Dollhouse Quotes and Whedon's Writing Process

[shadowkat]

Tomorrow, after work, I look at apartments again with realtor. Trying to not dread it. Will admit it is easier to do with realtor. Less nerve-wracking. So there's that.

Here's a quote that struck me as...informative (in - that "explains A LOT" sort of way), by Joss Whedon on Dollhouse from his recent SciFi Now interview on the Avengers. Which I'm admittedly posting against my better judgment, which means it may be gone tomorrow because I'll think damn, why did I post that? But I really want to know what people think and discuss it - in particular people who are NOT necessarily fans of the writer and/or Dollhouse and/or the Buffy comics.

Dollhouse in retrospect.

I never concieved of a more pure journey from helplessness to power, which is what I always write about, and in that sense, I feel we accomplished a lot of it. I do feel that part of what we tried to get at kind of got taken out at the beginning and it really was more important to how the show would work than I even realized when they took it out- which was sex. The show was supposed to be, on some level, a celebration of perversion, as something that makes us unique. Sort of our hidden selves. You can talk about your hidden selves and identity, but when you have to shoot each other every week, you get a bit limited. The show was supposed to flop genres every episode, and the moment we did that, they shut us down and said, 'Quickly, have someone shoot at someone.' I feel when we had to take sex out of the equation, it became kind of a joke or almost unsettling. Because we couldn't hit it head on - and so much of our identity is wrapped up in our sexuality, and this is something Eliza (Dusku) was talking to me about, as something she wanted to examine before I even came up with the idea, and to have that sort of excised and marginalized and santised and not to be able to hit on the head what they were doing made the show a little bit limited and a little bit creepy at times, I think we still did some fairly out-there stuff, and I'm proud of what we did, given the circumstances, but with those circumstances, it was never really going to happen the way it should have.

Regarding why Dollhouse didn't work:

The situation with Dollhouse was that Fox was trying to get it, but we had come at two different shows (Yeah, Fox wanted Nikita, you wanted...) we had done that accidentally, and it got to a point where I didn't know what I was trying to accomplish, and you can't go into a story room with that feeling, because it's already really hard. I remember thinking this is the difference between this and Firefly, because with Firefly, I knew, and here, now I'm not even sure. I was just thinking..I'm writing a shoot-out on a dock- I'm a whore. They're like - No, that doesn't make you a whore, and I'm like, I'm fairly certain it does! They explained that, actually having sex for money makes you a whore. But I also did that.

[In consideration of my blood-pressure, please refrain from the following while commenting: praising, personal insults, degrading, bashing, or expressing sympathy for Whedon. Also no Joss Whedon icons. Thank you. All other comments and icons, within reason of course, are welcome.]

Comments

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

I can't help but wonder why he tried to that on FOX. I mean it's not like there are no places where you don't have to deal with so much censorship.

Most of what he says makes sense to me, I wonder how it reflects on the Buffy comic though, because it reads even more directionless than Dollhouse and also more restricted because he decided to go with so many genre conventions that go with a purely male take.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Elsie in a separate post picks up on what I was reluctant to articulate.

I think Whedon thinks he's doing a female empowerment tale.
And if we stop with Chosen, he sort of has. But if you look at Dollhouse - it really is not an empowering story, so much as a creepy tragedy. We have a strong powerful, self-aware, secure woman - Caroline, who gets taken down, her personality wiped, and turned into the plaything/doll Echo by a guy, which we're told is a much better model and far superior to the original Caroline (he did her a favor by helping her explore all her identities) eventually takes him down, but not by herself but with help of Topher and (the guy who was on BSG, but name I forget), and while she survives, she takes into herself as a sort of new persona, consciousness, her lover?

How is that a pure journey of helplessness to power? In Buffy comics - I'm seeing a similar pattern. Also see it in all his other work.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

I think Dollhouse, even the way he did it could have been a story about empowerment, but female empowerment is a particularly bad thing to associate it with.

Thing is the notion that you work yourself up from the deepest well and also the notion that you take the cards you're delt and make the best of them, grow on them, even if they are crap. That is empowerment in a way, but for women, who have taken shitty cards for far too long, who adapted to the most horrible circumstances, resistance needs to be more solid.

This one story I think I might have found a lot more interesting if it had been about male empowerment (and I did find Victor way more interesting) because for women this thing is really old news and also something that has to some extent become a trap.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Yes! I agree. Thank you for this.

This one story I think I might have found a lot more interesting if it had been about male empowerment (and I did find Victor way more interesting) because for women this thing is really old news and also something that has to some extent become a trap.


I think you are on to something here.

The problem with making it about Echo is Whedon played into the gender stereotypes as opposed to against them, which he's also to a degree is doing in the comics, playing into the stereotype or re-emphasizing it, and he did not do this in the tv series. In the Buffy series, he went against the stereotypes - or at least for the most part.

If he had made Victor the central figure, gotten rid of the rape plot line with Sierra (which did not work)...it might have worked a bit better. The concentration on women being victimized by men and all the ways we see them victimized by men in television dramas - and the roles men only see women in or fantasize them in...detracted from the identity theme that was actually interesting. The episodes of Dollhouse that worked for me were the one's that focused on Victor, Topher, Adelle, and Dr. Saunders.

Thing is the notion that you work yourself up from the deepest well and also the notion that you take the cards you're delt and make the best of them, grow on them, even if they are crap. That is empowerment in a way, but for women, who have taken shitty cards for far too long, who adapted to the most horrible circumstances, resistance needs to be more solid.

Yes. This! This is what I think has been bugging me both in regards to Dollhouse and the comics. You have stated perfectly what I have been trying to articulate - and why this feminist empowerment message doesn't quite work either here or in the Buffy comics for that matter. If anything it's rubbing me the wrong way - and I think you may have nailed why.

First - I want to make clear that I think what Whedon wanted to do in Dollhouse was very ambitious and if he'd found the right distributor, the right star, and the right support, he may have found the story. The mistake was rushing into it - without the story clear in his head. (Which he admits to above).

I think the biggest mistake in Dollhouse was an over-emphasis on the ways women are being victimized. Often invading female romantic tropes as the way of depicting the ways we objectify and victimize women. At times, I felt as if I were watching the female romantic trope depicted as a horror film through male eyes. Example - the rich guy who sees the art of the young artist and falls in love with her, wants to romance her and show her the world - that's right out of any number of contemporary romance novels I've seen. But here - he's a rapist who makes her crazy, so she can become his romantic fantasy. The female romantic trope is turned into a fantasy for a man, and a nightmare for the woman. I was fascinated by it, but at the same time unsettled...it felt patronizing to me. I see it in the comics as well - in particular with the Twilight series. Almost as if I'm being told..."you need to be strong, you need to not fantasize, you need to deal with the cards you are dealt, you need to make the best of this...and by doing so, this is power! You need to realize God does not exist, you are alone in the universe, and how empowering that is!" And suddenly I feel an overwhelming desire to slap the writer.

Not sure that made sense. You are doing a far better job of articulating your feelings on this, than I am, I'm afraid. ;-)

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

I very much agree. It feels jerkish, when a female romantic fantasy gets appropriated like that for educational purposes by a man.

I actually agree that this fantasy is often harmful to women and I like to see it subverted but I've seen that done so much better by women, who really get what's wrong with it, not the love itself but the self abandonment. Whedon doesn't really get it, instead he just tramples on the fantasy to show how destructive it is.
He also subverted the male side, Ballard saw himself as the prince and it was pretty much creepy most of the time, but still the character for some reason got to keep that the way his women ever do. They have to let go of the fantasy completely.

Mal from Firefly was a romantic too, he had this fantasy of himself as the honourable outlaw, the ultimate freedom. That fantasy is not more or less destructive than that of all encompassing love but it never got trampled like that.

Same with Spike, he's a fool for love even, but his folly gets treated with respect to some extent. The women don't they, they love intensely and it's a character flaw that must be burned out. It's not empowering, it's just saying "you're stupid to want that and you can't have it".

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Exactly. It's a double-standard. The guy gets to be with the bad-girl, and yes to a degree it is critiqued but not to the same degree. It's okay for Wes to have a thing for Illyria or Lilah - who he attempts to save and fails. But Buffy can't have a thing for Angel or Spike, who by the way she does save. It feels very one-sided.

And while there's a lot to critique in the female romantic trope, and quite a few women have long before Whedon took breath - notably Jane Austen, and has you state far better, there's an equal amount to be critiqued in the male. In Dollhouse - Ballard and Topher's fantasies are treated with more respect than Caroline and Sierra's. It's almost as if Whedon is saying it's okay for me to have romantic fantasies about the strong kick-ass girl who beats me up and is "dominant" but not you. And granted, men are stronger then women, so that makes sense, but...it is also as sexist as telling me I can't work late because I'm female and I'm more likely to be raped and mugged than my male co-workers. So Whedon in a way is talking out of both sides of his mouth - you can't have these fantasies, you should be ashamed of them, they are holding you done, but I can because I'm a guy? (In other words, I'm better than you.)

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

think the biggest mistake in Dollhouse was an over-emphasis on the ways women are being victimized. Often invading female romantic tropes as the way of depicting the ways we objectify and victimize women. At times, I felt as if I were watching the female romantic trope depicted as a horror film through male eyes.

I've grown more and more irritated with male writers who like to deconstruct female romantic tropes. It's like they're lecturing women to think better. Really, if a male writer wants to deconstruct some tropes why not the standard tv trope of middle aged nobody with a gorgeous hottie for a wife. Isn't that a male fantasy? What about the entitled "good guy" trope that we see pop up in fandom over and over that we also see in fandom turn quite misognistic because guys that hyper-identify with that 'regular joe' character take it out on the female character never quite noticing that maybe regular joe is also kind of a jerk.

I suppose it's primarily the patronizing part of it that gets to me. Male writers who seem to feel like they have to deconstruct female fantasies seem to take on some paternalistic role that irks. There are some male delusional tropes that could also be taken to task... just look at Charlie Sheen's role on two and a half men and how a middle aged drunk without a job it supposedly that guy who gets the hot girl and how HIMYM's Barney can have slept with a few hundred bimbos and yet be lovable and not just a skeeve.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Agreed. If Whedon wanted to deconstruct a trope - Xander would have been the one to do it with. He's the regular joe, the nice guy, the Ted of How I Met Your Mother - who gets the hot babe or her younger sister. (I like Xander - but I find it interesting that Whedon lets Xander remain untarnished, his relationships end badly merely because the women are killed by Buffy's actions (not his) - he plays out his fantasy of the geeky guy growing up to be the suave nice guy that you can depend on no matter what. Granted we get Warren too and Andrew...but their fantasies aren't trampled on either really.) Nor is Giles. The male fantasies in the comics are treated with respect, while the female fantasies are torn asunder. And we're told this is female empowerment and feminism?


I suppose it's primarily the patronizing part of it that gets to me. Male writers who seem to feel like they have to deconstruct female fantasies seem to take on some paternalistic role that irks. There are some male delusional tropes that could also be taken to task... just look at Charlie Sheen's role on two and a half men and how a middle aged drunk without a job it supposedly that guy who gets the hot girl and how HIMYM's Barney can have slept with a few hundred bimbos and yet be lovable and not just a skeeve.

That's exactly what has been bugging me. It's that damn double-standard. And they have the gall to call themselves "Feminist"?
And this text = feminist? Hardly.

Granted we have Robin on HIYM...but she's more the male fantasy than real. Actually that whole series is a male fantasy - the father regaling his kids with tales of his rocking free-willing bachelor days before he meet their hot Mom. With Allyson Hannigan playing yet another version of her sex-obsessed band geek from American Pie. HIYM has its moments, but it is so male fantasy.
As is Two and Half Men - which is also a male fantasy show. Both which are untouched by parody or criticism. Women are denigrated on tv daily, but Whedon is wasting his time attacking female romance novels like Twilight???

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

The Middle's take on Twilight last week was far more real and more kind. With Sue the awkward, outsider Jr. High Schooler that never quite succeeds being mean-girled by her supposed 'friend' and the Dad noticing. The Dad does stuff to try to get the daughter invited to the slumber party, pointing out to mean-girl's dad that the guy's daughter was being mean. In the end to no avail.

So the episode ended with young Sue all excited about a movie night with her dad. He'd agreed to sit down and watch Eclipse with her. Clearly the father knew it was going to be a chore for him to watch, but he was doing something to make his daughter happy, because he knew that real life (and news of the slumber party) was going to come around to get her tomorrow. So he acted interested. "So what's this movie about?" with Sue ecstatically explaining about how Bella, the clumsy, ordinary girl, had two 'amazing' guys fighting over her...

Which, really, at the end of the day is what the awkward 14 year old girl in braces fantasizes about. There's a lot to criticize Twlight over. A whole hell of a lot. But, honestly, are we also really surprised that fourteen year old girls occasionally might want a romantic fantasy where two handsome 'special' boys (who aren't particularly interested in something as unsettling for a young tween as sex) are attracted to an ordinary, clumsy girl?

At any rate, the Dad deciding to take the bullet and sit and watch this abyssmal movie series with his young daughter, to make her feel special, was the most kind-hearted and understanding take-down of Twilight that I've seen. It got both that the movies are terrible and that it make sense why young girls may at times need that sort of fantasy as an antidote to real life.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I watched that episode of The Middle this weekend, after DVRing it. It managed to not only explain why women love Twilight, but how men look at it.

While I definitely understand Whedon's temptation to go after Twilight and Anne Rice, it strikes me as interesting that he's never really gone after male fantasy tropes - such as Harry Potter (which is repected) or Star Wars or even Star Trek. (Granted I like both a heck of a lot better and am fans of those two...but). Not parody them, but attack the trope itself in much the same way he's doing with Twilight and well Anne Rice's take on vampires.

The Middle's handling is far better writing - its subtle and at the same time, is respectful. It understands why the girl is feeling that way, instead of just judging her for feeling it.
The Buffy comics and Dollhouse feel very judgmental to me. As if the writer has jumped up on a soap box to pontificate. Never a good thing.

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

Ican't help but wonder why he tried to that on FOX

I guess he's just really wedded to getting his material on over-the-air network TV. This show wouldn't even have run on ABC, CBS, or NBC.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking the same thing. Not sure why...is it ego? Maybe WB and UPN's lax attitude in the latter seasons of Buffy and Angel are part of the reason? He got away with a lot on both shows...and may have thought he could push the envelope further?

(shrugs)

But I agree...there's no way Dollhouse would have made it on network tv. I was shocked it was on Fox. Nip/Tuck granted - did get away with it and doing far more shocking material, as did BSG for that matter - but they weren't on broadcast tv, they were both on cable. And you can do a lot more on cable than broadcast (or apparently PBS - I found out that PBS cut the politically sensitive content of Tina Fey's acceptance speech for the Mark Twain award, while CNN aired it.)