Doctor Who 4×03: Planet of the Ood – Oppression, Revolution, and Animal Rights

April 22nd, 2008 1:09pm by rusty-halo | 29 Comments »

I was bracing myself for a disappointing episode, because last week was amazing, but this one turned out to be at least as good. I think it handled its metaphor incredibly well, paralleling the oppression of the Ood with a whole host of examples of human domination over those deemed “other.”

I work at a publisher of books about animal rights, co-run a pro-animal rights website, and have been vegan for twelve years. So I couldn’t help but view “Planet of the Ood” through the lens of animal rights philosophy.

The modern Western world is built upon the horrific abuse and exploitation of billions of sentient creatures, most notably via mass industrialized agriculture. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, please go here to read about the horrors of modern factory farms. The justifications humans use to exploit animals are similar to, and feed into, the justifications that we use to exploit other humans. If it galls you to see animal suffering compared to human suffering, don’t read this. I do not want to argue about animal rights, so if you think you won’t be able to read this without being compelled to fight, please stop reading now.

I don’t think that “Planet of the Ood” was intended as an animal rights polemic (although I do think the creators drew intentional parallels between the treatment of the Ood and the treatment of animals in modern animal agriculture). I do think that it (perhaps unintentionally) does an exceptional job of revealing the common patterns amongst the various ways humans subjugate and oppress others. (I highly recommend Charles Patterson’s Eternal Treblinka for further discussion.)

“Planet of the Ood” isn’t a direct parallel to any one situation in human history; rather, it draws together threads from several situations and creates a story about the overall human tendency to declare a group it doesn’t understand as “other,” then use and abuse that group for its own ends. In particular, we have:

* Slavery. The most obvious; Donna explicitly calls them “slaves.” The guards use whips on the Ood who fall behind. The Ood “business” is a family legacy, passed down through the generations. The Ood “song of captivity” brings to mind African American anti-slavery songs.

* Sweatshop labor. I was quite surprised at how clear they made the parallel when the Doctor asked Donna “Who do you think made your clothes?”

* The Holocaust. The Ood warehouse resembles a concentration camp; the Ood are exterminated via poison gas. lefaym has a great post here analyzing the episode in relation to the “banality of evil” theory.

* Exploitation of animals. Halpen calls the Ood “livestock” and “animals” and refers to their “breeding farms”; the escaped Ood ran “like a dog”; rebellious Ood are “rabid”; Donna asks if any Ood are “running wild, like wildebeests”; exterminating “contaminated batches” of Ood is “the classic foot and mouth solution from the old days”; on the commentary, writer Keith Temple explains that he was explicitly drawing comparisons with battery hens. And, of course, there’s the fact that the Ood aren’t human; what exactly is the difference between “alien” and “animal”? Why is it okay to exploit one and not the other? Are the Ood more or less similar to humans than, say, dolphins or great apes?

I was pleased that “intelligence” was not the determining value of the Ood’s right to freedom; it was their ability to feel, their pain and their joy, as symbolized by the song. One of the main arguments used against animal rights is that animals are less “intelligent” than us, so therefore we can do whatever we want with them. I would, of course, counter this with the fact that animals are able to feel, and therefore it’s wrong to cause them suffering. Most people are easily able to make this leap when it comes to cats and dogs–of course it’s wrong to hurt them! But fail to extend it to, say, pigs, whose emotional capabilities are comparable to those of domestic animals, yet whom humans abuse on a massive scale. Sadly, this episode does offer the defense that the Ood shouldn’t be abused because they aren’t “just animals”–would their abuse be justified if they were? As if animals don’t feel?

The “processed” Ood have their hind brains cut off, taking away their memory and emotions, which brings to mind a whole host of methods used to mutilate and control the oppressed. The episode compares it to lobotomization; you could also compare it to debeaking, or the consequences of selective breeding, or to female genital mutilation, or (stretching the metaphor a bit, and bringing in the “circle” that prevents the Ood from connecting to each other) to the practice of keeping oppressed groups uneducated or of denying them their own languages and cultures.

The Ood transportation method, hundreds of Ood crammed into huge crates and shipped across the galaxy, once again brings to mind a whole list of atrocities: Africans crammed into slaver ships, Holocaust victims crammed into cattle cars, and, yes, the horrific methods often used to transport animals in factory farming.

I was impressed at how well this episode emphasized the importance of propaganda; the topic of “advertising” recurs throughout. And the commercial that opens the episode perfectly highlights the pretty lies that justify oppression; the “other” has “one purpose”: “to serve.” The Ood programmed to speak in amusing voices was also particularly horrifying, in highlighting how dehumanization happens not only through violence but through ridicule.

Solana’s pretty marketing speech (“We keep the Ood healthy, safe, and educated”) is directly contrasted with the harsh reality of Ood life (the red-eyed Ood being chased down by guards with guns). Not to mention, of course, the later whipping and several references to the stench of the Ood pens. If you’ve ever compared a slaughterhouse video to a fast food commercial, you know what I mean. Do people really believe that stuff? Or does it just make the denial easier?

What impressed me most is that this episode managed to avoid so many of the pitfalls common to tales of oppression and revolution.

Even stories that sympathize with the oppressed often work to distinguish their heroes from “those crazy activists” (see Futurama or South Park). I was so pleased that Doctor Who presented the activist group, Friends of the Ood, as heroes in their own right, who were not treated with ridicule by the narrative and whose actions did have a positive effect in helping to free the Ood. Doctor Ryder wasn’t misguided; his years of work paid off, and his death was portrayed as tragic.

But they also avoided taking away the agency of the Ood by having them saved by a heroic outsider whose demographic resembles that of the presumed audience (which is what Hollywood would have done). Ultimately it was the Ood subconscious that rebelled and enabled them to fight back. It was appropriate that the Doctor had little to do in this episode but assist the rebellion that was already happening.

They did an amazing job of showing how dehumanized the workers had become after spending so much time abusing the Ood. This is apparent in Commander Kess’ sadism when attacking the Doctor (who, as far as he knows, is a fellow human being). But I was also pleased that the injustice was not caused by one or two “bad apples” but that the entire culture was implicated. Ignorance isn’t an excuse; as Solana points out “Of course [the people back on earth] know… they don’t ask. Same thing.” Even Halpen was not pure evil, given the kindness he showed Ood Sigma. And Solana was a great character, because she represents the majority of people in these situations, those that close their eyes and ignore what’s happening. I’m sure she’s sweet and funny and she goes home to a family that loves her, but she’s also complicit in a great atrocity. In a typical new Who story, you’d have expected her to join the Doctor and reform; I was amazed at how realistically they treated her, that she did what most people do and kept her eyes shut. I was also pleased that they had humans of several races as part of the oppressive group, because they were very clearly saying that this isn’t the dark side of one human ethnic group; this is the dark side of humanity as a whole.

And I love that they didn’t let the modern audience off easy. They didn’t say “Look how this parallels atrocities in the human past”; they said “Look how this parallels atrocities that are happening now.” I was actually shocked that they had the Doctor ask Donna who she thinks made her clothes, and was glad that Donna’s reaction was very human, and quite similar to the 42nd century’s response to the Ood–she lashes out at the messenger and doesn’t want to hear it. (And a lesson for activists: the Doctor’s snarky tone just puts her on the defensive and leads her to ignore what he actually said.)

Donna’s reaction to the horrors she was experiencing was also very realistic–she didn’t want to deal with it, she wanted to go home. And, of course, the thing that makes Doctor Who inspiring is that it doesn’t just show us horrors; it firmly believes that they can be changed. Isn’t this what Rose’s “Parting of the Ways” speech was all about? “The Doctor showed me a better way of living your life. That you don’t just give up. You don’t just let things happen. You make a stand. You say no. You have the guts to do what’s right when everyone else just runs away.” Donna gets a taste of this, that the Doctor’s life isn’t just about travel and adventure but about taking a stand and making a difference, and in the end, that’s why she decides to stay.

I was also quite surprised that this episode chose to advocate violent revolution, or at least not to condemn it. The story could’ve easily been about the Doctor protecting the stupid humans from the rabid Ood, who’d gone wild due to human mistreatment but now sadly had to be stopped. It still would’ve been a story about oppression being wrong and coming back to bite the oppressors in the ass, but it would’ve condemned the Ood just as much as the humans. Here, their violent revolution works; the Ood end up free, Solana and Kess are killed along with many of the workers, Halpen is turned into an Ood (ah, poetic justice), and the narrative presents their deaths as justified. Donna nails it when she says she doesn’t know what’s right or wrong anymore.

In a show that frequently presents heroic humans battling dangerous aliens (see, er, pretty much every invasion-of-earth episode thus far), it was nice to see an episode that presented the other side. Here, the aliens were sympathetic, and the humans were at fault. Even if most aliens are dangerous, you can’t be complacent and assume that they’re all bad. (*cough*Jack*cough*). I absolutely adored the Doctor’s line that it’s better not to know what’s right and wrong, because thinking in absolutes is what leads to atrocities in the first place.

Donna asks “Are [humans] like explorers or more like a virus?” The beauty of Doctor Who is that it sees the ambiguity of human nature; we’re both. We have the potential for both good and evil, and the episodes about human good wouldn’t be so powerful if we didn’t have episodes like this, that explore humanity’s dark side. And even here, we see both sides–Halpen’s greed, Kess’ sadism, and Solana’s cowardice are balanced by Ryder’s convictions and Donna’s compassion.

Also of note in this episode:

* I liked that it opened with a reminder of how much the Doctor loves to travel. Unlike his “going through the motions” attitude of last year, I believed him this time, and am glad that he’s regaining his joie de vivre. Interesting that his speech is mostly about how great it is that Donna is with him; so much of his joy comes from having a companion to share his travels.

* I am completely loving the teamwork and banter between the Doctor and Donna.

* Another episode that emphasizes the Doctor’s alien nature, that he hears the Ood song (all the time) and is able to share it with Donna.

* The Doctor looks devastated when Donna says she wants to go home. He’s just told her that he hears that sorrowful song all the time; you can feel his heart breaking at the prospect of having to deal with the “burden of the Time Lord” alone again. And how many people has he lost or driven away recently? For the sake of his mental health, I’m glad she changed her mind.

* The Doctor is incredibly gentle with the injured Ood; it reminded me of his interactions with Chloe in “Fear Her.” For all the fannish yammering about how heartless and selfish he is… um, when it matters, he’s not. I also loved that he calls Delta 50 by his name, which reminded me of his naming the passengers in “Voyage of the Damned”; it symbolizes how the Doctor sees the value in each individual. And I love how gentle Donna is, how quickly she gets over her fear and comforts Delta 50, and the wonderfully genuine touch in the writing, that she misinterprets how to communicate and talks into the Ood translator ball.

* The Doctor moves in front of Donna and Ood Sigma when Halpen points the gun at them. I like how subtly this happens; it’s just so Doctor. (And, hey, Jack Harkness could learn a lesson.)

* Once again, the Doctor shows more self-awareness than he would have shown last season, this time by regretting the fact that he ignored the Ood in series two. It seems he did learn from the mistakes he made due to obliviousness last year, although I do think his guilt complex leads him to blame himself far more than he deserves. (And, to be fair, when it comes to excuses for not investigating something, SAVING THE UNIVERSE FROM SATAN is probably the best ever.)

* I love the scene where the Doctor is pursued by the mechanized claw. For purely shallow reasons: I think it’s an entertaining action sequence, I enjoy that David Tennant is such a physical actor, and, all right, I enjoy that the Doctor ends up on his back.

* Another prophecy, that the Doctor’s song will end soon. Fandom is predicting that this means his unhappy “Doomsday” song will end with Rose’s return (and perhaps the return of Gallifrey), as the mournful Ood song ended with their freedom. As a pessimist, I find it more likely that this prophecy means something bad is coming up for the Doctor. (Remember when Spike fandom thought that Spuffy “bringing down the house” was a metaphor for the shattering of old-fashioned boundaries that heralded the emergence of a more complex and more adult moral structure for the Buffyverse? Yeah, turns out they just meant that houses falling down = bad. Occam’s razor, people. *braces self*)

* And another recurring theme, that of the Doctor and Donna being remembered. They go down in history for helping to free the Ood just as they’re remembered as household gods for saving the family in Pompeii.

Current Mood: nervous