The Doctors dress up

Ah, so forthcoming 15th Doctor Ncuti Gatwa is bringing out the homophobes before he’s even started:

I say “homophobes” specifically because it appears that Ncuti has acknowledged being queer in a new interview (it’s been suspected for a while, apparently, but he’s never said anything one way or the other himself until this thing in Elle). In this case he brought out a misogynist as a bonus:

Well, the Doctor may or may not be a man, depending on how such concepts operate in such an alien culture as the Time Lords, but some of the actors in the role have had no issues dressing up like the distaff:

Colin Baker in Privates on Parade in the early 90s. That top hat was the very thing his Doctor’s costume needed…

Matt Smith also on stage in the late oughts. Indeed, this performance was apparently a big part of why he got signed up as the Doctor.

Plus his immediate predecessor and successor both played actual trans characters back in the day.

And there’s whatever the fuck Tom Baker was doing with Douglas Adams here. Also…

Did we all forget that episode where Jon Pertwee’s Doctor dressed up as a cleaning lady IN THE SHOW ITSELF? “The Green Death” episode 4. Don’t show it to your kids, it’ll warp them and make them want to dress up as unconvincing middle-aged women from the 1970s… It’s a good thing episode 3 of “The Highlanders” is one of the still missing ones, otherwise the young people might be exposed to Patrick Troughton’s 18th century Scottish washerwoman…

…Oh. Damn you John Cura and your valiant efforts to preserve a visual record of TV programming at a time when the BBC couldn’t be bothered.

Anyway, the important thing is that messrs Troughton, Pertwee, T. and C. Baker, Tennant, Smith, and Capaldi are all white men, and Ncuti Gatwa is conspicuously… not, and I feel that detail is as important to the people getting angry at his casting as his ability to rock a skirt. Pleasingly, Ncuti is already coming out swinging:

I feel this Doctor is not going to take anyone’s shit, on the screen or off it.