Thoughts on Dollhouse
So, all those people in the Agent Carter fandom mentioning Dollhouse made me curious, and I started watching the show. Which turned out to be both better and just as bad as I'd thought it would be.
I know some of you straight-up love this show, and considering how engrossed I became in watching it, I can't really blame you. For each ep, I wrote down every way it dealt with fetischization of violence against women (and, though less common, against men). And in most of them the "subversion" mostly consisted of "Gee, this is awful, isn't it? Aren't we naughty? Aren't you naughty for watching?" Yet somehow... somehow it didn't piss me off so much.
It was like the malt whiskey fudge I got for Christmas. They taste awful, but I can't help wanting more, and after a while I barely notice how awful they taste anymore. Or like when I worked on Piranha 3D and just accepted going in that this is a piece of garbage that clearly advertised itself as such. Dollhouse is a show from someone who looked at Ibsen's classic piece of theater and thought, "This would make a great show about people being mindwiped and sold as human fantasies, and where at least one woman gets raped or murdered or chased by a killer in each episode. In a subversive way! But with sexy lighting." So yeah, it's gross. But it's not gross in the enraging way that Supernatural is gross. It's upfront about its own grossness, even though it frequently pats its own head in a way that's not really warranted by what happens on screen.
In all fairness, I hate rape revenge movies. When we saw I Spit on Your Grave in film theory, half a dozen of us gathered outside afterwards and talked about how much we hated it, just to rid ourselves of the experience. And while I've enjoyed some similar tales - Sennentuntschi comes to mind - the tragedy always trumps the triumph in my mind. Dollhouse is basically one rape revenge movie after another, where the revenge gets an extra bitter taste by the knowledge that it's not over, that next episode these characters will be someone else, and this someone else will also be assaulted or threatened or imprinted with the memories of former abuse.
I mean, sometimes it's the guest stars who are victimized, and I suppose they do get out of it and live their lives afterwards (unless they get killed, as some of them do), so yay?
Plus, at least for the first season, the impact is mildened by the fact that it's hard to feel for the dolls as people when they keep getting wiped. That's a bit of a problem for the show, though, because the non-doll characters are so flat in their reaction patterns and so repugnant in what they're doing that you can't really feel for them either. Second season changes this somewhat, but I still spent most of the time watching from afar and getting involved in the story, rather than the characters. Which makes the abuse they're suffering easier to take, but more unsettling to think of.
And the so-called subversion of it... I don't know. I wouldn't even know how to begin subverting that genre. I recognize that the show raises questions about the morality of the Dollhouse, but it feels like it largely thinks of the viewers as potential customers, not potential dolls. I mean, they're asking "Would you ever do this to a person?" rather than "Would you ever want this to be done to you?" And that makes the whole thing come off as hypocritical, because they're still perpetuating the sexualization of violence against women while preaching against it. Which kind of reminds me of Miranda: Saying "I'm not being rude" before saying something rude doesn't make it not rude!
On the other hand, I ate The Loved Ones up with a spoon and that's basically a male version of a rape revenge movie, so who am I to say anything against that, you know?
And at least this show doesn't get as disgustingly smug as Cabin in the Woods, and is indeed not as annoyingly Joss-y as some of his other stuff. (Except in Topher's more irritating moments. Fuck Topher.) I spent a lot of the show rolling my eyes and thinking "here we go again", but not a lot actually wanting to shake someone. It's closer to the Minear vibe in a lot of ways, which isn't without its own problems but more to my liking. It did have some moments, particularly towards the end, where I did feel it was stroking its own ego for being so clever, but not as badly as some other Whedon stuff.
The second season was better in a lot of ways - more intense as a story, some development for the characters. On the other hand, with the exploitation more covert, the "subversion" becomes not even that. After all those raped and murdered women, am I supposed to react with more than an exasperated sigh to Mellie shooting herself, or Priya in bed with Nolan's zombie? I guess it could be seen as positive that they do have some male victimization too by then... but the thought of chalking that up on the plus side leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.
The carry-over from season 1 becomes a hindrance in other ways too. While Echo becomes more of a character in season 2, Eliza's limitations as a leading lady are already too apparent for her to be engaging. Which is a pity, because I love her so much as Faith. And while the other actors are better, I was already so put off by their characters that I couldn't care. When Boyd praises his "family" towards the end, it sounds an awful lot like "Look at that! You've developed three dimensions!" which, yeah, no. It's two and a half dimensions at the most, which wouldn't even be an improvement if you'd started with more than two.
It's not about making characters "likeable", but making them enjoyable, and if they haven't been enjoyable for a season it's harder to make them so than if you start from scratch. And sometimes Whedon's other show come into play, like with Adelle. I think I would have enjoyed her more if I hadn't had in my head all those other women over 40 that he's written and how they're always either evil or dead. Sure, she mellows as time proceeds, along with the others, but I'm not super impressed with the storyline going "Look! We're adding more villains that make us look nicer in comparison!" in the first place.
The final epitaph episodes actually held more promise of entertainment than the show itself. Unfortunately, since the postapocalyptic world was dealt with so briefly, it came off more as a cheap ploy than anything else. "Fast forward ten years, now EVERYTHING HAS GONE TO HELL except now we're fixing it. The end." I mean, I guess I could see it as a Dollhouse version of the Wishverse (or Birthdayverse), but I'm not invested enough in the regular story to want to see a premise like this wasted so quickly.
As for Enver Gjokaj's part in this, he is indeed brilliant and should get something more interesting to do on Agent Carter but I still hope Sousa doesn't end up dead or evil. At this point, I would write the latter option off as unlikely, but considering some of the mindnumbingly stupid twists on this show, nothing's impossible. (Here's a tip on writing twists: The important thing isn't whether or not anyone "saw it coming". It's whether the story makes more sense, rather than less sense, once you know about the twist.)
So... yeah. I guess I'm being Negative Nelly. On the other hand, I did watch through the whole show in a couple of weeks, so I can't write it off, either. This entry was originally posted at http://katta.dreamwidth.org/632139.html and has
comments there.
I know some of you straight-up love this show, and considering how engrossed I became in watching it, I can't really blame you. For each ep, I wrote down every way it dealt with fetischization of violence against women (and, though less common, against men). And in most of them the "subversion" mostly consisted of "Gee, this is awful, isn't it? Aren't we naughty? Aren't you naughty for watching?" Yet somehow... somehow it didn't piss me off so much.
It was like the malt whiskey fudge I got for Christmas. They taste awful, but I can't help wanting more, and after a while I barely notice how awful they taste anymore. Or like when I worked on Piranha 3D and just accepted going in that this is a piece of garbage that clearly advertised itself as such. Dollhouse is a show from someone who looked at Ibsen's classic piece of theater and thought, "This would make a great show about people being mindwiped and sold as human fantasies, and where at least one woman gets raped or murdered or chased by a killer in each episode. In a subversive way! But with sexy lighting." So yeah, it's gross. But it's not gross in the enraging way that Supernatural is gross. It's upfront about its own grossness, even though it frequently pats its own head in a way that's not really warranted by what happens on screen.
In all fairness, I hate rape revenge movies. When we saw I Spit on Your Grave in film theory, half a dozen of us gathered outside afterwards and talked about how much we hated it, just to rid ourselves of the experience. And while I've enjoyed some similar tales - Sennentuntschi comes to mind - the tragedy always trumps the triumph in my mind. Dollhouse is basically one rape revenge movie after another, where the revenge gets an extra bitter taste by the knowledge that it's not over, that next episode these characters will be someone else, and this someone else will also be assaulted or threatened or imprinted with the memories of former abuse.
I mean, sometimes it's the guest stars who are victimized, and I suppose they do get out of it and live their lives afterwards (unless they get killed, as some of them do), so yay?
Plus, at least for the first season, the impact is mildened by the fact that it's hard to feel for the dolls as people when they keep getting wiped. That's a bit of a problem for the show, though, because the non-doll characters are so flat in their reaction patterns and so repugnant in what they're doing that you can't really feel for them either. Second season changes this somewhat, but I still spent most of the time watching from afar and getting involved in the story, rather than the characters. Which makes the abuse they're suffering easier to take, but more unsettling to think of.
And the so-called subversion of it... I don't know. I wouldn't even know how to begin subverting that genre. I recognize that the show raises questions about the morality of the Dollhouse, but it feels like it largely thinks of the viewers as potential customers, not potential dolls. I mean, they're asking "Would you ever do this to a person?" rather than "Would you ever want this to be done to you?" And that makes the whole thing come off as hypocritical, because they're still perpetuating the sexualization of violence against women while preaching against it. Which kind of reminds me of Miranda: Saying "I'm not being rude" before saying something rude doesn't make it not rude!
On the other hand, I ate The Loved Ones up with a spoon and that's basically a male version of a rape revenge movie, so who am I to say anything against that, you know?
And at least this show doesn't get as disgustingly smug as Cabin in the Woods, and is indeed not as annoyingly Joss-y as some of his other stuff. (Except in Topher's more irritating moments. Fuck Topher.) I spent a lot of the show rolling my eyes and thinking "here we go again", but not a lot actually wanting to shake someone. It's closer to the Minear vibe in a lot of ways, which isn't without its own problems but more to my liking. It did have some moments, particularly towards the end, where I did feel it was stroking its own ego for being so clever, but not as badly as some other Whedon stuff.
The second season was better in a lot of ways - more intense as a story, some development for the characters. On the other hand, with the exploitation more covert, the "subversion" becomes not even that. After all those raped and murdered women, am I supposed to react with more than an exasperated sigh to Mellie shooting herself, or Priya in bed with Nolan's zombie? I guess it could be seen as positive that they do have some male victimization too by then... but the thought of chalking that up on the plus side leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.
The carry-over from season 1 becomes a hindrance in other ways too. While Echo becomes more of a character in season 2, Eliza's limitations as a leading lady are already too apparent for her to be engaging. Which is a pity, because I love her so much as Faith. And while the other actors are better, I was already so put off by their characters that I couldn't care. When Boyd praises his "family" towards the end, it sounds an awful lot like "Look at that! You've developed three dimensions!" which, yeah, no. It's two and a half dimensions at the most, which wouldn't even be an improvement if you'd started with more than two.
It's not about making characters "likeable", but making them enjoyable, and if they haven't been enjoyable for a season it's harder to make them so than if you start from scratch. And sometimes Whedon's other show come into play, like with Adelle. I think I would have enjoyed her more if I hadn't had in my head all those other women over 40 that he's written and how they're always either evil or dead. Sure, she mellows as time proceeds, along with the others, but I'm not super impressed with the storyline going "Look! We're adding more villains that make us look nicer in comparison!" in the first place.
The final epitaph episodes actually held more promise of entertainment than the show itself. Unfortunately, since the postapocalyptic world was dealt with so briefly, it came off more as a cheap ploy than anything else. "Fast forward ten years, now EVERYTHING HAS GONE TO HELL except now we're fixing it. The end." I mean, I guess I could see it as a Dollhouse version of the Wishverse (or Birthdayverse), but I'm not invested enough in the regular story to want to see a premise like this wasted so quickly.
As for Enver Gjokaj's part in this, he is indeed brilliant and should get something more interesting to do on Agent Carter but I still hope Sousa doesn't end up dead or evil. At this point, I would write the latter option off as unlikely, but considering some of the mindnumbingly stupid twists on this show, nothing's impossible. (Here's a tip on writing twists: The important thing isn't whether or not anyone "saw it coming". It's whether the story makes more sense, rather than less sense, once you know about the twist.)
So... yeah. I guess I'm being Negative Nelly. On the other hand, I did watch through the whole show in a couple of weeks, so I can't write it off, either. This entry was originally posted at http://katta.dreamwidth.org/632139.html and has
comments there.