Gingerism in Doctor Who?

This New Year's day saw the triumphant end of David Tennant's reign Doctor Who - and his regeneration into chintastic twenty-six-year-old newcomer Matt Smith.

[Oi! That's discrimination against people with abnormally enormous chins! - Editorial Bear.]

With just a few seconds of screen time to distinguish himself in, I thought Smith did pretty well - patting his extremities to ensure his latest regeneration had the prerequisite arms and legs - and then checking his long hair to see what color it was.

"Still not ginger!" he wailed.

This was a reference to David Tennant's original regeneration, five years ago. When morphing from one-season wonder Christopher Ecceleston into the inimitable Tennant, the good Doctor complained "I've never been ginger before!"

Yet the British public have shown their typical ignorance of the past by interpreting Matt Smith's comments another way. Over 100 viewers wrote in to complain that his 'still not ginger' remark was, in fact, gingerism.

So many people complained, in fact, that the BBC even emailed me to ask their opinion for a special edition of the Today show they were doing on 'ginger discrimination' (apparently, ever since I appeared in their documentary "F**k off, I'm Ginger" I've been their 'go to' guy on matters of gingerism.)

[Oi, you fraud! That's categorically untrue. A quick search of Militant Ginger's webstats showed that the BBC randomly found you through a google-search - totally unaware that you'd once been the star of one of their documentaries. - Editorial Bear.]

Anyway, my point is this; there was nothing 'gingerist' about Matt Smith's comments.

In fact, it was categorically un-gingerist - a final hurrah in which producer Russell T. Davies demonstrated that he was as hyper-sensitive to the ginger minority as he was to all the others. It was almost like an apology to all us redheads, suggesting that he, too, was disappointed that the next incarnation of 'The Doctor' wasn't ginger.

In any event, I don't have any antipathy towards the BBC for that comment - quite the opposite. As for the hundred-or-so people who complained about 'gingerism' to the BBC? Well, I admire their dedication to our cause, but they sure backed the wrong horse in this particular case. When it comes to blatant ginger discrimination, they'd be better off assailing Tescos for their disgusting 'Christmas Card' I blogged about last year.

I'm as sensitive - possibly more so - to 'gingerism' than anybody else (hell, my blog's called 'Militant Ginger' for a reason.) But I simply object to real discrimination, not the made up stuff. When I went onto national TV as part of 'F**k off, I'm Ginger,' I told the audience I had no intention of becoming the 'Malcolm X' of gingers. I certainly don't want to become their 'Al Sharpton' by claiming discrimination where clearly, none exists.

Anyway. Here is David Tennant's regeneration sequence: