Firstly, I understand that it was meant to be uncomfortable viewing. I get that the show was about abuse, and prostitution, and slavery, and many other uncomfortable things. I like that they were exploring themes about attitudes to women's bodies, and that they made episodes that dealt with rape, and with loss, and with the struggle for independance from a force that controls your very mind. It was interesting. It was exciting.
It was seriously misogynistic. If you're going to make a show that is at it's heart about a group of women who are stripped of their free will and turned into sex toys, you are treading a fine line between showing this for what it is- a company trading in sex fantasies, but an ugly truth under the surface, that these women are enslaved- and revelling in the fantasy. I felt that Dollhouse fell wide of the mark, and as a result we spent more time being invited to look at Eliza Dushku's body parts than to consider the problems with the concept. Try watching a few eps and counting the number of upskirt shots, or times when her character needs to change on screen, or when the camera pulls back to show us that yes, that revealing outfit does indeed show off her naked bum cheeks. There is a difference between the character who is intentionally sexy in her sex-toy mode, and the camera giving us gratuitous shots of her arse. One of them is plot. The other is exploitation. Watching this show, I felt that the Eliza herself was the one who had been turned into a porn-doll for the viewer's enjoyment, and I felt myself feeling a little bit sick for her.
Joss's superwomen have always been sexy. The short skirts of Buffy and the kicking-ass-in-a-pretty-dress River and all the women in between. But they were sexy, they weren't being actively perved over by the camera. It didn't feel this gratuitous. If anything, it is more important for the camera to seem an impartial observer in a world where the main character is a personality-less drone for a large part of the time, and one where the other characters mostly act on the assumption that it is fine and normal to brainwash and rape young women. If the camera seems to be colluding... well, it sort of undermines any attempt to counter the "rape and slavery okay" world view.
I really wanted to like it. Especially after the amazing Epitaph One, and a good few eps of Season 2. But I can't get over this queasy feeling that the show has already contradicted it's message too strongly in the first Season to ever feel like a feminist endeavour. It's not empowering. It's inviting us to be turned-on by women who have had all their power removed. It's a fetish about strong women made weak and abused, not weak women made strong, and I'm over it.
6 comments:
I haven't seen enough to discuss Dollhouse specifically, but I just wanted to say I've been thinking about this whole "fine line" thing a lot. Often we'll defend a show, sometimes I think very legitimately, because it depicts things in a way that is clearly inviting critique of the wider use of such imagery in other shows/films. But at the same time its still indulging unhealthy or damaging uses of this imagery. We DON'T have to go down the smart route, and there's no way the film maker can make you, and if he or she was being so obvious, we probably wouldn't watch. Sure for lots of us there's a kind of discomfort in a kind of dual pleasure/guilt thing, and its an interesting and valuable experience. Eliza has a nice arse, so whilst I'm grossed out by the way its presented to me, I'm still liking it! BUT- what if I just like it? I think this is what you're saying here, that Joss hasn't flagged up the problems enough. And I'm sure the marketing is pretty much ass and little feminist critique of the prostitution of it.
Eli Roth tells us Hostel is a response to the Iraq war. First of all I really question if this was really his motives, but more importantly I'm very doubtful the 14 year old boys who watch it on repeat aren't picking up on this and aren't interested in questioning why they love seeing what they are being shown. And I'm sure there's hoardes of 14 year old boys jerking off over freeze frames of Eliza, not thinking once about this pretty actress being a piece o' meat just like her onscreen character is, that there's a meta-prostitution going on. And perhaps rather than questioning anything, Joss is actually supporting the abuse of the female body.
Ok I'm sure I just repeated a lot of what you said, but I just wanted to ramble out loud as you kinda touched on a perrenial problem of mine, one I'm sure lots of engaged sci-fi and horror fans have.
I think we may have had a very similar conversation about Death Proof and how conflicted we felt about the repetition of damaging stereotypes, supposedly in order to undermine them, but perhaps actually in order to enjoy them without having to feel guilty about it.
Obviously repeating a stereotype to undermine it is a very important way of dealing with and critiquing certain things and it works well in comedy, but in a work with a more serious tone it is open to misinterpretation. You cannot control your audience, as you say, and you cannot control why they enjoy your work. My problem with things like Dollhouse and Death Proof is that I can see very little evidence of the apparently intended critique, and instead I think we are being invited to enjoy the damaging situations/images but with a get out clause for the creator who cannot be seen to just be promoting violence against women.
Which is also just agreeing with and repeating what you said! You're right though, it's something I stuggle with a lot and something I'm sure most sci-fi fans do.
I just this second now finished watching Dollhouse season 1, so feel I can *finally* join in the discussion. I was sort of aware of the feminist critiques of it before I saw it, so was watching with a (slightly) critical mind.
The Dominatrix outfit scenes were really bad and I can't see how they were included other than to allow viewers to perve. They just didn't work well as meta commentary for me.
As for the rest of it, I think the show was half successful in the meta commentary, but maybe only to those who are already aware of this stuff? It wasn't explicit enough about it I mean.
Right now I feel that "It's a fetish about strong women made weak and abused" may be a bit strong, but I may change my mind after more viewings.
Thank you for this post its always good to see feminist commentary on these things!
We live in a world where, like it or not, sex sells. It is indicated in many episodes that the characters in question voluntarily entered the positions they're in. But I digress... This forum is unbelievable. There are so many important things to worry about that don't involve Eliza Dushku's exposed buttocks. Our country is being run into the ground... People are trying to bring Sharia law to the USA... How about concerning yourself with something that actually matters? If you don't like it, don't watch it. And if you don't want your kid(s) watching it, be a parent and turn it off.
Oh look, a derailing troll. Haven't seen one of those in a while.
Saranga - Thank you for your comments. You're probably right that I was being a bit strong. I was quite disappointed in the show, especially as Joss Whedon calls himself a feminist. I may have overreacted slightly, although I stand by my sentiments.
Ian - I'm afraid I wrote a measured reply correcting your many erroneous assumptions but I lost it all in a browser crash. Probably for the best, as you shouldn't really engage a troll. All I'll say is maybe you have something more important to do than commenting on old blog posts about a cancelled TV show telling the person who wrote it that THEY need to find something better to do? Just a thought.
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