On Moral Ambiguity

[meganbmoore]

Post prompted largely by Paul Cornell’s post here, in which intelligent TV apparently didn’t exist before the current popular shows, and the only reason anyone wouldn’t like Dollhouse is if they couldn’t handle things not always being perfectly black and white

Comments

[sartorias]

Good post.

There are some subjects that I do not consider gray area, and rape is one of them. Or more correctly, the gray area may enter when one is not certain if rape was actually committed, but wow, what a volatile subject, and needs very smart handling.

[meganbmoore]

Yeah. Rape, even when given another word or in a form besides direct physical assault, is always one person forcing another to their will, and most often is done to establish control over that person to further their own sense of power.

[crumpeteer]

It depends how the moral ambiguity is portrayed for me. Some stuff that others might find morally ambiguous and fine, I might not depending on how it's presented. Dollhouse crosses a line of ambiguous to me to flat out wrong. Just feeling a little bad over what they do doesn't seem to stop them. I'm also willing to give more leeway if redemption is involved. Anime tends to throw down that gauntlet a lot (yes, so and so was a BAD BAD person, but they're trying to fix that). Also, there's the greater good issue and what the greater good is (Sam and Dean lie like rugs on a regular basis, but they do so to protect people; Hatter is pretty much a drug dealer but he does it so he can supply info and money to the resistance). It's sort of a relative thing, but I do think there are some lines that you shouldn't be comfortable crossing.

[meganbmoore]

The thing is that Dollhouse ISN'T ambiguous, but it wants you to think it is.

And it's not a case of being comfortable crossing it, but whether it should be crossed at all.

[meganbmoore]

Yes. But it's still AIRING and people are still watching it.

[meganbmoore]

I am heartened by how many of even the most stubborn can no longer endure, but depressed by how many people are still willing to overlook (or explain away) rape and slavery and abuse and promote it/bemoan its fate.

[meganbmoore]

Pft! You just like things with easy solutions that don't ask the really hard questions by telling you to like abusers and rapists and slavers!

[violaswamp]

THANK YOU.

The actions depicted in Dollhouse are "morally gray" like castrating annoying men is "morally gray."

I am sick of the attitude by some pop culture consumers that remorseless murder, rape and torture make a character "morally gray." They do not. They just make a character immoral.

And is it just me, or is the "you just can't tolerate moral ambiguity!" line most often tossed out in defense of fiction that glamorizes the suffering of women?

[meganbmoore]

Saying Dollhouse is morally ambiguous is like saying you can't say the man who rapes his 10-year-old every odd Friday and beats the kid every even Friday may not REALLY be a bad parent because he also feeds and clothes the kid.

[lady_ganesh]

God, yes.

[meganbmoore]

Oh, and yes, conveniently, 90% of "morally ambiguous" fiction displays its ambiguity through the glamorous, "progressive" suffering of women.