Ghost of a flea: Leela

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April 04, 2012

Leela

I have been watching Tom Baker era Dr. Who - Horror of Fang Rock, so Lovecraft - and particularly enjoying Leela, a Who companion who was formative in my development. Leela was meant to be a noble savage by way of Eliza Doolittle with leather outfits engineered to be "very popular with the Dads."

Poking around on Wikipedia, however, was a revelation.

Leela is a fictional character played by Louise Jameson in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Leela was a companion of the Fourth Doctor and a regular in the programme from 1977 to 1978. Writer Chris Boucher named her after the Palestinian hijacker Leila Khaled.

Typical BBC. Selling sex under the banner of feminism. Orientalist romantics pretending to be anti-racist. Tenured civil servants playing at being revolutionaries.

In popular culture: The song Like Leila Khaled Said from The Teardrop Explodes' 1981 album Wilder is a love song to Khaled. Songwriter Julian Cope said it was a love song to her "cos I thought she was so beautiful. But I know that the whole thing was like bad news."

Also: Which box is larger?

Posted by Ghost of a flea at April 4, 2012 07:28 AM