What The Casting Of The Next Doctor Who Will Tell Us About The BBC

Des Willie/BBC/BBC Worldwide/Shutterstock

By Alec Charles, University of Hull

If, frozen in time in 1989, an old-school Doctor Who fan were roused from cryogenic slumbers, he (and in those days it would almost certainly have been a “he”) would be astonished to see the direction taken by the latest series. He’d note that the hero’s arch-enemy had been reincarnated as both a man and a woman, that his companion was both black and gay, and that the show’s audience demographic had broadened (beyond anyone’s wildest expectations) to include women.

But he might be reassured that two things had not changed. The BBC is still beset by government animosity – and the British press still speculate obsessively about the possibility of a female Doctor Who.

In 1985, Margaret Thatcher’s government had established the Peacock Committee to explore “replacing the BBC license fee with advertising revenues”. This was partly prompted by an antagonism towards the BBC’s perceived liberal bias, a hostility escalated by the BBC’s refusal to adopt jingoistic rhetoric in its coverage of the Falklands War – which went as far as seeing allegations of treason being levelled against the broadcaster.

In July 1986, the home secretary, Douglas Hurd, had thus reported his government’s enthusiastic response to Peacock’s proposals to promote a “free broadcasting market including the recommendation to increase the proportion of programmes supplied by independent producers”.

Two years earlier, that champion of popular broadcasting, Michael Grade, had moved from commercial television to become controller of BBC One. Although feared by traditionalists as heralding a “tidal wave of vulgarian programming”, Grade reestablished the BBC’s reputation as a bold and popular innovator. Those who saw Grade’s ascendancy as a sop to Thatcherism would have been reassured by the controversy he sparked in 1988 by broadcasting Tumbledown, a TV play depicting the indifference of the state towards a serviceman wounded in the Falklands.

Michael Grade giving evidence to the media select committee in 2007. PA/PA Archive/PA Images

As a result of Grade’s forceful endorsement, the drama was, as Mark Lawson has observed, “transmitted despite sustained political and military complaints”. So much, then, for the view of Michael Grade as a corporate collaborator. As noted in a Guardian profile of Grade:

To every generation of BBC executive there is the one programme which irritates the government so much it defines the corporation’s relations with Downing Street for a decade and Tumbledown was Grade’s.

The BBC website notes that Grade “was not afraid to make tough decisions – like scrapping sci-fi favourite Doctor Who”. Grade took the series off air for 18 months and fired its star, Colin Baker – but it was his successors who actually cancelled the programme. Grade remains demonised by die-hard fans as the executive who dispatched their favourite show. Yet his opposition to Doctor Who was indicative not only of his own confidence, but of the institution’s confidence under his management. It was a bold decision, symbolically important in his bid to modernise the organisation, to put a moribund old favourite out of its misery.

Yet Grade was not dogmatic about Doctor Who. When Russell T Davies resurrected the series in 2005, Grade wrote to congratulate the BBC’s director-general, Mark Thompson on this “classy, popular triumph”. Indeed, Thompson and Davies’s bold move in bringing the series back was only possible as a result of Grade’s bold decision to send it into exile two decades earlier.

Under pressure
Let’s fast forward to the present day – 13 years on from when the Hutton Report scarred the BBC’s confidence and led to the resignation of chair Gavin Davies and director-general Greg Dyke. It’s also nine years since the on-air conduct of Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross prompted the resignation of the controller of Radio 2 and five years since the Jimmy Savile scandal broke. Just last year, the findings of Dame Janet Smith’s investigation emphasised that, in that latter context, the BBC had “missed opportunities to stop monstrous abuse”.

In 2015, a battered BBC dithered in its response to the latest incident involving the presenter of its global franchise Top Gear. The organisation prevaricated for a fortnight between the suspension of Jeremy Clarkson following a “fracas” with a producer and the presenter’s termination.

The loss of Top Gear was a big blow for the BBC. IDS.photos via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY

The following year, the organisation’s confidence was further dented when Clarkson’s replacement, Chris Evans, quit following poor reviews. Clarkson’s successful move that year to Amazon Prime (along with co-hosts Hammond and May) did not bolster the BBC’s morale.

The situation was hardly improved by the arrival of the government of Theresa May and Philip Hammond, and their allies’ claims of the “pessimistic and skewed” BBC response to Brexit – despite the robust defences advanced by Lord Hall, Nick Robinson, Ivor Gaber, The Guardian and a sizeable group of MPs.

In 2015, the BBC relinquished The Voice, one of its most successful formats, to a competitor. Late in 2016 – as a result of production processes promoted by Peacock three decades earlier – the institution lost another treasured asset to another competitor, the quintessentially “Beebish” Great British Bake Off. Having lost its Voice, Auntie was now in danger of losing her identity.

Going, going, gone: another BBC crown jewel. Mark Bourdillon via Flickr, CC BY

Michael Grade had once fought off bids by rivals to usurp the BBC’s rights to the popular American import Dallas. But today’s BBC lacks Grade’s showmanship. It now bravely clings on to its rights to broadcast such staples as Wimbledon and the Olympics.

Is there a Doctor in the house?
That is why the choice of the next star of Doctor Who counts. In its international sales, critical success and popular following, the series ranks alongside such titles as Top Gear, Bake Off and Sherlock. The new series – Peter Capaldi’s last – is scheduled to start on Saturday April 15. It will be the programme’s tenth full season since Davies brought it back. The corporation is clearly keen to retain and regain its success as a highly remunerative global brand.

The casting of its lead may signal the BBC’s confidence as a bold trendsetter – or not. Who it chooses to play the Doctor may be even more significant than the all-female Ghostbusters remake or Tamsin Greig’s Malvolia – or than Idris Elba’s chances of playing Bond.
(In a show of exquisitely pertinent impertinence, Doctor Who’s new cast member Pearl Mackie has this week declared her own desire to play James Bond.)​

Lorna Jowett, of Northampton University, has suggested that the relentless white maleness of this pointedly progressive series’ lead has prompted “increasing criticism”. A 2015 episode provocatively presented the regeneration of a white male Time Lord into a black woman, and this prompted renewed press speculation – speculation rife since the 1980s – that the next actor in the role need not be male or white.

When it was revealed last month that the Time Lord’s new companion would be a lesbian, showrunner Steven Moffat expressed surprise that anyone thought this was a big deal, commenting: “The correct response should be, ‘What took you so long?’” This was, after all, the show that had given us John Barrowman’s glorious bisexual Captain Jack.

The hype around the casting of the series’ next lead may be seen as a barometer of the BBC’s sense of confidence in itself as a cultural driver and leader of social mores. Since Peter Capaldi announced his departure in January there has been much speculation as to who might fill his boots. David Harewood threw his hat into the ring, while Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Natalie Dormer, Olivia Colman and Tilda Swinton have all garnered support.

Confidence motion
In recent days, however, speculation that the BBC may cast a woman (and/or an actor of colour) in this flagship role has given way to tabloid reports that they may make a rather safer choice. “Hopes of a woman have been dashed,” reported The Sun, while The Mirror announced that TV bosses determined to recapture “the glory days of the David Tennant era have set their sights on finding a dashing male actor”.

If the Mirror is right, we may at least hope that Sacha Dhawan is in the frame. This strategy would, however, exclude both Thandie Newton and Vicky McLure – despite their thrilling performances in the latest Line of Duty – from the running.

Thandie Newton and Vicki McClure in Line of Duty. World Productions/ BBC / Bernard Walsh

After Hutton, Savile, Top Gear and Bake Off, the question as to whether a BBC rocked by waves of crisis and beset by political hostilities will seek to retrench or renew itself is of massive cultural and political significance. Will the organisation see this critical period as an opportunity to emulate Michael Grade’s modernising chutzpah – aligned with the cultural zeitgeist, yet unafraid of antagonising the establishment?

The impending decisions it takes as to the casting of this particular role may offer a gauge as to its confidence (and dexterity) in negotiating a route towards a post-Brexit Britain. It will certainly be something worth watching for.

About Today's Contributor:
Alec Charles, Head of the School of Arts, University of Hull

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

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Doctor Who Takes An Ethical Stance Towards Alien Life – So Why Isn't He Vegan?

'So, you’ve run out of lentils, eh?’ Ray Burmiston/BBC

Since the Doctor Who series was rebooted in 2005 the television show has consistently presented the Doctor as a moral leader, a key element of which is his respectful relationship with other species. The Doctor expresses admiration and wonder for others, even when they threaten him or his human companions. Christopher Eccleston, who played the first relaunched Doctor, told the BBC that the new show retained “the central message of love for life in all its forms”. If this is the case, we have wondered, why isn’t the Doctor a vegan?

Peter Capaldi, who plays the latest incarnation of the Doctor, has not eaten meat on screen. This is a nonhuman character who does not appear eat other nonhumans, and in this regard he differs from his previous three incarnations (Matt Smith, David Tennant, and Eccleston) who were often seen eating dead animals or wearing dead animals’ skins. This is a partial departure from the Doctor’s behaviour during the original series, which ran from 1962 to 1989. The sixth Doctor (played by Colin Baker) became a vegetarian in the 1985 episode The Two Doctors after his companions were almost killed by a species who viewed humans as food animals.

But the Doctor’s vegetarianism was expressly abandoned by head writer Russell T Davies when the show returned in 2005. Davies explained that he wrote the Doctor’s vegetarianism out of the series because he wanted to make the Doctor more relatable to the audience. But the result is that the Doctor now displays some very confused ethics.

In episode Boom Town from 2005, Eccleston’s Doctor discusses issues about death and mercy with a condemned alien. The scene is set in a restaurant, and the Doctor orders steak and chips. In the episode The Age of Steel from 2006, Tennant’s Doctor expresses how much he enjoys eating meat hotdogs while acknowledging their similarity to what Cybermen unjustly do to humans. In his first episode in 2010, Smith’s Doctor famously ate fish fingers and custard to recover from the regeneration process. Yet in the Christmas episode that year he reacts with wonder and compassion when encountering flying fishes, who he seeks to save.

The Eccleston, Tennant and Smith Doctors have all been shown as enthusiastic consumers of some nonhuman species while at the same time trying to protect others. When the earth is under threat of destruction, the Doctor only ever seems to care about the loss of human lives that might result, and not the many other species living on Earth. In the episode “Cold Earth” from 2010, Smith’s Doctor becomes involved in negotiations for humans to “share” the planet with Silurians, a species of “homo reptilians” who lived on Earth before humans evolved. In the debate over whether there is room for both species, there is no acknowledgement that any species other than humans already live on the planet, or that they are kept and killed for the convenience of humans.

Capaldi’s Doctor hasn’t yet been shown eating meat like his predecessors. In his first episode in 2014 he even gently chided his companion Clara’s hypocrisy when she was disgusted by the farming of human body parts by an alien, saying: “You weren’t a vegetarian the last time I looked.” There’s been no overt statement that the Doctor has returned to his vegetarianism, but by conspicuously not eating meat Capaldi’s Doctor has at least brought back the moral consistency of the earlier series’ vegetarian Doctor. Twelve years after Davies’ script decision, it seems the Doctor does not need to eat other species in order for us to relate to the character.

As a primetime show aimed at children and adults with a history stretching back more than 50 years, Doctor Who reflects contemporary cultural and ethical norms through the stories it tells. The post-2005 show has been rightly credited for the diversity of its human characters – the new series about to begin sees the introduction of the Doctor’s first openly gay companion, and tipsters feel that the next Doctor may be a woman, or black, or a black woman. However, the modern series has not been so progressive in dealing with our inconsistent ethical relationship with other species, even if the 12th Doctor has gone further than most of his predecessors to demonstrate that he does indeed “love life in all its forms”.

About Today's Contributors: 

Kate Stewart, Principal Lecturer in Sociology, Nottingham Trent University and Matthew Cole, Associate Lecturer, The Open University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. 

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Here's How Doctor Who's Time Machine Measures Up With Real Instruments Of Space And Time

The TARDIS. Babbel1996/wikipedia, CC BY-SA

By Martin Archer, Queen Mary University of London

There’s no denying that we’ve seen some absolutely staggering accomplishments in physics in the past year or so, particularly in our ability to measure space and time with unprecedented levels of detail. But being a lifelong “Whovian” excited about Doctor Who returning to our screens once again, I wondered how these accomplishments stacked up to those of the fictional Time Lords.

The crowning achievement of the Doctor has to be the TARDIS, the blue box from the show that’s bigger on the inside and allows the Doctor and his companions to travel “all of time and space, everything that ever happened or ever will” as Matt Smith’s eleventh Doctor once put it. But throughout the history of the show, the Doctor’s TARDIS has shown itself to be rather unreliable, regularly turning up at the wrong place or time. Given these faults we might think that the TARDIS isn’t quite what it’s cracked up to be.

While the show has featured many, often conflicting, descriptions of how the TARDIS works, the key to the Time Lords’ time travelling ability seems to be the “Eye of Harmony”, essentially a star in an eternal state of collapsing into a black hole. In terms of real science though, the same theory that predicted black holes – Einstein’s general relativity – has solutions which permit time travel (in fact one possible way of doing this has been given the name TARDIS).

Whether nature actually allows such solutions to exist is still an open debate among theoretical physicists, and even if time travel could happen we certainly don’t know how to build a time machine. So we’ll just have to compare the Doctor’s TARDIS with our best instruments of simply measuring time and space.

How good is the TARDIS?

What we really need to compare here are these instruments’ relative precision. A simple way of thinking of this is as the ratio of the smallest thing you can measure with an instrument to the largest. In the case of a metre ruler that would be 1 millimetre compared to 1,000 millimetres (a metre), or simply one in 1,000.

Measuring space
In terms of measuring space our best ruler by far is advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). Gravitational waves are mysterious ripples in the fabric of space and time that travel across our universe at the speed of light – stretching space in one direction and shrinking it in the direction that is at right angles. LIGO was the experiment that last year directly detected the minute changes in distances travelled by light beams, caused by gravitational waves.

These changes in distance are some 1,000-10,000 times smaller than the size of the nucleus of an atom, and they’re detected over a four-kilometre distance. That’s a level of sensitivity that’s up to one part in 10²³ – a huge number consisting of a one with 23 zeros after it: 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

Now, considering the TARDIS’s playing field is “all of space”, it’s staggering that even when it turns up at the wrong place it simply manages to land on the right planet (usually Earth). The observable universe is some 10²⁷ metres in diameter while the Earth’s is a comparatively tiny 1.3m metres. So simply being able to find our planet within only the observable universe is a feat requiring some one in 10⁷⁰ relative precision. And that number only gets bigger when we consider how big the universe might extend beyond what’s actually visible.

Measuring time
When it comes to time, scientists have been developing new atomic clocks which are much better than the old Caesium ones that have been used to define what a second is. All these new clocks essentially count the number of waves of specific colours of visible light emitted by atoms – a unique property of each element. Our current best clock uses Ytterbium atoms and is stable enough to yield relative precision a little less than one in 10^18.

But how do you compare this to the TARDIS? As it covers everything that ever happened or ever will happen, we need to essentially find out when the universe will die to be able to make a comparison. It’s currently 13.8 billion-years-old, but that’s still a very long way ahead. Given our current understanding of the amount of matter and energy in the universe, it won’t be until some 10¹⁰⁰ years that all of the stars, planets and galaxies will have died, all protons and neutrons will have decayed and even all the supermassive black holes will have evaporated. This is what is known as the heat death of the universe.

Given that in the show, the TARDIS tends to turn up only a few years or a decade or so off the intended target, a ballpark figure for the TARDIS’s precision in time is around one in 10^100. So despite it seemingly looking a bit rubbish in the show from time to time, we’ve still got a long way to go before we can match it. This is certainly something I’ll be keeping in mind when watching the show.

About Today's Contributor:
Martin Archer, Space Plasma Physicist, Queen Mary University of London

This article was originally published on The Conversation. 

Tell Congress: Stop #Trump’s Illegal War In #Syria! [Petition]

The following is an email I've received earlier from our friends at Daily Kos... As usual, feel free to read it and act accordingly.

Thanks in advance.

Stay safe!

Loup Dargent

The Email:
"Loup, Donald Trump has launched an illegal war in Syria.

Sign the petition from CREDO and Daily Kos to congressional leaders: Rein in Donald Trump’s unauthorized military strikes and hold immediate emergency deliberations on Trump’s illegal escalation of military engagement in Syria.


Sign the petition
On April 6, he launched Tomahawk missiles into Syria without seeking any congressional approval. Since taking office, Trump has made a series of rash, hawkish and barbaric combat decisions that have already cost the lives of hundreds of innocent civilians and American military personnel. But this is worse than anything we have seen so far.

We need Congress to act quickly and decisively to rein Trump in. Trump has launched illegal military strikes. Now is not the time for congressional leaders to head out of Washington for spring recess. They must assert their constitutional authority and hold immediate and emergency deliberations on Trump’s continued reckless and unauthorized military actions in Syria.

Tell congressional leaders: Rein in Donald Trump’s unauthorized military strikes and hold immediate emergency deliberations on Trump’s illegal escalation of military engagement in Syria.


Sign the petition
It is undeniable that Assad’s regime is responsible for triggering a catastrophic humanitarian crisis – but Trump is acting in his own best interests, not those of the Syrian people. As humanitarians confronting the horror of the Syrian civil war, we must consider how we can best protect civilians and end the violence. Rash, illegal acts of war are not the way.

The backwards step of instigating illegal strikes in Syria is horrifying on multiple levels. The current Authorization for Use of Military Force that Congress passed post-9/11 does not authorize this strike. This latest attack also violates international law. The Charter of the United Nations is crystal clear on when it is legal to go to war: in the case of self defense or when it is approved by the U.N. Security Council. Trump not only met neither of these conditions, he also did not give Congress a chance to debate and vote on this illegal escalation.

Donald Trump has never articulated a vision or endgame for our involvement in Syria. Throughout his racist and misogynistic campaign, he tried to present himself as an anti-war candidate. But since his election,he has failed to invest in staff or strategies that will lead to anything other than American and civilian bloodshed.

Escalating our military entanglement in Middle Eastern countries – with the inevitable escalation of civilian casualties that comes with it – has been shown to actually help terrorists with recruitment. Trump’s reckless action is nothing more than a publicity stunt and an attempt to boost his plunging poll numbers and change the narrative for a dysfunctional administration that appears to be in complete disarray. It is a reckless abuse of power that shows a complete disregard for both the law and human life, and Congress must hold him accountable.

Congressional leaders must assert their constitutional authority to rein in a rash, out of control so-called president putting the lives of American military personnel and innocent civilians at risk, and they must do it now.

Now is the time for Congress to check and balance Trump.

Tell congressional leaders: Rein in Donald Trump’s unauthorized military strikes and hold immediate emergency deliberations on Trump’s illegal escalation of military engagement in Syria.


Sign the petition

Thank you for standing for peace,
Tessa Levine, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets"


  More Donald Trump Related Stories

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Move Over Batgirl, Our Superheroine Is Just A Normal Human Being

Feline revolution. Ursula Dorada/Angela Sprecher/MSCSI

By Will Brooker, Kingston University

Warner Bros has announced that Joss Whedon will be directing a new Batgirl movie. On one hand, I’m delighted, because the superhero genre needs more leading women, and Batgirl is one of the most undeveloped but deserving characters in the DC Comics universe. But I’m also wary, because Batgirl has already taken more than her fair share of abuse over the years, and I really want to see her treated with respect.

First introduced in 1967, Barbara “Batgirl” Gordon spent 20 years as a token figure of women’s liberation before being violently retired in 1988 in Alan Moore’s notorious short story The Killing Joke, in which she was shot in the spine and paralysed, then sexually assaulted by the Joker. Having been transformed into the computer expert and information broker Oracle – her disability making her a different kind of icon – Barbara was relaunched as Batgirl in 2011, in full costume and with the use of her legs restored.

My relationship with Batgirl began when I finished with Batman. If that sounds like a break-up, that’s also how it felt: I studied Batman for my PhD, and three years of obsessive connection with the Dark Knight became my first book in 2000. After a long break, I wrote another book in 2012 on Batman’s 21st century incarnations. By that point I was done with Batman. So I started researching Batgirl, and wrote a few articles about her unrealised potential.

Batgirl’s first outing. Detective Comics Vol 1 359/DC Comics

Like no PhD I know
Batgirl, from her first appearance onwards, was also a PhD student, but never really seemed like one. One autumn day, I led a class for new doctoral students. As is often the case in the humanities, they were all young women: diverse, demanding, enthusiastic and incredibly intelligent. They were nothing like Batgirl.

During the lunch break, I wandered down to the local comic shop. The covers of the comics were glossy. The costumes on the covers were glossy. The women on the covers were contorted into cleavage-exposing, soft-porn poses. The young men running the shop looked up from their games console and stared at me as if I’d walked into their house. I walked out without buying anything. If I, a fortysomething, male author of Batman books, felt unwelcome in their shop, how would the average young woman feel?

I began to feel that if Batgirl was a PhD student, then she should be written like one. And so I set about building a better Batgirl. Rather than criticising comics from the outside, I decided to try making my own, to show how it could be done differently – and done better.

I wrote scripts and commissioned art from almost entirely female creators in order to reverse the usual male-dominated dynamic: one of the illustrators was my former PhD student Sarah Zaidan, the other artist Suze Shore. The idea was to re-imagine Batgirl as an incredibly intelligent young woman, living in a shared house in a hip, arty neighbourhood, and piecing together her costume from the kind of thing you could find in local shops – black boots, a ribbed sweatshirt, a rucksack. Her logo was yellow paint, sprayed through a stencil.

My so-called secret identity

Cat, heroine of My So Called Secret Identity. Susan Shore/MSCSI

But I realised the project could be bigger than just a hypothetical example of what comics could be like. I changed it to become its own story, with its own characters in its own world, and launched it online as My So-Called Secret Identity in 2013. The response was extraordinary. It was as if people had been waiting for it: comics’ blogs embraced it, mainstream newspapers and magazines featured it, artists and writers praised it. The Daily Dot announced that: “My So-Called Secret Identity will change your view on women in comics.”

How did we create a character so different from other superheroines? It was radically simple: we wrote and drew her as a normal human. Cat isn’t incredibly fit, or incredibly glamorous: she’s refreshingly average. She gets nervous around new people, and becomes exhausted running up stairs. She sometimes wears a dress and heels, and sometimes falls asleep dribbling on her hoodie.

At some points in her story she’s muscular and slim, at others she’s heavier and curvier. We see her in her bra at the gym, and fully-covered in her superhero costume. The whole point is her normality. What makes her exceptional is her intelligence: her ability to join the dots, make connections and see the links between things, illustrated by Sarah Zaidan through the comic’s complex MindMaps. For Cat, smart is a superpower.

Smart can be a superpower. Suze Shore/Sarah Zaidan/MSCSI

Four years later, My So-Called Secret Identity has expanded to four print volumes, and the whole story is still available free online as we always planned. The art team is still dominated by women – Suze Shore, Samantha LeBas, Ursula Dorada, Jennie Gyllblad, Angela Sprecher – and I share the writing credits with new authors, who submit stories from their own cultural experiences – for example, as a black woman, a trans woman, or a British Asian woman. As a white male writer, it was important for me to offer a platform to others who could tell those stories better than I ever could.

Leaving an impression

Have we changed things? It’s hard to say. Both Marvel and DC have strived for greater diversity in terms of who they employ and the way minority groups are depicted. But in many ways, comics continue just as before.

The Killing Joke was adapted into an animated film last year, its gratuitous depiction of Barbara’s sexual assault now queasily echoed by a sex scene between her and Batman. The abusive relationship between Joker and his partner Harley Quinn gained a new prominence and popularity through 2016’s Suicide Squad: she started out wearing a full bodysuit in the style of superheroes (or villains), but her costume has now been reduced to a “daddy-issues” T-shirt and tiny hotpants.

Harley Quinn impersonators in the run-up to the launch of Suicide Squad. 

Batgirl, in turn, was rebooted in 2014 by DC Comics: the new version lived in a shared house in a hip, arty neighbourhood, and pieced together her costume from local shops. Her logo was yellow paint, sprayed through a stencil. I like to think we might have somehow shaped that interpretation. And Joss Whedon’s new movie is said to be based on this recent DC interpretation of Batgirl, which means that, indirectly, My So-Called Secret Identity is a contributory part of its cultural DNA. I’m glad to see Batgirl get her place in the spotlight. But Barbara and I have history: I hope this time DC does her justice.

About Today's Contributor:
Will Brooker, Professor of Film and Cultural Studies, Kingston University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. 

Easter Egg Row Is An Undercooked Mess That Feeds English Nationalism

EPA/Michael Reichel

By David Tollerton, University of Exeter

Some people have dismissed it as a “storm in an egg cup”, but the controversy over Easter eggs has embroiled quintessentially “English” institutions. And unlike most chocolate eggs currently on sale in shops, the story ultimately has rather more inside it than you might imagine. It touches upon issues of fake news, the contested borderlands of secularism and religiosity, and the fluid interplay of state, church and national identity in Brexit Britain.


It started with an article in The Daily Telegraph. This voice of “small c” conservativism (wrongly) accused Cadbury, a venerable confectioner with nearly 200 years of history, and the National Trust, which looks after many of the UK’s finest stately homes, of dropping references to “Easter” from promotional material for their Easter egg hunts and turning a religious festival into a “chocfest”. The article quoted a spokesman for the Church of England saying: “This marketing campaign … highlights the folly in airbrushing faith from Easter.”

The events gained momentum with an accusation by the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, the second most senior clerical position in the Church of England, that this amounted to “spitting on the grave” of Cadbury’s founder. One of his descendants would later claim that, as a Quaker, John Cadbury didn’t actually celebrate Easter – but the archbishop’s vivid condemnation had made its mark.

The the UK’s prime minister, Theresa May, who less than a week after triggering Article 50 might have bigger issues to face, declared that:

The stance they [Cadbury and the National Trust] have taken is absolutely ridiculous. I don’t know what they are thinking about frankly. Easter’s very important. It’s important to me.

Predictably, a range of politicians weighed in on the topic, with Nigel Farage declaring that this was part of a battle for Britain’s very soul:

There are a variety of curious features to the story, the first of which is that its central premise, that Cadbury and the National Trust airbrushed out references to Easter, is actually pretty weak. Numerous media commentaries spotted that the word “Easter” is sprinkled liberally across both organisations’ websites. Indeed, if they really were trying to expunge mentions of the Christian festival from their material, they were doing a pretty dire job of it. In the rapid fire age of social media anger and freely-given accusations of “fake news”, this whole affair may seem like a prime candidate for dismissal as a confected nonsense.

Defending the faith
But the controversy intersects with several deep and longstanding tensions. One of these is the question of what is actually meant when Christianity is discussed in England. As several pundits have observed, the religious roots of many Easter traditions are decidedly hazy and, in truth, the precise divisions between pagan inheritance, Christian practice and secular appropriation are all difficult to pin down.

One doesn’t have to spend long pondering the vast disconnect between the number of people who self-identified as Christian in the last census and the number of people who actually go to church to appreciate that religious and secular identities are decidedly fluid.
The Archbishop of York may see the advertising of a chocolate egg hunt as a frontline against secularism to be fought over with passion but, in reality, British society is instead full of tiny and opaque daily skirmishes in which religious language and tradition is expressed or sidelined at varying conscious and unconscious levels.

Dog-whistling
But what is clear is that for some political figures an appeal to visions of Christianity under siege is more irresistible than any chocolate. This is because “Christianity under siege” can become profoundly bound up in ideas of “Britishness under siege”. Nigel Farage’s declaration that “we must defend our Judeo-Christian culture and that means Easter” is of course an obvious case.

Leaving aside the casual alignment of the “Judeo-Christian” with what is, in effect, simply Christian, the intervention maps neatly onto a longstanding UKIP policy of positioning themselves as the defenders of Christian values (see, for instance, their “Valuing Our Christian Heritage” campaign during the 2015 general election).

Traditionalist: John Sentamu, Archbishop of York. PA/John Giles/Pool, CC BY-SA

But Conservative politicians have found fertile ground here, too. In his 2016 Easter address, David Cameron reflected that “we are a Christian country and we are proud of it”, building on a longstanding rhetorical alignment of “Christian values” and “British values”. Given Theresa May’s history of fiercely asserting the importance of “British values”, her firm defence of British Christians who feel marginalised and her mission, in triggering Article 50, to “restore, as we see it, our national self-determination”, the scene is set for a drama in which actors seen to undermine Christian identity are cast as villains of the piece.

The misfortune for the National Trust and Cadbury (which is now owned by US giant Kraft) was to walk onto the stage at the wrong time – and no doubt they won’t be the last to do so. That the evidence of their misconduct is shaky and the crime’s very theological and sociological coherence is questionable are, in effect, minor details within the greater rhetorical purpose.

The Church of England’s role is more complex, however. The institution has on occasions voiced public unease at the nationalistic and exclusionary potentials of extolling “British values”, and last year’s row between Farage and Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby made it plain that UKIP and the Church of England’s understandings of “Christian heritage” are far from harmonised.

But as the egg controversy shows, undercooked and hyperbolic church interventions against organisations deemed to undermine Christian tradition may, intentionally or not, ultimately end up providing a feast for nationalists.

About Today's Contributor:
David Tollerton, Lecturer in Jewish Studies and Contemporary Biblical Cultures, University of Exeter

This article was originally published on The Conversation..

Discovery 2017 Welcomes Gina McCarthy, #EPA Head Under President Obama

Gina McCarthy, former EPA head under President Obama (CNW Group/Ontario Centres of Excellence Inc.)

A leading advocate for public health and the environment for over 30 years, Gina McCarthy will be the Day Two keynote speaker at Discovery 2017. McCarthy will deliver an environmental message that conveys common sense strategies and sustainable solutions backed by science at the annual innovation conference, hosted by Ontario Centres of Excellence.

Discovery 2017 participants can look forward to an exciting and informative keynote address about the dangers, challenges and opportunities that face our planet and its people, as well as an energizing call to action.

McCarthy is well-known and celebrated for her work with the Obama White House as the former Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). During that time she spearheaded historic progress on the Climate Action Plan to achieve the administration's public health and environmental protection goals.

In 2015, McCarthy signed the Clean Power Plan, which set the first-ever national standards for reducing carbon emissions from existing power plants, underscoring the country's commitment to domestic climate action and spurring international efforts that helped secure the Paris Climate Agreement, signed by 175 countries. During her tenure, EPA initiatives cut air pollution, protected water resources, reduced greenhouse gases and strengthened chemical safety to better protect more Americans, especially the most vulnerable, from negative health impacts. Internationally, McCarthy worked with the UN and WHO on a variety of efforts and represented the U.S. on global initiatives to reduce high-risk sources of pollution.

McCarthy is currently serving as a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard and as a Menschel Senior Leadership Fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, emphasizing her career-long position that public health and the environment are critically interconnected.

"With a keen interest across sectors in cleantech, climate change and lowering greenhouse gas emissions in Ontario, Gina McCarthy will be speaking at Discovery at an ideal time," says Dr. Tom Corr, OCE's President and CEO. "Her direct and practical message of environmental protection based in science is an exciting addition to this year's amazing line-up of speakers."

Named Canada's Best Trade Show in 2010, 2011, and 2016, and celebrating 12 years of bold, new ideas, OCE's Discovery is Canada's premier innovation showcase. It brings together the best and brightest minds in industry, academia, investment and government to showcase leading-edge technologies, best practices and research in the areas of energy, fintech, cleantech, the environment, advanced health, digital media, information and communication technologies and advanced manufacturing. The annual conference and showcase attracts more than 3,500 attendees and 500 exhibitors.

For more on Discovery, visit www.ocediscovery.com

NB: Gina McCarthy is available for media interviews on May 16.

Trailer:

SOURCE: Ontario Centres of Excellence Inc.

Feature Film About Eating Disorders, Little Miss Perfect, To Be Screened In Dallas

Little Miss Perfect Screening April 27 in Dallas

Timberline Knolls Residential Treatment Center, The Elisa Project and film director, Marlee Roberts, are hosting a free one-night-only screening of the compelling drama titled Little Miss Perfect, 6 p.m. - 9 p.m., Thursday, April 27, 2017 at the Studio Movie Grill, 11170 N. Central Expy in Dallas.

The award-winning feature film chronicles the life of Belle, a 14-year-old overly-ambitious straight-A freshman. As class president, Belle seems to have it all together, but as her family troubles and daily social academic pressures grow, she seeks a way to control her chaotic world. In the film, Belle is triggered by a blog promoting anorexia and other eating disorders and she drops to an unhealthy weight. Belle utilizes weight measurement as a means to regain a sense of self control.

"Little Miss Perfect tells the story of a girl who struggles to control her life by controlling her weight. This need for 'control', much like our protagonist Belle, had led me to research the psychological and behavioral effects of those who cope with a loss of control, particularly in anorexia," said Roberts. "I wanted to explore the disparity between our physical and psychological selves and question what that says about us as individuals and as a society."

Little Miss Perfect began first as an adaptation of the traditional French fairy tale 'La Belle et la Bete,' popularly known in English as "Beauty and the Beast." The adaptation borrowed Belle's studious perfectionist nature and combined it with the Beast's shame and temper. Similar to that of the original story, Belle was given a father who sets off on a work venture, a mother who is out of the picture and a confident bordering-on-arrogant suitor.

However, as work was done on the screenplay, it transformed into its own story and themes from the classic fairy tale have become only symbols paying homage to the original tale. While not completely autobiographical, Roberts wrote the character of Belle from personal experience in high school struggling with similar themes many young girls are facing: social exclusion, academic pressure, body image, and family disconnection. 

The event, open to the public, offers complimentary hors d'oeuvres and refreshments. Kirsten Haglund, Miss America 2008, national eating disorders awareness advocate and community relations specialist for Timberline Knolls, will emcee the event.

Following the screening, Haglund will lead an interactive panel discussion with the film's director and Cindy Cole, LMFT, LPC, Director of Primary and Family Therapy at Timberline Knolls. Also on the panel will be Andy McGarrahan, PhD, Clinical Psychologist, Children's Medical Center Dallas.

Registration is required to attend the event. Those interested can register here 

SOURCE: Timberline Knolls Residential Treatment Center

"Attack On Titan" Season 2 To Premiere Saturday April 1 On FunimationNow, Hulu And Crunchyroll

"Attack On Titan" Season 2 To Premiere Saturday April 1 On FunimationNow, Hulu And Crunchyroll

The wait will soon be over for countless anime fans of "Attack on Titan" across the U.S. and Canada. Funimation Entertainment announced today that "Attack on Titan" Season 2 will premiere on FunimationNow, Hulu and Crunchyroll on Saturday April 1, 2017 at 10:30 a.m. Eastern / 9:30 a.m. Central. Both the premiere and future English-subtitled simulcast episodes of the new season will be available across all three platforms as well as the Crunchyroll and Funimation channels on VRV. Details on Season 2 English SimulDub episodes will be shared within weeks.

"We're thrilled to be premiering 'Attack on Titan' Season 2 together with Hulu and Crunchyroll to anime fans across the U.S. and Canada," said Gen Fukunaga, CEO and founder of Funimation. "Fan excitement has been building non-stop since our acquisition announcement and our clip reveal last December. 'Attack on Titan' Season 2 will not disappoint."

"Attack on Titan" ("Shingeki no Kyojin" in Japanese) is based on the New York Times best-selling manga series by Hajime Isayama and tells the story of a world in which the last of humanity fights to survive against man-eating giants called Titans. With now 21 volumes in print and an estimated 70 million copies in print today, "Attack on Titan" has inspired spin-off manga and novels, the anime series, a live action movie and numerous video games. Funimation simulcast the original 25-episode, Season 1 of "Attack on Titan" as well as released it on home video throughout North America.

"We're excited to bring the pop culture hit "Attack on Titan" back for a second season after its long hiatus," said Mike DuBoise, EVP and COO of Funimation. "And based on clip reveals, it will be an action-packed season that fans can look forward to watching. It's definitely been worth the wait."

Synopsis

Eren Jaeger swore to wipe out every last remaining Titan, but in a battle for his life he wound up becoming the thing he hates most. With his new powers, he fights for humanity's freedom facing the monsters that threaten his home. After a bittersweet victory against the Female Titan, Eren finds no time to rest—a horde of Titans is approaching Wall Rose and the battle for humanity continues!

Viewers can catch up on all past episodes of "Attack on Titan" on FunimationNow, Hulu and Crunchyroll as well as the Crunchyroll and Funimation channels on VRV.

SOURCE: Funimation