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bisexuality, Doctor Who, identity, invisibility, not fitting the heteronormative paradigm, queer, television
This post, while not strictly speaking about Doctor Who, contains a spoiler for the second episode in the current (sixth) series.
There was a rather splendid character in the opening series six storyline of Doctor Who by the name of Canton Everett Delaware III. He had presence, a beautiful wit, and, in the grand tradition, he helped the Doctor, Rory, and Amy save the planet. Towards the end, he is left standing in the Oval Office with President Nixon as the Doctor and company leave in the TARDIS, the litle blue box in which they travel the universe. We know that Canton had been made to leave the FBI because he wanted to get married, and President Nixon guesses that he was kicked out because this person is black. He’s right, as Canton tells him, but this person is also a man. It was a beautifully done scene, with well balanced writing, a perfect choice of camera angles, and some fabulous, understated acting. (It made my little drama school grad heart sing, can you tell?)
So, fond of Canton as I am, I typed the character’s name into my search engine, and his TARDIS Index File at the Doctor Who Wiki came up. The first line of the biography is this: ‘Canton was an FBI agent who was forced to quit the bureau due to his homosexuality and intention to marry a black man.’
I’m sorry, what? Were we watching entirely different episodes? Did the ABC iView copy of the episode miss a few crucial lines? Can you see what’s missing?
The thing is, there’s an assumption in that sentence I’ve seen repeated in conversations I’ve seen and had about Canton, and it’s been irritating me a great deal for a few weeks. I don’t remember Canton saying a word about his sexual orientation. But loads of other Whovians seem to have taken Canton’s saying that he is in love with this one man as his saying that he is gay. There isn’t any room for, I don’t know, the potential for nonmonosexuality, or letting a character go unlabelled. I don’t know if it’s a matter of my having interacted with Westerners who can’t quite seem to shake binary oppositions, (SOMEONE’S BEEN READING FOUCAULT) or just my unwillingness to ascribe identities to people without their say so, (see my Invisible Identities series) but this presumptive leap has been annoying me very much indeed.
It’s as though I – video and transcript at the bottom – heard this:
President Nixon: This person you want to marry. Black?
Canton: Yes.
President Nixon: Mm. I know what people think of me, but perhaps I’m a little more liberal-
Canton: He is.
And a fair portion of Doctor Who fandom heard this:
President Nixon: Sooooooo.
Canton: I’m gay, if that explains anything.
President Nixon: I’m just going to stand here and look really uncomfortable until the end of the scene.
Let’s try that with subtext, shall we?
President Nixon: Let’s see about getting you your job back, okay?
Canton: I’m gay. I’m gay like a gay thing on Gay Street in the gaytime. Gay gay gay, gay gay gay, I am so very gay. Gay.
President Nixon: Listen-
Canton: GAY.
President Nixon: Now, look, son, you’ve just upset the dramatic balance of the excellent scene we rehearsed with what you’ve now made a, I’m sure, vital, but nonetheless, in narrative terms, nonsensical outburst there.
Canton: But you see, Mr President, that doesn’t really matter. You see, some Doctor Who fans, including that Chally lady, have gotten a bit pissy since Russell T. Davies and Phil Collinson stopped working on the show and a lot of the queer characters and sensibilities disappeared.
President Nixon: So you’re here to right those wrongs?
Canton: Exactly. I’m also here to take a conversation about the 1960s United States civil rights movement and make it about a 2011-era fight for marriage equality for those of us who aren’t straight – er, I mean, people identified as gay and lesbian in particular, not all people who want the right to marry people who are not of their presumed or actual gender binary opposite.
President Nixon: Okay. So my role here is to look really awkward for a minute while you look confident and serene?
Canton: Appreciate it.
Yeah, but no.
You know, Canton might be gay. That’s fine, that’s cool, that’s okay. But in the absence of anything definitive, I think labelling might not be such a crash hot idea. I am particularly thinking that this is a kids’ show, one with, since the 2005 revival, the reputation of being pretty queer-friendly, and I am thinking of the young nonmonosexual folk watching it and being glad that queer folk like them are being represented, only to have a bunch of people make sure that, once more, a character who might be just like them is actually, definitively not.
I’m thinking of Willow Rosenberg from Buffy (a show I really need to watch properly one of these days!) and Callie Torres from Grey’s Anatomy, and how they go from being explicitly coded as bisexual to being, well, not (although there has been a bit of a turnaround with Callie, but we will see). While I’m on the subject, I don’t mean that there’s anything wrong with a character’s thinking about their own sexuality going from ‘I’m straight’ to ‘I’m bisexual’ to ‘I’m actually a lesbian/gay’. What bothers me in representations like Callie’s is that her thinking and processing gets made invisible, and, once she starts dating women, she automatically starts getting labelled as a lesbian in the script. The message there and in similar representations is that bisexuality is inevitably just a stop on the way to monosexual queerness, a trope harmfully directed at bisexual and other nonmonosexual people all the time.
What I am thinking, in short, is that coding every person of binary gender (or whom you read as being of binary gender…) you encounter who is in a relationship with a person of that gender as gay, or in a relationship with a person on the other side of the binary as straight, is a pretty shitty thing to do. It’s a big world, and I think that, both in the consumption of media and in our daily lives, we can do better than assigning identities to people they may well not share. Anyone marginally familiar with the bisexual community in particular will be aware of how damaging that invisibility, not to mention that requirement to “pick a side” and so forth, is.
I was wanting to recommend you two pieces related to the subject. One is gyzym’s this…is a 5,000 word rambling essay on bisexuality. no, i don’t know either., which I linked to just the other day, and is absolutely fantastic. The other is the piece that finally pushed me to write this after weeks of grumbling, Why I Write Bisexual Characters by Ingrid Diaz. I really suggest that you click through, but, in case you don’t: Ingrid is a writer and a lesbian, and the part of the post that really got to me was when she tells a story about her first love, a bisexual woman. They went to a university queer women’s group and had the heart wrenching experience of being subject to rants about how bisexual women were horrible and holding lesbian rights back. Ingrid’s girlfriend walked out. And reading that post made me cry, and it’s making me cry again, because it is a terrible thing to go into a space in which you believe yourself welcome only to be informed that you are an aberration.
I don’t know. I just think there should be a little more nuance in the world. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy – DRAMA SCHOOL – but this isn’t one beyond dreaming. Being a little bit open to difference isn’t hard and could save a lot of people a load of heartache.
Transcript:
The Doctor turns from President Nixon to Canton and shakes his hand.
The Doctor: Canton. Until the next one, eh?
Canton: Looking forward to it.
The Doctor fluidly turns back to President Nixon.
The Doctor: Canton just wants to get married. Hell of a reason to kick him out of the FBI.
President Nixon: I’m sure something can be arranged.
The Doctor: I’m counting on you.
[Part of the scene that is about President Nixon's legacy is cut.] The Doctor’s voice is heard as he moves out of shot.
The Doctor: Say hi to David Frost for me.
President Nixon: David Frost…?
Canton and President Nixon stand together as the TARDIS crew pile in and leave. The TARDIS is heard dematerialising as we zoom in on Canton and the President.
President Nixon: This person you want to marry. Black?
Canton: Yes.
President Nixon nods sympathetically.
President Nixon: Mm. I know what people think of me, but perhaps I’m a little more liberal-
Canton: He is.
President Nixon turns slowly to Canton as brass instruments start up.
President Nixon: I think the moon is far enough for now, don’t you, Mr Delaware?
Canton: I figured it might be.
Canton turns back to his front as President Nixon nods again and turns his head away from Canton and breathes out in a rush.
Thanks Chally this is an awesome post. :)
I was thinking of you in writing it, Ms Rebecca. :)
I also felt that it was handled in a very tokenistic fashion. He was a great character – a great performance, as you say – but his sexuality was tapped on in the last few lines. Which made for a poignant punchline I guess and it was a very nicely handled scene, but didn’t exactly make for queer representation because we only saw the queerness at the very last minute.
Love both the essays you linked to. I struggle a lot with the labels because of how other people read them and weirdly I have struggled even more recently, just when you’d think it had settled down. Last month I wrote about how film and programme-makers seem less able to cope with nonmonosexual people than early twentieth-century novelists: http://blobolobolob.blogspot.com/2011/04/losing-ambiguity.html
which is a surprising kind of tragedy really.
I liked the surprise, the moment where I asked myself why I had assumed he was straight, and how his sexual preference would have had any visible impact on his intelligence, professionalism and ability.
Then again, assuming every person/character in a same-sex relationship to be bisexual is a kind of labeling in the opposite direction, isn’t it? Would you not then be doing a disservice to every person/character that is actually homosexual by making the assumption that they are bisexual?
Canton: I’m in a relationship with a man.
Nixon: Oh, so you’re bi?
Canton: No I’m gay! Gay gay gay! (Grabs the tape recorder) This is Canton to remind Dick that I AM GAY,! DICK! And that IS your name!
As far as the scene itself goes, I don’t see why we needed to know from the onset about Canton’s sexuality. The idea that every LGBT character’s sexuality has to be out front and center in every story is in my opinion kind of a throwback to the days when “Happy Days” had to have a Very Special Episode about Ritchie befriending a Negro (gasp!). Doctor Who is one of the few shows where LGBT is so accepted it’s pretty much a non-issue. This is the same series that introduced the first bisexual action hero (well actually pansexual), confirmed that Time Lords can change sex when they regenerate, and featured an iconic sci-fi character flirting with the same sex. I think we can cut them some slack on this one.
Good thing, then, that I’m not saying that everyone should be assumed to be bisexual. I’m saying that we shouldn’t assume in exclusionary ways. I like the idea that there may well be queer characters in the show who we aren’t explicitly told are queer. I’m not locating this problem with the creators of the show, but with the viewers.
Just to clarify then, you’re saying that *no* assumptions can be made regarding a person’s sexuality no matter what we may know of them? That assuming someone is straight because they have a partner of the opposite sex is just as bad as assuming someone is gay because they have a partner of the same sex? That in effect, we cannot make any assumptions until said person informs us of how they see themselves?
I’m saying that knowing about one relationship doesn’t mean that you know everything about a person’s history and desires. I try not to assume that people partnered with people of either the same or opposite sex are monosexual, although I often do assume! I think it’s pretty routine for human beings to make assumptions, but, well, let’s look at how assumptions operate when it comes to socially marginalised groups.
If we assume that everyone we encounter is straight until we know otherwise, that’s because of the same assumptions around heteronormativity that feed into queer invisibility and the idea that heterosexuality is the normal, default way of being. And then, with assumptions that all people in same-sex relationships identify as gay or lesbian, that gets into something known in queer studies as homonormativity: the centring of monosexuality in LGBTQIAetcetc politics. One kind of visibility comes at the expense of all those other identities constructed as non-normative.
I try not to assume I know what is going on in people’s hearts because this normativity is such a problem, and also because I like living in a world in which people are more various than I might think at first glance. Calling a bisexual person a lesbian, for instance, isn’t just a matter of getting a word wrong. It contributes to bisexual invisibility – devalues bisexuality – in a world in which bisexuality is largely constructed as not being quite so legitimate as lesbianism, or not real at all. It’s pretty easy to not set up rigid dichotomies and make assumptions so that vulnerable people can be more comfortable in their own skins.
So, in short, one can make assumptions, but a lot of the time it is an unkind thing to do, and it’s not hard to be open to nuance. I’ve seen too many people lose friends and communities and identity because other people couldn’t handle non-binaristic sexuality, and I don’t want to be a part, even in a small way, of what makes that okay. That’s all.
I think that assumptions also ignore the fact that sexuality can be a very fluid thing for some people, with people moving themselves between one sexual orientation and another, both monosexual and nonmonosexual orientations – the beauty of being able to change your mind and/or realise that there was more to yourself than you previously thought.
Bi-invisibility is of course a hot button issue for me – what with being bisexual and having had abuse thrown at me at the Melbourne Pride March (of all things) because I was marching with my bisexual community. Yes, I do exist, yes I do have a valid sexual orientation, and yes thank you for proving that you’re biphobic. The fact that those making negative comments thought that bisexuality didn’t exist was a big problem for some of the members of our group.
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Just to clarify then, you’re saying that *no* assumptions can be made regarding a person’s sexuality no matter what we may know of them? That assuming someone is straight because they have a partner of the opposite sex is just as bad as assuming someone is gay because they have a partner of the same sex? That in effect, we cannot make any assumptions until said person informs us of how they see themselves?
Sounds good to me. Only applying labels people identify as to them is respectful behaviour. (…that was a really convoluted sentence but I’m not sure how to rephrase it.)
I’ve been thinking about this a bit more, and may even dedicate a blog post to it, but will include my comments here on it, just in case I run out of time or am distracted by another hot button topic.
I think that in many cases, when you are part of a minority group, and you see someone else more famous than you appear (even a character) to be part of that same group, then there is a completely understandable desire for that character/person to be like you. Because nonmonosexuality is mostly invisible, it is much harder for nonmonosexuals to claim a character/person as a member of their community unless that character/person specifically states that they are nonmonosexual.
Watching my bisexual community’s frustration that Ricky Martin outed himself as gay after believing that he was bisexual, means that there are people who are quite territorial of those that are like them. Suggesting that Canton might be nonmonosexual may take away from them someone else to identify with. Sad as that it.
I know how happy the poly community in Melbourne was when it was revealed that Tilda Swinton was poly – Look a famous poly person – see that legitimises us.
I don’t really have a solution for this, other than increasing the visibility and normality of sexualities other than heterosexuality, so that assumptions are no longer thought about, and that there was no shame/stigma/safety issues with identifying with anything other than straight.
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