Doctor Who has an antisemitism problem

This is the opening of an essay I started writing at the height of the Labour antisemitism controversy.  I abandoned it because a) it wasn't working tonally or structurally and b) I was unsure about taste issues.

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Doctor Who has an antisemitism problem.  In their first story, the Daleks are depicted as underground-dwelling, mechanically-ingenious, dwarfish and evil, plotting to kill a race of blonde, Aryan, volkisch, farmer-supermen.  Right in line with antisemitic stereotypes from Wagner to Hitler.  William Hartnell, the first Doctor, is known to have disliked a guest actor because he was not only homosexual but Jewish.  A later 60s story features a greedy Jewish stereotype called Silverstein.  In another 60s story, a villain wears what looks like a yarmulke.  In the 70s, Tom Baker’s Doctor fought an alien CEO who conformed to Jewish stereotypes.  The Mentors of Thoros-Beta in two 80s stories are arguably stereotypical greedy, slimey Jews.  Even in the 21st Century, we have a greedy capitalist villain called Solomon.  

Clearly, the entire show is riddled with antisemitism.  What has the BBC’s response been?  Have they taken adequate action?  On the contrary, the show has not been cancelled.  All these antisemitic stories are available on DVD.  Chris Chibnall, the man responsible for Solomon, was given the job of running the show after Steven Moffat left!  Clearly, the only thing to do is to stop watching Doctor Who, stop letting children watch Doctor Who, stop buying any Doctor Who merchandise, and call for the BBC to cancel the show, withdraw all the DVDs, etc.  Indeed, surely we should call for the abolition of the BBC, an organisation responsible for such blatant and unrepentant antisemitism!

Now, clearly the above is not meant seriously.  I actually do believe that antisemitism is to be found in several Doctor Who stories.  However, it is clearly - in real terms - a minor problem.  I’m not saying antisemitism is a minor problem.  I’m saying its occasional appearance, in a mild form, in a TV show, is a minor problem.  It requires critique and amendation, but it does not herald the coming of a new Final Solution.  

There is, apart from anything else, a great deal of context I left out of my opening paragraph.  The number of Doctor Who stories which do not contain arguably antisemitic tropes far outweighs those which do, making the percentage of antisemitism in the series very tiny in real terms.  The antisemitism present is often arguable, encoded, accidental and/or unconscious.  It does little damage.  Did the existence of Silverstein and Solomon encourage any kids to join the fascists?  Far from being accepted uncritically, a lot of fans and creators have noticed and criticised some of these antisemitic representations.  Antisemitism is but one form of prejudice among many others to be found in the show - from homophobia to sexism to anti-black racism - precisely because the show is a product of a society riddled with such things.  There is probably a great deal less antisemitism to be found in the show, even on ratio, than in many other shows.  The show’s overall message (at least its conscious and explicit message) is generally anti-prejudice and oppression.  The show was partly created by a Jewish woman, and has had many Jewish creators, contributors, viewers and fans.  And so on.

The show requires political critique, as does all media.  Antisemitism should always be called out and condemned.  But clearly, calling for Doctor Who to be banned as a herald of a renewed Holocaust would be a ludicrous overreaction.  If someone were to do such a thing, you’d have to worry about their sanity, their good taste, and probably their real agenda.

Now, there’s no mystery about my agenda.  But I want to make it clear: I do not equate the problem with Doctor Who with the problem in the Labour Party.  Nobody is talking about electing Doctor Who to run the country.  Not even Ian Levine is calling for this, now the TARDIS console has cooties all over it.  Antisemitism in Labour is far more important in many ways.  It is more harmful, individually and generally.  There is, as the evidence clearly shows, only a tiny amount of antisemitism in the Labour Party, no more (and probably less - again, as evidence shows - since the lifelong anti-racist campaigner Jeremy Corbyn has been leader) than in the rest of society.  There is less antisemitism in Labour in the Tory Party, as indeed there is less prejudice and racism generally.  What’s more, antisemitism plays no role in Labour policy… unless you buy the groundless - and itself antisemitic - notion that support for Palestinian rights stems from hostility to Jews rather than from a desire to see Israel, a country which claims to speak for all Jews but which manifestly does not, abide by international law.  The antisemitic occurrences in Labour are generally matters of individual ignorance, and have now generally been roundly dealt with.  Indeed, the party culture has now arguably swung too far over from bewildered inaction and institutional paralysis to aggressive paranoia and witch-hunting.  However, even a small number of incidents of a minor nature is too many to be tolerated.  Any socialist party - as Labour claims to be these days - must actively strive to entirely eliminate antisemitism from itself, the better to combat it in society.  Being no worse than society in general is not good enough.  Racism poisons socialism, perhaps antisemitism most of all because it is the form of racism which can disguise itself as anticapitalism.  But even with all that being said, the widespread narrative about Labour under Corbyn being an antisemitic party riddled with hatred of Jews, and posing an “existential threat” to the Jewish population of the UK, is clearly an exaggeration so gigantic as to constitute a fabrication.  

And the Doctor Who comparison makes the point.  I’m not trying to downplay the importance of the issue of antisemitism.  I’ve been a campaigner against racism, including antisemitism, all my adult life.  Nor am I trying to equate the Labour Party’s position in society to that of Doctor Who.  I’m trying to use a comparison to make the point that a germ of truth can be blown up to form the basis of an untruth and an unreasonable response, if the will is there to do so.

Imagine if Doctor Who somehow posed a threat to Tory rule, the way Corbyn’s Labour does.  The Tory press would attack it with everything they’ve got.  They might not use antisemitism as their stick, but as my examples above show, they could do so using very much the same logic they use to paint Labour as antisemitic.  If Doctor Who were not a product of the BBC but something that posed a challenge to the establishment neoliberal and imperialist ideology that the BBC (being part of the establishment) views implicitly as a baseline assumption at the very least, the BBC would doubtless treat the biased attacks upon it with the same indulgence it shows to the biased attacks on Labour.