Practice Exam Qs - Doctor Who.

This extract represents Gender in a few certain ways. The immediate contrast in gender presented in the extract is that of Martha, the doctor's sidekick and the Master, a villain. The master appears smug and dominant over Martha as if asserting his superiority. The way that he makes her kneel shows that maybe he wants to make sure that she feels weak in his presence, you could view his way of making sure that she is embarrassed and humiliated as quite misogynistic and sadistic. He is also clearly asserting his dominance over the women in the room by having them stand around and watch him humiliate her, the woman in red to his right, stands on the spot wearing a rather lavish red dress and as soon as he begins to lose, she prays for the Doctor. As a whole he seems to be, possibly quite sexist and he likes to see others suffer. Rather stereotypically for a man, he is very confident and also very over-confident, he chooses to be a little arrogant with his countdown timer and he chooses amusement over practicality.

On the other hand, Martha as a character is a great heroine in this episode because she is strong, she does not fit with the sort of damsel-in-distress stereotype of a woman, she is wearing quite militaristic and usually masculine clothing. She is young and confident. In this extract we get the impression that she is the main protagonist, the cuts to the flashbacks of her traveling the continents are quite vivid and filtered in strong colours of blueish and orange tones tones, they also in the one of her crossing the cold wastelands, the camera appears to shiver with her.

What this extract seems to quite clearly show is a 'battle of the sexes', with the master judging Martha before he knows what her plans are. The level at which the shot is taken really affects the shot in question, the shots showing the master gloating over her are all shot from below, as if to suggest that he is the victor. She is shot entirely from above. However what I think is quite interesting is the way that the two characters are centered on the screen, whilst Martha gives her speech she is the total focus of the camera, unwaveringly looking directly into the camera, whilst the Master appears to be uncomfortable in the way that he strolls around the shot.

At the eventual arrival of the Doctor later in the extract, he dominates all the shots and everything is reversed so the Master is shot entirely from above, to show the doctor literally hovering over him. Interestingly, in my opinion it is quite odd that despite the fact that Martha and the human race are meant to be the stars of the Extract but they appear to be useless without the assistance of the doctor. I believe that essentially this extract if anything, gives the impression that men are over-confident and that women are the real heroes.