Is there any pattern to Who fans?
- Thread starter voggmo
- Start date
maybe they could do it when they do the London Pride event, the one with the Doctor Who open air screening.The readers of Pink Paper did, yeah.DAK said:
As far as I'm aware, "the gay community in the UK" don't have a big organised election where they vote for sexiness. Maybe they should.
Something like "the offical London Pride Man of the Year"
Well good then. not a nerd show or guy show. Works for people across the board. Cop & Hospital dramas in decades past it seems were more the broadscale audience thing for tv, Hillstreet Blues, ER etc. Sci Fi did better in the theater. In recent days it seems to have changed with all the Trek spinoffs & Who & Battlestar Gallactica doing the return & conquer thing.
Probably partly because of RTD. (Not to mention John Barrowman.)
No, classic Who has had a large gay following since the 80s, and probably back to the mid-70s.
Camp is a tough thing to define, one of those cases where everyone has some idea what it means but none of the ideas quite match. For some, camp just means "so bad it's good," and it's difficult to deny that taking the piss out of the show's technical limitations has been a major part of Who fandom for many years. By this definition, even things that worked at the time have become camp with the benefit of hindsight.
Other definitions focus on camp as a conscious decision to be ironically unrealistic rather than realistic. This isn't as commonly visible in Doctor Who as make-do tackiness, but I think a lot of people would argue that it's under the surface all the time, and occasionally emerges in obvious. When Tom Baker looks right at the camera and intones, "Even the sonic screwdriver won't get me out of this one!", or when the bad guys literally have zippers around the head of the people suits that are smaller than they are, that's pretty clearly winking at the audience in the manner of camp.
Other definitions focus on camp as a conscious decision to be ironically unrealistic rather than realistic. This isn't as commonly visible in Doctor Who as make-do tackiness, but I think a lot of people would argue that it's under the surface all the time, and occasionally emerges in obvious. When Tom Baker looks right at the camera and intones, "Even the sonic screwdriver won't get me out of this one!", or when the bad guys literally have zippers around the head of the people suits that are smaller than they are, that's pretty clearly winking at the audience in the manner of camp.
I think there's a difference between a show that sometimes quite knowingly winks at the viewer in camp moment, and a show that one could describe as camp.
It's hard to call something like Human Nature/The Family of Blood camp after all? Meanwhile Aliens of London WW3 is more enjobale if you treat it that way
It's hard to call something like Human Nature/The Family of Blood camp after all? Meanwhile Aliens of London WW3 is more enjobale if you treat it that way
Well, that depends- for one thing, is most of Doctor Who's 45 year history closer to "Human Nature" or to "Aliens of London?" (This is a different question from "Are the bits of Doctor Who that one likes best closer to 'Human Nature' or to 'Aliens of London?'")
For another thing, even "Human Nature" has its share of quasi-comic exaggeration- the ludicrous sequence where the Doctor saves a baby from a falling piano with a cricket ball, and the performances of most of the members of the Family of Blood. It doesn't fit the obvious idea of camp since it's not played principally for comedy, but the basic idea of adopting rather than shunning absurdity is at least a little camp.
For another thing, even "Human Nature" has its share of quasi-comic exaggeration- the ludicrous sequence where the Doctor saves a baby from a falling piano with a cricket ball, and the performances of most of the members of the Family of Blood. It doesn't fit the obvious idea of camp since it's not played principally for comedy, but the basic idea of adopting rather than shunning absurdity is at least a little camp.
Okay, I'm a bit lost.
I mean, yeah, when I went to Xena conventions, I was one of the few straight women in the room. That said, I'd be stunned if there were stats that cons back in the old Whovian days didn't have a predominantly male audience. I've been going to cons of various stripes for 15 years now, and pretty much all of them have been predominantly male in attendance. How does that translate into a big gay following for old Who?
I don't have any ratings info handy, I'm just going on personal experience here, but back in the 70s and early 80s, wasn't Who far more successful in the male demographic just in general?
That said, I'd be stunned if there were stats that cons back in the old Whovian days didn't have a predominantly male audience. I've been going to cons of various stripes for 15 years now, and pretty much all of them have been predominantly male in attendance. How does that translate into a big gay following for old Who?
I didn't intend to imply that a male attendance meant a gay fandom. I could probably have worded it better. As for predominately male attendance at cons, in my Trek going experience I feel it's been about 50/50. Maybe 60/40. My first con was back in 83. Although to be fair, I can barely recall that far back!
Dr. Who in the old days was a filmed live action show graffes were very common in those days and the cheapness of the show came though at times but it wasn't intentionally done. In fact both Janet Fielding and Peter Davison tried unsuccessful to convince JNT to produce a better show instead of trying to cater to demographic, they talk about this on the Warriors Of The Deep DVD.
It's like a sci-fi action-adventure children's melodrama adult melodrama chick flick guy's movie serialized episodic drama-comedy.
That's impossible!
"Not impossible, just a bit unlikely."
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