S11.E03: Rosa

[Kite]

On 10/23/2018 at 8:51 AM, QuantumMechanic said:

Didn't make me uncomfortable at all.  It was too boring to do that, for starters.

I'm fine with didactic TV when it's done well.

 

Oh and of course til the cows come home you will insist that you're not uncomfortable, because that would give it the legitimacy of challenging you. Of course it's just "not your cup of tea, it's boring, it's not relevant, it's shoehorned in, etc". The word "didactic" is very telling though. Your reaction is SO common, whatever progressive social issue it is, you're in cosy company mate!

On 10/23/2018 at 9:54 AM, UNOSEZ said:

Thanks to both of  you on so many boards on so many of the shows I watch to see so many posts about "anvils" and "subtlety" and being "too woke" which usually read to me like... " I don't want to talk or think about this stuff.. Just get back to the easy stuff" its been saddening  and infuriating having issues I'm interested in boiled down to being PC/SJW... Or pushing some agenda.. I'm just happy folks are out there who get why some of these things are so important and are willing to push back when they are minimized

Uh yes, hello, agree. This isn't some dry exercise.

17 hours ago, Llywela said:

It might have been a daily occurrence, but this particular event turned out to be a tipping point, a specific moment in history that all three companions and the Doctor were all aware of

That's how I took this - much time travel fiction and DW itself has focused on some parts of time being more fragile and crucial than others, partly by the events and partly by the convenient mysterious handwavium properties of time. (In reality I think the butterfly effect would apply much more.)

Edited October 26, 2018 by Kite

[libgirl2]

20 hours ago, Occasional Hope said:

"These were notably bad. It wasn't just that the accents sounded wrong, they didn't sound like any Southern accent ever. I have learned to largely ignore it (though bad Louisiana/cajunish accents still make me a little stabby) but I always give major props when an accent is good. This was not one of those times. The episode was good enough to overlook it. "

 

I think actors often genuinely believe they are better at accents than they actually are.  There have been some horrendous attempts at British accents by Americans (and some excellent, convincing ones too).  (The worst I remember was Anthony LaPaglia as Daphne's brother on Frasier; I still shudder at the memory.)  Dialogue can also be an issue even if the actor is playing their own nation, if the writer is from somewhere else.

Isn't he Australian?  Not that its the same thing of course! 

Edited October 26, 2018 by libgirl2

[Tyro49]

This reminded me of the stories my parents used to tell of when my father was stationed in the South during the war. Their direct quote "it was another world". My dad saw a black officer kicked off the train after it passed through Washington, D.C. "He was wearing the same uniform I was" and my mother was called "agoddamnyankee" (she emphasized it was one word) at least twice by other whites (one was a sheriff!) for incidents involving blacks. I know even in the north it was different from when I grew up in the fifties, but it was never like it was in the south!

[Archery]

Okay, tears with this episode. I love that DW returned for a moment to the original premise: history for kids.  I felt like this was an episode that was not so complex and scary that kids couldn't follow.  I do like the idea that this piece of resistance had to happen this day for history to run smoothly; done a different day, maybe Rosa gets beaten, or there's a riot, or a massive  police response that gets people killed.  

According to the photo in the Library of Congress site, Rosa's husband was very light skinned. I loved the fact that they knew little trivia details of the story, like the bus driver's name. That rings true.

Such a good episode.

[piperkat]

On 10/24/2018 at 8:00 AM, cardigirl said:

It's interesting to me when a British show, written by British writers, instructs the audience on United States history, but, whatever.  I'm reminded of River Song's line in The Impossible Astronaut about "They're Americans" when she's afraid the Doctor will get shot. (All Americans must love guns, I guess.) 

I'm sure the conversation behind the dumpster that Ryan and Yaz had was to let the audience know that Britain still has a way to go with race issues and that having no redeeming southern whites portrayed was not to be indicative that the United States was alone in its racial issues. 

Sometimes it takes someone from outside your circle to point out what's happening inside of it. 

I think the fact that the main characters are British played really well into the episode. I don't think the cops/locals etc would have been as tolerant of them if they'd been Americans, even from another part of the country, but the sheltered locals (many of whom had never even left Alabama, much less the US) would have looked at Brits with a sort of "well, they're foreigners, who knows what THEY'RE like" sort of attitude. 

Like a lot of posters, I liked the fact that the Rosa's actions weren't caused by a white man making a grand speech, but more than that, I loved the fact that the spark, if any, came from a quiet conversation with Yaz. Can you even imagine what it would be like for someone in Rosa's situation to hear a young woman of color casually talk about becoming a police officer, like it's the most normal thing in the world? She could literally see a world in front of her where cops weren't just white male thugs. She could also look at Ryan and realize that wherever he came from, it was a place where a young black man didn't fear getting lynched for speaking to a white woman. That had to blow her mind. 

Again, the Britishness plays well into that. It would have been too farfetched to for her to believe if the characters had been American, but since they were from somewhere else, inside her head she could think "You know, maybe it's possible. Maybe there's a place where things aren't LIKE THIS." Yes, the bus protest was planned in advance, but I can't believe her conversation with Yaz wouldn't be weighing heavily on her mind when she got on the bus that night.  

And yes, I know that historically Britain had plenty of race issues of its own, but for purposes of the story, the nationality of the characters worked out nicely.

Edited October 27, 2018 by piperkat

[WatchrTina]

On 10/23/2018 at 7:55 PM, Eulipian 5k said:

if you really need me to tell anyone where to find hundreds of stories about life for a black human being in the Jim Crow south, ask a social studies teacher, or read any biography or autobiography of every black entertainer who toured thru the South.

There is a movie that I'm hoping to see tomorrow at the Austin Film Festival that addresses this very topic.  The title is "Green Book" and in it Viggo Mortensen plays a man hired to drive a black classical pianist (played by Mahershala Ali) to his performance dates as he goes on tour across the Jim Crow-era South.  The title refers to this.

[Kite]

The Incomparable DW podcast this week made a fantastic point about Rosa's space racist, saying that good science fiction isn't really about the future, it's about us, about the present. Krasko symbolises the responsibility we have in the present to guard the future.

I woke up to hear that Krasko shot up a Jewish baby-naming ceremony yesterday, with no sense except blind, old, hatred. Just....

Krasko is everywhere, today, stupid and obscene and hungry for power. Krasko will continue into the future. Imprisoning and neutering and even shooting individual Kraskos seens to make them come back even harder, Captain America, random antifa dude, and even the Doctor punching Nazis feels good in a macho way, but to really address racism we have to fight them with our hearts and minds and bodies in other ways, with the identities we hold. "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."

(I've used my white body to try fight racism, I have confronted police many times, it felt awkward and scary and maybe the wrong thing, not heroic, just saying I'm not being a hypocrite here.)

On the topic of Doctor Who podcasts (Podcasts!! are ❤), I've been hitting a few hard this series while I go about my work. Black voices in particular: TARBIS (three American women both snarky and really insightful) and Straight Outta Gallifrey who usually cover Timelord themed episodes did a special Rosa episode this week too. Much whiter, I can also recommend Verity (five women from four countries, Liz is their own Scottish Doctor), This Week in Time Travel (two thoughtful Americans woman/man), Debating Doctor Who (ditto), The Incomparable DW Flashcast (ditto), Radio Free Skaro (three amusingly self-deprecating nerd guys from Canada), honourable mentions to the Web of Queer (UK/US), the Doctor Who Show (Australia - with a "sports" awards section!) and Tin Dog (UK).

[100Proof]

On 10/24/2018 at 10:42 AM, cardigirl said:

But you are right, perhaps he is writing primarily for a British audience, who may not be all that familiar with who Rosa was. 

Some of the usual political/current events comedy/satire shows have had segments where the british person-on-street can identify american politicians and know what US gov't policies are than their american counterpart drooling idiot, lol

Edited October 28, 2018 by 100Proof

[call me ishmael]

I too was taken a bit out of the episode by the failure to really address that this was part of an organized strategy.  The spontaneous act line is really misleading.

But the more i thought about it i decided that the episode was really well done and that the focus on the individual was crucial for the narrative even if it took license with the history (and it is fiction of course). After all, one of the main themes of the episode was that small changes have potentially great effects.  For the organizers lookimg forward one day and one bus may have been as good as another but looking backward Parks did what she did on a specific day and it set in motion a specific chronology.  If she had been delayed other things might have been delayed the timing of future plans altered etc.  Granted this wasn’t a “fixed point in time” episode but it was close and was internally consistent on that front in part because it meant there was one set of rules for the villain and for the Tardisians.  And it also made possible the powerful dramatic ending where they has to be the ones to cause Rosa Parks to lose her seat and for her to seize that moment.  

I also think that their going into the restaurant was not that surprising.  It is one thing to know something intellectually and another to really incorporate it.  They were all talking to each other and Graham was hungry.  Not noticing the signs doesn’t seem that surprising.  And they learned their lesson quickly as was seen with the motel.

it is possible that we will see the villain again.  But Ryan did say that he sent him as far back as he could.  So it is just as possible he is being eaten by a saber tooth tiger as i type.  But despite her scorn for his time vortex the Doctor seemed to think that he had been sent by someone.  So he may just have been a foot soldier of some group that will pop up again.  I’m guessing that his crime was some act of terror do he would fit in someone’s plans.

Any UK people would know better than i, but i wondered if rather than an effort to teach Americans their own history this might have been a somewhat sly intervention in current English things.  After all, the attacks on the Windrush generstion have been going on for a while now and the civil rights movements were international in the 50s and 60s.  That is one reason why I don’t have any problem with the idea that Nan would have known so much about the Montgomery bus boycott and its details.

all in all a pretty complex set of narrative choices that led to some powerful moments even if their were glitches.

[Cotypubby]

I really liked the episode except for one thing, the heavy-handed music that sounded like “Fanfare for the Common Man” that played every single time Rosa was on screen. 

[basil]

Quote

And the looks at the restaurant. Damn. Couldn't take it. Although "we don't serve coloreds here" "good, cause I don't eat 'em" Good for you kid!

I was pretty sure that when the waitress said "We don't serve Negroes here", that that was going to be Ryan's answer, because it is a Muhammad Ali quote .

Edited November 2, 2018 by basil

[TwirlyGirly]

Regarding the Southern accents: when I first heard the actress playing Rosa Parks speak, the voice/accent was very familiar to me. It took me about 20 minutes to place what it reminded me of, and when I did, I was horrified; Kate McKinnon's accent when she plays Attorney General Jeff Sessions in skits on Saturday Night Live:

 

https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/weekend-update-jeff-sessions/3622170

Edited November 4, 2018 by TwirlyGirly

[markx]

"graham explaining modern cell phones and naming himself Steve jobs"

To me that was a cringe worthy point ruining a good episode. This was meant to be an episode about a revolutionary black woman, not some white man who got credit for what Asian companies were already doing with more popularity. Though, if Graham was going to pass off old feature phones as his own, I suppose Jobs makes a good comparison.

What with Tauranga, this seems to be one of those series that needs to have a desperate applevert every other episode. So much for no product placement on the BBC.

[xtwheeler]

On 10/23/2018 at 10:40 PM, eliot90000 said:

Imagine!  A person who wants links to tell him or her about the Jim Crow South!  Do they not still teach this stuff in history class?

 

On 10/23/2018 at 11:01 PM, owenthurman said:

I suspect it's only taught in history classes north of the Mason-Dixon.

A friend of mine is currently petitioning the school board with regard to her child's history textbook which talks about slavery having "positive and negative" attributes, like there's any kind of "positive" that could register against "the owning of another human being." 

And as for progress and/or the "progressive" north, just look at Trump & the Central Park Five. 

[Mabinogia]

56 minutes ago, xtwheeler said:

A friend of mine is currently petitioning the school board with regard to her child's history textbook which talks about slavery having "positive and negative" attributes, like there's any kind of "positive" that could register against "the owning of another human being." 

That is disgusting. There is nothing "positive" about slavery.  Any and all "positives" one can say came from it is completely and overwhelmingly eclipsed by the fact that people owned other people against their will. I really don't care if some huge, horrible disease was cured because of slavery. Slavery was and always will be one of the worst things we have done to each other. How can anyone argue that good came from it? 

One of the things I liked about this episode was that it showed that, even after slavery was abolished, people of color were still not free, not really. Ryan wasn't free to eat in that restaurant. He wasn't free to sleep in that hotel. He wasn't even free to pick up a woman's hankie. I think they did the quiet, underlying racism really well, showing how it affected the simplest, most innocent interactions. Nope, nothing positive came out of people thinking they had the right to own other people. 

Edited November 26, 2018 by Mabinogia

[Last Time Lord]

On 10/24/2018 at 1:40 AM, eliot90000 said:

Imagine!  A person who wants links to tell him or her about the Jim Crow South!  Do they not still teach this stuff in history class?

I grew up in Massachusetts, and admittedly, my 10 year high school reunion  is a few years in the rear view mirror, but... I really can't recall being taught much about the Jim Crow era south.

Civil War was covered. Reconstruction was covered. Civil Rights was covered. Outside of stuff like To Kill A Mockingbird (which was covered in my Honors English class, not History) I can't remember learning much about that era.

It was only in the past few fears that I actually realized just why the crows in Dumbo are the blight that they are

[Last Time Lord]

3 minutes ago, eliot90000 said:

This is truly unfortunate for all of us, because we have far less of a sense of where we’ve been and where we’re going than we should have.

And looking at the state of things, lately... we need that now, more than ever...

[DanaK]

I have to say I’m impressed by the show making the effort to get small and less well known details right for this episode. Things like: the bus driver’s name and his confrontation with Rosa years before, black passengers paying at the front but having to get off and enter at the back, Rosa actually being in the black section when she was told to move (many mistakenly think she was in the white section), all the black passengers in a row having to move back when one or more white passengers needed a seat, and possibly other things I didn’t notice or forgot. As said in a BTS video though, they did have to fudge on where Yaz would sit because their research didn’t give them a definitive answer