Brief thoughts on the moral messages I got from Dollhouse

[sqbr]

WARNING: Show is very tiggery, my thoughts on it may be also.

Rape/slavery/sex slavery is sexy. And women enjoy it. And want it.

...but it's still wrong. Because.. it it just is.

Also, all women are whores. Yes, all of them.

But they can't help it. A nice man should come save them from themselves! Or maybe he shouldn't.

See also It depends on what you pay, which is much creepier now I've seen more than the first 2 episodes (I got stuck on episode 3 because it is simply bad, rather than "Has potential which is mostly wasted in skeeviness" like the rest of the show) and Working in the Dollhouse.

Comments

[attentive]

You know, I think these messages must be even more obvious in Dollhouse - which I will never watch - but "hot women under control" has been an obvious theme of Whedon's work since I heard of him.

If Whedon's female characters aren't explicitly degraded and loving it, or explicitly under the control of a third party who forces them to act against their will, they're often subject to a nebulous writer-controlled impulse or seizure syndrome which causes them to "act hot" (see vampire Willow, and the triggerable assassin girl in Serenity).

If Whedon was allowed to film his fantasy I think it'd consist of him in a Giles outfit carrying around a remote control that let him turn all women into his robotic servants, and in his fantasy they'd also be conscious, and secretly loving being under his control.

I really do find his work quite repellent.

[sqbr]

Yeah, it didn't really strike me until I watched a few episodes of Dollhouse, but in retrospect "Hot women who kick ass but have no control over their own power" is definitely a theme in his work. I was even inspired as a result to semi-run a Swancon panel on the fetishisation of "strong" women, though I was half asleep so don't remember what anyone said :)

I still like some of his stuff, but he's definitely lost the benefit of the doubt from me: if something of his looks crap/sexist etc, I will assume that it is, in fact, crap, and not waste any more of my time on it.