Welcome to the Dollhouse
On the eve (or the eve of the eve, depending on your time zone) of Dollhouse‘s premier, here’s a promotional picture with the creator, Joss Whedon, and the two leads, Eliza Dushku and Tahmoh Penikett.
Joss Whedon shows have always been rife with ‘controversial’ themes but what I like about it is that they never seem to be a ratings ploy. It’s always about the exploration of the human condition. Sure, TV is all about ratings and keeping things ‘mainstream’, which is probably why Whedon is said to be quitting TV after this one.
Dollhouse has been called the anti-Buffy by some critics who have already watched the first few episodes because it deals with a female character who has no control over her actions. Someone who willingly had her memory erased to be injected with one personality after the other depending on who hires her services (which range from sexual favors to high-profile assassinations). The NPR questioned the premise as possibly the ‘ultimate misogynistic male fantasy’.
Whedon studied gender studies and feminism in college, and his interest is to “bring the world up to the fact that women are not less physically or morally incomplete beings.” Buffy was all about girl power. You don’t see women in sexy lingerie rolling around a bed just to titillate (when they do that, it’s because they’re under the spell of a demon, and then they kill it). But, as Joss said, the point in taking the control away from the female lead, in Dollhouse, is for us to be with her as she gets it back. Some fans, however, can almost see the prophetic writing on the wall (Whedon’s last Fox show, Firefly, was cancelled after 12 episodes). There’s the stuff of the network pressure to keep things exciting and, again, mainstream and the writers’ aim of dishing out contemplative stories. My favorite quote so far from Whedon is this:
I believe the best way to examine anything is to go to a dark place. You can’t be a storyteller and a speechwriter at the same time.
i rarely get to watch TV these days so i’m usually one of the last to know about upcoming shows. does the female lead have a superpower or something that should elevate her among the usual female characters you see these days?
I don’t watch TV either (at least not in the traditional sense); don’t even have a cable subscription. My new personal statement: “Everything I know, I learned from the Internet.” He he he.
re: Dollhouse. No superpower. Just skills injected to the “doll” ala Matrix.