Dollhouse, 1.2

[laceblade]

Dear People Waiting to See if Dollhouse Gets Less Skeevy,


We'll tell you! Just keep waiting tight! [And for the love of God, don't watch tonight's episode!]



WTF LITERALLY HUNTING A WOMAN LIKE AN ANIMAL. Did the show just go there?! Really? Yeah, it did. It really, really did.

Amy Acker is going to be a regular part of the cast, right? Her being listed as a "guest star" is making me fearful.

I had an OMG when Badger/Romo Lemkin showed up.

And the whole hunt-in-the-woods thing was almost forgiveable UNTIL Tahmoh Penikett's neighbor turned up with a skirt, dew-eyes, and homemade lasagna to remind viewers what women-who-aren't-dolls are like......OH WAIT.


Tonight's episode aside, there were lots of posts I read about the pilot that I haven't gotten around to linking yet. Entil's review was generally favorable, but also deeply critical.

What is equally clear, at least from the pilot, is that Whedon is not presenting the Dollhouse as a good thing. He’s not shying away from the fact that the Dollhouse is a criminal enterprise, and that the handlers, doctors, and administrators are all engaging in several levels of self-denial and rationalization. They know what they’re doing is beyond wrong, but they fool themselves into thinking that what they do serves a necessary function.

Frankly, I’m not surprised that this concept was born out of the writers’ strike, when writers and actors alike were discussing and resisting the demeaning treatment by production companies. As many might remember, Whedon was one of the most outspoken supporters of the strike. One issue was the right to be compensated fairly for one’s own work and the retention of rights to one’s work under new and unforeseen “new media” outlets.

It’s not hard to see the parallels here. Replace the “actives” with the pretty little actors and actresses like Eliza Dushku, the brilliant but conflicted programmer with writers like Joss Whedon, and the handlers and administrators with production studio personnel, and the subtext becomes text. The message is so lacking in subtlety that it’s surprising that FOX even let the show on the air.

....

The “actives” feel like they’ve been designed to express Eliza Dushku’s own reflection on how an audience perceives the actor or actress. They want the actor to play their role as they want it to be played. They resist the full agency of the actress to take on whatever projects she might want. The audience wants Eliza to be sexy, run around in skimpy outfits, and be little more than a doll on a stage. The concept is taken to the extreme in this case, and the metaphor may seem a bit pretentious, but there’s something to it.

But therein lies the problem. The audience is being taken to task, on several levels, while being presented with a show that lists as its main strength the notion that its young and hot lead actress will be taking on a myriad of unexpected roles. It’s subversive to a degree, but perhaps not to the extent that Joss and Eliza would like to think.

coffeeandink's pilot post is here.

This blog post has way a way close-reading of the pilot!

I also enjoyed meganbmoore's post here. Among other things, she backs up my anime theory by noting that most of the people on her FL who were okay with the pilot were anime fans.

And...well, honestly. Amnesia. Secret mercenary organizations. Scarred doctor. Sympathetic handlers overly interested in subject. "This person is important and has secrets/goals" hints dropped with the subtlety of a hammer. Rewritten personalities. Scifi organization in apparent modern world. Weird and questionable gender politics with a seeming "fist of the patriarchy" origin used to create an apparently female agent centric series. It's like someone took Gunslinger Girls, Rose Hip Rose and a bit of Claymore, put them in a blender, and downloaded the results into Joss Whedon's brain.