Category: Television

A clip from this longer presentation – Doctor Who: Feminism in the Whoniverse with Dr. Rosanne Welch

Watch this entire presentation – Doctor Who: Feminism in the Whoniverse with Dr. Rosanne Welch

Dr. Rosanne Welch (https://rosannewelch.com) speaks on “Feminism in the Whoniverse” of Doctor Who, the BBC television program now in its 50th year. She reviews each of the Doctor’s female companions and speaks on how they are represented in the program and how they represented the women of their respective periods.

Transcript:

Now, the complaint about some of the early female characters is that they were hired — the artreses would say — hired for their ability to (Screams) scream. (Laughter) Because their job was going to stand there and go (Screams) “It’s a big scary monsters!” Right? That’s not very empowering. Not a very empowering stance to take. However, while they were busy screaming, they were also often challenging The Doctor as to what her was going and how he should behave when he crosses into new cultures. Which, of course, is something we chat about in lots of history courses and in the IGE stuff that I do, it’s all about cultures coming together. And that’s what The Doctor is doing. So usan is a really interesting character. I liked her. I was interested by her. I like what she did. She left the show to go rebuild Earth. She traveled to the Earth many times. Seen it nearly destroyed. In this last episode she was in, Dalek Invasion, she saw, of course, the Grand Daleks ruin the world and so she chose — which is a staple of feminism — choosing the thing you will do with your life. She chooses to leave her grandfather behind — go travel without me — I’ve been there, done that — I don’t need to see any more dinosaurs. I want to stay here on this place that has been ruined and I want to use my female power to heal. That’s what I want to do with the rest of my time. And I think that makes her a really very powerful character, despite the fact that in many early episodes she scream a lot.

Feminism in the Whoniverse was presented at the Cal Poly Pomona University Library where Dr. Welch teaches in the IGE (Interdisciplinary General Education) program.

This is the 4th talk on various aspects of Doctor Who that Dr. Welch has presented. You can find these talks using the links below.

• Doctor Who and Culture
• Doctor Who Regenerated
• “How the Growing Popularity of the English Who-niverse Effected American TV” with Dr. Rosanne Welch

Subscribe to Dr. Welch’s YouTube Channel

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

A clip from this longer presentation – Doctor Who: Feminism in the Whoniverse with Dr. Rosanne Welch

Watch this entire presentation – Doctor Who: Feminism in the Whoniverse with Dr. Rosanne Welch

Dr. Rosanne Welch (https://rosannewelch.com) speaks on “Feminism in the Whoniverse” of Doctor Who, the BBC television program now in its 50th year. She reviews each of the Doctor’s female companions and speaks on how they are represented in the program and how they represented the women of their respective periods.

Transcript:

While she’s here starting Doctor Who we come to the very first companion, who is the original Doctor’s grand-daughter, Susan. Susan’s a very cool character. When they invented The Doctor and this traveling guy, they knew he would travel with people and, you know, you want balance — you want a guy and a girl — that’s just kind of, we like that look. It’s TV, they wanted a young, pretty-looking girl. So, now we’re going to have an old guy traveling though time and space with a pretty, young girl. We need to make sure that’s not some weird thing. So, she became his grand-daughter. This is part of the conversation. First, she was just going to be a partner and they went “Oh no, that won’t work. Right?” So she became his grand-daughter. Now, that’s nice because it humanizes the character. He has a grand-daughter.

Feminism in the Whoniverse was presented at the Cal Poly Pomona University Library where Dr. Welch teaches in the IGE (Interdisciplinary General Education) program.

This is the 4th talk on various aspects of Doctor Who that Dr. Welch has presented. You can find these talks using the links below.

• Doctor Who and Culture
• Doctor Who Regenerated
• “How the Growing Popularity of the English Who-niverse Effected American TV” with Dr. Rosanne Welch

Subscribe to Dr. Welch’s YouTube Channel

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

A clip from this longer presentation – Doctor Who: Feminism in the Whoniverse with Dr. Rosanne Welch

Watch this entire presentation – Doctor Who: Feminism in the Whoniverse with Dr. Rosanne Welch

Dr. Rosanne Welch (https://rosannewelch.com) speaks on “Feminism in the Whoniverse” of Doctor Who, the BBC television program now in its 50th year. She reviews each of the Doctor’s female companions and speaks on how they are represented in the program and how they represented the women of their respective periods.

Transcript:

…and this is a lady that we need to pay some attention to in charge of the beginning of Doctor Who. ere name is Verity Lambert and she was a producer with the BBC and she was brought the idea of doing this historical program that would teach children about history. Isn’t that fun? It was educational. No one knew there was going to be plastic monsters and all that sort of thing. And this was a huge job for a woman in 1963. We don’t have a lot of female producers. Matter of fact, in today we don’t have a lot of female producers. So this was a huge step and she has a bit of a mark on the program. She Worked on it for several years. She helps give birth to it.

Feminism in the Whoniverse was presented at the Cal Poly Pomona University Library where Dr. Welch teaches in the IGE (Interdisciplinary General Education) program.

This is the 4th talk on various aspects of Doctor Who that Dr. Welch has presented. You can find these talks using the links below.

• Doctor Who and Culture
• Doctor Who Regenerated
• “How the Growing Popularity of the English Who-niverse Effected American TV” with Dr. Rosanne Welch

Subscribe to Dr. Welch’s YouTube Channel

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

A clip from this longer presentation – Doctor Who: Feminism in the Whoniverse with Dr. Rosanne Welch

Watch this entire presentation – Doctor Who: Feminism in the Whoniverse with Dr. Rosanne Welch

Dr. Rosanne Welch (https://rosannewelch.com) speaks on “Feminism in the Whoniverse” of Doctor Who, the BBC television program now in its 50th year. She reviews each of the Doctor’s female companions and speaks on how they are represented in the program and how they represented the women of their respective periods.

Transcript:

Now feminism had waves kind of like a very good surf. The first wave was when everybody learned how to vote — how to let women vote. That was a big deal — 1920 — we’re tap dancing. We’re voting. We’re all good now. And then they went, “Ok, everything’s perfect, right? Once you can vote it’s all perfect?” And every other group learned that is not really true. It takes a little more time. You have to ask for a few more things. So, by the time we get to when Doctor Who first showed up in the early 1960’s, we’re taking about the second wave and women are now thinking, “Wait a minute. I need some equality of culture. I need to be able to do the things I would like to do and not have someone tell me I can’t have that job because only boys have that job.” No, what’s going on is the whole Women’s Liberation movement is happening right now. In a lot of countries, I’m thinking England, but also America, right, but also, Ah Hah, the biggest invention for women in a long time. Oh my god, a person could decide if they were going to get pregnant. That was a very huge step in the whole female world. It didn’t mean you had to quit having sex, because sec is s good thing. We like that. We juts didn’t always want to have a baby every 2 years. Which, if you were married or 20 years, you probably had 15 kids.

Feminism in the Whoniverse was presented at the Cal Poly Pomona University Library where Dr. Welch teaches in the IGE (Interdisciplinary General Education) program.

This is the 4th talk on various aspects of Doctor Who that Dr. Welch has presented. You can find these talks using the links below.

• Doctor Who and Culture
• Doctor Who Regenerated
• “How the Growing Popularity of the English Who-niverse Effected American TV” with Dr. Rosanne Welch

Subscribe to Dr. Welch’s YouTube Channel

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS