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Black Tudors in Doctor Who

13/7/2015

12 Comments

 
Picture
The Doctor and Martha Jones encounter Black Africans in Elizabethan London
Back in 2013, I was compelled to blog when Tim Bevan, producer of the 1998 film Elizabeth, told Juliet Gardiner on Radio 4 that if a black actor had been cast “in our Elizabeth movie, you wouldn't have been able to prove that, at all.” As regular readers will know, there is indeed proof. Records survive from 1574 and 1575 showing the Queen ordering clothes for a 'lytle Blackamoore' from her tailor. Further to this, a painting known as Elizabeth I at Kenilworth shows her being entertained by a small troupe of black musicians. 

But despite evidence of some 200 Africans living in Tudor England, from Hull to Truro, we do not find it represented in popular presentations of the period, such as Elizabeth, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, The Tudors, The Other Boleyn Girl, Wolf Hall, to name but a few.

Strangely enough, a better representation comes from an unexpected source: a 2007 episode of Doctor Who!
The Shakespeare Code starred David Tennant as the Doctor, and Freema Agyeman as his companion Martha Jones. Agyeman is half Iranian and half Ghanaian, and this meant the writer, Gareth Roberts, had to consider how this would play out when she time travels to Elizabethan England. When Martha realises she has just arrived in London in 1599, she has the following exchange with the Doctor:

MARTHA
Oh, but hold on. Am I all right?  I’m not gonna get carted off as a slave, am I? 

THE DOCTOR
Why would they do that? 


MARTHA
Not exactly white, in case you haven’t noticed. 

THE DOCTOR
I’m not even human. Just walk about like you own the place.  Works for me. Besides, you’d be surprised. Elizabethan England, not so different from your time. 


At this point, two African women walk past them. In a few moments, this scene makes two important points:

1) There was a black presence in Elizabethan London 
2) The Africans in Elizabethan London were not treated as slaves

These are two points I try to convey in my work. Africans can be found in the parish registers, tax returns, court records and letters of Elizabethan London. There was no law of slavery in England. Furthermore, Africans were paid wages, baptised, married, allowed to testify in court: all indicators of freedom. In 1587, Portuguese physician Hector Nunes admitted to the Court of Requests that he had: ‘no remedie…by the course of the Common Law of this realme... to compell’ an 'Ethiopian' who 'utterly refuseth to tarry and serve' him 'to serve him duringe his life.'

Far from being carted off as a slave, Martha finds herself being courted by Shakespeare himself. 
Picture
Shakespeare takes a shine to Martha Jones
When Shakespeare first meets Martha, he asks the Doctor 'who is your delicious blackamoor lady?' Martha is not impressed with being referred to as a 'blackamoor'.  'Oops.' says Shakespeare, 'Isn’t that a word we use nowadays?' 'Blackamoor' was in fact the most common word used to describe Africans in Tudor England. About 40% of the references I found used the word. Martha is no more impressed by the other alternatives Shakespeare posits: 'An Ethiop girl? A swarth? A Queen of Afric...' This nicely dramatises the fact that the Elizabethans would not have considered such terms offensive in the way we might now. 

This being Doctor Who, our heroes must then save the world from some aliens disguised as witches. But in the closing moments, the script makes another interesting reference. Shakespeare bids farewell to Martha: 'Martha, let me say goodbye to you in a new verse. A sonnet for my Dark Lady. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate...' The quote is from Sonnet 18, rather than one of the Dark Lady sonnets (127-154), but the suggestion is nonetheless raised that Shakespeare was inspired to write these poems by an African woman. This has been the subject of much scholarly debate-while some insist the lady merely had dark hair, others suggest that the sonnets should be renamed the “Black woman sonnets”. The idea that the Dark Lady was of African origin also makes a cameo appearance in Zadie Smith's White Teeth (2000). In Chapter 11: The Miseducation of Irie Jones, Irie asks her teacher Mrs. Roody if the “dark lady” is “black”. Mrs Rooney replies:

          No dear, she's dark. She's not black in the modern sense. There weren't any… well, Afro-Carri-bee-yans in                   England at that time, dear. That's a more modern phenomenon, as I'm sure you know. But this was the 1600s.           I mean I can't be sure, but it does seem terribly unlikely, unless she was a slave of some kind, and he's unlikely           to have written a series of sonnets to a lord and then a slave, is he? 

A miseducation indeed! As the Doctor could have told Irie's teacher, 'you’d be surprised. Elizabethan England, not so different from your time.' 



You can watch The Shakespeare Code online here. 
12 Comments
Rita Lamb
13/7/2015 08:48:48 pm

I've passed this link to the tumblr site 'medievalpoc', since they're currently reviewing the problems faced by people of colour who choose to attend events such as Renaissance Faires, but then find themselves faced with patronising or exclusionist attitudes. Personally I think 'good faith' ignorance is perhaps the real problem, not outright racism.

Reply
Billy
17/7/2015 01:49:58 am

Dr Who is not human. Yet he repeatedly chooses a white male form. Even in fantasy, in (cos)play, in scifi, whiteness is preferred and messed up.

Reply
Rita Lamb
17/7/2015 04:27:05 pm

I don't think these days having a black actor as the Doctor would challenge the audience much do you? A change of sex would create much greater problems though. Well I just think it would. The gender divide is always more profound. I mean if the next pope after Francis is black it will be no big deal, whereas if the next pope .... no, forget it.

Reply
DBW
28/7/2015 08:42:37 am

speaking as a Black woman, I would love either aspects of my identity being given such a role. I love the Doctor, and Neil Gaiman made it canon that Time Lords can switch to Time Ladies (which Moffat even reinforced with The Master as The Mistress) so if gender doesn't matter to the Doctor, why not race?

embee
4/8/2015 02:00:45 am

I think having the Doctor played by anyone who is not a white dude would be pretty revolutionary--it shouldn't be, but it would. Just take a look at the comments section of any website where they discuss the Doctor as played by Idris Elba, or the Doctor as played by Helen Mirren or Tilda Swinton...people's heads pretty much explode. I can't even imagine their reactions if someone put forth an idea like a British Gina Torres (my roster of British actors is failing me right now, I'm afraid). There's an unfortunate chunk of the fandom that's very, very hardcore attached to a white male Doctor. (Even to the point where they prefer an older white male Doctor so that "the fangirls won't be as attracted to him"--he's not even allowed to have a sexuality as far as they're concerned.) It's a mess.

embee
4/8/2015 02:01:47 am

derp, my comment below was supposed to be a comment in response to Rita Lamb's remark here. sorry, DBW! I totally agree with you!!

Rita
5/8/2015 05:52:59 pm

DBW, I'm white, old and female. A black Doctor would surprise me for about half a show, and then it would depend if his character was engaging. Tbh I would struggle a lot more with a female doctor, not sure why. (Probably age.) I even struggle a bit with an older Doctor, though I like Peter Capaldi...who is younger than me.
However this is not really about people like me. I've not been on fan sites embee but yes, I take your word for it about response. And having the core audience fail to identify with the hero would kill the show, which no-one expects the makers to do. Maybe they're cleverly giving us a white-but-old Doctor so they can introduce a young-superheroic-and-black one next? Not too young I hope. About 30 is good for Doctors.

Reply
Difficat
21/9/2015 10:36:27 pm

In the Sarah Jane Adventures, Clyde (a young regular member of the cast, also black) asked the Eleventh Doctor if he was always white, and the Doctor said he could be anything. In fact, Clyde and the Eleventh Doctor briefly switched minds, making Damiel Anthony the first black actor to play the Doctor. At least as far as I know.

The show was for kids, but I liked it. How many times do you see a middle-aged woman saving the world as the star of an action series? And she did it with minimal violence. The Brigadier showed up once. Fun stuff.

Reply
Rita
22/9/2015 12:39:48 pm

That could be a killer pub quiz question, 'Who was the first black actor to play Dr. Who?' :)

Reply
Nicola Harris link
17/7/2016 03:56:29 pm

I am not an expert in this subject but what I do know is that the saddest thing a child can say is 'I wish I was white.' For me that is what this subject is all about... I think it is so important that children are happy with who they are and Doctor Who promotes this... It's not perfect and its a bit scarey too but I am all for children not losing their culture and being proud of themselves. It makes for a happier world.

Reply
Rita Lamb
18/7/2016 01:07:31 am

I think there's only a danger of that unhappiness arising when the culture is so overwhelmingly white that not only the present but even the represented past fails to acknowledge any non-white contribution to what makes us what we now are. I'm not talking about reinventing history, just doing what this website does - looking more carefully at the historical record and picking up details formerly overlooked.

I watched on TV back in the 80s when they dredged up the Mary Rose. Nobody mentioned that when they tried to salvage her cannon just after she sank, there was a West African heading the diving team. I don't mean people deliberately suppressed or ignored it, just - nobody knew. Actually if they'd said it then, I don't think I would've believed it myself. And if I'd seen a black face in one of the big BBC Tudor dramas I'd have thought 'that couldn't be'. We need a more nuanced view of our past.

Reply
Vanessa King
19/7/2016 07:10:07 am

I note the reference in Miranda's very interesting blog to a painting Elizabeth I at Kenilworth showing black musicians. I cannot find this anywhere and would be grateful if anyone could advise where this is. Regards Vanessa

Reply



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    Dr. Miranda Kaufmann is a historian of Black British History living in North Wales. You can read a fuller bio here, and contact her here.

    Related Blogs/Sites

    Michael Ohajuru's Black Africans in Renaissance Europe blog

    Temi Odumosu's The Image of Black website

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    The Black Presence in Britain

    Jeffrey Green's website, on Africans in 19th and early 20th Century Britain
     
    Untold Theatre 

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