How is gender represented in Doctor Who?
In television Gender can be interpreted in many ways by the producers of the shows , gender usually can be shown as stereotypes in these shows. for example like women being shown not as powerful than men , and sexually and physically inferior to the men in the shows , in doctor who we see how this is not necessarily correct and that some characters show an unusual strength .
The first character we come across in doctor who is the master , who with the slow tempo non diagetic sound and low angle shots seems very powerful, he is a male and is shown in stereotype to be a very strong figure who looks as if they are blessed with lots of authority. furthermore , he is the four front of the camera shot and every one else in the picture is shadowed or reduced into the background by the camera, this is to show his power over all in the furthermore is misenscene , we look at him as he is on a balcony, which is a ploy to yet again raise him over us and as the audience we are made to feel like we are under him , connoting his dominance.
Then we see martha, she is walking in like a weak woman and is dominated by the guards she is with , the camera shots match with her, furthermore we see how she looks vulnerable like she has failed to her male colegause this may be a stereotype of how women may not be able to be independent, when she arrives at the fall of the balcony she is prevailed to look up at the master and his dominating male presence . then the master forces martha to her knees in front of him, this mid shot of looking at her and the sound in the background hitting a all time low, martha is being dominated , also the is sexual context of her being dominated. then we see a picture of martha looking up to the master , this is currently continuity editing as we see timed scenes one after each other , just before we see her de humanised by the master , we see martha walking into the room and we see how the camera follows her and this connotes that the audience should be with and behind her. there is also a jump cut to a view of her fellows who are looking at her in vulnerability.
further on from this we see lots of close ups on facial expressions, especially on martha who is made to look very scared and intimidated , the way she looks links to a female stereotype of how women may be weaker under mens pressure or they are weaker than men.in contrast to this, martha is wearing more masculine clothes and a very un stereotypical attire to what many theories may conform to , therefore she is most a victim of the male gaze unlike the women in the revealing red dress who has no point to the show what so ever, so in contrast this shows how there is a different side to martha through misenscene.
in the next scenes we see a rise from martha and the doctor explaining how they are going to defeat the master, the sound music in the scenes takes a new victorious classic up beat approach to rise the spirit of us as the audience . we then see muddled flashbacks which show that the editing was purposeless mumbled to give us a vague look at what she was doing in her work, this is not flowing scenes, in the actual scenes we see how hard and vigorous the work from martha was and we see how she may be iconed as a hard overworking figure which may go against stereotypes in general.also during the closing scenes there is a timer which is counting down , this timer when watching from the audience makes a noise but not when the camera is not focused on it, the clock makes tension for the characters and viewers and adds to the scene and how much martha has got to over come.
after martha has defeated the masters quest the doctor takes over and is edited to grow and appear in some blue bubble like forcefield we see man a very strong and authoritative structure which may relate to a male stereotype that men are strong. this part of the clip puts men and women on a par which isn't usual for tv shows where women can be victims , this is against any stereotypes.
in general apart from the strong stereotypical scenes at the start the , the show of doctor who isn't conforming to any gender stereotypes and is fair to both women and men during the scenes , especially as a super powerful male character is saved by a female character which is usual the other way round.
