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Post by bethhigdon on Jun 3, 2024 21:40:16 GMT
- I'm a bit of two minds when it comes to Ricky's characterization. It's weird, isn't it, that he doesn't seem to react to the Doctor the way everyone else does, right? Not so much as a raised eyebrow. If he supposed to be "one of the good ones?" Are we meant to assume that the racism is somehow a product of the social media environment, and that by abstaining from it Ricky was able inculcate himself from his societies' racist attitudes? That kind of... rubs me the wrong way, but I'm not really sure how else to take it.
I think it's more pertaining to echo-chambers. Social media in and of itself isn't bad, the same way newspaper/magazines aren't, but they are a business, that deal in engagement. And it uses alogorithms to cultivate that engaement in any way it can. Whether that's feeding you things you already like, or feeding you misinformation and stoking outrage. And because it's so fast and so always, it reduces the gap between thought and action, making it harder to actually reflect on your own thoughts. So I don't think suggesting that taking a break from social media can be good for you is an unreasonable take. Whether or not Ricky was less racist or not racist, the point is that he was willing look outside of his bubble, and open his mind to other ideas and ways of thinking. It's also important to keep in mind the that Ricky is there to highlight Lindy's flaws rather than being a character in his own right. He's meant to be Doctor-like in order to showcase her willingness to listen to a white man over a black man, even if both men are telling her the same things. He's also there to highlight her selfishness when she betrays him and lies about his death later.
Basically whether or not Ricky is just as racist as the rest of his culture is kind of a mute point as he's more of a plot device than anything.
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shutupbanks
Castellan
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There’s a horror movie called Alien? That’s really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you.
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Post by shutupbanks on Jun 3, 2024 22:36:22 GMT
Who, on what sites? Two posters who are disabled have said we didn't even consider it verging on it. But...we should because "other websites" have? Don't dare patronise me by telling me all disabled people think differently. What a nasty, cheap comment you should reflect on. No I said that other people who are disabled have stated they were uncomfortable with it and it is not mine nor your place to try and say that their feelings are wrong.
If you don't wish to be patronized then perhaps you shouldn't suggest that "no one can seriously have a different opinion from you" when there's clearly evidence to the contrary.
I didn't think anything of the joke at first either, but I listened the experiences of those different to myself. I have come across people who are disabled and/or black who had issues with the episode and while I didn't agree with all of their positions they did bring up valid points that are worth considering.
Here's just a small sampling from one website that I have easy access to even two days later, but it illustrates the point that, yes some people did find it seriously offensive, that is something to take in consideration when moving forward, and while you may not agree it its still a part of the discussion.
Some of y'all need to get out of your own bubbles.
I took that whole scene as being a critique on Lindy being unable to navigate the world without some kind of unnecessary aids to help her. I think it’s hammered home more because within a couple of minutes she is moving about fine without the help of her dot. It struck home for me because I had to go home a few weeks ago and I rented a car that didn’t have a built-in gps on the dashboard and I really struggled with driving around the city I grew up in without a picture of it, despite never needing it before. Needless to say that only lasted a couple of hours.
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Post by Alastair on Jun 3, 2024 22:41:43 GMT
Would making Ricky a bit more of a twat, for lack of a better term, have lessened the impact of Lindy's betrayal? Does he really need to be such a perfect, inoffensive presence? The overall restraint of the writing and its reliance more on implicit exposition than explicit exposition is definitely its biggest strength, but I don't think some small, brief reaction -- a frown, a double-take, a temporarily-furrowed brow -- would've made the ending "twist" any less effective. Interesting thought. While I agree that might have been a better call, I thought his “perfect” nature played really well into the episode’s overall misdirection. Because he’s more trope than person, pop culture has taught us to suspect he’s either too good to be true (cue villainous turn) or too good to last (cue unceremonious early death just as he’s about to save Lindy). I held my breath waiting for it at every turn, never suspecting he’d be an altogether different kind of sacrificial lamb. This episode, you guys.
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Post by bethhigdon on Jun 3, 2024 22:44:34 GMT
No I said that other people who are disabled have stated they were uncomfortable with it and it is not mine nor your place to try and say that their feelings are wrong.
If you don't wish to be patronized then perhaps you shouldn't suggest that "no one can seriously have a different opinion from you" when there's clearly evidence to the contrary.
I didn't think anything of the joke at first either, but I listened the experiences of those different to myself. I have come across people who are disabled and/or black who had issues with the episode and while I didn't agree with all of their positions they did bring up valid points that are worth considering.
Here's just a small sampling from one website that I have easy access to even two days later, but it illustrates the point that, yes some people did find it seriously offensive, that is something to take in consideration when moving forward, and while you may not agree it its still a part of the discussion.
Some of y'all need to get out of your own bubbles.
I took that whole scene as being a critique on Lindy being unable to navigate the world without some kind of unnecessary aids to help her. I think it’s hammered home more because within a couple of minutes she is moving about fine without the help of her dot. It struck home for me because I had to go home a few weeks ago and I rented a car that didn’t have a built-in gps on the dashboard and I really struggled with driving around the city I grew up in without a picture of it, despite never needing it before. Needless to say that only lasted a couple of hours. I'm sure that 'unnecessary' was the intent, but it doesn't change the fact that it did offend some people. Cause even a temporary disability is still a disability.
And I only bring it up, not because i was offended, but because other people brought it up and it was a valid criticism that some members here tried to dismiss. (not speaking about you specifically of course)
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Kestrel
Chancellery Guard
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Post by Kestrel on Jun 4, 2024 3:45:05 GMT
I think we may have exhausted the ableism discourse here, folks. But at the risk of further damage to this desiccated horse, I would like to (very briefly, I promise) leave this topic at the wayside for the foreseeable future.
First, neither I, nor anyone else here, can speak for anyone but myself. It's not very productive, I don't think, to try and make grand, sweeping statements about what disabled people think. Neither those of us here, in our small, local community, nor in the broader Doctor Who fandom. Opinions will be mixed; opinions will always be mixed. That's just life -- if you ever find yourself in a community where everyone agrees, well... you've found yourself in a bubble.
And to be clear, this is a sword that cuts both ways: saying that the story's framing is ableist because lots of disabled people elsewhere think it is, and saying it's not because the disabled people here (so far) don't think it is... these are both fallacious appeals to authority.
And to be clear(er): there is merit in discussing the potential ableism in Dot and Bubble. I'm glad it was brought up, because I think it's an interesting avenue of discussion. And I think a big part of RTD's intent with his writing is to encourage these kinds of discussions.
.... .... .... ....
Second, just to clarify a bit... when I think of what an "identity" is, I generally frame it as something intrinsic to a person's life -- some immutable characteristic they cannot change. If you can "opt-out" of an identity, it's not really an identity, yeah? So that includes (but is not necessarily limited to) physical and intellectual impairment, sexual orientation, race/ethnicity and culture.
Like... someone who refuses to read a book does not suffer from an intellectual disability, even if they are (as is often the case in my neck of the woods) socially conditioned to behave that way. Being intellectually impaired does not make one stupid; being stupid does not make one intellectually impaired. These are two entirely different things, in my view.
Yes, the circumstances of our birth and the cultures we are raised in will all have a drastic affect on how we live our lives and the people we grow into. And this, I think, can be a valid lens through which to excuse the sins of children: after all, we cannot expect them to know any better, can we?
But adults are expected to know better. Ignorance is not an excuse. Being an adult means shouldering certain responsibilities -- we all must be held account to our own choices, even those we did not know we were making. I can't help but think of that excuse so often used to justify or excuse chattel slavery in the United States: that people just didn't know any better, because that was the culture they were born into. An excuse which I might be willing to accept when applied to a 3-year old child, born on a plantation... but everyone old enough to know better? They knew. Even if they pretended not to.
Like, even if the abolitionist movement didn't exist (though it did), even if the slave rebellions didn't happen (though they did), that hypothetical child need only open their eyes to to see the evils perpetuated and perpetrated around them.
The key lesson of Omelas, after all, is that some people do, in fact, choose to walk away.
Like... I think it's very intentional that the population of Finetime was exclusively young adults. They're young enough to be sympathetic, to an extent, but also old enough that we can't blame their failings on their parents, or the wider culture they were born into. Teenagers can blame everything wrong with their lives on their parents without shame, yeah? But there's a reason people stop doing that the older we get. At the end of the day, at the ends of all our days, we're beholden to none but ourselves.
.... .... .... ....
And... I think I've said my peace. Anything further here, from me, would just be me trying to reframe and restate arguments I've already tried to articulate (something I may already be guilty of). So, like I said, I think I'm done talking about the ableism angle for now. At least until it comes up in some other story,
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Kestrel
Chancellery Guard
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Post by Kestrel on Jun 4, 2024 3:57:42 GMT
Interesting thought. While I agree that might have been a better call, I thought his “perfect” nature played really well into the episode’s overall misdirection. Because he’s more trope than person, pop culture has taught us to suspect he’s either too good to be true (cue villainous turn) or too good to last (cue unceremonious early death just as he’s about to save Lindy). I held my breath waiting for it at every turn, never suspecting he’d be an altogether different kind of sacrificial lamb. This episode, you guys. My immediate reaction when he showed up was, "This has got to be some kind of trick." It was just way too convenient, yeah? Lindy just happens to be saved moments before her imminent death by the random person, who she's never met before, that she has a crush on? And he just so happens to be far less reliant on the VR immersion tech than everyone else on the planet? It definitely works well as an untwist that he winds up being just... a really good guy. And in isolation, I can't really take issue with him being more of a narrative mechanism than a character in his own right... but the twist ending kind of changes that, I think. In real-life white supremacist societies we kind of have this problem where people think that it's possible to not be racist without being anti-racist. But that's a fantasy. It doesn't exist: an aracist is just a racist.So Ricky's lack of character kind of accidentally serves to prop up this centrist fantasy -- that one can be an active participant in a racially supremacist culture yet remain "unsullied" by the bigotry baked in to that culture. Something made even more problematic by Ricky's celebrity status: he has a platform, a voice, a following -- which he evidently uses to do... nothing that challenges the status quo. It's just kind of... weird. And usually when I point out writing issues like this, I do it from the perspective an editor: to identify what works, what doesn't work, and speculate on how something might be improved. But I'm not sure there's a clear way to do that here, and the way this story is constructed there's only so much time to work with and Ricky himself isn't really important enough to warrant being anything other than a disposable narrative tool. That's why my suggestion, I think, boiled down to something like a facial expression -- something, anything, to hint at Ricky having a bit of an actual personality there, somewhere, without the need for any changes to the script, Dude was born just to die. .... ....Also, I still think he looks like MJ. I think it's the jawline? Maybe?
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Post by daz on Jun 4, 2024 4:49:53 GMT
We noticed very early in the piece that everyone was white with blue eyes, and that Lindy had extra contempt for the Doctor, but kind of thought it was just part and parcel of their hyperprivilege, and did not expect it to be the major plot point.
I'm not going to say this is my favourite episode but it is one of the cleverest. At first it presented as some kind of Boomerish "phone bad" story, then appearing to be about the weakness of privilege, before the central point is made plain. I've seen some reactions complaining that the ending came out of nowhere, and this is why I think RTD has been especially clever: his audience is divided between people who detected the stream of microaggressions against the Doctor, and those who did not. When Ruby says:"Can you stay inside and look beyond it?", RTD is talking to us.
Lindy:"I know this is wrong, and when this is over, he is going to be so disciplined. I can't wait. But...just give him a shot, okay? I think he's not as stupid as he looks."
In Universe, the Doctor himself was also oblivious. He is not black. He doesn't have the Afro-American, or Afro-British, or African experience: his skin colour to him is like our shoe colour to us. It used to be different and will be different again. He's not attached to it so he's not offended by the comments of the surviving Finetimers, just infuriated by the fact that he can't save them because of their prejudices.
Top tier performance by Gatwa in his brief screen time, and by Cooke. Interesting arc for Lindy, as the nominal protagonist: starting as a dreadful person and then being revealed as worse and worse and worse.
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Post by bethhigdon on Jun 4, 2024 12:27:03 GMT
Interesting thought. While I agree that might have been a better call, I thought his “perfect” nature played really well into the episode’s overall misdirection. Because he’s more trope than person, pop culture has taught us to suspect he’s either too good to be true (cue villainous turn) or too good to last (cue unceremonious early death just as he’s about to save Lindy). I held my breath waiting for it at every turn, never suspecting he’d be an altogether different kind of sacrificial lamb. This episode, you guys. So Ricky's lack of character kind of accidentally serves to prop up this centrist fantasy -- that one can be an active participant in a racially supremacist culture yet remain "unsullied" by the bigotry baked in to that culture. Something made even more problematic by Ricky's celebrity status: he has a platform, a voice, a following -- which he evidently uses to do... nothing that challenges the status quo. It's just kind of... weird. Tbf it is mentioned in the script that he did try to use his platform to warn people about the bugs only for the videos to be removed. It's supposed to be a hint that the AI is behind everything, but who's the say he hasn't tried to educate people on other things only for the government/algorithm to take that down to?
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Post by elkawho on Jun 5, 2024 1:09:54 GMT
We noticed very early in the piece that everyone was white with blue eyes, and that Lindy had extra contempt for the Doctor, but kind of thought it was just part and parcel of their hyperprivilege, and did not expect it to be the major plot point. I'm not going to say this is my favourite episode but it is one of the cleverest. At first it presented as some kind of Boomerish "phone bad" story, then appearing to be about the weakness of privilege, before the central point is made plain. I've seen some reactions complaining that the ending came out of nowhere, and this is why I think RTD has been especially clever: his audience is divided between people who detected the stream of microaggressions against the Doctor, and those who did not. When Ruby says:"Can you stay inside and look beyond it?", RTD is talking to us. Lindy:"I know this is wrong, and when this is over, he is going to be so disciplined. I can't wait. But...just give him a shot, okay? I think he's not as stupid as he looks." In Universe, the Doctor himself was also oblivious. He is not black. He doesn't have the Afro-American, or Afro-British, or African experience: his skin colour to him is like our shoe colour to us. It used to be different and will be different again. He's not attached to it so he's not offended by the comments of the surviving Finetimers, just infuriated by the fact that he can't save them because of their prejudices.
Top tier performance by Gatwa in his brief screen time, and by Cooke. Interesting arc for Lindy, as the nominal protagonist: starting as a dreadful person and then being revealed as worse and worse and worse. I love this thought and I think it's brilliant. Great post.
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Post by theillusiveman on Jun 5, 2024 7:08:51 GMT
RTD’s comments:
“Television these days is very diverse. Will it be 10 minutes into it? 15? Will it be 20? Before you start to think: everyone in this community is white! And if you don't think that, why didn't you? I hope it's a piece of television that you'll see and always remember."
Wonder what RTD would think of those Korean shows on Netflix
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Post by number13 on Jun 5, 2024 23:07:41 GMT
RTD’s comments: “Television these days is very diverse. Will it be 10 minutes into it? 15? Will it be 20? Before you start to think: everyone in this community is white! And if you don't think that, why didn't you? I hope it's a piece of television that you'll see and always remember." Wonder what RTD would think of those Korean shows on Netflix 'And if you don't think that, why didn't you?' That's rather ironic for a story about 'bubbles'. Not everyone has the same lived experience, or views the world through TV drama.
Perhaps TV should stop assuming everyone lives in its bubble?
Seriously, the difference in levels of diversity between London, then other UK cities, then large towns and then the rest of the country, is still huge, even in 2024.
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Post by christmastrenzalore on Jun 5, 2024 23:39:30 GMT
RTD’s comments: “Television these days is very diverse. Will it be 10 minutes into it? 15? Will it be 20? Before you start to think: everyone in this community is white! And if you don't think that, why didn't you? I hope it's a piece of television that you'll see and always remember." Wonder what RTD would think of those Korean shows on Netflix 'if you don't think that, why didn't you?' Perhaps TV should stop assuming everyone lives in its bubble?
Seriously, the difference in levels of diversity between London, then other UK cities, then large towns and then the rest of the country, is still huge, even in 2024.
I live in a small town, where diversity is pretty low. I think when I was watching I did low-key notice that the Doctor was the only dark skinned person, just because of how much he stuck out in the sea of white, but I was too wrapped up in the plot to really think about it. And the general uncanniness of their parlance and behaviour also distracted a lot. But I was watching it with my Gran, and when all the foreshadowing came into focus, I asked her if she noticed everyone was white, and she very honestly said no. But, while there is an implied call to self examination there, I don't think it's overly accusitory. He just asked you to consider 'why'. It was a clever bait and switch, almost a litness test, to get you to consider why you had the reaction you did. And if your findings are 'I live in a mostly white community so I didn't clock anything unusual', that's fine. But it's a good thing to get us to think about it.
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Post by number13 on Jun 6, 2024 0:08:52 GMT
'if you don't think that, why didn't you?' Perhaps TV should stop assuming everyone lives in its bubble?
Seriously, the difference in levels of diversity between London, then other UK cities, then large towns and then the rest of the country, is still huge, even in 2024.
I live in a small town, where diversity is pretty low. I think when I was watching I did low-key notice that the Doctor was the only dark skinned person, just because of how much he stuck out in the sea of white, but I was too wrapped up in the plot to really think about it. And the general uncanniness of their parlance and behaviour also distracted a lot. But I was watching it with my Gran, and when all the foreshadowing came into focus, I asked her if she noticed everyone was white, and she very honestly said no. But, while there is an implied call to self examination there, I don't think it's overly accusitory. He just asked you to consider 'why'. It was a clever bait and switch, almost a litness test, to get you to consider why you had the reaction you did. And if your findings are 'I live in a mostly white community so I didn't clock anything unusual', that's fine. But it's a good thing to get us to think about it. I didn't have any reaction because I've not been watching this series; I'm still trying to get over the goblins. (Some of the later episodes sound a lot better so I'll probably pick and choose when I've got chance to catch-up. I'm not worried about spoilers and arcs as I'm not invested enough in NewNewWho to bother, and good drama is still good even if you know the twists. This one and '73 Yards' are the two on my list so far. I was going to ask for recommendations later but decided what the heck, I'll just browse some threads and never mind the spoilers! Definitely will not be watching 'Space Babies' that's for sure.)
I simply don't find myself conducting an audit of who's on screen when I watch a programme. For people who are 'in TV', it probably happens automatically when they watch. But for the rest of us outside their 'bubble'? Is it normal to do so?
I remember years ago watching a political discussion panel with Mum; she asked afterwards had I noticed that all the panellists, the interviewer and the reporter on the outside broadcast, were women. No, I hadn't. Back then this would have been very unusual, but it was just random chance, not organised for discussing any specific issue or to mark a special event, for example, and I hadn't noticed.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jun 6, 2024 1:05:50 GMT
I live in a small town, where diversity is pretty low. I think when I was watching I did low-key notice that the Doctor was the only dark skinned person, just because of how much he stuck out in the sea of white, but I was too wrapped up in the plot to really think about it. And the general uncanniness of their parlance and behaviour also distracted a lot. But I was watching it with my Gran, and when all the foreshadowing came into focus, I asked her if she noticed everyone was white, and she very honestly said no. But, while there is an implied call to self examination there, I don't think it's overly accusitory. He just asked you to consider 'why'. It was a clever bait and switch, almost a litness test, to get you to consider why you had the reaction you did. And if your findings are 'I live in a mostly white community so I didn't clock anything unusual', that's fine. But it's a good thing to get us to think about it. I didn't have any reaction because I've not been watching this series; I'm still trying to get over the goblins. (Some of the later episodes sound a lot better so I'll probably pick and choose when I've got chance to catch-up. I'm not worried about spoilers and arcs as I'm not invested enough in NewNewWho to bother, and good drama is still good even if you know the twists. This one and '73 Yards' are the two on my list so far. I was going to ask for recommendations later but decided what the heck, I'll just browse some threads and never mind the spoilers! Definitely will not be watching 'Space Babies' that's for sure.)
I simply don't find myself conducting an audit of who's on screen when I watch a programme. For people who are 'in TV', it probably happens automatically when they watch. But for the rest of us outside their 'bubble'? Is it normal to do so?
I remember years ago watching a political discussion panel with Mum; she asked afterwards had I noticed that all the panellists, the interviewer and the reporter on the outside broadcast, were women. No, I hadn't. Back then this would have been very unusual, but it was just random chance, not organised for discussing any specific issue or to mark a special event, for example, and I hadn't noticed. The problem with this is what seems to be random chance can end up being a massively inflated bubble of familiarity. When QI made an effort to diversify they had something impossibly low like 2% of shows with 2 female panelists. The same was true of Have I Got News For You and some other panel shows. So a conscious effort was made - which is now part of the BBC at large - to hit quotas for race, gender and disability. As they - not through nastiness or any makicious reason - were failing miserably for these groups as the 60 something white men making calls for panel shows (like an RTD equivalent) tend to know others their age and roughly the same "profile" (Moffat, Gatiss equivalent etc). So if someone isn't auditing, as you called it, it's the rarer show that features that lineup you saw. By far. We're still in the wild west but as a disabled person I'm seeing people like me a lot more. And my gay son can say the same. So I'm grateful someone IS auditing, as the traditional ways left a lot of straight able bodied white men and not much else.
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lidar2
Castellan
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You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
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Post by lidar2 on Jul 1, 2024 12:24:50 GMT
Am only watching the new series now, so am late to the party with my opinions. But this was the best story of the season so far without a doubt. Ended with a gut punch that I didn't see coming. Interestingly, I didn't so much see it in terms of racism but in terms of the departure from Dr Who's normal MO. The Dr makes people better, he influences them for good, makes them the best version of themselves. Here he didn't do that at all, and that was what jarred most for me. I had read about the racism online before I watched, so I picked up on it because I already knew about it going in but, had I not known, I'm not sure at what point I would have realised.
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