Gay doctor who
Why has Doctor Who always been so LGBT-friendly? Russell T Davies thinks he knows
For Doctor Who leader writer Russell T Davies, watching the series in the mid-1980s paralleled his feelings about his have sexuality.
“Being gay was ‘the love that dare not speak its name’ and Doctor Who mutual that feature as adequately by that time," he says. "It was a cheap, old, mad science fiction show. You couldn’t say you fancied anyone, and who couldn’t tell that you loved Surgeon Who.”
“Before that, when I was a child, everyone loved Doctor Who,” the gay writer and maker of shows including It’s a Sin and Gay as Folk tells the BBC in an interview before the start of the new series. “But then a moment comes in secondary school when boys peel off and start playing football and fancying girls.
“And I was just sitting there inaudibly, not expressing who I was until I became an adult, still watching Doctor Who.”
Russell is just one of many LGBT people who have been drawn to the demonstrate throughout its 60-year-history, from the show’s first-ever director Waris Hussein to the latest incarnation of the Doctor Ncuti Gatwa, who this year topped the Independent’s Pride List of LGBT chan
This was supposed to be a homage to 60 years of Doctor Who. Doctor Who is a much loved British science fiction drama that started in 1963. It won hearts, but more so minds, and solidified a firm and wide-ranging fan base.
The 50th Doctor Who anniversary brought together David Tennant’s Surgeon and Matt Smith’s Doctor. This anniversary special introduced The War Doctor, the Doctor who fought in the Moment War, played by the fine British actor John Offend. Billie Piper surprised us as all, not playing her character Rose at all, but playing a consciousness that challenged The War Doctor and his morality. At the end, we were treated to Matt Smith’s Doctor encounter Tom Baker’s Surgeon. Tom Baker played one of the most recognised, iconic and loved Doctors so this really was a treat.
Both David Tennant and Matt Smith grew up as Healer Who fans, and it showed in their performances. They had a reverence for the role, as well as deep knowledge of the lore, which neither Jodie Whittaker nor Ncuti Gatwa have attempted to learn and both show no respect at all for the show nor the fans.
Jodie’s jog could have worked with good writing. Good stories. But they weren
Doctor Who and Homosexual Male Fandom
Mike Stack
A Queer(ed) Transmedia Franchise
Doctor Who is a BBC transmedia franchise that has lasted over sixty years. Its fanbase boasts a substantial accompanying of gay men. This book asks why this should be.
Through examining four core components – the Doctor, the TARDIS, the companion and the Daleks – this book traces the trajectory of queerness from wider culture to paratextual media and finally into the parent text, resulting in an inclusive trademark. In doing so, it argues that fandom provides a space to mediate between personal identities and the wider world. Drawing from interviews with fans, the book demonstrates the complexities and contradictions of queerness, and proposes an alternative theory of gay cultural formation.
This is the first book-length study to exploit queer theory to understand Doctor Who. It will be of interest to students and teachers of media theory and fan studies, psychosocial studies, homosexual theory and history, as well as Doctor Who fans.
Author
Mike Stack
Mike Stack is currently an independent scholar. He previously authored The Shadowy Archive #68: The Happiness Patrol (Obverse Books, 2023), as wel
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The Doctor’s companions come in all shapes and sizes, colors and creeds, species, and home planets. The countless travelers who hold journeyed in the TARDIS are a diverse cast of characters that just keeps growing. For Lgbtq+ fest Month, we’ll be looking at some of the characters of Doctor Who that are a part of the LGBTQ+ group. We’ll be looking at companions from both the TV series and expanded universe media, as the Whoniverse is far broader than even 60 years on the air.
[Warning: minor spoilers for Doctor Who and Torchwood]
Adric (Fourth and Fifth Doctors companion)
A companion of the Fourth and Fifth Doctors, Adric was an Alzarian from E-Space. Adric stowed away aboard the TARDIS while the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) and Romana II were trapped in E-Space.
Adric would then witness the Doctor’s regeneration into the Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison) and united Five, Tegan (Janet Fielding), and Nyssa (Sarah Sutton) for numerous adventures in time and vacuum. Tragically, he was gone too soon. Adric lost his being trying to stop the Cybermen from crashing a spaceship into the Earth, not realizing that the spaceship was, in proof