Vid rec and Dollhouse thoughts

[hazelk]

giandujakiss’s new Dollhouse vid It depends on what you pay combines biting critique with a dark infectious wit perfectly matching that of the song. I particularly love what she does with the hand gestures.

I do part company with the argument made by the vid even though it's a strong argument and eloquently made. However, to me the show feels like it’s coming from the same place as the show tune. More or less

Dollhouse = rapehouse is a comparison that was made before the show even aired and airing has, if anything, made the equation even more explicit. Which it needn’t have done. It’s interesting, for example, to compare Mellie the sleeper active with Boomer the sleeper agent on BSG. Boomer’s story was a tragedy but a tragedy of the constructed personality who believed herself human and then found out she wasn’t. The idea that the original Eight was in some way violated was never really addressed nor was the implication that her S1 affair with Tyrol (when she still thought she was human) was, in effect, rape of that Eight. The Eight are robots and immortal clones who reproduce by downloading into identical bodies so it makes sense within the story that they not be regarded as having distinct (and therefore violable) identities. Mellie (the imprint) and November (the doll) both have human origins and we’ve already been given some specific back-story for November.

From the very first engagement Dollhouse has been absolutely explicit about the fact the actives are programmed to satisfy the fantasies of the clients. To be sexually attracted to them, to have sex with them. Equally it’s been clear that if any consent was involved it was to the general principle and not to any specific engagement. As long as you accept that what happens to the dolls on their missions happens to the person the doll used to be (and if their contract is fulfilled will become again) then sex with an active is rape or necrophilia or both. So the questions are twofold. Whether a show built around serial rape is watchable and if it is, whether it’s actually making rape a spectator sport while claiming to be a serious drama.

I think the first point is ultimately about personal reactions and people vary. For whatever reason I have enough of an emotional disconnect from sex not to find the sexual engagements particularly triggering. It’s a privilege, maybe not of gender but there are others. Possibly of luck. Whatever the causes, the two missions I found viscerally horrific were not sexual. In Haunted the horror came from the possibility for rich imprints to propagate themselves in perpetuity in doll after doll. Prior to that, cultist Echo was modestly dressed but her function was to serve as the flesh wrapping for a CCTV camera and my assumption was that the reason they needed a doll was because a doll would have no choice about submitting herself to that kind of experimental surgery.

The serious drama/spectator sport issue is more complex. My gut feeling is that as the series progresses, the talk of the species becoming reduced to walking clusters of neurons in Man on the Street is being proved more and more justified. The ability to create imprints is philosophically different from simply being able to wipe or suppress memories/consciousness. Knowing that whole personalities can be built in a machine changes something fundamental. The myth of identity unravels and with it all relationships. The Dollhouse is being presented as an inherently corruptive thing - in this week’s episode both murderer and victim were clients. Joel Mynor was a decent enough man once. Ballard too, at the beginning of the series. A little righteous, a little obsessive, something of an angry romantic. Following the Mellie reveal, by his own definition he’s having sex with a dead woman. I think the season is going to end with him signing papers in Adele’s office, he’s going to be drawn into acts he’ll hate himself for even more. Sam was already in with the parent company when he got recruited. Caroline was still innocent enough when she raided the lab but two years of cat and mouse on who knows what else she might have done?

The series has begun to flesh out the motivations and characters of the people who work in the Dollhouse. Adele has some scruples as her using Mellie to eliminate Hearn revealed. But she programmes Victor and doesn’t call that rape. Adele is very disciplined. She can probably convince herself that Roger and Victor and whoever Victor was are all separate people who cannot coexist. There is no Victor for as long as the Roger imprint is active, the only person whose consent is relevant is Roger’s. She doesn’t let herself question the ethics of making Roger in the first place but it’s that which is the fundamental violation and would be so even if she only made him to play checkers with. She knows about how Sierra came to be recruited but passes it off as an exception proving the rule, a broken egg to make an omelet. Adele and Topher and Co are becoming more understandable but that’s not the same as more sympathetic. I don’t read the show as saying that because these people are like us therefore what they do must be all right. It’s saying that insofar as we recognize ourselves in these people that’s not all right.


ETA: The vid was linked on whedonesque to much defensiveness and being nothing if not counter-suggestible I wanted to add the major criticism I have of the show in its current form. Which is that since it’s found its feet it’s largely switched focus from the actives as victims/future heroes to their possible complicitness in their fate and to the people who work there. Why they do what they do, what keeps them there. If things stay that way the show will be essentially telling a “white man’s guilt/burden” story, which sits very uneasily with any claims to have things to say about human trafficking as the people being trafficked will have no voice.

Comments

[bradcpu.livejournal.com]

I agree about the vid in every respect.

I told giandujakiss this, but I suspect that Whedon is trying to use the Dollhouse contract as, at least in part, an allegory for military service. That's a type of commentary that he has made in the past.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Part of the genius of the vid is that it can be read (against the original intent) as about the show instead of against it. I think the conscription aspect is there (and may become more explicit if Victor gets developed) but also strong parallels with the entertainment industry, especially as it used to be under the studio system, and commentary on us as consumers of same.

[bradcpu.livejournal.com]

but also strong parallels with the entertainment industry,especially as it used to be under the studio system, and commentary on usas consumers of same
Huh. You know, I think you're right. It's probably going to be a much more general statement about *us* and the nature of modern society and consumerism.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I find myself agreeing with your take on Dollhouse quite a bit and I particularly loved this:

I think the first point is ultimately about personal reactions and people vary. For whatever reason I have enough of an emotional disconnect from sex not to find the sexual engagements particularly triggering. It’s a privilege, maybe not of gender but there are others. Possibly of luck.

Thank you. You articulated this very well. I feel the same way. Sexual engagements do not trigger me. I think to an extent our society is a bit obsessed with sex and overally so.

Hugh Jackman recently said something that I liked as well, he said he found a person's sexuality to be the least interesting thing about them. I'd have to agree. Sex just doesn't interest that much nor does it trigger. Sure it's important and sure it can be great, but...it doesn't well like you said above.

Whatever the causes, the two missions I found viscerally horrific were not sexual. In Haunted the horror came from the possibility for rich imprints to propagate themselves in perpetuity in doll after doll. Prior to that, cultist Echo was modestly dressed but her function was to serve as the flesh wrapping for a CCTV camera and my assumption was that the reason they needed a doll was because a doll would have no choice about submitting herself to that kind of experimental surgery.

I felt much the same way. What Boyd Langton told Adelle - I found myself agreeing with. Are we know using the Dollhouse to prolong the lives of the rich forever? And if so, what does that mean?

Also the idea of removing someone's sight and installing a camera in their brain without their knowledge?

And like you, I don't read the show as saying that these people are like us therefore what they do must be all right, I read that insofar as we recognize ourselves in them that's not all right. Like BSG, it feels like a critique of our increasingly narcissitic society...and how it uses technology.
I think people forget that Whedon is a horror writer - a psychological horror writer - who is interested in horrifying us, with a bit of wit.

At any rate I agree with your post. Haven't checked out the vid.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

That's an excellent point about Whedon's horror background, in many ways Dollhouse is much more of a horror story than Buffy but it doesn't look like one, it's all bright lights and candy colours and no vampires in sight.

[dualbunny.livejournal.com]

Interesting read as always. :)

I enjoyed the vid very much, because it made great use of both sources, but I think my feelings on the show are more similar to what you've explained here.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I had to read up on the song but it works even better with a little context. It is brilliant.

[glitterdemon.livejournal.com]

However, to me the show feels like it's coming from the same place as the show tune.

This. Yes. I often feel like I'm not watching the same show as other people. I have a hard time seeing such critiques as critiques since I think these are just the conclusions the show is inviting you to make.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

It's about trust partly, I think (like Echo said). The writers are asking you to trust them and if people don't then it is going to look pretty bad. Maybe it's a lot to ask.

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

I really agree with a lot of what you have to say here - especially since for me, the most interesting thing about this show are the discussions that have been spinning off of it. And I agree with the above comment that the show is inviting you to critique, and to see things as deeply wrong/immoral/REALLY BAD despite the trappings.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Yes and I think the invitation depend a lot on the culminative effect of the episodes, any one of them alone is much more ambivalent about whether it's all just good fun but added together the badness becomes hard to ignore.