Defending Dollhouse

First off: I am a Joss Whedon fan.

Now. I can do the feminist critique of Dollhouse too. Hot girl submits is repeatedly "mindraped", etc. Yes, there are male dolls as well, but Eliza Dushku and her hott bod are the focus (foci?)

Joss Whedon sez:


Obviously it's tough because -- and this is the thing that kept me up nights -- human trafficking in the real world is beyond heinous. What we were trying to do was create a situation in a science-fiction world where people gave themselves up for five years to the idea of, "I don't care what happens to me. I won't know about it. And as long as I'm not hurt, go with God. It's fine...We saw a thing on "This American Life," where guys had found a way to block a memory stream on mice and they got flooded with letters from people begging them to be test subjects, because they were like, I don't want to remember my life. Something bad happened or I want to cut out something. There is also this fantasy of not having control, of not having responsibility. These people are taken care of like children.


It is not sexist or anti-feminist to explore this idea. It is somewhat disturbing, The show is creepy, its supposed to be. If it creeps you out to much to be enjoyable (I have a high tolerance for creepy) it is probably not for you. Yes, one can argue that the show is "problematic", but whenever you depict women and sex and violence in a patriarchal culture it is "problematic". This show brings certain issues closer to the surface, but I don't think that's a bad thing. I like that I do not feel that my intelligence is insulted by the premise.

The show does juxtapose creepy and hot, but so what? Aren't we all pro-bdsm* here? When did we slip back into the 70s? I am grossed out by the Terminator/Dollhouse promos that ran throughout the first ep with Summer Glau and Eliza Dusku putting on their genera-sexy and squirming around in tank tops while misrepresenting their shows (Dollhouse's dolls are not girl-power role models, WHAT? Thx Fox.)but I don't hold that against the show.

Which brings me to another criticism of the show--the whole "tell don't show" approach to exposition as awkwardly exemplified by the new Dollhouse employees asking endless questions of the old hands so that the viewers can be spoon-fed wtf is happening. Look, I wish Eliza Dushku had a development deal with Sci-Fi or AMC or Showtime instead of Fox. But she was the inspiration for the show, it was conceived as a vehicle for her, and if it was gonna be made it was gonna happen of Fox which, as we all know, treats its viewers as if they have the intelligence of Tickle-Me-Elmo. I can find links to stuff about all the drama last summer and fall if you don't remember, all the retooling Fox demanded cuz the show was too "confusing". I'll put up with the plot wasting, patronizing writing (to a point)especially in the early eps, just as I put up with [ANGEL SPOILER ALERT] Team Angel endlessly rehashing how weird it is "that we're running Wolfram & Hart, the Evil law firm we have battled for four seasons, but we can do a lot of Good here with their resources which is why we're here wait is it?" at the beginning of each episode of Season Five (until it was clear that they weren't coming back for another season anyway) so that the viewers at home who weren't overarching plot arc literate could keep up without having to figure anything out. The WB battled with Whedon about his shows being to mythology thick, that episodes weren't self-contained enough, that viewership couldn't grow because of this. So this shit happens. Its an almost necessary evil of working with network TV. I try to ignore it just like I try to ignore the stupid superimposed promos on the bottom of the screen. God I hate watching TV on TV rather than DVD.

One last note: many critics don't feel they are given reason to "care" about Echo (Dushku's character) because she's all brainwashed and "we don't know who she really is". This criticism I especially don't have time for because yes, this is the premise of the show, you're on board for seeing a mystery slowly unravel or you're not. The opening scene where she agrees to do the whole Dollhouse thing was enough reason for me to care, the dribs and drabs of info we get later in the show made me care more. I find myself actively wanting to know wtf happened to this women, what her desperate situation is, who she is. I care a lot more than I do about characters on most shows whose back stories and motivations are neatly spelled out. But that's me. And as we all know, I thought Frost/Nixon was a rolicking popcorn time at the pictures so with a grain of salt and all that.

*the sex kinds, not the unfortunately acronymed boycott kind. Well, that too, actually.