Forest of the Dead - commentary and speculation

[randomgirl666.livejournal.com]

Thanks to owlboy over on Dreamwidth, I have recently learned of the existence of this podcast/commentary thing where RTD, the Moffinator and David Tennant discuss the season 4 episode "Forest of the Dead" (amongst other things). 

Just under 39 minutes in, RTD reminds Moffat that in the first draft of the script, Donna's love interest/fake husband Lee turned out in the real world to be a "stuttering, stammering overweight girl." The idea would have been that, in the fake world inhabited by Donna, Lee and their fake children, people appear differently than they do in reality. Ultimately, it was felt that it was too big an idea for one scene to get across.

Had the script not been changed, we would have realised that Donna had formed a sort-of relationship with a transgender character. Which as far as I know, is unprecedented in Doctor Who history. In a way, I'm glad it didn't happen because I think it might have been perceived by some viewers as a joke or something, another indication that Moff is "not serious" when it comes to GLBT inclusion. But I think it's worth discussing nonetheless.

P.S. Here's the commentary for "Silence in the Library" too.

P.P.S. Yes, technically I am breaking my own rule in discussing RTD-era Who on this comm, but it was a Moffat-scripted episode, so that's my excuse.

Comments

[rabiya-al-basri.livejournal.com]

I can see that going badly pretty easily, particularly given the "stuttering" and "overweight" parts.

AFAIK New Who has one-and-only-one mention of trans stuff, and it's an RTD one...and it's total shit. The villain of episode 2--I forget her name, but the stretched out skin thing--once says something like "when I was a boy" and it's left at that. It's kind of weird in that they bother to make a stereotypical trans villain and don't follow up on it besides the "trans people are unnatural and obsessed with surgery" implication.

[rabiya-al-basri.livejournal.com]

oh and evil, can't forget the trans people are evil killers implication.

[randomgirl666.livejournal.com]

Cassandra whatjamacallit? I thought she was generally a fairly lazy target. It was all "look at all these people having surgery to look pretty aren't they shallow?" I felt like saying "come back and say that again when you have a vagina and are judged exclusively on your appearance 95% of the time."

[rabiya-al-basri.livejournal.com]

Well, being a girl without a vagina one is judged exclusively on one's appearance 110% of the time, but otherwise agreed.

[randomgirl666.livejournal.com]

Fair point.

[rabiya-al-basri.livejournal.com]

I don't think I noticed your new icon before, but I love it.

[10littlebullets.livejournal.com]

It's kind of weird in that they bother to make a stereotypical trans villain and don't follow up on it besides the "trans people are unnatural and obsessed with surgery" implication.

FWIW, I read it as a Michael Jackson crack. Which is also arguably in poor taste, but I don't think trans people in general are the butt of the joke there.

As for the original post: you know that bit in The Matrix, where post-red-pill Neo finds himself in a computer projection looking like his old self instead of a naked mole rat, and Morpheus handwaves it away as "residual self-image"? I always wondered whether trans people would show up in psychologically-accurate, rather than physically-accurate (well, Matrix-accurate) bodies. Same for people with body-dysmorphic eating disorders--actually that one sounds more likely, unluckily for all concerned.

[randomgirl666.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't remember the episode but I remember thinking the target was plastic surgery and also that it was quite a negative view of where humanity is headed really. I know this show can be down on humanity in general, but y'know... we're not daleks or anything. We do some good stuff, we're not that bad.

I haven't seen that bit in The Matrix (or any of the bits of The Matrix really) but I can see if you had something where people's own perceptions of themselves were saved into a computer and also their physical attributes were saved onto that computer, then you can imagine quite a lot of conflict between the two and who knows how a computer would try to make sense of that. It makes me wonder if that line about Donna being on a diet was really just a throwaway joke after all.

[rabiya-al-basri.livejournal.com]

The "haha Michael Jackson is a white woman who used to be a black man" *is* a transphobic joke, the same way that "haha ur gay" is homophobic even when aimed at a straight person.