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Post by Cyggy on Jul 31, 2022 16:33:41 GMT
One of the Doctor's deadliest enemies?
Or did she have a valid viewpoint?
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Post by Cyggy on Jul 31, 2022 16:41:17 GMT
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Post by Cyggy on Aug 1, 2022 12:12:37 GMT
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Post by Cyggy on Aug 1, 2022 13:09:28 GMT
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Post by Cyggy on Aug 1, 2022 13:13:35 GMT
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Post by sadako on May 28, 2023 22:06:57 GMT
Did she have a valid point?
A lot of 1970's TV & film could sure be violent, ugly, mean-spirited & cynical, and feel like a feedback loop of an ugly mood of the time. Moreso than was healthy in my opinion.
However I've always thought that 1970's Doctor Who was one of the more beautiful, hopeful exceptions to the rule. There was a hopeful, progressive beauty & spirit of life to it that really needed the contrast of violence & horror to bring out all its shades and what the battle between forces of good & evil really meant. Mary Whitehouse seemed to miss this in a lot of her critiques, which is odd because I thought as a Christian she would understand that dichotomy and which side the show was on.
Hinchcliffe & Holmes understood that best, and the show never quite did again after their departures.
However, was she to blame for their departures with her moral crusade?
I used to take it as read that she and her moral crusade was the reason Hinchcliffe got removed and the show gradually went to pot after.
However I have been reading the latest revised edition of About Time 4 by Tat Wood, and he seems to make a well-argued rebuttal of the claim, suggesting that a lot of the dates don't match up. That the decision to switch Hinchcliffe with Williams was made long before The Deadly Assassin debacle. That restrictive new BBC TV guidelines were already in the pipeline. That controversies about the show were already in swing in the tabloids and from other TV critics that were far more reputable than Whitehouse's fringe group.
That essentially she might've been incidental to what happened to Doctor Who, and it certainly would've suited her and her organisation to claim more credit for the BBC action than she deserved.
I've always said that she would've been harmless enough if only she wasn't given power, and the more I think about it, the less sense it makes that the BBC would've ever granted her complaints any serious consideration.
I never personally bore her any malice though. I must say I found it quite sad to recently read an interview with her son who talked about being estranged from her because of her inflexible piety and how even after her death he still has bitter feelings toward her. Tat Wood's essay seemed to suggest she herself had in her younger years fallen in with the evangelical personality cults of her day, and she was just part of that cycle continuing.
So did she have a point?
Maybe sometimes.
Maybe once or twice a day.
Like a broken clock is.
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Post by Future-Diver on Jun 23, 2023 8:26:31 GMT
Like an awful lot of Christians, Whitehouse wanted to impose her righteous views and beliefs on everyone else, whether they liked it or not. She was at odds with the permissive society, sexual freedom and all the breakthroughs for gays, transexuals, feminists and free-thinkers who fought for acceptance and equality. She couldn't face the fact that it wasn't the 1950's anymore and that for many Britons, church-going, religion and Christian morality were no longer relevant.
One of the reasons why she regularly attacked Doctor Who was simply because she thought it was exclusively for children and therefore too violent and frightening. But the show had always been for the whole family, not just the kiddies, and during the Hinchcliffe and Holmes period, efforts were made to attract slightly older viewers, and as a consequence, Doctor Who became more popular than ever. "I was pushing the envelope on Doctor Who, but not irresponsibly" - Philip Hinchcliffe.
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Post by profh0011 on Aug 27, 2024 14:42:11 GMT
"The Religious Right" as I believe they're called over here are a dangerous bunch who insist on forcing their own narrow views onto EVERYONE. "Separation of Church and State" is right in the US Constituition, but these lunatics actually seem to believe that was some perversion added in recently.
It's been well-documented that children LIKED to be frightened in a "safe" environment like fictional stories in books, Tv and movies. It helps them deal with fear and develop things they'll need when they grow up.
The whole of 1970s TV in America was dragged down by these abhorrent parent-teacher censorship groups, first, removing anything violent, scary or even exciting at all from children's shows on Saturday mornings, then in the late 70s creating "Family Viewing Hour" in Prime Time, which actually meant the only shows worth watching (with very few exceptions) tended to be after 10 PM. (That, thankfully, ended when that corrupt bastard Reagan became President, and it suddenly became "safe" to have exciting TV shows on the air again.)
Here in America, at least, these LUNATICS have perverted government and are BENT on taking the world backwards, as much as the multi-national corporations who've BOUGHT-AND-PAID for the now entirely-corrupt government and election system.
"The Happiness Patrol" was a comedy, but it was closer to reality than many would ever like to realize.
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