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A frequent claim made around the Internet is that Dollhouse is anti-feminist.
I think this is totally wrong.
I think it's some of the most feminist stuff that Joss Whedon has ever produced.
It's about this woman named Echo fighting against an oppressive
and often misogynistic institution.
I mean, it's an ensemble drama, and there are other themes,
but that's the core element to the show.
People often point to the horrible things done by the establishment,
but what is often overlooked is that the
establishment is villainous.
Dollhouse is a distopia based on the idea of this
new technology and the ways that it could be abused.
Dollhouse doesn't endorse the Rossum Corporation
any more than Nineteen-Eighty-Four endorses Big Brother.
A piece of trivia often brought up is that Joss himself said the show is not feminist.
This is a misquote.
It's a paraphrase of some things he said at his Cultural Humanism Award acceptance speech.
He was answering questions and he said this:
Having come out publicly as a professed feminist and a
professed humanist, everybody is judging what I do by that.
I just read today an article in the Washington Post that 'fans are calling Dollhouse a feminist screed and we're not seeing it.'
Well, I'm not seeing it either 'cause it's not. (laughter)
It's a work of fiction that I am creating.
And if you start doing that...
If you start using your drama for didacticism just to make a point,
you’re not making drama. You’re speechwriting, and people will smell it.
They will walk away. Because it’s not human condition to be told what to do. It’s the human condition to try and figure it out.
And later, a fan paraphrased him as:
...you said Dollhouse is not a feminist show...
And Joss' statement comes after saying that he didn't create Buffy to be a feminist character.
That's just the kind of character he likes, and he wrote a character he liked to be his avatar.
The point is that he didn't write Dollhouse to be a feminist show
that it's about the characters themselves individually, searching for fulfillment
We as the audience are with them as they're doing their search.
This doesn't mean that Dollhouse isn't feminist. It's just that Joss didn't write it as a screed to preach feminism.
I think that Dollhouse can be interpreted as feminist the same way that Buffy can be interpreted as feminist.
Joss may be hesitant to view it as a screed,
but there is certainly a feminist message conveyed through the plot.
Getting away from what Joss said or didn't say,
what makes something a feminist show?
Does its creator need to be feminist?
Does it need to depict feminists?
Or does it just need to have feminist themes?
Well, first of all, what does 'feminist' mean?
Dictionary.com says: (text)
While feminism is a movement dedicated to the interests of women and
women are naturally more interested in feminism than men are,
the dictionary definition does not exclude men from being feminists.
There are men who are ardent advocates of feminism, including Joss Whedon.
"So, why do you write these strong women characters?"
Because. Equality is not a concept. It's not something we should be striving for.
It's a necessity. Equality is like gravity. We need it to stand on this Earth as men and women.
And misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition.
It is life out of balance and that imbalance is sucking something from the soul of every man and woman who is confronted with it.
We need equality. Kind o' now.
Joss even calls himself a feminist.
So, Joss being a feminist satisfies the first proposed qualification for a feminist show
but if you think about it, that doesn't really tell us very much.
It tells us about him but not what's put into the show.
Now, does Dollhouse depict a feminist?
I'd say it does. Echo may not call herself one, but she is a woman fighting for the equal rights of her and other women.
Her original personality, Caroline, is what we would think of as a traditional feminist look.
She's an outspoken liberal activist.
The show heavily implies that the original personality is a person's "soul"
It lays the basis for all other personalities that can be imprinted onto the person.
So, that's who Echo truly is. She's this liberal activist
She doesn't self-identify as a feminist,
but I think her actions at least give the show feminist themes.
Now, just depicting a feminist in a show doesn't warrant calling a show feminist.
Because, you could easily write a bad feminist.
An anti-feminist could make a show that depicts feminists in a bad light.
The show could be about why feminists are irrational, evil, whatever.
TV Tropes has a whole page of these Straw Feminist characters.
This being the case, I would say that for a show to be feminist with its feminist characters,
it has to depict them in a good light.
Dollhouse passes as far as I'm concerned.
Echo is our protagonist, she seeks to liberate the people who are trapped in the Dollhouse, and we're with her as she does so.
So... Yeah. Feminist.
Now, I will concede that Dollhouse inappropriately tries to make everything sexy.
This is a case of Fox executives tampering with the show, though
and I don't think it's really Joss' fault.
The Fox executives didn't really know what kind of show they had.
It's like they heard "it's about objectification", "it's about prostitution",
and they decided "Oh, it's about fan-service!"
And they marketed the show as this big sexy thing with
Echo looking submissive, and nude, just shy and classically ***
And this isn't the show at all.
Yeah, that isn't the show really. It's about fighting against an oppressive institution.
Even if you try to make that sexy, it doesn't translate well.
I get the feeling that the show
had to have at least one sexy scene per episode because there are cases where it's
entirely inappropriate to have a sexy scene
such as Echo cutting an implant out of her, but
because she's naked it has to be sexualized.
And that just is so silly.
I think it's pretty clear it's executive meddling.
Outside of Fox meddling, though, we aren't encouraged to support the indentured servitude.
I would say what's truly indicative of a feminist show is the themes.
Does it have feminist themes?
I once wrote a paper arguing that Henrik Ibsen's play A Doll's House was feminist
because of certain themes it had
The character of Nora gets away from her abusive husband.
And Henrik Ibsen did not identify as a feminist
He did not consider the work feminist
He considered it about human liberation. It's a human story.
And people interpreted his work as feminist, and he didn't like that.
So, I don't think that it is necessary for a show's producer to
be feminist for the show to be feminist.
I think there needs to be a death of the author here
The author's interpretation of their work needs to be separated from the consumer's interpretation of it.
So, it doesn't really matter that Joss is a feminist.
I think it's interesting, though, in understanding where Dollhouse came from.
He may not have written Dollhouse with explicit feminist themes
like he did with Buffy.
He said that the season finale of Buffy was a beautiful feminist message.
His words.
And he may not have done that explicitly with Dollhouse
but I think Dollhouse has his
feminist writing because that's the kind of stuff he's into
so he just writes that when he wants to write
So when considering the death of the author, we can also
So when considering the death of the author, we can also
So when considering the death of the author, we can also
So when considering the death of the author, we can also
So when considering the death of the author, we can also
So when considering the death of the author, we can also
So when considering the death of the author, we can also
separate Joss' "this is not a feminist show"
from it
Even though that's not exactly what he said
So, I think what makes a show feminist has to be the story
So, I think what makes a show feminist has to be the story
And the main problem people have with Dollhouse's story is
that bad things happen to women
There's oppression
But I think that because the oppression occurs from antagonists
that the show itself does not endorse that
That's not endorsed by the story
Now, I can understand why people would find Dollhouse upsetting
because there is this violation that occurs regularly
but that doesn't make it a misogynistic show
That just makes it too upsetting for some people
You know, I'm upset by a lot of Lifetime movies
Those are definitely pro-women. They're about women escaping abusive partners
and I can't handle that kind of intense drama
but that doesn't mean that that show--you know, those Lifetime shows
but that doesn't mean that that show--you know, those Lifetime shows
but that doesn't mean that that show--you know, those Lifetime shows
are necessarily problematic because they depict abusive partners and stuff
When misogyny is enacted by antagonists
and the protagonist fights against it
the show, I believe, is feminist
because it fights against misogyny. It's about fighting against misogyny