The Celestial Toymaker and Racisam…or the Lack There Of

[Deleted]

Ok so I was just making my way round the net when I come across a post claiming that the celestial toymaker is a racist character and that Michael Gough was wearing yellow face. Now I know the Toymaker has had this stigma for a while but this seemed very untruthful given that photos and the final episode exist in the archive. Being very familiar with this story and watching Gough in other works, I can say with 100% certainty that no yellowface was used, and Gough doesn’t even effect any form of accent during his portrayal.

So were did this stupid idea come from. Well it’s from Elizabeth Sandifer and her post on the episode, which is as far as I can tell the main source of the stigma around this story. I was aware of the blog before hand but i read it properly and was struck with the amount logical leaps needed to get to this point.

www.eruditorumpress.com/blog/the-most-totally-closed-mind-the-celestial-toymaker

Apparently wearing an outfit from another culture automatically counts a yellowface, the again this article was published in 2011 when the cultural appropriation nonsense became a thing so it’s no surprise. Last time I check yellowface was when actors used makeup and/or put on a stereotypical Asian sounding voice to pretend to of that race. Again Gough dose not do either, in fact despite Elizabeth’s claim that Gough is using a none British accent for the part, one could counter ague that this is Elizabeth herself being racist. Those familiar with Gough know full well that he is speaking normally. For an example watch the movie The Black Zoo, in which a younger Gough plays another villainous character and you will see he sounds just like he did as the Toymaker. But then to Americans we all sound alike or must fit into pre-ordained boxes mustn’t we?

So in my eyes logic has pretty much torpedoes these arguments. The Toymaker is as Chinese as I am.

Then we come to the next one. Using the word Celestial. Now yes this is a word used as a racial slur for the Chinese. Well that falls apart when you realise, that aside from its infrequent use in the story, is that it existed in the skript before Gough costume was designed. That itself was inspired by the Tri-Logic game and the fact it’s based on the Tower of Honoi. Aside from this nothing about the Toymaker’s realm has any Chinese designs besides this. In fact it is all almost universally European in theme.

To paraphrase a counter review I read, you have to “try” to find this stuff racist and while I will say that yes maybe their was some thoughtlessness in hind site, none of it seems in any way intentional.

The Celestial Toymaker is not racist in his original story, I never thought so upon my first listen to it or my watching of the reconstructions with the knowledge that some thought it was in mind. Also the character has grown out of any of the superficial things you could try to apply to him. Nightmare Fair alone makes it clear the Toymaker is simply a fan of Chinese Culture.

Now at the core of all this I am biased I’ll admit, I love the Celestial Toymaker, I love the story he’s in and I feel it’s a shame that such a great character has become less used due to ignorant outrage. I also hold Elizabeth’s thoughts in contempt due to her own racist comment as well as willingness to give other stuff like Talons a less harsh critic despite it contain an actual example of what he’s accusing the Toymaker of.

(I’m not bashing Talons here it’s just from her perspective she should be wripping it a new one and claiming it’s not cannon also but instead wants to be hypocritical about it.)

[burrunjor]

Sept 21, 2021 15:20:11 GMT @palaeoloxodon said:

Ok so I was just making my way round the net when I come across a post claiming that the celestial toymaker is a racist character and that Michael Gough was wearing yellow face. Now I know the Toymaker has had this stigma for a while but this seemed very untruthful given that photos and the final episode exist in the archive. Being very familiar with this story and watching Gough in other works, I can say with 100% certainty that no yellowface was used, and Gough doesn’t even effect any form of accent during his portrayal.

So were did this stupid idea come from. Well it’s from Elizabeth Sandifer and her post on the episode, which is as far as I can tell the main source of the stigma around this story. I was aware of the blog before hand but i read it properly and was struck with the amount logical leaps needed to get to this point.

www.eruditorumpress.com/blog/the-most-totally-closed-mind-the-celestial-toymaker

Apparently wearing an outfit from another culture automatically counts a yellowface, the again this article was published in 2011 when the cultural appropriation nonsense became a thing so it’s no surprise. Last time I check yellowface was when actors used makeup and/or put on a stereotypical Asian sounding voice to pretend to of that race. Again Gough dose not do either, in fact despite Elizabeth’s claim that Gough is using a none British accent for the part, one could counter ague that this is Elizabeth herself being racist. Those familiar with Gough know full well that he is speaking normally. For an example watch the movie The Black Zoo, in which a younger Gough plays another villainous character and you will see he sounds just like he did as the Toymaker. But then to Americans we all sound alike or must fit into pre-ordained boxes mustn’t we?

So in my eyes logic has pretty much torpedoes these arguments. The Toymaker is as Chinese as I am.

Then we come to the next one. Using the word Celestial. Now yes this is a word used as a racial slur for the Chinese. Well that falls apart when you realise, that aside from its infrequent use in the story, is that it existed in the skript before Gough costume was designed. That itself was inspired by the Tri-Logic game and the fact it’s based on the Tower of Honoi. Aside from this nothing about the Toymaker’s realm has any Chinese designs besides this. In fact it is all almost universally European in theme.

To paraphrase a counter review I read, you have to “try” to find this stuff racist and while I will say that yes maybe their was some thoughtlessness in hind site, none of it seems in any way intentional.

The Celestial Toymaker is not racist in his original story, I never thought so upon my first listen to it or my watching of the reconstructions with the knowledge that some thought it was in mind. Also the character has grown out of any of the superficial things you could try to apply to him. Nightmare Fair alone makes it clear the Toymaker is simply a fan of Chinese Culture.

Now at the core of all this I am biased I’ll admit, I love the Celestial Toymaker, I love the story he’s in and I feel it’s a shame that such a great character has become less used due to ignorant outrage. I also hold Elizabeth’s thoughts in contempt due to her own racist comment as well as willingness to give other stuff like Talons a less harsh critic despite it contain an actual example of what he’s accusing the Toymaker of.

(I’m not bashing Talons here it’s just from her perspective she should be wripping it a new one and claiming it’s not cannon also but instead wants to be hypocritical about it.)

I seem to recall though it's been a looooong while since I watched the Recon, but doesn't Hartnell quote the less pc name of one of Agatha Christie's books that's ten little well you know what?

I never thought it was racist against the Chinese though. As for Elizabeth Sandifier well she is not only a thoroughly nasty piece of work, but also a borderline sociopath and a total fraud. 

This is a woman who told me to go kill myself when I disagreed with her in a comment on her blog, and when I left a comment in response saying that I had severe struggles with mental health and depression and that was inappropriate for all her wokeness to say that. She deleted my comment about my mental health struggles, but left her one telling me to go kill myself. 

(Her taunt to me was also racist. It was "Kill yourself, kill yourself white boy today. Kill yourself please don't delay." )

She also tried to blame Ian Levine for the Timeless Children, claiming it was pandering to him. The fact that TV Tropes and Idioms quotes this lunatic often says a lot. (I don't mind their site overall, but their DW pages are ridiculously biased for New Who and are legendary for rewriting the past of the show to suit their stupid agenda. They hate the Celestial Toymaker too, considering it a racist piece of trash.)

[Deleted]

Sept 21, 2021 15:37:20 GMT burrunjor said:

Sept 21, 2021 15:20:11 GMT @palaeoloxodon said:

Ok so I was just making my way round the net when I come across a post claiming that the celestial toymaker is a racist character and that Michael Gough was wearing yellow face. Now I know the Toymaker has had this stigma for a while but this seemed very untruthful given that photos and the final episode exist in the archive. Being very familiar with this story and watching Gough in other works, I can say with 100% certainty that no yellowface was used, and Gough doesn’t even effect any form of accent during his portrayal.

So were did this stupid idea come from. Well it’s from Elizabeth Sandifer and her post on the episode, which is as far as I can tell the main source of the stigma around this story. I was aware of the blog before hand but i read it properly and was struck with the amount logical leaps needed to get to this point.

www.eruditorumpress.com/blog/the-most-totally-closed-mind-the-celestial-toymaker

Apparently wearing an outfit from another culture automatically counts a yellowface, the again this article was published in 2011 when the cultural appropriation nonsense became a thing so it’s no surprise. Last time I check yellowface was when actors used makeup and/or put on a stereotypical Asian sounding voice to pretend to of that race. Again Gough dose not do either, in fact despite Elizabeth’s claim that Gough is using a none British accent for the part, one could counter ague that this is Elizabeth herself being racist. Those familiar with Gough know full well that he is speaking normally. For an example watch the movie The Black Zoo, in which a younger Gough plays another villainous character and you will see he sounds just like he did as the Toymaker. But then to Americans we all sound alike or must fit into pre-ordained boxes mustn’t we?

So in my eyes logic has pretty much torpedoes these arguments. The Toymaker is as Chinese as I am.

Then we come to the next one. Using the word Celestial. Now yes this is a word used as a racial slur for the Chinese. Well that falls apart when you realise, that aside from its infrequent use in the story, is that it existed in the skript before Gough costume was designed. That itself was inspired by the Tri-Logic game and the fact it’s based on the Tower of Honoi. Aside from this nothing about the Toymaker’s realm has any Chinese designs besides this. In fact it is all almost universally European in theme.

To paraphrase a counter review I read, you have to “try” to find this stuff racist and while I will say that yes maybe their was some thoughtlessness in hind site, none of it seems in any way intentional.

The Celestial Toymaker is not racist in his original story, I never thought so upon my first listen to it or my watching of the reconstructions with the knowledge that some thought it was in mind. Also the character has grown out of any of the superficial things you could try to apply to him. Nightmare Fair alone makes it clear the Toymaker is simply a fan of Chinese Culture.

Now at the core of all this I am biased I’ll admit, I love the Celestial Toymaker, I love the story he’s in and I feel it’s a shame that such a great character has become less used due to ignorant outrage. I also hold Elizabeth’s thoughts in contempt due to her own racist comment as well as willingness to give other stuff like Talons a less harsh critic despite it contain an actual example of what he’s accusing the Toymaker of.

(I’m not bashing Talons here it’s just from her perspective she should be wripping it a new one and claiming it’s not cannon also but instead wants to be hypocritical about it.)

I seem to recall though it's been a looooong while since I watched the Recon, but doesn't Hartnell quote the less pc name of one of Agatha Christie's books that's ten little well you know what?

I never thought it was racist against the Chinese though. As for Elizabeth Sandifier well she is not only a thoroughly nasty piece of work, but also a borderline sociopath and a total fraud. 

This is a woman who told me to go kill myself when I disagreed with her in a comment on her blog, and when I left a comment in response saying that I had severe struggles with mental health and depression and that was inappropriate for all her wokeness to say that. She deleted my comment about my mental health struggles, but left her one telling me to go kill myself. 

(Her taunt to me was also racist. It was "Kill yourself, kill yourself white boy today. Kill yourself please don't delay." )

She also tried to blame Ian Levine for the Timeless Children, claiming it was pandering to him. The fact that TV Tropes and Idioms quotes this lunatic often says a lot. (I don't mind their site overall, but their DW pages are ridiculously biased for New Who and are legendary for rewriting the past of the show to suit their stupid agenda. They hate the Celestial Toymaker too, considering it a racist piece of trash.)

Hold on, this is the person who did that?! Well they can f*ck right off then the horrible twat.

I’m not saying Doctor Who doesn’t have its questionable elements. The serial dose have the Red King say the N-Word though I don’t recall the part with Hartnell. I’m not here white-wash the show and say it’s perfect. It a product if it’s time. It’s just a shame that such a great character was tarnished for what appeared to be a at most a very minor and circumstantial offence rather then an intended one. Also one he’s outgrown over the years in novels, comics and audios. Apparently he’s even name dropped in NuWho Season Twelve, tou know, the most PC era of the show ever.

He’s also used as an actually character as recently as 2017 in Tales of Terror, in two stores no less. Both were pretty good I though.

Maybe I just over worry. I fear he will never appear properly again or that this stigma may prevent his story being reconstructed.

I also like to point out that while show did have such stuff, it also did a lot of good and was quite progressive for its times also.

[burrunjor]

Yep it was. Sandifier also shared several of our posts on the Hive and ridiculed us and some of my own fiction and tried to smear it as being alt right propaganda online. When I asked her to back up which of my stories were alt right propaganda, she said "fokk off you sexist cockwomble" and blocked me. With an intellect like that I'd say the Celestial Toymaker doesn't stand a chance.

I don't think you need to worry about the Toymaker being written out of history meanwhile, considering that with New Who's death it seems likely that the SJWs influence will hopefully fade in time.

I agree meanwhile about parts of Classic Who are of their time like everything else, but for the most part it not only holds up well, but was ahead of its time.

Classic Who for the most part had brilliant female characters. Even by today's standards. We had women who were interested in science, were strong and feminine, but not stereotypes, (though we also had women that were tomboys too like Ace. Just to be clear I am not saying all female characters have to be feminine, I just don't like the way SJWs and feminists ironically make out that a feminine character is weak.) Furthermore the women in classic who were there because the main hero trusted them, respected them and because they wanted to see the universe, rather than just because they wanted the male heroes D like in most other series. Hell very few of them were even sexualised.

That's not to say that there weren't some screamers and some overtly sexy companions, but hey there were some wimpy men too and some sexualised male companions like Jamie. To me in Classic Who men and women who came from backgrounds where you'd expect them to be smart, tough and resourceful were as capable as each other, like Leela, The Rani, Romana, The Brig, Jamie etc, whilst those who came from backgrounds where you wouldn't expect them to be like Victoria, a pampered rich girl, or Adric a nerd, were equally wimpy. Meanwhile you also had plenty of normal people in between who rose to the challenge, like Ian, Harry, Sarah and Barara.

To me that's actually what more shows should do. IE not have the women all be perfect like Supergirl and the men all be cucks, but equally don't go back to the 50s and have all the men be big macho heroes and the women all be wimpy, damsels who faint at the first sign of trouble. Have people who are you know a varied lot in terms of strength, bravery and usefulness.

When you compare Star Trek TOS which ironically is often held up as a progressive series, it is far worse for misogyny than Classic Who. My god its women are ALL sexualised, just there for the hero to shag, and in one episode there is a monster that feeds on fear and preys on women exclusively because the female of the species is weaker and wimpier LOL. Don't even get me started on the dodgy bit where Janice Rand it is hinted liked what the evil Kirk did to her. Yeesh!

However at the same time, Classic Who was far worse for racism than Star Trek TOS. Star Trek obviously was genuinely groundbreaking in terms of its representation and having the first interracial kiss. Martin Luther King himself even praised it as important. Classic Who meanwhile had the lead character use the N-word, and go on about getting out of a mad house full of bloody Arabs in Daleks Masterplan, and whilst there were some positive roles for black people, there were also a lot of stereotypes in 60s who stories like Tomb and Web of Fear.

Still overall both series were still ahead of their time, and ironically if it hadn't been for them and other shows like them pushing the boundaries we wouldn't get the stronger roles for women and minorities in series today.

Not saying they won the civil rights movement or anything, but they did have a part to play. Ironically the modern twats like Chinballs, J J Abrams, Paul Cornell who like to sneer at these old series want to be remembered the same way the guys who did them like Roddenberry and Nation still are, as the men who broke down the gender and racial barriers on tv, who got a hard time for it from racists, but are now looked on as heroes.

Sadly however that won't happen for two reasons. 1/ It is not the 60s anymore and simply having a black character, a gay character, a trans character, a woman in a strong role etc, isn't some big groundbreaking statement. (Hence why these twats have to do things like race and gender bait, rewrite existing characters or replace them, in order to annoy people into complaining about it so they can then twist it in the media to look like they are Gene Roddenberry.)

2/ Unlike the works of Roddenberry, and Nation, and all the people who made True Who and Star Trek what they were, their work is shit and nobody will be looking at in ten years never mind 60 LOL. The reason for that is because even though a lot of the guys who did the original Trek and DW whatever their faults were more genuine in fighting inequality and more genuinely political writers, they also cared more about telling good stories than the modern twats who want their place in history so much for being "the first to cast a non binary black guy" that they forget to write you know a plot. 

[iank]

Yawnarama central.

[Deleted]

Sept 21, 2021 20:46:45 GMT iank said:

Yawnarama central.

A bit dry true but be fair, not every thread can have the Hive's usual amusing bent.

[iank]

I was more talking about the cretin under discussion.

[RobFilth]

I'm not sure whether a westerner wearing a Chinese Mandarin collar dress is inherently racist.

The critic sounds like one of these dolts who accuses white folk wearing dreadlocks of cultural appropriation.

They need to get a life.

[Deleted]

Sept 22, 2021 19:38:43 GMT RobFilth said:

I'm not sure whether a westerner wearing a Chinese Mandarin collar dress is inherently racist.

The critic sounds like one of these dolts who accuses white folk wearing dreadlocks of cultural appropriation.

They need to get a life.

It would be racist if the character was meant to be Chinese, but as far as I can tell Gough literally dose nothing in any way to depict the character as such. No makeup, no silly voice, literally nothing else Chinese related in the story apart from the Tri-Logic game which is based on the Tower of Haioi.

From what I’ve read the word Celestial was used as part of the title before Gough’s costume was finalised. It was based on the fact the game he played with the Doctor was Chinese in origin.

I mean just look at all the other material involving Asian characters and how they are far more offensive. Their was nothing stopping doing the same with the Toymaker but they didn’t.

[Deleted]

The Toymaker isn't Chinese. Doesn't Marco Polo wear the exact same robes as the Toymaker as well? I don't get this "you can't wear things that are of a different culture" rule.

The serial isn't racist at all. Apart from a mubling, almost inaudible use of the N word by a guest character there's nothing eye raising in there. Even then he's reciting a famous rhyme that was still used at the time rather than directly calling a black person it.