echoes in the dollhouse
Based on the talent involved, the new FOX television series Dollhouse has the potential to extraordinary. The show is created by Joss Whedon, who was responsible for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly/Serenity, all of which I have a certain devotion to. Further, Dollhouse stars the absolutely beguiling Eliza Dushku (Tru Calling, Faith in Buffy and Angel) who I would love to see have a chance to really shine in her own series.
I like both Whedon and Dushku a great deal, so when I watched the first episode of Dollhouse, I was really hoping I could say that it was a great show. Unfortunately it wasn’t. It wasn’t bad, it was servicable hour of network television, more derivitive of successful shows than original, and not really that different than any other serviable hour of network television.
Back in 2001, I used to watch the J. J. Abrams series Alias I have have to say, the set-up of Dollhouse bears more than a passing resemblence. In fact during the opening scene I thought for a minute that the sinister yet glamourous older woman with the European accent was Lena Olin (she was actually Olivia Williams). Along with the precence of Amy Acker, this was the most superficial resemblence between the two shows, the others ran a bit deeper.
In Alias Jennifer Garner played Sydney Bristow, a young woman who was an agent of a shadowy covert organization. When on assignment, Bristow would go undercover. She might wear a wig and be a club kid or wear glasses and a suit and be a scientist. Echo (Dushku), the central character in Dollhouse does something similar. She is affliated with the shadowing organization Dollhouse, which sends her on assignments. In the first episode we see her as a free spirit riding a motorcycle and dancing with abandon in a white mini-dress. Later she is a high power hostage negotiator (with the suit and glasses).
Just as Sydney Bristow was assisted by a handler Marcus Dixon (Carl Lumbly) and African-American ex-Marine, Echo is looked after by Boyd Langdon (Harry Lennix) an African-American ex-cop. And of course back at base, both women receive technical support from an endearing geeky type (Kevin Weisman as Marshall Finkman on Alias, Fran Kranz as Topher Brink on Dollhouse).
The key difference of course is that Sydney Bristow always knew when she was playing a role whereas Echo is implanted with memories and believes she is a different person on each assignment. When back in the Dollhouse she’s stripped of memories, an empty vessal, a blank slate.
Much of Alias’ arose not from Sydney Bristow’s espiionage chrades but from the time between them. In the field, she moved effortlessly from persona to persona but when she was Sydney Bristow she tended to find herself tangled up by conflicting loyalties and family ties.
Being vancant, Echo isn’t really faced with issues of this kind so the first episode of Dollhouse focused more on her when she was “in character”, on assignment as a hostage negotiator trying to save a little girl who had been kidnaped. This storyline played out as a sort of condensed episode of Profiler or The Inside (a shortlived Fox series created by frequent Whedon collaborator Tim Minear), with the negotitor coming face to face with her dark past but mananging the gave the young girl from a similar fate. Overall it was a compatent but uninsired mini-thriller, but I rather hope Dollhouse isn’t going to become a “genre of the week” series because it seems like it could be much more.
The premise of Dollhouse sounds a little convuluted but it does raise questions and contain themes that merit in-depth analysis.
I have a deep-seated dislike of Meridith Brook’s song “Bitch”, which cheerfully prepeuated this idea with lyrics like “I’m a bitch, I’m a lover, I’m a child, I’m a mother” and “I’m a bitch, I’m a tease, I’m a Godess you my knees.” Even more chilling is “Sex (I’m a)” by Berlin. Female vocalist Terri Nunn goes down a long, highly sexualized list of all the things she is which includes a slut, a drug, a blue movie, a virgin, a godess (no doubt on her knees), a little girl, a one night stand and your mother. At the same time a male vocalist intones ad nauseum “I’m a man.” A man is what he is, the song seems to say. A woman is whatever you want her to be.
The idea that a woman is like a Barbie doll and can become whatever you dress her as isn’t restricted to pop music or the science fiction world of Dollhouse. Based on the articles in women’s magizines and the things written and said about promient women, it seems to me that if you’re female your expected to be many things to many people-successful in your career, a devoted mother, partner and friend, attractive, physically fit, dignified, sexually reception and adventurous. Female nature we are told, is something of a smorguous board. Women aren’t really anything and therefore can become anything. And yet aren’t all these expectations better than all the restrictions women faced in past? Is this freedom or madness?
Artists like Tori Amos, who took on different personas for each on on her Strange Little Girls album and created several characters for American Doll Posse have examined this idea of woman as Barbie Doll, played with it and deconstructed it. I have reason to believe that, if it isn’t cancelled after a handful of episodes (which based on Fox’s track record it probably will be) Dollhouse will in it’s own way examine this idea of feminine identedy instead of just accepting it as a given. After all, Joss Whedon has touched upon this theme before.
In season 5 of Buffy, Warren Mears (Adam Busch) created a perfect robot girl-friend for himself as well as a robot version of Buffy for Spike. In the next season, Warren tries to get back together with his ex-girlfriend Katrina (Amelinda Embry)- who broke up with him after she found out about his previous relationship with the robot girlfriend- by using a mind control spell on her. It is explicitely stated that Warren’s attempt to initiate a sexual relationship via mind control are attempted rape and Warren kills Katrina, so this storyline very much showed the dark, misogynictic underbelly of the perfect woman fantasy. I can’t help but wonder if there’s a similar streak of violence and rage lurking behind the geeky smile of Dollhouse’s seemingly harmless Topher.
Episode 1 wasn’t spectatuatar, but it had it’s moments. There was even a flash of lesboliocious subtext between Echo and Amy Acker’s character Dr. Saunders. For that alone I’m going to continue to give Dollhouse a chance. It’s not as good as I would have liked it to be but the potential is still there.
I like both Whedon and Dushku a great deal, so when I watched the first episode of Dollhouse, I was really hoping I could say that it was a great show. Unfortunately it wasn’t. It wasn’t bad, it was servicable hour of network television, more derivitive of successful shows than original, and not really that different than any other serviable hour of network television.
Back in 2001, I used to watch the J. J. Abrams series Alias I have have to say, the set-up of Dollhouse bears more than a passing resemblence. In fact during the opening scene I thought for a minute that the sinister yet glamourous older woman with the European accent was Lena Olin (she was actually Olivia Williams). Along with the precence of Amy Acker, this was the most superficial resemblence between the two shows, the others ran a bit deeper.
In Alias Jennifer Garner played Sydney Bristow, a young woman who was an agent of a shadowy covert organization. When on assignment, Bristow would go undercover. She might wear a wig and be a club kid or wear glasses and a suit and be a scientist. Echo (Dushku), the central character in Dollhouse does something similar. She is affliated with the shadowing organization Dollhouse, which sends her on assignments. In the first episode we see her as a free spirit riding a motorcycle and dancing with abandon in a white mini-dress. Later she is a high power hostage negotiator (with the suit and glasses).
Just as Sydney Bristow was assisted by a handler Marcus Dixon (Carl Lumbly) and African-American ex-Marine, Echo is looked after by Boyd Langdon (Harry Lennix) an African-American ex-cop. And of course back at base, both women receive technical support from an endearing geeky type (Kevin Weisman as Marshall Finkman on Alias, Fran Kranz as Topher Brink on Dollhouse).
The key difference of course is that Sydney Bristow always knew when she was playing a role whereas Echo is implanted with memories and believes she is a different person on each assignment. When back in the Dollhouse she’s stripped of memories, an empty vessal, a blank slate.
Much of Alias’ arose not from Sydney Bristow’s espiionage chrades but from the time between them. In the field, she moved effortlessly from persona to persona but when she was Sydney Bristow she tended to find herself tangled up by conflicting loyalties and family ties.
Being vancant, Echo isn’t really faced with issues of this kind so the first episode of Dollhouse focused more on her when she was “in character”, on assignment as a hostage negotiator trying to save a little girl who had been kidnaped. This storyline played out as a sort of condensed episode of Profiler or The Inside (a shortlived Fox series created by frequent Whedon collaborator Tim Minear), with the negotitor coming face to face with her dark past but mananging the gave the young girl from a similar fate. Overall it was a compatent but uninsired mini-thriller, but I rather hope Dollhouse isn’t going to become a “genre of the week” series because it seems like it could be much more.
The premise of Dollhouse sounds a little convuluted but it does raise questions and contain themes that merit in-depth analysis.
I have a deep-seated dislike of Meridith Brook’s song “Bitch”, which cheerfully prepeuated this idea with lyrics like “I’m a bitch, I’m a lover, I’m a child, I’m a mother” and “I’m a bitch, I’m a tease, I’m a Godess you my knees.” Even more chilling is “Sex (I’m a)” by Berlin. Female vocalist Terri Nunn goes down a long, highly sexualized list of all the things she is which includes a slut, a drug, a blue movie, a virgin, a godess (no doubt on her knees), a little girl, a one night stand and your mother. At the same time a male vocalist intones ad nauseum “I’m a man.” A man is what he is, the song seems to say. A woman is whatever you want her to be.
The idea that a woman is like a Barbie doll and can become whatever you dress her as isn’t restricted to pop music or the science fiction world of Dollhouse. Based on the articles in women’s magizines and the things written and said about promient women, it seems to me that if you’re female your expected to be many things to many people-successful in your career, a devoted mother, partner and friend, attractive, physically fit, dignified, sexually reception and adventurous. Female nature we are told, is something of a smorguous board. Women aren’t really anything and therefore can become anything. And yet aren’t all these expectations better than all the restrictions women faced in past? Is this freedom or madness?
Artists like Tori Amos, who took on different personas for each on on her Strange Little Girls album and created several characters for American Doll Posse have examined this idea of woman as Barbie Doll, played with it and deconstructed it. I have reason to believe that, if it isn’t cancelled after a handful of episodes (which based on Fox’s track record it probably will be) Dollhouse will in it’s own way examine this idea of feminine identedy instead of just accepting it as a given. After all, Joss Whedon has touched upon this theme before.
In season 5 of Buffy, Warren Mears (Adam Busch) created a perfect robot girl-friend for himself as well as a robot version of Buffy for Spike. In the next season, Warren tries to get back together with his ex-girlfriend Katrina (Amelinda Embry)- who broke up with him after she found out about his previous relationship with the robot girlfriend- by using a mind control spell on her. It is explicitely stated that Warren’s attempt to initiate a sexual relationship via mind control are attempted rape and Warren kills Katrina, so this storyline very much showed the dark, misogynictic underbelly of the perfect woman fantasy. I can’t help but wonder if there’s a similar streak of violence and rage lurking behind the geeky smile of Dollhouse’s seemingly harmless Topher.
Episode 1 wasn’t spectatuatar, but it had it’s moments. There was even a flash of lesboliocious subtext between Echo and Amy Acker’s character Dr. Saunders. For that alone I’m going to continue to give Dollhouse a chance. It’s not as good as I would have liked it to be but the potential is still there.