I am real. Everybody out there living without opportunities because they’re poor are real. Every person out there living through modern day poverty are real. They feel, they think, they suffer, they live etc etc you get the point.
Rose Tyler and Dan Lewis Are Not Real. Dan and Rose do not suffer, they do not live without opportunities because of their financial status because they don’t live at all. They are characters created by writers whom live in a fictional display of our actual lived reality whom are therefore not able to suffer or feel anything by being used as a way form a narrative. Doctor Who is fiction, not a reality show. It’s a fictional show that for 60 years now has been used to make societal commentary in such a way that isn’t harmfully using real people as guinea pigs.
Dan and Rose are vehicles to tell stories and point out social inequities with. As a culture we use stories to demonstrate to viewers points of view and social inequities they may not understand or have any knowledge of because of Their real life circumstances being so different from the fictional Characters who portray the lived reality of Actual people without actually living it.
As such, Dan and Rose’s stories are Both critiques of Capitalism. The root evil is capitalism. It has harmed these innocent, deserving characters (whom Represent real people without being real) through no fault of their own but just because they live in a society without equity and weren’t lucky to be born loaded.
I am repeating myself, but i reiterate. They are not real. They are here to portray things about our society in ways that cannot harm actual people by using them as a twisted inspiration p/orn fantasy about how ‘look how they started out poor! look where they are now!!! look, it can happen to You if you’re lucky enough and work super hard!!!’ which then allows people to turn away and not think critically about how evil that is, or their own complicity in the utterly rotten system. It allows the fix it to be other peoples problems, these people can escape if they’re lucky and work hard even if they hate it! it doesn’t force people to think that this whole thing is Wrong and that actual real life work needs to be put in to stop people falling through the cracks. It doesn’t say something needs to be done about the way things work because it’s fine! they could get Lucky. It has Nothing to do with Me.
In as such, Dan getting a fix it would just be a societal wide absolving of guilt because he Could get out of it without Us as a society having to do any work, right? He just has to wait and be Lucky while living miserably and hungry for one of those lucky people to bail him out.
Pointing out that Dan has worth and meaning as a homeless person whose life is not magically fixed by being a companion is not cruel because Dan is not a real person. The story is not Trying to say they have an answer to systematic poverty, they’d never have the time for that, they Are however saying that Dan and the Real people like him have worth and meaning and that society needs to stop shitting on them. A lesson many people stand to learn, I know this because I saw the disgust from people that doctor who introduced a companion in poverty who doesn’t Deserve the privilege of travelling with the doctor because he’s lazy and a failure as a man and isn’t willing to work himself to death. Again. The message that he has worth was utterly vital to send.
But giving Dan self worth And Money is giving the message that Dan has worth BECAUSE of the money. It is the literal opposite of what is being said by this arc.
And for the 8th time (probably, not counted) this being said in Fiction with fake people allows somebody to make this point on prime time BBC without actually victimising real homeless people who absolutely should get that wad of cash you have spare! You should absolutely put food in the food bank buckets (gonna shill this for england (possibly uk) readers, but there’s an app called bankthefood where you can learn what items your local food banks are desperate for, once you buy it and leave it in the collection bin you input what you bought in what quantity so they know what they will have coming into their stock. A lot of the times the things they need are stuff like nappies, sanitary pads and toothpaste, not the tinned food most people put in donations bins, it is worth downloading to get them the items they really need.) You should absolutely do all these things to help make homeless people and people living in poverty have a slightly easier time of it because they’re real life people stuck in an evil system who Do stand to be victimised by people not helping.
But Doctor who is pointing out a Societal issue that needs to be fixed by Society, not the charity of individual people like me using that app, or idk, the doctor robbing a bank for Dan (tho, the show i still saying you should help. food bank. yeah). You are supposed to think bigger, and having their avatar of the problem get lucky and win a boon is encouraging the audience to Look Away and absolve themselves, not look closer and help fix the societal problem.
I can advocate for change and so can you, I can advocate to end homelessness and for universal basic income, but i am but one cog in a machine who is, also, poor myself, realistically the most I can do as an individual is try and ease the burden a little with what little i can afford to give while also being vocal about the Societal issue dw is tackling here. In this sense, I am 13 here, One Person cannot fix this, so she did not. She couldn’t.
But really, Dan is not real. Implying the Societal Issue they’re displaying with him can be fixed and put to bed by him getting money is false, all that can do is give him money. And getting a boon and suddenly ‘winning’ at capitalism through either luck or dodgy dealings is literally a facet of how capitalism works. It’s championing the evil thing they are pointing out is wrong.
So yeah, it’d be great if people gave the person struggling money, but the point of Dan Lewis is not that he is struggling.
It’s the Reason why he’s struggling. Also. He’s not real.
And to break form and go Watsonian instead of Doyleist, i’m honestly not sure how anybody thinks this ‘13 fixes Dan’s problems’ thing could have happened Anyway btw, 13 did not destroy Dan’s house nor is she ever shown to have the tech to Fix it, it’s not her fault he’s living in poverty nor is it her fault he’s homeless. Nor did she even have the time to do anything about it once he said he wanted to leave.
She cannot fix the museum not allowing him to work despite his willingness or blatant skill at the work, she also cannot fix the systematic failure of capitalism that left him with his only choice being a plasterer that he obviously does Not Want To Do. She cannot fix the way our culture has moulded people to think that accepting help is disgraceful and those who cannot provide are failures.
Do you want her to do what ten did and go Cheat at the lottery? (and with the caveat that I know lotteries are basically just gambling scams and all and just another rotten facet of capitalism) All 10 did was scam whoever Would have gotten that money out of it by Cheating and giving it to Donna instead. I am not even sure if Donna’s story was meant to critique emotionally abusive behaviour or capitalism because it’s… Not clear either way you want to view it, imo, but you cannot critique something with a whole ass arc about how evil it is and then Abuse it to your own means as the happy ending! I mean, for some problems that’d work as a narrative, but we’re talking about capitalism where the way to win is cheating and stepping on necks, so That’s not a critique, that’s literally just how capitalism works! That was ten winning at the game.
And Rose’s issues are literally fixed by a class bump. Which is tragic for the girl whose character is founded on her empathy with other working class people just like her. Her living in the other reality where Rose is middle class (or possibly higher, i have little to no clue how the class boundaries would have been drawn back in the 2000′s at this point) is making the systematic issue the show wants us to care about not be a problem anymore because, look, fixed it! She’s not working class anymore so all the problems are gone, happy ending! For Rose only.
It’s fundamentally selfish of a narrative, and you can uhm and ahh over if it’s in character for Rose to not care about it being just her escaping the noose of being poor when the show stops caring about the other people like her, but that is so Toothless a critique of capitalism it’s barely a critique anymore.
I do not expect dw to offer the solution to systematic poverty or homelessness, it’s basically a YA tv show, but i Would like if it did not accidentally ally itself with the system of capitalism it is trying to slam.
It’s also important to mention that none of these people are real and cannot be harmed by not getting a white knight, they are fictional avatars used to portray the intricacies of real life problems without the issue of doing so actively victimising real humans. To claim that anybody wanting a show to portray the shitty reality of poverty with honesty, so ignorant people understand said reality in a totally fictional way, is equating to real life in any way, shape or form is disingenuous to the extreme. People need to understand that the great majority of people in this situation get no white knights. Rich people in their homes don’t deserve the comforting thought that Somebody Else will fix it for them.
The show saying Dan -the homeless man- is worth something and should have self worth, self respect, and the respect of others is a message that should be sent to people living the reality of his story because society tries to tell them otherwise.
That this reality cannot be fixed easily or with a bow is also a message that should be sent. I care about Dan, he should have better, but he is beyond suffering and is not real, and this show is about pointing/calling out social inequity and has been for decades. This issue is Dan’s function. This in no way harms real people.
Fiction and reality are separate. Feeling empathy for Dan does not make him any more real, it just makes him written well enough that you care he’s in a shit situation. The point is you watch this and then stretch that empathy to the real people like him and care about the issue of systematic poverty in real life.
slight aside, but star trek’s future utopia is an acknowledgement of the system of capitalism being evil After the fact. It is saying people will work for passion (like dan literally does but bc capitalism is not Allowed) and that everybody deserves and will thrive if guaranteed the basics needed to live. It erased capitalism. It does not Use it to help people, it points out people were in trouble Because of it. This is, btw, what Dan’s story is also saying from a modern day perspective in a time period where we are all still stuck unable to escape from said evil system and Have to exist in it. Harsh reality, no utopia, no escape without Systematic Change. Sure, this perspective is more miserable, but trek is saying We Can Do This Because We Already Did, and doctor who is saying We Need To Do Something Now Because People Are Suffering.
and really, guys, if 13 went and handed Dan half a million… Do you really actually believe he’d keep it for himself?
izzy806
kianamaiart
romaincrisis
amandla
