Effects and Representation of Doctor Who

Effects and Representation of

Doctor Who

Gender

In Doctor Who gender is used quite wisely to add interest to the story line and the character backgrounds. The main character is male and he always travels with a young female. A lot of the time the female companion appears to have romantic feelings for the Doctor. This could be seen as sexist since near enough every female companion has shown feelings for the Doctor. Women mainly would see this as sexist because it is stereotyping women. It could appear to be suggesting women are clingy or desperate. 

Also the topic of why the Doctor who is male always chooses young females as his companions has been discussed. Stephen Moffat (Doctor Who's head writer) said  "I think the function of a companion is pretty simple. I don’t think that’s very difficult. It’s just a question of who credibly is going to agree to go in the TARDIS? Who’s going to do it? Is it going to be a mother of 15 children? No. Is it going to be someone in their 60s? No. Is there going to be a particular age range? I mean … who’s going to have a crush on the Doctor? You know, come on! It’s more than a format. It’s evolved from good, dramatic reasons.” Here he basically says that the reason for the companions always being young females and always being in love with the Doctor is for good drama. This could put peoples minds at rest who were offended by the portrayal of women in Doctor Who since they know that it's only for drama or it could anger them more because the writer has admitted that he knows about the way women are portrayed on the show and he doesn't think it's wrong because it creates drama.

Disability

Disability is never really shown in Doctor Who. The show is an action/ adventure TV show so disability wouldn't naturally come into the story line. This means that the show doesn't have to tackle this issue because the issue of how to portray disability is never really present.

However there way one episode where one of the main characters from this episode has severe dyslexia and was shown having trouble with his reading and at some points in the show he couldn't do things that other characters asked of him because of his disability. The rest of the characters were shown to find solutions to the problems he faced with his disability. For example, listening to a story book instead of reading a book or drawing a map instead of writing a map. There was never any discriminative behaviour shown towards the child with dyslexia. The fact that the other characters were shown to be supportive and tolerant of the child's disabilities

Male and Female Role Models
Because Doctor Who is a action, fantasy, sci-fi show and not a drama, there are not really any bad role models. Everyone in Doctor Who that is portrayed as good, tends to be good. On the other hand in a drama there are characters that are not the perfect role model and they have imperfect morals yet the TV show portrays them as good or acceptable when sometimes its not. This could influence people watching drama's so because if something is portrayed as good, it may actually not be. 
This is one of the good things about people watching Doctor Who, they are all good role models and have good morals and the program makes it sure who the baddies are and makes it clear that what they are doing is wrong. Especially since this is one of the most talked about and most popular TV shows in England, it has the potential to make a big impact.

BBFC Ratings

•We have considered BBFC regulation of trailers

problems with borderline texts?

•Is your trailer rated differently to the main text? Discuss context and how this can effect distribution and audience targeting

•Write up what we did in class and post a clip of your own case study product that you think illustrates significant classification factors with an explanation.

 

BBFC

BBFC Regulation of Trailers

 

Before a film, DVD or Trailer is released to the cinema, the shops or on the TV, it first has to be given a classification by the BBFC. The BBFC give the film, DVD or trailer a rating that references what age the content is suitable for. For example if the BBFC rated a film "12", this means that the film is only suitable for people over the age of 12. If a film is classed 12 then a child under 12 can not see it in the cinema or buy the film when it is out on DVD in the shops.

 

BBFC Ratings

 

U - Stands for universal and it means that the content is suitable for any age over 4. The violence will be very mild, there will be very mild language used (darn or hell), there will be nothing sexual other then kissing or cuddling, there will only ever be very mild violence and not normally any reference to drugs.

 

PG - This stands for "Parental Guidance" and content in this category should not upset children over the age of 8. However, when seeing films at the cinema, it is up to the parents to decide whether the film would be suitable for the child since it's difficult to know with children of this age. There may be minor language but the context that the language is in is monitored carefully, it's unlikely that there will be anything sexual or any sexual references. If there are

any then the chances are that it has been allowed because the target age wouldn't understand the reference anyway. There will not be much violence and any violence that is there will be mild. Blood may be shown but injury's should not be shown in strong detail. There may be small references to illegal drugs but nothing should be discussed in detail.

12A - If a film is classed 12a then it means that the film is suitable for ages 12 and over however, a child under 12 can watch the film in a cinema if they are accompanied by an adult. It is left to the adults discretion whether the film would be suitable for the child. This is too hard to monitor in retail so 12a does not exist on DVD's. It only exists in cinema releases.

12 - If a film is classed 12 it means that no one under 12 can watch the film in a cinema or buy the film in a shop. The language used may be quite strong but the context it is used in should be inoffensive. Aggressive uses of strong language would mean that the film is classed in the 15 category. There should be no discriminatory references like homophobia and racism. There may be brief references to sex but humour is usually used to tone it down. Sexual references should not go beyond what is suitable for young teenagers. Moderate violence is allowed in 12 films but it should not dwell on detail. Anti social behaviour should not be endorsed.

15 - In 15 films there is no limit on the amount of times strong swear words can be use din 15 films but usually the strongest swear words are only used a few times if any and it has to be contextually justified. Violence can be strong in 15 films, it should not dwell on injury.

Distribution Of Doctor Who

Distribution Of Doctor Who Episodes

 

Where is it shown?

Doctor Who is a TV program made by the BBC to be shown on BBC channels across the world. Doctor Who is mainly shown via TV channels like BBC1 and BBC3. You can also watch the episodes online, 7 days after they are shown on TV, on BBC iPlayer. BBC iPlayer is a catch up service that the BBC provide online so that if you miss an episode of a BBC program,

you can catch up with it online. You can also buy Doctor Who on DVD. There are box sets for each series which are released after the series have finished.

 However for the Doctor Who 5th anniversary special episode, the BBC made deals with cinema's to have the feature length episode shown in cinema's around the UK and America.    

To What Extent Is The Issue Of Piracy?

The issue of piracy with Doctor Who is massive. There are always threats and worries about episodes and secrets being leaked because it's such a popular TV show. As I have spoken about previously, people were after the footage of the first episode from the second they heard it was making a come back. There is the story from when the first series of the show was in the editing process. The team in London needed to get the footage to Cardiff but the risk of someone getting hold of the footage was so great that the shows producers came up with the idea of labelling the footage with the word "Torchwood" which is an anagram of Doctor Who. This is what gave the show's main writer at the time, the idea of the spin of series "Torchwood".

 

In an article by the BBC they said that they do put in measures to try and stop piracy. The amount of detail and information in the article suggests that they do have a lot of problems with piracy and therefore they do a lot to stop it. The article focuses on online piracy as this is the biggest type of piracy. However the article also points out all the different types of online piracy that the BBC faces.

 

"Piracy can manifest itself in many forms. For example, in addition to illicit use of file sharing technologies, streaming of whole channels over the internet and services which allow unauthorised access to BBC iPlayer by internet users outside of the UK can also pose challenges. It is important that the BBC takes a consistent approach to tackling all forms of online piracy. If we didn't, there would be a risk that dealing with one type of piracy might simply encourage interest in other types."

 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2010/07/the_bbcs_approach_to_combating.html)

 

I think that although this article is aimed at all BBC shows, it all applies to Doctor Who since Doctor Who is one of the BBC's flagship programs.

In 2013 the Doctor Who episode "The Day of the Doctor" was the most watched TV broadcast of the year. So thinking logically, there would be a lot of piracy issues surrounding Doctor Who.


Schedule, Channel and Times

When a new episode of Doctor Who is broadcast, it will either be on a Saturday, starting between 6 and 7 or if it is a special episode it may be on, on Christmas Day or Easter at around the same time. New episodes are always shown on BBC 1 as well. (This could be another hint to the fact that it's not just a children's program other wise it would be on CBBC)

I think the timing of the new episodes being broadcast is a good time to suit the target audience.  Between 6 and 7 means that it's not too late for a young child to stay up but it's also late enough to avoid being on when families would be having tea or going out places. I think the BBC have done this intentionally to make sure that more people are available to watch the show.

Also the slot that Doctor Who has is a very good slot for viewing's in general. Not just viewings from the target audience. This is because generally, Saturday night is the kind of night where people stay in, order a take away and watch TV with the family. If a someone was sat down in front of the TV and they turned it on and Doctor Who was on, the chances are they wouldn't turn it of because usually on a Saturday you just watch TV for the sake of it and not because there is specifically one show that you want to watch. This could contribute to the high viewings.

Doctor Who being on BBC1 will also benefit the age group since (as I talked about before), it is a free channel and as long as you pay for your TV licence, you are allowed to watch BBC 1 for free. This means that it doesn't matter what the parents income is, the children will be able to watch Doctor Who. This is as a pose to if Doctor Who was on a channel that you had to pay for. If you were an adult and you wanted to watch Doctor Who on a channel you had to pay for then it's you decision to then go and pay to watch that channel so that you could watch Doctor Who. However if you are a child and you don't have control over the families income (which is likely), you wouldn't be able to just make that decision yourself, you would have to persuade an adult to pay for it and they might not want to.

So with Doctor Who I think the times and channel etc are very important when trying to reach out to the age range as a young age range doesn't have too much say in there own personal routine or schedule so you would have to please the parents as well as the children and in doing this, you make it suitable for an entire family to watch together.
 

Advertising of Doctor Who

Advertising Analysis

Here are a few examples of posters advertising Doctor Who:

 

 

In my previous posts I stated that I think the target audience of Doctor Who is 8-14 year old males. I think these official Doctor Who posters back that up because firstly, the posters are suitable for the age range. There are no references to anything inappropriate for the age range like sex, drugs, alcohol or too much violence. This suggests that the target audience is quite young because the posters were made by the BBC who have to stick to the advertising standards and therefore make there posters appropriate to the target audience that they are trying to attract to the show. If there were references like this on the posters, it would suggest that the TV show is aimed at an older target age group and the show would probably be on after watershed time. Secondly I think that the posters are suitable for the age range because they do reference the things that boys of this age range look for in a TV show. For example, danger, you can tell that the characters are scared or worried because of the expressions of their faces. None of them are smiling. Also in the "Name of the Doctor" poster, the broken glass could represent danger as  could the fire in the "day of the Doctor poster". Secondly, a boy of this age range would look for action or adventure. This is represented in the posters by the use of colours. If the TV show was all happy the colours would be bright and light but the fact of all the dark, deep colours suggest that there is drama in this. Also the backgrounds or other things in the poster suggest that this is an action adventure show. The background on the lower right poster isn't a normal location, this get's you wondering where they are and how they got there or what kind of adventure they must be on. The lower left poster suggests action by the broken glass. The broken glass could represent a fight or something going wrong witch would be action. In the top poster it's easy to see that it is action/ adventure because they have the image of one character walking out of an explosion and an explosion suggests action/ adventure. Another theme that the posters portray is excitement. The bottom left poster has a different kind of excitement though. This poster was created for a long anticipated event and I think that it's more of a teaser then an advertisement. Either way you can see the excitement in it because of the way the main character is staring though the glass with a sad expression on his face, it makes you want to know what's happened. Also the slogan on the poster "his secret is revealed" makes you want to know the secret. I think this is very powerful for pulling people in and people in the target age range would respond to this method well. THe main thing that suggests excitement in the lower right poster is the colours and the patterns. The colour's are all dark and gloomy but then there is that streak of purple going though parts of it. I think that this is really good for implying that something exiting is happening as the colour purple and that specific pattern give of the idea of movement. On the topic of movement representing excitement, if you look at the image on the poster, you expect that if it was a moving image, the whole poster would be moving around. This is because of the positions the characters are in and the background. They aren't stood on solid ground so you expect that they are either floating or falling. The top poster represents excitement mainly by the expression of the characters and the position's they are stood in. The whole thing is quite grim and dramatic and then there is the explosion in the middle. This gives of the effect of calmness and then suddenly you see the explosion and you feel like there is more to it and you want to see it.

 

So overall I think these, and most, posters for Doctor Who reach out to and draw in the specific target audience by using ways to make the posters age appropriate and show a sense of action, adventure and excitement.

 

Here is an example of an advert advertising

Doctor Who: