Worth: $15.00
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Cast:
Matthew Jacobs
Intro:
… wears its heart on its sleeve to offer a glimpse of a fandom that wants you to love what they love without gatekeeping it.
Lift the right rock up in any franchise and you’ll likely find swathes of toxic fandom. Relegated mainly to online discourse, whether it’s Star Wars, Star Trek or, in this case, Doctor Who, there will always be someone unhappy with a show they claim to love. It could be something as trivial as a lapse in continuity, or something more concerning, such as the ‘fan’ backlash/racism against Kelly Marie Tan.
For screenwriter Matthew Jacobs, his biggest crime was allowing time travelling alien, The Doctor to kiss his companion. And whisper it: make him half-human. That probably sounds trivial for those who have been watching Doctor Who since its reboot back in 2005. Under three showrunners, the Doctor has destroyed his home planet, regenerated into Jodie Whittaker and even got it on with Madame de Pompadour.
Back in 1996, Doctor Who: The Movie, with Paul McGann in the starring role and backed by an American budget, was a big deal. Fans had been salivating for new adventures for ten years since its cancellation. And for many of them, what they got was not what they wanted. The backlash was such that Jacobs has been avoiding Doctor Who conventions for years in fear of running into these, as he calls them, ‘anorak boys’.
Directed by Jacobs and filmmaker Vanessa Yuille, Doctor Who Am I sees him finally bite the bullet and attend a couple of conventions in the US. Since the show’s revival, we’re told, Doctor Who has gone from being a quaint piece of sci-fi hidden away on PBS to a fully-fledged phenomenon. As one fan points out, you no longer have to hide your love of the show. Does that mean then that Jacobs is no longer the target of divisive comments?
In his travels, Jacobs meets fans who, falling short of having an actual TARDIS, find ways in their lives to reflect the Doctor’s values of inclusion and supporting the needy. Of course, wading into convention waters means that Jacobs exposes himself to the very thing he was worried about. Take, for example, the guy who grumbles that the movie was too American. ‘Well, it’s an American movie,’ Jacobs shrugs. Perhaps the most egregious and teeth-grating moment comes when Jacobs is being interviewed in what turns out to be merely a way for the interviewer to bark about Jacobs’ script. For these people, shows like Doctor Who must be preserved in amber, never changed. They mean so much to them, that deviating from the tried and tested formula is to affront and an attempt at pushing them away.
As a subject, Jacobs comes across as affable, still taken aback by the veracity of opinion his work evokes. Underneath this lies his own relationship with Who and the impact it has had on him. The show has been part of his life since his father (Anthony Jacobs), who was bipolar, appeared in it back in 1966. At times, Doctor Who feels like something Jacobs chooses to both embrace and run away from.
Similar in fashion to Kyle Kutcha’s Fantasm, which treads the boards of America’s Horror conventions, Doctor Who Am I is perhaps too niche for some. However, the film wears its heart on its sleeve to offer a glimpse of a fandom that wants you to love what they love without gatekeeping it.
The movie is from 1996, not 1999.