Wednesday 14 October 2020

WDYTYA? Series 17 - Jodie Whittaker

 

burning coals


The new series of WDYTYA? kicked off with Doctor Who herself, Jodie Whittaker.

While perhaps not the most compelling episode (but then, we've probably been spoiled by previous seasons!) Jodie's episode showed clearly two pitfalls of family history - family myths, and uncomfortable history.

Family myths usually have at least a grain of truth to them - i.e. Jodie's great-uncle was killed in the First World War - but someone, somewhere, has put two and two together to make five - i.e. her middle name was Verdun, at which there was a WW1 battle, and her brother died in the war, therefore...

You see where this is going? And it's a reasonable assumption, until you start to look into it, and you realise that things don't quite add up - for example, the lack of British forces at Verdun.


It can be quite difficult to extricate fact from myth, and both from possibility. 

Since none of us have time machines, we can posit theories based on the facts, but that doesn't mean that our interpretations are necessarily 100% accurate - they're options and scenarios based on the information available to us, here and now, in the present.


An additional story from Jodie's family's past - that of her mine-owning ancestors who made a fortune while other pits were suffering the affects of long-term striking in the 1920s - clearly made her uncomfortable.

As someone who'd grown up in a mining community, Jodie seemed to find it difficult to come to terms with her family's part in exploiting the financial opportunities such communities provided, to the detriment of the workers.

History doesn't change just because it makes us uncomfortable, however, and it's important to face the past as it is, as opposed to how we would like it to be.

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