ego.istic.org

While searching for episode details for that excellent BBC radio series Round the Horne, I stumbled across a page which strikes me as being a work of desperation: Leave the Girl, It's the Man I Want: The Evolving Guide to Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual Moments in Doctor Who. It is a catalogue of “lesbian, gay and bisexual moments (intentional and unintentional) in Doctor Who.” In fact, mostly it is a catalogue of innocuous moments in Dr Who that, if you are looking for innuendo, can be interpreted in that way.

In that respect there is a connection to Round the Horne and its predecessor Beyond Our Ken. When originally broadcast, they shocked audiences with their camp characters and numerous double entendres, but managed to largely escape censorship because none of their jokes were actually rude: all the sexual meaning came from the audience. Because of the reputation for being a bit blue, even the most innocent remark (especially the most innocent remark) would be greeted with roars of outraged laughter. But the nice BBC complaints department could feign innocence simply by pretending not to see it, and nobody prudish enough to write in to them could possibly spell out the meaning for them, so the jokes continued. As in modern production, if you're popular enough you can get away with anything.

And so it is with Dr Who. I'm sure that when the Daleks use their “vibroscopes”, they do so in reference to Duhamel's 19th century invention that uses strobe lighting to allow accurate measurements of the frequency of vibrating objects such as tuning-forks and guitar strings, but the author (who calls herself Nyder after a Dr Who character) chooses to interpret it differently.

I have mixed feelings about this list. (Already I realise the last sentence could itself fall foul to being reinterpreted, given the topic.) On one hand, it is entertaining seeing to what lengths Nyder will go to see secondary meanings, especially as Dr Who does get quite camp at times. On the other hand, it is yet another reflection of today's sexualization, where things that would have been interpreted as non-sexual at the time, such as two male characters sharing a bed out of necessity, are now risqué.

In a previous article, I identified this trend as “a new kind of homophobia,” but it is not so much a development of that as it is of acceptance of homosexuality. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when homosexuality was not spoken or thought of, there were still bounds of decency between men and women. Men and women who weren't married would not share a bed, or even be left alone unchaperoned in certain circumstances, even with innocent intentions, because of the lewd possibilities it offered. Such a situation could have comedic potential in the case of an exceptionally chivalrous gent going to great lengths to avoid even the suggestion of impropriety, or in more ribald comedies, a known rogue who might be trying to engineer a compromising situation with his secretary. (It is a reflection of the status of men and women in the society of that time that a female character in such a situation would be merely “willing” or “cool”.)

Now step forward a while. It is not only men and women who have their reputations to think of, it is men and men, and women and women. Now any situation can be misinterpreted. As well as the chivalrous gent, there is the man who doesn't want to be thought gay. The straight rogue is now complemented by a camp queer. (Camp straight people and gays who aren't at all camp are far too complicated for cheap laughs.) But fiction both lags and leads society in the large.

In a sense, there is no new trend of sexualization; rather, the existing things one did to protect one's reputation, like being unwilling to undress in the presence of a lady even with a valid and innocent reason, have seen an extension, a new universality, in response to the greater (perceived) diversity in sexual practice.

Homoerotic comedy is nothing new either. A few hundred years ago, women weren't allowed to become actors and female characters were all played by young boys; even then, cross-dressing was still funny.

But, as Merriman and Took (the scriptwriters for Beyond Our Ken and Round the Horne) found, you have to be looking for it to see it. Even as a modern viewer, although I find it hilarious how carefully they choreograph Jamie's action scenes to make sure you can't see up his kilt, I completely failed to see the double meaning in such dialogue as “‘He'll never come out!’ ‘But he must come out!’” and I don't notice anything queer when the Doctor visits a society apparently consisting entirely of men. But maybe that last one is just because I'm a computer scientist.