Dr Who

I've recently started watching Dr Who (the more recent series, the one that started in 2005. The old one from the sixties makes me have to switch between UK and US Netflix to get more episodes, and I haven't had the patience for that yet), and something struck me, and I'm kind of sad that it struck me.

The show is so much more racially diverse than almost every other TV show I've ever watched. There are a lot of secondary characters of obviously various backgrounds. It's pretty fantastic. And there are enough of them who are important to the plot that they aren't "the token Asian," or "the token black man," or "the token non-white person." And you really don't see that. If there's a person of colour, they tend to be the only person except for maybe crowd scenes.

But how sad is it that a show that seems like it has naturally-occurring racial diversity, like most of our workplaces and schools do, strikes me as being more the odd-man-out among television than most shows?

North America is inarguably an immigrant nation. Unless you have First Nations ancestry, your ancestors immigrated here. And, technically, even if you do have First Nations ancestry, your ancestors immigrated here over the land bridge between Asia and North America before the split apart. There is huge diversity here, you see it walking down the street, when you're out to eat, when you're in class (especially when Kelsey's in class, because she is quite often teaching those very same immigrants. :D).

I mean, there is the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media which is raising awareness of the disparity in men and women in media (2.42 men for every 1 woman), but is there something out there doing the same thing for race? I hope so, but I couldn't find anything with my quick Google. But then, I'm terrible with Google search terms, I can't even find things I found before on Google.

But I hope so. Otherwise, it's really depressing to think that there are still too many people who'd refuse to watch anything with a non-white lead (who isn't Samuel L. Jackson or Will Smith) for the entertainment business to cast them.

Also, Dr Who is freakin' awesome, and I finally understand some of the millions of memes about him that my friends post on Facebook every damn day. Seriously, people, I have to scroll past like 15 Dr Who related pictures every single day! It's excessive. I mean, I like it and all but GOOD GOD that's a lot of memes.