Dark side

[scarfman]

On lifeonmartha, neadods wrote a criticism of Last of the Time Lords that I don't have to have seen the story to agree with. She writes, in part:

"Martha 'the first black companion' even though Mickey was invited in by the Doctor and traveled in the TARDIS for several episodes which has always been the rule of thumb for the title "companion" before. And although the Doctor had been 'over' Rose enough to invite Donna - pale, Irish-looking Donna who bitched at the Doctor constantly and showed no interest in travel - on board as a companion without any stipulations, Martha - dark Martha who has already shown curiosity, brains, bravery, and oh, saved the Doctor's life gets a series of 'just one trip' warnings. And then to ice the disrespect and lowered expectations, gets hit with the one line the Doctor has never, EVER used in all 43 years of the show - 'Companion X would know what to do' with all the implications of 'I can't rely on you.'

"But he does rely on her. He relies on her to restart his hearts twice, his lungs once, take care of his whole being for three months of overt overwork, sexism, and racism , take menial work again to pay their way during exile, and, oh, Save the damn world! in Shakespearean times and modern ones.

"All without ever a 'thank you' or 'I'm sorry' outside of fanfic. But plenty of comparisons to the previous companion, and in full knowledge that she feels second best. At the very end of this season, she outright says 'I've felt second best all along, but I'm pretty impressive.'

"And the Doctor says nothing. Not 'you are impressive.' Not 'I shouldn't have let you feel second best. I only take the best.'

"Nothing. Leaving us all with the message that like Rose's opinion of Mickey, no matter how solid, dependable, brave, and loyal Martha is, she's just not as good as the one who was taken away from him.

"... Now that it's Mickey and Martha, the implications that the black characters just aren't as interesting to the audience or beloved of the Doctor is unmistakable."

ionlylurkhere commented in part, "The sample size is small enough that I can still just about handwave it in my head as unfortunate coincidence."

I responded:

"While I'm sure it's not intentional, I'm sure it's not coincidence. Someone from the demographic top of the food chain of his society (disclaimer: like me*) who considers himself enlightened and who means to help is still subject to the unconscious influences of enculturation. (Even the oppressed themselves are subject; cf. the maid in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. And the women in the test audiences of the first Star Trek pilot - which had a female executive officer - who said, "Who does she think she is?") I haven't seen Last of the Time Lords and have only been reading spoilers. I was gratified to read that Martha told the Doctor off and walked away (and yet shall still be back next season). But it's also true that the only other companion to walk away from the Doctor instead of toward something else was white and was argued with, and I hadn't read till now that the Doctor didn't even tell Martha he was sorry, he was so sorry. It'd be the work of three synapses to come up with a retroactive in-character explanation for that, but it's too late now and it'd still play the way neadods says it plays and that's the insidiousness of it and it's too late to fix it.

"* Actually I stopped being at the top when I aged past my late thirties."

Comments

[arjuna-lj.livejournal.com]

*scratches head* Hang on, hang on. Surely Roz was the first black companion? (or are we pretending everything between "Survival" and the TVM never happened? - NB I include the TVM because "Human Nature" drags it into canon, however unsatisfactorily).

[scarfman]

If you include non-screen Doctor Who then I believe the first black companion was Sharon in the DWM comics c. 1980.