I quit blogging about Dollhouse for a little while for two reasons. First, our readers didn’t seem to be watching the thing (bad, bad readers, with lives to attend to!). Second, I kept reading interviews with Joss and Eliza (yes we are on a first-name basis shut up) saying, “The sixth episode is where it will all take off! Trust us! It was the etwork-nay that screwed up the progression of the first few episodes!” So, based on the beggings of a few troll-y people who were leaving “Trust In Joss” comments all over the internet, I decided to reserve some judgment.
Since we last checked in with our quasi-metaphorical-but-mostly-actual brothel denizens, we have learned (a) that even the Actives’ purported saviour, Paul Ballard, has been tricked into falling in love with one; (b) that the decision to become an active is, well, semi-voluntary at least; (c) absolutely nothing about this “Alpha” person; (d) absolutely nothing of interest or use about Echo/Caroline or any of the other actives for that matter other than bald assertions that Echo/Caroline us a “special active”; (e) absolutely nothing of interest or use about any of the Dollhouse “management” caste – i.e. Adele DeWitt, Dr. Saunders, or the “science genius” at the centre of it all; and (e) absolutely nothing that would shed light on why Paul is so obssessed with helping Echo/Caroline as opposed to just bringing down the Dollhouse generally.
In exchange for all of this we have had to sit through a lot of blank stares from Ms. Dushku, a whole lot of somewhat… strange acting from newcomer Miracle Laurie, who plays the Active November, and one out-and-out rape scene that just keeps coming back for more in flashbacks.
Perhaps you’re getting the general idea: the reports that episode six would make the series make some obvious kind of narrative sense were somewhat exaggerated.
That being said, on to the still-raging problem of this show’s utter lack of coherent feminist principles.
In that vein, dear readers, I’m gonna take a wild guess: Joss wanted to create a show about prostitution. But because no network worth their salt is going to allow such a thing to happen because they don’t want to be walking by Christian picketers on their way in every morning, he is forced to have this weird quasi-scifi scrim draped over his brothel. The quasi-scifi scrim is, as delineated above, something he’s not fully committed to. And as he is not fully committed to it, it is utterly fucking confusing.
This would probably be okay were the show to have some overarching “message” about its real subject that could hold the series together. (Nobody needed George Lucas to be more precise about what exactly the Force was.) Unfortunately for all of us on that score, Joss does not appear to have any particular philosophical commitments when it comes to the question of prostitution.
This became clear to me when the show began emphasizing the (pretty clear, because nobody was paying) sexual abuse of one of the Actives, Sierra (Dichen Lachman). Sierra is, increasingly, becoming the show’s “victim” character – she has been the subject of repeated rapes from her handler, and (slight inconsequential spoiler) even appears to have arrived at the Dollhouse by way of her audacious refusal to sleep with a man who therefore had her “committed” to the Dollhouse.
The problem with distinguishing Sierra as an “abuse victim” this way is that it implies that what happens to the other Actives when they are on a mission is “different,” and certainly, in the way the show frames it, less objectionable. There’s an element here of “well if she doesn’t know she’s having sex, and she’s having an orgasm, that’s marginally more okay!” Which is a pretty fucked up way to characterize the premise of the show, IMHO.
Again, this would all be made easier if somewhere, anywhere in a Dollhouse episode somebody sat down and tried to sort through the show’s extremely confused notions about consent and its implications. Right now, I’m not really clear on how consensual the process of becoming an Active is, in and of itself – all of the Actives seem to have arrived there by way of coercion and a Charlie Kaufmanesque promise that painful memories of their previous lives would be removed. And if being an Active isn’t really chosen so much as the best of a number of bad options, that matters. If you offer me the choice of being imprisoned or five years of indentured servitude as a sex toy for rich people, can I really be said to be choosing my choice?
Is anyone else even watching?
I’m still watching. Just watched last Friday’s ep last night, and…yeah. I mean, the show is entertaining, I suppose…but I share all of your concerns. I want to know more about Adele, Topher, the dickish security guy who hates Echo (and why he hates her), etc. I’m frustrated by the lack of character development. If you’re not gonna tell us about Echo, can we at least find out something about the rest of the crew?
Also, the fact that I’ve really never liked Dushku…not helping.
I miss Buffy and Willow.
I’m watching. I don’t know why. It’s gotten better, but it’s still not great.
I think the show is honest about how the actives are being raped, but the constant “sexy!” message undermines that.
The most powerful scene in my opinion was the one between Patton Oswald and Ballard, where Oswald describes how the active fills in for his dead wife, and it comes across so sweet and sympathetic until Ballard says, “And then you have sex with her.” Oswald gives this creepy grin. That really brought home how the whole system is based on rape.
Also, now that it seems that Sierra was forced into being an active by a man she sexually rejected, so that she can be programmed NOT to reject him–that takes a lot of the ambiguity out of the problem of actives’ ability to consent.
I miss Willow too. There was a time in my life when I was basically Willow. I mean, not the drunk on power part, although hmm, maybe that’s now… Anyway.
Spark, I know what you’re saying, but yeah, the “HOTT” is rather underminery, and sadly I think it is the dominant tone of the show. That Oswald scene was an exception.
I think the Sierra “exception” is a problem for exactly that reason, though – it’s “different” than the way the other actives got pulled in.
Also, I know that Buffy regularly wore sexy outfits, but her clothes were NOTHING like the stuff Dushku has been wearing. Echo’s wardrobe seems needlessly over-the-top. Like, we get it, Dushku is hot and she works out a lot…but does that have to impact every single outfit she wears? Or are we just supposed to believe that every single “client” requests her to dress this slutty? (Maybe Whedon is trying to speak to the depravity of the male clients? I dunno.)
PS, we don’t know yet how the other actives joined the dollhouse, though in the pilot Echo/Caroline implies she’s being coerced. But I agree with you that the tone undermines any message about rape. For me, it’s loud and clear (and I believe it is for the writers), but I can imagine less patriarchy-sensitive viewers not picking up on it or dismissing it. Which is pretty dangerous, actually–normalizing rather than challenging rape culture.
Really, I just like Reed Diamond (Mr. Dominic).
@Kivrin’s second comment: Having not watched Dollhouse, I am only ducking in to say that so many of Buffy’s outfits were so ridiculous to me as to be aggressively unsexy. See: ankle-length pleather skirt.
Spark: Yeah, I don’t even hear it that loud and clear, partially because, Kivrin, I do think that Joss is very into sexy = powerful. Putting on my old fandom hat, IIRC SMG was very bossy about her wardrobe, and she has some idiosyncratic views as to what kind of clothes were “appropriate.”
Not to turn this into a Buffy discussion, but SMG being bossy about clothes would certainly explain Willow’s fuzzy sweater things and oh God poor Tara.
Actually, now that I think about it, I’m thinking that your assessment — i.e., Joss wanted to do a show about prostitution — would explain Echo’s ridiculous wardrobe. The net thigh-highs in the college campus episode…those just pushed me from bemused into “WTF, seriously?”
I watched the first episode and couldn’t get into the plot at all, which is sad because I am a BtVS and Firefly nerd through and through. I’m kinda disappointed in Joss, after reading this post.
There’s an element here of “well if she doesn’t know she’s having sex, and she’s having an orgasm, that’s marginally more okay!” Which is a pretty fucked up way to characterize the premise of the show, IMHO.
Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. That’s about all I can muster.
I’m genuinely curious: can anyone name a male character in a similarly supernatural/sci-fi movie/TV show who has been put in the same situation?
SOALG, there are male Actives. It’s not really clear if their missions are so sex-oriented.
Kivrin, the net thigh-highs were so distractingly hideous, they’re the only thing I remember about that episode.
If Dollhouse wasn’t on at 9 on Fridays, it would be much easier for my boyfriend and I to watch the show… when we do catch it, we realize we are home on a Friday night…
The boyfriend and his parents are HUGE Whedon and all around SciFi fans (he mom regularly talks to Adam Baldwin, I am secretly jealous). I know his mom has recorded all the Dollhouse episodes but she hasn’t watched them yet. I figure, when she comes out with her opinion, that will be the most educated opinion about the show. The woman is damn smart.
For me, I like the show. I like the concept (note: a story about prostitution never came to mind and I’m not going to let it) of reprograming and the good/bad of it all. Those fake “commercials” or whatever they are seem to lent a lot to the whole summary of the show. I need to see more episodes to really understand while Echo is of so much interest but in the back of my head, I kinda think it’s just because there’s so much going on that if all the actives were being hunted for, that would take up too much of the script. It is still a script and all – not a webcam of puppies 24 hrs a day. You get one hour a week.
But, if Joss blames the lack of popularity on Fox rearranging the episodes (Again) – I’m gonna have to suspect that Joss is just making up excuses. Like I said, Friday at 9 is not the best slot…
@SOALG We know Victor (the male active) has been on several sex missions, they mentioned that he might have done too many in the show where he started getting erections when he saw Sierra. But, of course, we don’t see that – just Echo and November having the sex they were programmed to want.
Echo’s repeat customer – the one who gave her the necklace in the first ep and was going to shoot a sex video – is portrayed way too sympathetically. Like he’s a nice guy, who has a thing for her. Wow, commendable that you’re fond of your sex-bot. And the billionaire guy – even after Ballard called him on the creepiness of having sex with the Doll, the end of the show was him getting his fantasy of seeing how happy his wife (Echo) was at the house.
If the goal is similar to what PS thinks, and Whedon does enjoy wringing the most out of his characters, Dollhouse seems a lot like taking on an incredibly challenging premise just to see if it’s possible to make an enduring show without a main character you can root for.
You can’t root for the Actives, as they’re not characters. You feel dirty rooting for Adele, because she seems to be very very evil. And Ballard doesn’t seem to have a drive or much of a character. Good TV shows are made by the bond you feel for the characters. I haven’t felt a bond to anyone in this show yet.
I think Joss is trying to play a long game, leaving clues for a hugely dramatic 13th episode which will cliff-hang and set up a second season. There are a lot of plot machinations working in the background, backstories, secret spies and bears oh my!
The problem is that you can’t play a long game without wonderful characters leading you along. Maybe some people do, but I don’t go back to a show every week because the plot is interesting, I go back because I want to see specific characters more.
To me the show has all along seemed an unsurprising evolution of some of Whedon’s creepier obsessions in Firefly.
He created the courtesan character who was supposedly all empowerful and respected, then showed his main male character constantly invading her boundaries while she put up with it. But since we were *told* she was all empowerful, that was supposed to be okay, or something. And then there’s Whedon’s creepy commentary on the even creepier gratuitous spongebath montage in the pilot.
With River, he ran with the lovely young girl with lack of agency but some superpowers aspect. Again, for the full creepifying effect, it’s worth checking out his commentaries. He refers to the opening of River’s container in the pilot — where a teenage girl is displayed naked to a bunch of strangers without her consent — as the most beautiful image imaginable.
In Dollhouse, it’s looked all along like he just wanted to slap the two wankish fantasies together.
I am watching! And I’m liking it. I think they’ve definitely made everything sexier than it needs to be (including gratuitous camera angles of Echo coming out of the shower or whatever, etc). Mostly the show has got me pulled in because I’m really curious and it’s still all a mystery. But its leaving me hanging TOO LONG and I’m going to need answers pretty soon.
I’m watching and … not so happy with it. I’m reserving judgment bc I know that Whedon’s shows often kick it into gear later on. We shall see.
I’m still watching and trying to “keep the faith” in Whedon. But I do agree, it’s over-sexed. And I am getting annoyed with the lack of background on the main characters – I expected a lot more out of the last episode. I’ll hang in until the end of season, but at this rate I don’t expect a season 2.
But here’s what’s really bugging me, why the hell do they have to dress November like some old lady? So she’s not a size 4 like the other Actives, why does that mean she has to be all covered up? It’s like they are trying to de-emphasize her sex appeal by putting her in odd-fitting flowery dresses that only grandmas wear. I mean, can we not sex her up a bit, or would that be sending the wrong message?
I know, I know, “plus-size” is not attractive. Have I not learned anything from the media?!
@StaySea, I noticed that even beyond those frumpy dresses, when they woke up last week Echo and Sierra were wearing little short slip nightgowns and November was wearing a sleeved nightgown. CUZ SHE’S FAT!!! Ugh. Oh and of course the men were wearing t-shirts and pants.
@StaySea: Agreed, but I do like that they paired hard-body Ballard with a woman a little bigger than your average prime-time waif.
I’m defending this show again. I’m not even a Joss Whedon fan. I need help.
@Spark: Yes, but the pairing of Ballard and November felt more like sloppy seconds than a real relationship. I mean, she’s clearly been pining for him and it felt like he just had a moment of horniness that needed satisfying. I doubt their “relationship” would have really went anywhere, since he clearly is fantasizing about Echo. So, yay fat girl gets the guy…at least until the hot girl shows up.
@Maritsa: OMG, you are right. I had forgotten that as well. And hello, she actually has a nice rack so a tank would have looked nice!
I’m still watching and I also find it hard to care when the characters are so flat. Most of them seem pretty dim, too. Caroline comes of as a conservative’s stereotype of an over-idealistic liberal naif, Ballard can’t come up with anything beyond the bits of info that fall into his lap, DeWitt was so hands off with her pseudo-closure operation that she let an active raid her armory, possibly kill a handler, almost kill her and Topher, and succeed in releasing the lobotomized dolls, who I guess would have been hit by cars by the time they got to the road.
Between that stuff and the cliches in the dialogue, the fanservice outfits, the copious rape, Joss is seriously wearing on his fans’ trust in him. I agree, Helen, on seeing the continuation of disturbing themes introduced in Firefly.
i find myself very confused about what whedon is trying to say here-i mean, originally, i had thought it was a treatise on identity-you can see that in buffy, too-so i thought…ok. then i started watching the eps. the issue of consent is HUGE to me…and there really is no consent. there is no such thing as, “you signed a waiver, you consented to whatever” it just can’t be that way. and realistically, how is it that these actives, who are basically sex dolls, never come back broken? we all know that people, if allowed to do whatever they want, will often do things that are horrible. i also find the caroline/echo just unbelievably written. the only character that seems sympathetic is the doctor, and i think she’s probably oversympathetic…the motivations in the show are murky at best, and i just don’t see where he can be going with it.
[...] Regarding Dollhouse, from The Pursuit of Harpyness. Unfortunately for all of us on that score, Joss does not appear to have any particular philosophical commitments when it comes to the question of prostitution. [...]