Spoilers Dot and Bubble grade and discussion thread

[jaime]

Far too many people (myself included) don't detect racism unless it's really overt. The dialogue is delivered at a fast pace, with a lot going on on screen (multiple chat windows open, I ignored the ones that weren't speaking, the rest got lost in a flood of "Linda's friend list" at the periphery of my awareness). That particular line... yeah, she had no reason to expect it to be the same person.

The signs are there, but they're well-disguised if you're not wired to look for them. Mind you, I'm one of those people who saw "Song of the South" as a kid and got a message of "Respect other cultures and listen to their stories", completely missing the stereotypes (the kids are helped by listening to Remus' stories, not by their parents), so I'm not the most microaggression-aware person.

If it was real life, it’s the sort of thing I would notice no problem. But here it’s being deliberately hidden because of its presentation. For example, I’m look(ing) at Ncuti being The Doctor. So I am looking for peoples reaction to the character, (not ) his ethnicity. I’m being shown a vapid self-centred character in Lindy, so I am not going to notice anything like the racism because I am not even necessarily assuming she is even human.
Hidden too well to make its point.

(edit, as had to go answer door:
This how the Doctor deals with Racism:

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Why has that changed? Why isn’t the Doctor calling it out? Why isn’t Millie?
Clumsy. Serves fable, but not the character, serves the writer but not the show.)
(Extra edits to fix my bad typing at the time in brackets)

 

[JoeZhang]

I enjoyed this adventure set in Asimov's spacer Universe .

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

That was a really good Black Mirror episode.

Also, this analysis is quite illuminating for those who don't get it.

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ETA: The initials of both Ricky September and Ruby Sunday are RS - so perhaps both are aliases.

 

[N-121973]

I suppose it had to be subtle until the end because if it had been too on the nose from the get-go the audience wouldn't have been so invested in seeing people survive. Rather it would have been more 'good riddance'. I myself thought people's behaviour was motivated by classism and entitlement until I clocked at the end there were no non-white people among the survivors.
Like many I wondered at first if they were in fact social rejects sent to die on that planet. Later on when the heroic singer showed up I even wondered if they were going to be the only two survivors and go on to be the progenitors of a new civilisation (impossible of course because of eventual genetic inbreeding). As for the world building I'm still fuzzy. Was their home world Earth (hope not), or a colony of Earth or what? The 'Itsy Bitsy' song confused me on that. Also if they spurn physical contact how do they reproduce or form family units? Perhaps the way the heroine dismisses her mother's death so matter-of-factly illustrates how aloof and isolated they really are?

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

I enjoyed this adventure set in Asimov's spacer Universe .

I was thinking Solarians all the way through as well.

Now here's a thing. I'm an ethnic minority, a child of immigrants in the country I was born in. My experience of racism has ranged from the visceral to the subtle, and I've watched society's expression of such wax and wane. When I watch entertainment, I generally choose not to watch reflections of that. I get enough of it in the real world; unless it's flagged up before the show airs, "in a very special episode of..." or more usually a trigger warning beforehand, and a phone number to call for a hug afterwards.

There was none of that with Dot and Bubble, So I actively chose not to see it while I was watching it; instead trying to rationalise it away with other explanations. Indeed, the Solarian analogy from Asimov's The Naked Sun made the most sense to me. A society so fixated on their personal bubbles and social media interaction that they literally don't know how to walk without a personal SatNav, that they've never actually looked at the real world, never interacted with anyone in the flesh, never hugged. Imagine how they wouild react to people who did.

So when the final scene arrived, and Lindy and her contacts treated the Doctor in that way, I really couldn't believe what I'd seen. So much so that I was still trying to rationalise it when I switched over to the behind the scenes show, where Russell straight up came and said that yes, this was racism.

I don't know what that says about me. Have I picked up and internalised the unconscious bias that has been directed towards me all my life, so much so that I'm now effectively racist against myself? Am I just hopelessly naive in not seeing it? Or after a lifetime of evidence to the contrary, am I still hopefully trying to see the best in people?

 

[JoeZhang]

Interesting that this time, she's (apparently) been murdered by her phone, and also that she seemed to be squeezed into the milieu a bit. It's not impossible for a forty-ish woman to have a baby (even moreso when you consider the possibilities of adoption and fostering), but she was a bit old for the mother of a young adult by RTD standards.

I am guessing she is over writing the characters she appears to be rather than literally being them?

On the birth front, just like Asimov's spacers she is likely responsible for the genetic material rather than carrying to term. It's unlikely given what we know about the society that physical reproduction occurs.

 

[RevdKathy]

Why has that changed? Why isn’t the Doctor calling it out? Why isn’t Millie?
Clumsy. Serves fable, but not the character, serves the writer but not the show.)

I may be wrong here (admitting this is not my strong suit) but I wonder if it was easier for a (white privileged) Doctor to defend his companion against racism than it is for a black Doctor to defend himself?

The person who should have been the ally was Ruby.

I confess somewhere about 2/3 through I felt a visceral objection to Lindy, and even said out loud "I hope she dies" which is a totally out-of-character response from me. She was deeply unpleasant. And kudos to the Doctor that he still valued her life. Makes me think of all the (medical) doctors and other healthcare staff who go on calmly saving the lives of those who despise them.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I was thinking Solarians all the way through as well.

Now here's a thing. I'm an ethnic minority, a child of immigrants in the country I was born in. My experience of racism has ranged from the visceral to the subtle, and I've watched society's expression of such wax and wane. When I watch entertainment, I generally choose not to watch reflections of that. I get enough of it in the real world; unless it's flagged up before the show airs, "in a very special episode of..." or more usually a trigger warning beforehand, and a phone number to call for a hug afterwards.

There was none of that with Dot and Bubble, So I actively chose not to see it while I was watching it; instead trying to rationalise it away with other explanations. Indeed, the Solarian analogy from Asimov's The Naked Sun made the most sense to me. A society so fixated on their personal bubbles and social media interaction that they literally don't know how to walk without a personal SatNav, that they've never actually looked at the real world, never interacted with anyone in the flesh, never hugged. Imagine how they wouild react to people who did.

So when the final scene arrived, and Lindy and her contacts treated the Doctor in that way, I really couldn't believe what I'd seen. So much so that I was still trying to rationalise it when I switched over to the behind the scenes show, where Russell straight up came and said that yes, this was racism.

I don't know what that says about me. Have I picked up and internalised the unconscious bias that has been directed towards me all my life, so much so that I'm now effectively racist against myself? Am I just hopelessly naive in not seeing it? Or after a lifetime of evidence to the contrary, am I still hopefully trying to see the best in people?

I can see what they wanted to say, but I think they failed. How are we supposed to know that some one who has never heard of the planet Earth, is racist in the same way that the 20th century was racist?

They needed to say when and where Lindy was from, for there to be a chance that "our" (that we can recognize, but do not do) racism is anything like her racism, which may not be as irrational as what Earth has.

She may be racist against a different species.
She may be racist against some group who lost a war to her lot.
She may be racist to an artificial life form built to serve.
She may be racist against anyone not part of Fine Time.

Or she may have ten million year old preconceptions about Africa, when as stated before she doesn't know the name of her own home world, or if her home world is or is not Earth.

Theory!

The holiday world is world is Earth, which is how Ricky found a "book" about 1950s pop music.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I assume Finetime's inhabitants weren't meant to be humans as the blood spill that we saw was blue - possibly a reference to classism?

We were meant to sympathise with Lindy Pepper-Bean's plight, perhaps only picking up on her constant microaggressions and inherent nastiness retrospectively after she has Ricky September murdered by her dot. That was pretty shocking.

I kept think how much Callie Cooke reminds me of Rita Tushingham.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I may be wrong here (admitting this is not my strong suit) but I wonder if it was easier for a (white privileged) Doctor to defend his companion against racism than it is for a black Doctor to defend himself?

The person who should have been the ally was Ruby.

I confess somewhere about 2/3 through I felt a visceral objection to Lindy, and even said out loud "I hope she dies" which is a totally out-of-character response from me. She was deeply unpleasant. And kudos to the Doctor that he still valued her life. Makes me think of all the (medical) doctors and other healthcare staff who go on calmly saving the lives of those who despise them.

Ruby has a black mum.

She was raised black?

Is Ruby's mum a lesbian?

 

[Fantasy Lover]

I suppose it had to be subtle until the end because if it had been too on the nose from the get-go the audience wouldn't have been so invested in seeing people survive.

let's face it, if it was like Rosa it would have been declared "woke" and "pushing an agenda"

 

[jaime]

I may be wrong here (admitting this is not my strong suit) but I wonder if it was easier for a (white privileged) Doctor to defend his companion against racism than it is for a black Doctor to defend himself?

The person who should have been the ally was Ruby.

I confess somewhere about 2/3 through I felt a visceral objection to Lindy, and even said out loud "I hope she dies" which is a totally out-of-character response from me. She was deeply unpleasant. And kudos to the Doctor that he still valued her life. Makes me think of all the (medical) doctors and other healthcare staff who go on calmly saving the lives of those who despise them.

The problem is, The Doctor isn’t human. There’s no… baggage. White Privilege such as it is isn’t going to extend to alien worlds, or far future places etc. The Doctor on Earth is always the Alien, always the Other. The suggestion that the natural or instant response when faced with bigotry is to back down, to not say anything, is couched in something other than the character.
The idea that this is something this Doctor got along with his skin tone doesn’t set well with me — it suggests that no other doctor, across all of time, all of space, ever encountered prejudice before directed at them. (Which we already know is untrue, we’ve seen it in various forms, now and then.)
Are we really going to have a show say that human racial divides are that way across everything, for all time? That even non-human races will not ever express prejudice? (Which as we know is a nonsense, as no-one in all of creation is as big on racial purity as a Dalek.)

And yes, Ruby was written poorly into not saying shit as well — a woman from our time whose adoptive family are black.
Ace would have knocked some teeth out.

And all of this from the writer who put the words ‘you come in different colours now?’ into Donna’s mouth a handful of episodes ago. Along with all the ‘stupid ape’ stuff years back.
Someone may need not to look to the speck in their brothers eye basically, and think about whether their writing is addressing racism or just using it for a gotcha moment and *looking* like it’s doing something.
I will take Sylvester quietly chatting in a cafe, and Ace tearing a sign down, all day every day.

 

[jaime]

I can see what they wanted to say, but I think they failed. How are we supposed to know that some one who has never heard of the planet Earth, is racist in the same way that the 20th century was racist?

They needed to say when and where Lindy was from, for there to be a chance that "our" (that we can recognize, but do not do) racism is anything like her racism, which may not be as irrational as what Earth has.

She may be racist against a different species.
She may be racist against some group who lost a war to her lot.
She may be racist to an artificial life form built to serve.
She may be racist against anyone not part of Fine Time.

Or she may have ten million year old preconceptions about Africa, when as stated before she doesn't know the name of her own home world, or if her home world is or is not Earth.

Theory!

The holiday world is world is Earth, which is how Ricky found a "book" about 1950s pop music.

That’s why the Voodoo line was as close as they got explicitly saying anything.

 

[Guy Gardener]

That’s why the Voodoo line was as close as they got explicitly saying anything.

Everything they say, everything that we hear, even in English, is filtered and translated by the TARDIS into 21st century English for Ruby.

Thing is, 20th century English, 19th century English and 21st century English are different dictionaries added against the translation circuits, so what was a 20th century audience supposed to make of Jamie from the 19th century talking to Zoe from the 21st century?

If being blonde is so important, why does that girl dye her hair red?

Maybe they are all ginger, who dye their hair Nazi?

 

[matthunter]

Ruby has a black mum.

She was raised black?

Is Ruby's mum a lesbian?

Not explicitly stated, but Ruby's mum mentioned she'd "never had a man" when telling Ruby what men are like (disappearing into their sheds). She could just be unlucky in love or ace.

 

[Slugboy]

If being blonde is so important, why does that girl dye her hair red?

Interestingly, although there seems to be a range of hair colours, everybody in the Bubblesphere has light blue eyes (despite the fact that a majority of white people, on Earth, at least, don't have blue eyes). In fact, the only character in the whole episode with brown eyes is the Doctor.

 

[RevdKathy]

The problem is, The Doctor isn’t human. There’s no… baggage. White Privilege such as it is isn’t going to extend to alien worlds, or far future places etc. The Doctor on Earth is always the Alien, always the Other. The suggestion that the natural or instant response when faced with bigotry is to back down, to not say anything, is couched in something other than the character.
The idea that this is something this Doctor got along with his skin tone doesn’t set well with me — it suggests that no other doctor, across all of time, all of space, ever encountered prejudice before directed at them. (Which we already know is untrue, we’ve seen it in various forms, now and then.)
Are we really going to have a show say that human racial divides are that way across everything, for all time? That even non-human races will not ever express prejudice? (Which as we know is a nonsense, as no-one in all of creation is as big on racial purity as a Dalek.)

And yes, Ruby was written poorly into not saying shit as well — a woman from our time whose adoptive family are black.
Ace would have knocked some teeth out.

And all of this from the writer who put the words ‘you come in different colours now?’ into Donna’s mouth a handful of episodes ago. Along with all the ‘stupid ape’ stuff years back.
Someone may need not to look to the speck in their brothers eye basically, and think about whether their writing is addressing racism or just using it for a gotcha moment and *looking* like it’s doing something.
I will take Sylvester quietly chatting in a cafe, and Ace tearing a sign down, all day every day.

I hear your point that the Doctor is an alien... I think my point was more that it may be a less familiar experience for him to be on the receiving end of bigotry rather than witnessing it being weilded against someone else, so compared with his reaction to the treatment of Billie, he may be at a bit of a loss how to respond.

I do think Ruby should have reacted more, though. Unless the implication is she's just used to her loved ones being treated like that?

 

[jaime]

Everything they say, everything that we hear, even in English, is filtered and translated by the TARDIS into 21st century English for Ruby.

Thing is, 20th century English, 19th century English and 21st century English are different dictionaries added against the translation circuits, so what was a 20th century audience supposed to make of Jamie from the 19th century talking to Zoe from the 21st century?

If being blonde is so important, why does that girl dye her hair red?

Maybe they are all ginger, who dye their hair Nazi?

Things like ‘Melkur’ didn’t get translated from Trakenite to English. So gonna have to go with names and religions usually sticking to local lingua.
Plus the text was all English before we saw Ruby or the Doctor.
And that’s why they use Pentecost as a surname. Because A Point Is Being Made. And also slightly missed.

 

[jaime]

I hear your point that the Doctor is an alien... I think my point was more that it may be a less familiar experience for him to be on the receiving end of bigotry rather than witnessing it being weilded against someone else, so compared with his reaction to the treatment of Billie, he may be at a bit of a loss how to respond.

I do think Ruby should have reacted more, though. Unless the implication is she's just used to her loved ones being treated like that?

It’s becoming a bit of a theme of crying and running away/leaving. Which is getting a bit wearing.
(Edit: we’ve seen the Doctor subject to prejudice before — most recently with the ‘you’re a man’ which has happened a couple of times even way back (The Kinda were a matriarchy, the Doctor was ‘Idiot’. But also the ‘all the same’ remark about Time Lords and Daleks in Night of the Doctor. At the heart of it though is my problem with the idea that he never experienced racism *because he was white* across all of time and space. That’s pretty disheartening don’t you think? Mildly offensive if am honest.)

 

[Guy Gardener]

Things like ‘Melkur’ didn’t get translated from Trakenite to English. So gonna have to go with names and religions usually sticking to local lingua.
Plus the text was all English before we saw Ruby or the Doctor.
And that’s why they use Pentecost as a surname. Because A Point Is Being Made. And also slightly missed.

There were no Humans in the Keeper of Traken.

In Big Finish, eventually UNIT makes a (planet wide?) TARDIS detector, which has many sets of people talking foreign to each other, and neither can understand the other unless a TARDIS lands nearby.