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Stars Wars and Doctor Who both feature villains transparently based on Nazis, and I’m coming around to the idea that Doctor Who had the more socially useful model: Imperial officers / stormtroopers come off as evil but maybe kind of badass, whereas Daleks more accurately portray fascists as stupid and cheap and just gratingly skin-crawlingly annoying.

The idea that something as obnoxious and ridiculous as a Dalek can also be dangerous and utterly evil is…a useful lesson.

Realizing as I wrote the previous post:

Doctor Who is remarkable, unusual among its peers, for its 60 years of near-total non-interest in machismo and militarism. Though the show is often violent, the violence is usually something the baddies do, and always miserable and unfortunate — a failure of some kind, something to mourn. It’s a show where the only things that are ever •badass• are intelligence, courage, and kindness.

@inthehands while I largely agree with you that it fits this in tone, UNIT feels a bit close to to pro-militarism, doesn't it? Not as bad as most other media, of course, obviously. (And I've only watched through the second Doctor, third Doctor is up on my to-do list soon.)

@The_T
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@inthehands ah; those replies didn't federate to my instance so I didn't see them until I clicked through. Thanks!