oddiem

Toxic masculinity is indeed very pervasive. What surprised me most about the outrage at the announcement was that it was often coming from folks who don’t actually watch Doctor Who (not just the male nerd community). I wouldn’t try to say that only authentic (whatever that means) Whovians are entitled to an opinion, but perhaps they should have watched a couple of episodes before jumping on social media and saying that a woman can’t play the Doctor.

The examples used in this article were Hollywood remakes of older English-speaking films. I would be interested to see how this analysis changes when applied to the trend of Hollywood remakes of foreign language films. For example, there is a vocal criticism of American remakes of Japanese horror films (e.g., The Ring/Ringu, The Grudge/Ju-On, Dark Water/Dark Water, One Missed Call/Chakushin Ari). These criticisms stem not just from the artistic merit of the works, but also the ways in which race is taken up and cultural tropes are employed.

Growing up near Toronto, I had always wondered if the show(s) had any popularity outside of Canada (or even Ontario). The themes were bigger in terms of addressing social issues in the ways they affect adolescence, but something about viewing it felt hyperlocal because of the lack of Canadian media that was available for consumption as I was growing up.

Batman is an interesting example. It made me think how the dead/absent parent trope functions in comics in parallel ways to how it is taken up in fairy tales (for example, Spider-Man, Superman, Daredevil). Mostly, it is adult or near adult characters in comics (rather than children as protagonists). Many characters found heroics (or had a major story arc) in the face of a parental death. This seems to be less about the necessity of suspending disbelief for children’s fantastical adventures, and more about the significance of a life event that changes folks in an extraordinary way.