By Jaina Debnam
Edited by Austin Steele and Avin Houro
In her 1985 essay, ‘A Cyborg Manifesto,’ Donna Haraway discussed how cyborg imagery can be used in order to rethink the language we use to discuss ourselves, our societies and our bodies. A key point I took from the essay was Haraway’s consideration of dualisms and how the cyborg transcends these due to its liminal status.1 I find this concept interesting, particularly when considering the issue of gender and how the cyborg can be used to challenge binary categories. Science fiction as a genre enables the exploration of human potential and Haraway’s cyborg presents the potential to transcend socially constructed categories. In this essay, I will consider how the science fiction television programme, Doctor Who, presents gender and queer identities and argue that, using the language of ‘A Cyborg Manifesto,’ one can see how the programme encourages the same questioning of binary categories and presents the need for a new language to understand our identities. I will further discuss the trajectory of the cyborg within the show and how the Cybermen have gone from presenting fear of technological assimilation to presenting the potential of human development and, as Haraway argued for, less of a fear of technological progress. Ultimately, I contend that Haraway’s argument for the need to question boundaries can certainly be seen in the programme and modern audiences are encouraged, as Haraway asked, to question the assumptions and ideology that underpin their world view.
Within the essay, one of Haraway’s key lines of argument was how cyborg imagery can be used to help understand the variability of human identity. Haraway contended that the cyborg may consider the fluidity of gender and that gender itself may ‘not be a global identity after all.’2 The Time Lords, the species to which the Doctor belongs, are presented in recent series as being gender-fluid, possessing the ability to regenerate their bodies, and the newest incarnation of the Doctor is a woman. Raymond Disanza discussed the impact of the newest Doctor and the introduction of gender fluidity into the programme. Disanza pointed out that the Thirteenth Doctor, the first female incarnation shown, never stops to question her gender, rather appearing comfortable within it and only notes the difference when in historical contexts, in which being a man would change their power within the situation.3 The Doctor’s perhaps stereotypically feminine traits, such as her compassion or opposition to violence and war, are not new to this regeneration and imply that the Doctor has never fit traditionally masculine ideals and therefore remains consistently the Doctor, regardless of their body.4 Haraway argued for us to take ‘pleasure in the confusion of boundaries’5 as these boundaries have, themselves, been socially constructed. Doctor Who presenting the fluidity of gender identity encourages this pleasure and acceptance of identities that do not fit a binary categorisation. As Esperanza Miyake contended, the queer cyborg does not want to embody anything but wishes to remain free to transcend categories of race or gender.6 The Doctor’s fluidity in terms of gender and race – as the incarnation of Jo Martin’s Doctor demonstrate– present an undermining of these fixed categories, just like Haraway’s cyborg. 7
The programme also introduced a queer woman of colour as a companion to the Twelfth Doctor, Bill, and Gilbert contends that Bill presented the potential to undermine heteronormative notions of futurity.8 Bill immediately subverts the traditional role of the companion, understanding the complexities of time travel and disrupting the narrative focus on the Doctor.9 She displays agency in making decisions regarding the Doctor and becomes the saviour of the human race, both disrupting the traditional narrative of the Doctor saving the day and locating the future of the human race in her actions and experiences as a queer woman of colour.10 She presented the potential for the programme to reinvent the male-centred and heteronormative assumptions that underpinned it from its beginnings in the 1960s. The end of her narrative therefore appears to hinder this potential as Gilbert contended. Bill is ‘upgraded’ into a Cyberman and becomes part of a species which embodies stereotypically masculine traits, such as aggression and a lack of emotion.11 Gilbert pointed out that Bill is only represented as the male Doctor’s equal when she has lost herself, being re-gendered against her will as male.12 This undermines the use of Bill throughout the series to challenge the role of the companion and their relationship with the Doctor. The presentation of a non-heteronormative character that could be further used to rewrite the role of the human companion and empower queer identities was ultimately weakened by the narrative choice in the ending of her story.
The programme’s use of the cyborg in regard to the Cybermen can be further considered in terms of the relationship between human and machine. The Cybermen are a collection of hivemind beings who were once human but ‘upgraded’ into new metal bodies. Geraghty traced the development of the Cybermen and argued that they initially presented contemporary fears of ‘spare-part’ surgery but can be seen more, now, as encouraging an acceptance of technology and an ability to live with the machine and not be ruled by our fears of it.13 Geraghty pointed out that the Cybermen were first used to represent fears of technological assimilation and the loss of humanity in that the Cybermen are devoid of all emotion and are ultimately often defeated by it.14 In the rebooted series, however, Geraghty contended that the Cybermen present the potential dangers of technology as dependent on those that use it and, therefore, humanity can exist in conjunction with the machine.15
The gendering of the Cybermen is interesting as, although they are theoretically gender-neutral in that they belong to a hivemind, Disanza pointed out that they are described as Cybermen rather than Cyberpeople and are presented as masculine in appearance.16 Rather than, as Haraway contended, the cyborg having the potential to transcend gendered boundaries, the cyborgs here appear deliberately male. As Disanza contended, this choice displays a ‘normalisation of maleness’ and presents the writing team as still embedded in traditional conceptions of gender.17 Therefore, whilst the programme has gone some way in undermining traditional constructions of gender, there remains some way to go.
To conclude, whilst there are certainly elements of Haraway’s assertions regarding the need to question and rethink dualisms and the categorisations of race and gender in the newest storylines of Doctor Who, there still remains the potential for further development, particularly regarding the representation of gender. The introduction of gender fluid identities with the newest incarnation of the Doctor has created the potential for questioning embedded ideologies regarding gendered identities within the programme, but there are still issues regarding the representation of gendered hierarchies, particularly with the cyborg identities of the Cybermen. The Cybermen demonstrate how the writers are still contained within an ideology of gender binary and, as Gilbert pointed out, resort to unnecessarily gendering the cyborg.18 Indeed technology is, as Julia DeCook contended, still imbued with human influence and the use of sci-fi to explore potentials for the future still contain an often white and heteronormative view.19 The programme has certainly taken greater steps towards inclusivity and in presenting the need to construct a new language to ‘accommodate the disintegration of these binary relationships.’20 Viewers are encouraged to question their assumptions and an exploration of human potential, as the science fiction genre enables, presents the need for our language to evolve with our identities. Doctor Who has begun the process of presenting this need for a new language but has yet to completely undermine the prevailing discourse.
Notes
1 Donna Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century,” in David Bell and Barbara M. Kennedy (eds.), The Cybercultures Reader (London: Routledge, 2001), pp. 291-324.
2 Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto,” p. 315.
3 Raymond Disanza, “Half an Hour Ago I was a White-Haired Scotsman: Wibbly Wobbly Gender in Doctor Who,” Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture, 5/2-3 (2020), pp. 191-203.
4 Disanza, “Wibbly Wobbly Gender,” p. 199.
5 Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto,” p. 292.
6 Esperanza Miyake, “My, is that Cyborg a Little Bit Queer?” Journal of International Women’s Studies, 5/2 (2004), pp. 53-61.
7 Doctor Who, Series 12, Episode 5, ‘Fugitive of the Judoon,’ Written by Vinay Patel and Chris Chibnall, Directed by Nadi Manzoor, Aired 26 January 2020, on BBC 1, [Accessed 12 January 2021].
8 Sarah Beth Gilbert, “’Bloke Utopia:’ Bill Potts, Queer Identity, and Cyborg Narratives in Doctor Who,” in Valerie Estelle Frankel (ed.), Fourth Wave Feminism in Science Fiction and Fantasy: Volume 2. Essays on Television Representations 2013-2019 (Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2019), pp. 135-147.
9 Gilbert, “Bill Potts, Queer Identity,” p. 139.
10 Gilbert, “Bill Potts, Queer Identity,” p. 145.
11 Gilbert, “Bill Potts, Queer Identity,” p. 150.
12 Gilbert, “Bill Potts, Queer Identity,” p. 150.
13 Lincoln Geraghty, “From Balaclavas to Jumpsuits: The Multiple Histories and Identities of the Cybermen,” Atlantis, 30/1 (2008), pp. 85-100.
14 Geraghty, “Balaclavas to Jumpsuits,” p. 88.
15 Geraghty, “Balaclavas to Jumpsuits,” p. 96.
16 Disanza, “Wibbly Wobbly Gender,” p. 196.
17 Disanza, “Wibbly Wobbly Gender,” p. 196.
18 Gilbert, “Bill Potts, Queer Identity,” p. 148.
19 Julia R. DeCook, “A [White] Cyborg’s Manifesto: The Overwhelmingly Western Ideology Driving Technofeminist Theory,” Media, Culture & Society (2020), pp. 1-10.
20 Disanza, “Wibbly Wobbly Gender,” p. 202.
Bibliography
DeCook, Julia R. “A [White] Cyborg’s Manifesto: The Overwhelmingly Western Ideology Driving Technofeminist theory”. Media, Culture & Society, 2020
Disanza, Raymond. “Half an Hour Ago I was a White-Haired Scotsman: Wibbly Wobbly Gender in Doctor Who”. Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture. 5/2-3, 2020
Doctor Who. Series 12, Episode 5. ‘Fugitive of the Judoon”. Written by Vinay Patel and Chris Chibnall. Directed by Nida Manzoor. Aired 26 January 2020 on BBC 1. [Accessed 12 January 2021]
Geraghty, Lincoln. “From Balaclavas to Jumpsuits: The Multiple Histories and Identities of the Cybermen”. Atlantis. 30/1, 2008
Gilbert, Sarah Beth. “’Bloke Utopia:’ Bill Potts, Queer Identity, and Cyborg Narratives in Doctor Who”. in Valerie Estelle Frankel (ed.) Fourth Wave Feminism in Science Fiction and Fantasy: Volume 2. Essays on Television Representations 2013-2019. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2019
Haraway, Donna. ‘A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century,’ in David Bell and Barbara M. Kennedy (eds.) The Cybercultures Reader. London: Routledge, 2001
Miyake, Esperanza. “My, is that Cyborg a Little Bit Queer?” Journal of International Women’s Studies. 5/2, 2004
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