Though I admit all-female Shakespearean or all-either-female-or-non-binary Shakespearean productions, which would add one more layer of gender-fuckery, would be interesting… and would probably get closer to a balance and an equal chance for womyn and non-binary people.
I’ll just add this to the list of reasons why Eccleston will never be an underrated Doctor as far as I’m concerned.
Eccleston has always been my favorite doctor. Somewhat an unpopular choice considering the following doctors were so great, but I just love him. I’m pleased to read that he’s got a good head on his shoulders, we need more actors clamoring for change in the way we make entertainment.
Wasn’t the all-male Shakespeare just a tip of the hat to the old school method?
I still think it’s sad he wouldn’t put in an appearance on the 50th anniversary ep. It’s not like people are going to remember him for what he did in Thor 2 or GI Joe.
Not sure it’s worth the tip of the hat, as I think it was born out of necessity and adds less than an all-female production might.
I really do think he was the best Doctor Who, partly because he took the character in a distinct direction. His relationship with Rose seemed like a natural one – he was a mentor figure, but their basic bond seemed to be that they liked and respected each other. Part of this was how Eccleston’s Doctor contrasted with the usual portrayal of the Doctor as a black sheep aristocrat from Oxbridge. Eccleston’s Doctor seemed much more like a sharp-witted veteran shop steward who was a world-class autodidact; that made him a natural mentor figure for Rose, the working class Londoner with spirit and talent who had never quite realized before her own capabilities. But there was also a chemistry between the two characters that really worked.
It seemed to me that, after Eccleston, they kept trying to force the chemistry of the relationship, between the Doctor and Rose, and then the later companions, by adding sexual tension. This just never felt quite right.
I don’t know if he was being deliberately bitchy when he said he was the first Doctor with a non-RP accent, or if he just forgot Sylvester McCoy existed. Although, McCoy’s sort of “well-spoken” Scottish accent is more or less the same thing as RP when it comes to regional prejudice.
Lots of planets have a North!
Do you mean that pseudo movie thing? I saw it with my son and cringed all the way through. It was horrible.
Yes, like this one! All-female Two Gentlemen of Verona at OSF last year
C.E. is indeed fantastic.
It was the one where they decided to throw a wrench into the continuity by bringing in John Hurt. But on the whole it didn’t end up being an especially bad episode in my book – it was at least superior to most of the last season. (Grim business, that – if they had started from there ten years ago, it would have never gotten off the ground, I reckon. I hope the writers pull it back together.)
Ah thats why it looked so awful to me. I haven’t watched it in a long time.
Likewise. I think that first series was the strongest, most focused of all the new Doctor Who series.
After him it was a gradual slide into ever more incomprehensible, badly scripted, sloppily directed episodes with illogical plots that hinged increasingly around pseudo-magical nonsense. I’m pretty certain the universe was saved at least once by the Power of Love, or some such.
It’s a shame because I really liked Matt Smith as the Doctor, but he had some of the worst episodes of the entire new DW run.
I don’t know if it’s been so gradual, but there have been too many of what I think of as “Harry Potter” episodes of Doctor Who - he waves around his sonic screwdriver (which has turned into a full-blown magic wand that shoots out magic beams), and everything is, indeed, resolved by the Power of Love. It’s downright painful.
Hurt’s Doctor lampshaded this weirdness in the special. Asking them something to the effect of “Why would you wave it around like that? It’s a screwdriver! Are you going to build some cabinets at somebody?” Doctor Who has always been essentially a fantasy series, but I liked how the special poked fun at how childish it has become. I like when the show goes far out, but not when it gets lazy.
Probably. Most likely. I wouldn’t be surprised.
But why would anyone want to tip their hat to such a discriminatory and abhorrent practice, at least in such a literal way? There is definite value in discussing those abhorrent practices from the past, but a “tipping one’s hat” doesn’t seem all that appropriate, enlightening, or useful. Also sounds rather boring.
An all male cast, you say? Why! How unusual. That’s never happened in anything. Ever. Nor even recently! I mean, a group of all males didn’t get together and help decide the fate of the women’s right to access to reproductive health care, in the year 2012! Not at all. All male? Why…oh.
I know it seems tangential, but it’s not.
Let’s not do the all male thing for things where it’s both inappropriate and also kind of pointless, okay? It happens too much as it is.
Note that obviously people can do whatever the fuck they want for their private productions but I have no desire to watch it and I would hope people would agree.
Eh - historical all male theater such as Elizabethan era Shakespeare or Japanese Yaro Kabuki or the modern drag show is a bit of a stretch from the same thing as too many male law makers. I mean, pick your battles.
I don’t think so. Why the fuck do we need that? We’ve had enough of it. i give no shits about “tradition.” Time to MOVE ON.
Also talking about it on a BBS is not the same thing as going to battle. I’m not going to start a petition or anything. I even had a disclaimer stating people can do whatever the fuck they want. Calm your horses.
