A Celebreation of Doctor Who by the Women Who Love It. Edited by Lynne M. Thomas and Tara O’Shea. Published by Mad Norwegian Press.
This blog is mostly for manga reviews, and I’ve been reading manga for almost 15 years now, so it’s a relatively old fandom of mine. But I’ve been a Doctor Who fan literally my entire life; some of my earliest memories are being utterly terrified by The Mutants when I was a little kid watching PBS. And I was reviewing Who online back before I even knew what manga was. Doctor Who is ingrained into my sense of self.
And it would appear I’m not alone, as can be seen in this fantastic collection of essays put out by Mad Norwegian Press. The book talks about female Doctor Who fandom, but as the back cover notes, you don’t have to be female to enjoy it. You just need a love of Doctor Who – no matter what the era.
I grew up in the States, so I didn’t have quite the same experience of ‘boys-club’ that female fans in Britain and Australia did. There always seemed to be a bunch of female Who fans at the conventions I attended as a kid. However, I certainly noticed the male bias – and tendency towards very male arguments – when I joined rec.arts.drwho in 1994. (It was on USENET! Remember USENET?) So a book like this was a lot of fun for me to read as it lacked a lot of the peevishness and entitlement that I saw on the old newsgroup.
The book is, more than an analysis of being a female Doctor Who fan, a celebration of Doctor Who itself. You can feel the enthusiasm and joy bubbling up from its pages. Favorite Doctors, identifying with companions, dressing up, drawing art, writing fanfics, writing smut… every aspect of who fandom you can think of is covered here, along with a reminder that Doctor Who’s very nature helps to keep the fandom alive, that it is (as several essays note) a fandom that regenerates and renews itself as its show does.
Not that the book is all squee. There are several articles on New Who that seem a bit dismayed at the portrayal of females in the series, and I found myself nodding in agreement a lot of the time. (I adored Donna, and felt what the Doctor did at Journey’s End to be a horrible decision.) But of course, none of this stops the writers from still being fans. Nor will it stop me. I can’t, at the moment, imagine not being a Doctor Who fan. Sure, I’ll disagree with things, or hate episodes and plots. But stop being a fan? Bah.
When I finished the book, there were so many essays I wanted to go back and reread. Helen Kang’s cultural analysis of the show and how peer pressure affects our fandoms growing up; Francesca Coppa’s essay about Nyssa, one of my favorite classic companions; Tammy Garrison and Katy Shuttleworth’s adorable Torchwood Babiez comic/essay; K. Tempest Bradford’s thoughtful article on her love of Martha and how the show’s writing keeps disappointing that love; and Christa Dickson’s argument in favor of the fandom having a healthy love of sex in the TARDIS.
But most of all, it made me immediately want to write my own essay dealing with my life as a Doctor Who fan. I had to rewrite this review a few times as I started rambling on about Peter Davison on WEDH 24, or Sylvester McCoy becoming *my* Doctor (which is usually the first question you get asked by fellow fans). But of course, my Doctor Who fandom essay can wait for another time. This is about Chicks Dig Time Lords, which merely inspires such thoughts. It reminds you how open, how BIG this community is. It makes you want to rewatch your episodes, to go to a convention, to sew a giant scarf, to get involved, And it leave a giant grin on your face. I can’t recommend it enough.
