focusing the discussion exclusively on fears of it being "political" and "pandering" and therefore bad, for very little reason besides the fact that they cast a woman.

So I want to know, other than vague speculation and fear-monger, what about this specific decision is actually a bad idea, or a cause for concern?

I've also yet to see anyone offer a convincing justification for why a show having political content is necessarily a bad thing, or why these allegations of "Its political!" always seem to come up when its a case of diversity in casting, but not so much under other circumstances.

[The Romulan Republic]

Honestly, the idea in and of itself has merit, and until such time as episodes start to air, we don't really know how well they'll turn out. And until then, I think Whittaker and Chibnal deserve the benefit of the doubt, same as every other new Doctor and show runner.

Granted, Smith was met with a wailing horde of "Bring back Tennant" fans. But at least no one (or very few) questioned his fitness for the role on the basis of his gender.

I'd actually find it rather refreshing to see someone whinging about how Jodie Whittaker sucks because... she's not David Tenant.

[GandALF]

I still haven't seen that episode, so can you give me specifics as to how you feel that the representation of the Romans was politically sanitized?

I already have, the scene involves Bill mentioning that she's gay followed the Romans then explaining their views on sexuality leading to Bill commenting on how "modern" they are.

The Romans were not "modern" about this stuff. In a male homosexual pairing the one man would be considered manly and acceptable while the other would be considered shamefully effeminate. Not a very pleasant situation.

They were also absolutely, positively not modern about women and would've seen Bill as disgustingly manly. So the best thing to do would've been to not bring up the subject.

So the writers were aware that Romans didn't have a homosexuality taboo and either:

A) Didn't bother to fully understand the concept. (in which case hooray for apolitcal idiocy?)
or
B) deliberately twisted a historical fact in order to appear more progressive or LGBT friendly (despite already having a gay main character)

Now, NuWho has ALWAYS been a bit left of centre going back to series 1 with Jack Harkness and such, but for me this goddamn scene went overboard and actively harmed the show's quality which is why a female Doctor at this point in time is a bit worrying.