Pride Month Picks: Doctor Who Will Mean So Much To A New Generation Of Queer Kids
This article is part of Pride Month Picks, a collection of pieces that aim to highlight queer representation across games, television, film, books, and more throughout June.
Doctor Who was—and still is—ahead of its time, and has been ever since its return in 2005. There was a bisexual companion, a trans villain, and plenty of guest stars who would reference their same-sex partners. Being queer was a normal part of the show’s culture, something accepted and so nonchalant that people would make passing references to it like any other heteronormative character. So much of this progress was thanks to Russell T Davies, an openly gay showrunner helming Britain’s biggest sci-fi show at a time when LGBTQ+ characters and themes were far from normalised. Now he’s back, and that same queer culture is already bleeding into Doctor Who for a whole new generation.
To put into perspective how far ahead of the curb Doctor Who was, another landmark British show called Misfits started four years later in 2009. I recently gave it a watch to see what the fuss was all about only to find misogynistic, ableist, and homophobic remarks across practically every episode. Then you have shows like Little Britain that started in 2003, featuring black face, homophobia, transphobia, and again, sexism. The early ‘00s was a minefield for offensive schlock that tried to pitch itself as progressive only to fall back on dated stereotypes and comedy that wasn’t smart.
RELATED: Russell T Davies Has Already Saved Doctor Who
We don’t often have that kind of outright bigotry in TV and movies anymore, but there is a reluctance to embrace queerness. Gravity Falls had to tone it down, Loki made a passing reference about princes and princesses, while Star Wars opted
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