Also

[andrewducker]

Sexism in the Dr Who Finale

Why, exactly, does he have to say "AAargh! I'm a girl!" and then be glad that he's not? The Doctor should be just as happy to be a girl as a boy.

Also, why did it take Julie to point this out to me? I should be able to spot that kind of thing myself by now...

Comments

[andrewducker]

Also - picking on red-heads is _not cool_. It's bad enough the amount of stick that they get for being "ginger" without The BBC encouraging it.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Er, picking on them? His line is "...still not ginger!" which I rather interpreted as disappointment!

[cybik.livejournal.com]

That was kind of what I thought too..

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Agreed - he comments on his change to Tennant that he'd like to be ginger, because he's never been ginger.

The girl comment also puts paid to the 'excuse' for not ever having a female doctor being that the Time Lords don't change sex between regenerations and that's why he's always male.

[pennski.livejournal.com]

Yup - that's my main take on it.

Although yes, he did sound a little horrified at the prospect that he might be a girl.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

.... in Tennant's first episode, he complains that he's not ginger, and wanted to be. Smith's "STILL not ginger!" complaint is just a callback joke - that after 10 tries, he still hasn't gotten to be a redhead.

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

It could be said that being male for eight centuries, then thinking you've changed gender might elicit such a reaction purely out of shock and fear!

[girl-onthego.livejournal.com]

That was kind of my thought - that he'd felt the long hair, freaked, then suddenly he was like, wait, nope, okay, phew. I'd freak out if I died and woke up as a dude, and I haven't been a girl for nearly as long as he's been a boy.

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

Then again, didn't William Hartnell have longer hair?

[girl-onthego.livejournal.com]

Don't know, am ignorant. :(

And slow to write back.

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

Lose ten geek points.

[skington.livejournal.com]

It need not be anything other than "OK, this regeneration has gone particularly weird", given that he's always been male previously. If there's some sort of law of conservation of gender, suddenly becoming female would be a sign that things were wronger than usual when regenerating.

And/or he might be freaked out by crashing.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

That's how I interpreted too -- 'holy crap has this regeneration gone REALLY wrong?'

[laserboy.livejournal.com]

It was a cute daft throwaway comment when his head is still screwed from the trauma of regenerating? (Girls regen into girls, boys into boys, so it would be a bit disturbing if he HAD suddenly changed sex too). It was about the only part of that awful piece of shit script I'll defend.

[johnbobshaun.livejournal.com]

This.

Totally throwaway.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Girls regen into girls, boys into boys

Actually, now that you mention it, doesn't his reaction establish (for the first time?) that regeneration is mysterious enough that regenerating into a woman is a possibility? If it was an absolute biological fact that men regenerate into men, the alternate possibility wouldn't have crossed his mind.

[laserboy.livejournal.com]

I'm not totally ruling it out since as far as I'm aware there's never been anything onscreen, or even in the books, that definitively says it wouldn't happen (does there really need to be?), but the Doctor's mind has always been all over the place post-regeneration so I'm more inclined to think it was down to that and we shouldn't read too much into it.

Tom Baker came out with:
"If the sum of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the square on the other two sides, why is a mouse when it spins?"

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

After Part 1 I thought RTD was ruling it out, with 10's comment about regeneration: "another man walks away." But 11's reaction, which seems to be surprise rather than disbelief, suggests that it can happen.

It can't be random: the chance of 9 successive regenerations all being male (given that the first incarnation was) is one in 500. Perhaps changing sex on regeneration is like having identical twins: rare and rather a surprise but by no means so unusual that you can't believe it.

[laserboy.livejournal.com]

I could actually live with it if they did it like that. Nice. :-)

[white_hart]

That's what I thought, and I was quite pleased by the comment because it opens up the canon to the possibility of a female Doctor in the future.

Personally I'm far more annoyed by the way everyone got paired off in the epilogue and particularly by Martha being credited as 'Martha Smith-Jones' (although I will stop being annoyed by this if someone tells me that Mickey was also credited as 'Smith-Jones' - I wasn't really watching the credits).

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

I saw, 'Smith' for Mickey. Sorry.

Do we know how Moffat is for 'having a clue' when it comes to stereotyping?

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

Oh, dear: http://io9.com/5022250/why-steven-moffat-isnt-all-that

[davesangel.livejournal.com]

I'm really glad that that article has been written, given that it voices all my concerns about Moffat's writing. There is a hell of a lot of sexism in his work, I am really not looking forward to his stint as main writer.

[white_hart]

I can't say I'm surprised. Just annoyed.

[the-gardener.livejournal.com]

I took the line as a nod to the internet-based speculation there's been over the past few years that at some point the Doctor should be reincarnated as female.

But that's not likely now. Not for any misogynistic reasons, but because the Doctor is now as much a British cultural icon as (say) Robin Hood and Sherlock Holmes. Ergo, he's now fixed as forever male.

[random-redhead.livejournal.com]

there are probably lots of canon reasons why this is not "how it works" but could you get another set of lives if you regenerate in a different sex? could this be the get out they are working up to as otherwise its all over after the next one?

[loveandgarbage.livejournal.com]

Of course that bit is scripted by Moffat - who some argue has form in that department.

[daisyflip.livejournal.com]

I really don't think it was sexist. And, anyway, he'll turn into a girl when I become the first female Doctor.