Is Joss Whedon a Feminist Genius or a Mad Pop Culture Scientist? Or, How Long Is It Going to Take to Build This Dollhouse?
by BernieI’m [1] still watching Joss Whedon’s “[2] Dollhouse,” and I’m becoming mildly intrigued. Television reviewers had only been given episodes 1-3 when they made their initial, [3] mixed at best, reviews of the series. I wanted to wait until I got through episode 4 before I starting making any pronouncements.
So now here’s a tepid one. The story has great potential as an allegory for women struggling for agency in a increasingly subtle patriarchal world, but it is fulfilling that potential at a snail’s pace. And the feminist themes are being continually undermined by the marketing of its star, Eliza Dushku, who recently posed on the cover of Maxim.
I don’t agree with Nancy Franklin of [4] The New Yorker that the “primary qualification Dushku brings to the part is that she graduated with honors from the Royal Academy of Cleavage.” In fact, I could easily see her growing into the role or the role growing into her.
Like Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Buffy, Echo, Dushku’s character, is valued by others because of her stereotypical beauty. It’s an explicit part of her skill set, as the operators of the Dollhouse put it. Like Buffy, I’m confident (and I can begin to see the seeds being planted) that Whedon is planning to play off of the stereotype and assumptions — and ultimately play against them.
Franklin misses the point when she continues to say, “In terms of gender studies, it is notable that Dushku’s demeanor as a zombie is much the same as the demeanor many actresses her age resort to when trying to project an image of themselves as unthreatening and ‘feminine’: a slouchy walk, a bobbly head, and ever-parted lips.”
She is that way because the operators of the Dollhouse — and their clients — want her that way. By exposing this gendered system, the show can — potentially — undermine it. But Whedon is clearly walking a fine line here, and when The New Yorker doesn’t get it, you might need to make access to the allegory a bit clearer.
And you might want to have a word with Fox and Dushku herself about the messages they are sending off-screen (or at least outside the narrative of the show).
A quick aside. In the age of Tivo and commercial-free cable channels, you won’t hear too many people praise commercials, but commercials often give critical TV viewers a needed break to turn to our partners and complain or praise what we just saw, maybe set up a larger critique. Even though we Tivo “Dollhouse” in our house, we’ll often let the commercials play out — so we can have that critical conversation.
At almost every commercial break in “Dollhouse,” however, before we can get a word out (or even hit the fast-forward on the Tivo), we are confronted with Dushku, in a provocatively inviting pose, digital grid lines running across her naked body. Fox is also using the image in promotional posters.
Unlike in the context of the show, Dushku is selling herself (or Fox is selling her) without irony. And that exploitative image literally and figuratively disrupts the feminist critique that the narrative of the show is encouraging.
While Whedon and Dushku might claim that Fox promos are out of their control (she could have resisted that pose at least, no?), there is no excuse for Dushku’s appearance on the cover of Maxim magazine. I’m not interested in getting into a discussion here of the politics of soft-core porn or “lad mags.” Posing in that context is not ever empowering, in my mind.
But even if you wanted to defend Dushku’s choice on a personal level, it’s indefensible in the context of her role on a show that is clearly taking narrative risks to expose (we hope) the very patriarchal, objectifying system that Dushku is unabashedly celebrating.
With all that said, I’m going to keep watching. I still have high hopes — and not just because the word now is that [5] episode 6 is going to change everything and make the show’s true trajectory clear.
All I have to do is remember [6] what Fox did to Joss Whedon’s “[7] Firefly.” Fox changed the natural order of the episodes to present more shoot-’em-up action in the first weeks. As you can imagine, it made for a peculiar narrative, which many viewers found difficult to grasp. It was canceled after one season.
But the real narrative was so good (refreshingly different yet as complex on a political and literary level as Whedon’s preceding work on “Buffy” and “Angel”) that it became a big hit on DVD — enough of a hit, in fact, to greenlight a movie, “Serenity,” which fulfilled at least part of the promise that Fox had squandered.
I bring this up to say we shouldn’t judge a Whedon narrative by its initial, often compromised context ([8] Buffy movie, anyone?). We need to give it time to negotiate the corporate broadcast world. One way or another, it usually makes sense in the end. And certainly Whedon has learned his own lessons from the experience — and is doing what he thinks he needs to do to keep his vision alive.
I also want to keep watching because of ongoing insights from [9] Maia at Alas, a Blog, who is a longtime Whedon fan (drunk the Whedon blood, you might say) — but she’s a very critical fan. She dissects each episode, trying to unpack the complicated representations of women. You might not agree with some of her conclusions, but her criticism does what good criticism should do: It reveals layers of the show you didn’t think were there.
And it ultimately renews your faith enough to be patient — even as you start seeing naked Eliza Dushkus everywhere.
Posted March 13, 2009 @ 3:46 pm on PopPolitics.com
URLs in this post:
[1] still watching: http://www.poppolitics.com/archives/2009/02/a-dollhouse-of-his-own-joss-whedon-is-back-and-ready-to-
manipulate-network-tv-once-again
[2] Dollhouse: http://www.fox.com/dollhouse/
[3] mixed at best: http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2009/02/dollhouse-eliza-dushku-joss-whedon-
fox.html
[4] The New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/television/2009/03/02/090302crte_television_franklin?currentPa
ge=all
[5] episode 6: http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2009/03/dollhouse-joss-man-on-the-street.ht
ml
[6] what Fox did: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_(TV_series)#Broadcast_history
[7] Firefly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_(TV_series)
[8] Buffy movie: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffy_Movie
[9] Maia at Alas, a Blog: http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/category/popular-and-unpopular-culture/buffy-whedon-etc/