For those who don’t watch Doctor Who, the sonic screwdriver is an acessory carried by The Doctor. It is periodicly redesigned but has always been a linear tube with various embellishments (think about the geegaws added to lightsaber designs.) When I first saw the newest design, which is slender and curved, I immediately associated it with the design of razors and other objects marketed towards women by giving them curvy shapes, and thought that it was condescending on the part of the BBC to assume that the first female version of The Doctor needed a “for her” girly redesign of the sonic screwdriver of the “shrink it and pink it” philosophy. It looks like something that has been photoshopped up on 4chan or The Return of Kings to mock the concept of a female Doctor.
I started a thread about it in CS but it was quickly closed because I was a bit intemporate about a complaint about my title condescending the design, calling it the Lady Sonic based on the Lady Schick, but I had hoped to see more input on what others thought about the design change. I’m now deciding that my unaplogeticly negative view of the design choice is a better fit for the Pit and welcome discussion.
Yeah, I’ll repeat and embellish what I said in your ATMB thread, I don’t see that as “girly” at all (it’s certainly not pink, and the size may or may not be smaller, I can’t tell). It’s shape is more organic than mechanical, sort of like the difference between (say) Alien vs. Star Wars.
Doesn’t look girly to me. Maybe it’s smaller, I don’t know, but Jodie Whittaker will have smaller hands than most or all of her predecessors so, proportionally, it would make more sense. That’s not a matter of targeting, that’s just how that works. Women are smaller (on average). No, really. You can look it up.
Mostly, it looks to me like someone melted a plastic toy a bit and it got deformed. The production value on that thing is horrible. If it was just a prop for the show, fine, but as something to sell to people that’s pretty crap.
I agree that it looks more organic than mechanical.
I thought the whole backstory is gonna be that she had to make a new sonic screwdriver out of scavenged flotsam after there’s a rather large explosion?
ETA: Seriously? The Pit? Let’s go to the quarry and throw stuff down there!! What a lame Pitting! Obsess much?
The sonic screwdriver came up in our pub trivia picture round tonight! It baffled us and was the newer one you’re talking about. We went with White witch’s wand from Narnia chronicles. No one else guessed that one either.
I’ve never watched Dr Who in my life. But based on these threads, I looked up sonic screwdrivers. Had the previous Dr Whos been female, nearly every sonic screwdriver would be called vibrators by guys who think it’s funny to make sexist jokes.
There was, basically, a dick-measuring contest expressed by sonic screwdrivers in Day of the Doctor between Ten and Eleven, but oddly enough no one caught the vapors over that one. Now, though, folks are getting into a kerfluffle over this one.
I’m not entirely thrilled with the new design, but I’ll wait to pass judgement when I see how it’s handled in-story. It’s probably less stupid than “sonic sunglasses”.
FWIW the picture I posted in ATMB, comparing the sonic screwdriver to the mini rabbit, was composited by a woman. Until I saw her post I thought it was just people being idiots.
Now I think it’s mostly people being idiots and a few folks going, “huh.”
It doesn’t look “ladylike”. It kinda looks primitive, like a Neolithic Sonic Screwdriver, made with rough sides and a crude crystal stuck on the end. I could understand if this model was necessarily put together under rough circumstances, or “grown” somehow, but otherwise, I prefer the older. more high-tech looking SS’s
