Dollhouse: Eps 1.01 and 1.02
Dear Joss Whedon,
Your white boy Orientalism fetish needs to get looked at. I can sort of live with your mishmash of Asian culture and Chinese language in Firefly/Serenity without having any actual Asians in the show. (It helps that the show was canceled before its time. I can pretend the uncanceled show would have had Actual Asians TM in it.) However, I take bigger issue with it when you have a show that has violation and exploitation built into the premise, then appropriate Asian objects and backgrounds, and then have two actual Asian characters in your pilot that: (1) was a one second shot of a faceless geisha, and (2) Sierra, who was introduced as a writhing, naked except for bandages, body in pain as her personality and memories get wiped.
I am concerned that you are going to objectify the characters of Asian heritage on the show, so they're just living props. You are also in danger of doubly objectifying Sierra, as a character of Asian heritage, AND as a woman. That's disturbing, and makes me want to beat off the squick with a nail-studded industrial grade titanium cluebat.
No love,
Your creeped out Asian-American
P.S. Please, please, please do not turn Boyd into a Magical Negro who guides and suffers for Echo's developing selfhood and agency. You have a problematic history with black male characters: Robin on BTVS, Book on Firefly/Serenity. (I didn't follow AtS closely enough to see how you treated Gunn.)
Ep 1.01
I did not like the pilot.
The pilot was oddly anemic, and washed out for something that has child sexual abuse in it, mentioned human trafficking, and a woman painfully getting mindwiped of her personality. Yet the message was undermined by the presentation. It opens with Echo's engagement as a birthday present to some guy. The Elen Penn imprint felt like role play: Dushku's acting was off; and the business wear felt like costuming because I can't buy that someone with Penn's uptight, reserved personality would choose stiletto heels and low-cut blouses as professional wear. The child sexual abuse is used as a plot device, instead of something that is juxtaposed and undermine's Echo's engagements or the premise of the dollhouse. A few lines about human trafficking pales in comparison to the gratuitious shower scene, Dollhouse's spa atmosphere with attractive people, the eroticization of the pain from an active's first mindwiping, and the emphasis on the glamorous fantasy fulfillment appeal.
Ep. 1.02
I liked this ep much better than the pilot, and thought it had potential. I looked at the opening scene with the bodies, and the expert knife work, and a switch flipped on in my brain. A show that has violation, objectification, and exploitation built into the foundation should be violent. It can be the violence in scalpels, and clinical dehumanization, and paternalistic "they're children/we're fulfilling a need/we have safety guidelines" justifications, and human experimentation. It should still be there, soaking the rug they try to sweep it under. It gives me hope that they're not going to sidestep or try to minimize the wrongness.
This episode has potential, but could go farther. I'd like it better if Echo's recovering selfhood was further along[*], and if there was a bigger focus on the long arc, and the engagement of the week was used as a foil to the longer arc or given less screentime. I liked the flashback scenes. The engagement was something out of a slasher film about an endangered woman running from a monster/psychopath. After I watched it, I wanted Whedon to have done more with it, like subvert the slasher film genre like he subverted the Girl Walks Into Alley with Monster trope with Buffy.
There's enormous potential in Echo invoking the trust imprint with Boyd in unexpected ways. I also like the last scene, and the comment about the attic. Is that where the defective dolls go?
I really want the FBI agent to turn out to be a doll.
If I had my way, Dollhouse would be one of those mindfuck series where you're not sure what's going on; where the characters crisscross, blur, and invert the lines between: doll, handler, brainwasher, client, and person. I want it to be one of those stories that expands outwards in a Rashomon effect that tackles the issue from different perspectives.
[*] I read the original pilot script, and that's around where I want Echo's developing selfhood to start.
In summary, I'm sticking around because I think there's potential, even if it's in the hope that the fandom could end up doing it better than the canon. Also, the series comes close to pushing my narrative buttons.
Your white boy Orientalism fetish needs to get looked at. I can sort of live with your mishmash of Asian culture and Chinese language in Firefly/Serenity without having any actual Asians in the show. (It helps that the show was canceled before its time. I can pretend the uncanceled show would have had Actual Asians TM in it.) However, I take bigger issue with it when you have a show that has violation and exploitation built into the premise, then appropriate Asian objects and backgrounds, and then have two actual Asian characters in your pilot that: (1) was a one second shot of a faceless geisha, and (2) Sierra, who was introduced as a writhing, naked except for bandages, body in pain as her personality and memories get wiped.
I am concerned that you are going to objectify the characters of Asian heritage on the show, so they're just living props. You are also in danger of doubly objectifying Sierra, as a character of Asian heritage, AND as a woman. That's disturbing, and makes me want to beat off the squick with a nail-studded industrial grade titanium cluebat.
No love,
Your creeped out Asian-American
P.S. Please, please, please do not turn Boyd into a Magical Negro who guides and suffers for Echo's developing selfhood and agency. You have a problematic history with black male characters: Robin on BTVS, Book on Firefly/Serenity. (I didn't follow AtS closely enough to see how you treated Gunn.)
Ep 1.01
I did not like the pilot.
The pilot was oddly anemic, and washed out for something that has child sexual abuse in it, mentioned human trafficking, and a woman painfully getting mindwiped of her personality. Yet the message was undermined by the presentation. It opens with Echo's engagement as a birthday present to some guy. The Elen Penn imprint felt like role play: Dushku's acting was off; and the business wear felt like costuming because I can't buy that someone with Penn's uptight, reserved personality would choose stiletto heels and low-cut blouses as professional wear. The child sexual abuse is used as a plot device, instead of something that is juxtaposed and undermine's Echo's engagements or the premise of the dollhouse. A few lines about human trafficking pales in comparison to the gratuitious shower scene, Dollhouse's spa atmosphere with attractive people, the eroticization of the pain from an active's first mindwiping, and the emphasis on the glamorous fantasy fulfillment appeal.
Ep. 1.02
I liked this ep much better than the pilot, and thought it had potential. I looked at the opening scene with the bodies, and the expert knife work, and a switch flipped on in my brain. A show that has violation, objectification, and exploitation built into the foundation should be violent. It can be the violence in scalpels, and clinical dehumanization, and paternalistic "they're children/we're fulfilling a need/we have safety guidelines" justifications, and human experimentation. It should still be there, soaking the rug they try to sweep it under. It gives me hope that they're not going to sidestep or try to minimize the wrongness.
This episode has potential, but could go farther. I'd like it better if Echo's recovering selfhood was further along[*], and if there was a bigger focus on the long arc, and the engagement of the week was used as a foil to the longer arc or given less screentime. I liked the flashback scenes. The engagement was something out of a slasher film about an endangered woman running from a monster/psychopath. After I watched it, I wanted Whedon to have done more with it, like subvert the slasher film genre like he subverted the Girl Walks Into Alley with Monster trope with Buffy.
There's enormous potential in Echo invoking the trust imprint with Boyd in unexpected ways. I also like the last scene, and the comment about the attic. Is that where the defective dolls go?
I really want the FBI agent to turn out to be a doll.
If I had my way, Dollhouse would be one of those mindfuck series where you're not sure what's going on; where the characters crisscross, blur, and invert the lines between: doll, handler, brainwasher, client, and person. I want it to be one of those stories that expands outwards in a Rashomon effect that tackles the issue from different perspectives.
[*] I read the original pilot script, and that's around where I want Echo's developing selfhood to start.
In summary, I'm sticking around because I think there's potential, even if it's in the hope that the fandom could end up doing it better than the canon. Also, the series comes close to pushing my narrative buttons.