MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

In spite of a hostile reaction from some conservative fans, the 2017 introduction of Jodie Whittaker as the 13th Doctor for the long-running sci-fi program, Doctor Who, was met primarily with sheer delight from a fandom starving for more women role models. Although the show did not explore completely the implications of the Doctor’s change in gender, it offered an incisive commentary on patriarchal masculinity in the show’s treatment of religion. This most recent season linked this new Doctor to a refutation of the godlike authority that had been invested in the character in past seasons. Under Doctor Who’s previous showrunners, Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffat, the Doctor had often been depicted and even specifically referenced as a “lonely God.” The show at first depicted him as the last surviving member of his mighty race of Time Lords, and therefore the only man powerful enough to save the universe. The Season 3 finale even hinges on Earth’s reviving a temporarily weakened Doctor simply by believing in him and repeating his name.

Under the stewardship of new showrunner Chris Chibnall and star Jodie Whittaker, Doctor Who rejects the arrogant masculinity in past portrayals of the Doctor without suggesting that she is somehow lesser for being a woman. Whittaker’s Doctor demonstrates confidence in her abilities without reserving for herself the more exalted status enjoyed by her predecessors. Such pomposity is instead displaced onto mostly, but not exclusively, male antagonists who often invoke religious faith or their own declarations of divinity. In her rhetoric and her actions, Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor embodies a model of heroism more accessible to her human best friends and to the fans of all genders watching at home.