“Human progress is not measured by industry. It is measured by the value you place on a life. An unimportant life. A life without privilege.” (Thin Ice)
We tend to think of some words as uniquely human, a trait we as humans have that other species do not. Empathy is one of those words and while “there's no agreed-upon definition" (O’Brien) of empathy. Most though agree that it’s an emotional response to another’s plight, pain, state, or suffering. "It's not just putting oneself in another's shoes…it is truly grasping what they're experiencing” (Pincus). Yet it is something that animals can demonstrate by comforting, grieving, and even rescuing each other from harm at their own expense. Humanity is another one of those words. This word has a few definitions, one describing humans themselves, the other like empathy is much broader, it is being “compassionate, sympathetic, or having a generous behavior or disposition” (Webster) in a lot of ways, showing humanity is being empathetic.
The epigraph above continues as the Twelfth Doctor starts talking about a young boy who was homeless and died on a river. The quote continues by saying how we define that boy, his value, is what defines us, it is what defines our value, and it is what not only defines an age, but a species. The value you put on an unimportant life. With The Doctor traveling through time and space, things are not always linear, as before the Twelfth Doctor there was the Eleventh Doctor who said, “You know, nine hundred years of time and space and I've never met anybody who wasn't important before” (A Christmas Carol).
If we as a species are defined by how we value an unimportant life, a life of someone without privilege, that young boy who died on the river for example. Then that life is the furthest thing from unimportant because all life is now important. The TV show Doctor Who, a show about a mad man in a box traveling through time and space, really dives into a lot and if I were to break down everything, well The Doctor would need to take the Tardis to skip to when I finish this because that would take forever. In this paper though, I would like to explore how this show explores the social constructs humans have made like race, nationality, gender, money, and sexuality really become unimportant when viewed through the eyes of an alien. We are no longer any of these things that society has labeled us as but just human beings. What he sees us as is not judged by our skin color, what land lies beneath our feet, what is between our legs, how much money is in our bank, or who we are attracted to but by how much humanity we have. How empathetic you are to that young boy who died on the river.
In the second episode of the first season of Doctor Who, The Doctor takes Rose Tyler five billion years into the future to the day the sun expands and destroys the earth. They land on a spaceship that works more as an observation deck that is hosting a watch party of the end of the world. Rose being a human and until recently had no idea there was life out there other than humans is a bit taken back by the aliens on the ship. During this watch party things suddenly hit the fan when the shielding of the ship is shut down and everyone is now in danger of burning. Now The Doctor is trying to figure out who shut down the shields but while all this is going on Rose and The Doctor start talking and Rose is still taken back by the aliens and says, “The aliens. Are so alien. You look at 'em... and they are alien” (The End of the World). The Doctor then makes a joke about it being a good thing he did not take her to the deep south. This right here, is making it clear that she is judging these aliens by race. Rose then starts to get upset and started confronting The Doctor, wondering what type of alien he is and where he is from. The Doctor a bit upset says, “This is who I am, right here, right now, all right? All that counts is here and now, and this is me!” (The End of the World) trying to illustrate that just because he may be an alien from another planet, he is the one trying to save everyone. To The Doctor the whole notion of race and nationality is meaningless because The Doctor is the last of the time lords from Gallifrey, his race was known for traveling through time and space. They have seen it all, so someone being black, blue, polka-dotted, horned, or even tentacled is all seen under the same scope as intelligent life.
There is even an episode called The Rebel Flesh that shows this. In that episode there is something known as The Flesh, it was able to self-replicate, and they used it to clone the people working in dangerous fields. The original would be able to operate the clone like a driver would a car so if an accident happened, the clone died, and the human operator stayed safe. They did not know this flesh they were using was alive until a solar tsunami caused a group of these clones to separate from their drivers. These clones had every memory of their operator and even had their personalities. When The Doctor realized that The Flesh was alive, they attempted to find a peaceful solution, but they failed as the workers thought The Flesh needed to be decommissioned. They saw The Flesh, a living organism, like one would view a malfunctioning tool. The Flesh then rebelled for their right to exist. The Flesh were viewed by the workers as inferior to humans and felt every time a clone died, and it wanted to know why should they suffer for the sake of humans?
In the world we live in, it wasn’t until 1865 that the United States abolished slavery. “Slave owners throughout history considered slaves subhuman” (Smith). They were viewed as inferior for being a different race. This is likely how The Flesh felt. They looked human, they had the memories of their human counterpart, but they were subhuman to the workers. During this episode, The Doctor is constantly trying to show Amy, the companion at the time, that these clones are just as human as we are. While the reason for it is a part of a bigger story in the show, The Doctor was also showing the workers this too. When people and clones started to die, things start to reach a boiling point, that is when one of the dead worker’s sons called using a holographic phone. The clone starts talking to the boy, like he was his real dad. Having all the dad’s memories he was able to comfort the boy. He saw the boy as his son and the clone sided with The Doctor.
At that moment, it didn’t matter if the person talking to the boy was his real dad or the clone, as the boy didn’t know the difference. When The Doctor put the clone in a situation that removed the thing that separated the two sides, it showed that the two sides were the same. While one of the clones claims that The Doctor tricked him into an act of weakness, The Doctor claimed that it was an act of humanity. That act led to them overcoming everything and when everyone left some of the clones took the places of the people who died, to take care of their family, their kids. The rest went to expose that the company they were working for was using intelligent life as expendable slave labor to the world.
Going to all these different places in space and different time periods one might wonder how The Doctor can afford to travel everywhere. The Doctor will need things like food, shelter, clothes, and all the other everyday necessities needed to live. Money, like race, are also trivial to The Doctor. I like to think of The Doctor as a traveling gypsy, except traveling through time and space. Traveling the way The Doctor does things like a currency that may be used in a time period might not be what is used in a thousand years. It is definitely not what is going to be used on a different planet. The Doctor’s ship, the Tardis, is all The Doctor will ever need or want. It is a ship that is made with time lord technology and while it may look like a normal police box, when you step inside it is so much more. Think of it like Marry Poppins bag, it is bigger on the inside. Hundreds if not thousands of rooms, some with pools, some with libraries. Everything you will ever need to live can be found somewhere inside The Doctor’s Tardis.
This ship is everything to The Doctor. It’s an escape, it’s how The Doctor runs from the past, the future, or even boredom. In a lot of ways, The Tardis is The Doctor’s first love. In the episode "The Doctor's Wife" The Tardis even takes human form, and those feelings are seen to be mutual. You can’t put a price tag on love, not even The Tardis had one when The Doctor acquired it, as The Doctor stole it. In some time periods The Doctor does not have the money to even buy chips or coffee, in other time periods The Doctor will just use his sonic screwdriver to give you a credit card with unlimited credits or make an atm shoot money out. When you have everything, you will ever want or need, like in The Doctor’s case, things like paper coated in ink do not have value.
I mentioned earlier the conversation The Doctor had about that young boy on the river, The Doctor was talking to a wealthy businessman, Lord Sutcliffe. To The Doctor someone like that young boy who is living on the streets is just as important as someone like Lord Sutcliffe. Their social class does not matter as the whole notion of currency is trivial to The Doctor. What mattered was how Lord Sutcliffe treated that young boy and after finding out that he sacrifices people a creature imprisoned in the river so he could use its feces as a substitute for coal, The Doctor freed the creature causing Lord Sutcliffe to drown in the river. When The Doctor found out he left behind a will to leave everything to his cousin, The Doctor changed it so it was leaving everything behind to the children who are homeless. Lord Sutcliffe wanted to advance his country, but can you call it advancement when the price for it is another’s life? Was the price for utopia in “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” worth a child being locked away in a basement? The child in the basement of that story can be looked at like the boy who died in the river. An unimportant life that is now the furthest thing from unimportant.
What matters to The Doctor is how you treat someone; it does not matter who they are or even what sex they are or gravitate towards. As even things like sexual orientation and gender do not mean much to The Doctor who stated, “Biological sex is flexible among my people and gender is a social construct” (Houser). This is because of the Doctor’s race, they don’t really die, they regenerate. Think of it like reincarnation, they are just born again but with a new face, a new voice, new personality, a new everything. They can be male or female. While the Doctor is seen as asexual, The Doctor is married to a woman, but also has flirted with men, referring to a time when The Doctor was a man and calling The Master who at the time was also a man, his man crush. With The Doctor’s race being able to be both male and female they see no difference between the two and often is confused as to why humans spend so much time debating these types of issues.
At the end of the day, it boils down to the Doctor being the sort of character who makes everyone feel included, no matter who they were or where they come from. In a world where human beings are demonstrating more anxiety, anger, and aggression toward each other, The Doctor is sympathetic, empathetic, and compassionate to everyone he encounters. It’s just who The Doctor is and what I find so fascinating about the character as is if we remove these social constructs that society has built, it is who we could be. As that is who the companions of The Doctor become. They become the best of humanity. There is a lot of things we can learn from this show, but I think the most important thing, the twelfth doctor said it better than I ever could, “Never be cruel, never be cowardly, and never ever eat pears! Remember, hate is always foolish, but love is always wise. Always try to be nice, but never fail to be kind.” (Twice Upon a Time).