Victim of Culture

Dollhouse is the rare feat in modern television, a show truly about ideas

Be aware, heavy spoilers follow if you have not finished the first season.

Joss Whedon’s show Dollhouse never had much of a chance.  Fox forced him to create a new pilot episode (something quite reminiscent of Firefly’s debut on Fox), and then placed into the Friday night timeslot behind Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.  For Fox, like many networks, Friday night is where shows are sent to die.  The only possibly worse fate would have been Saturday night.

The show premiered to almost universal let down of fans at the pilot episode.  The second episode came and it seemed a pretty crude departure from the first.  In face, for some audiences the show didn’t really find its footing until the sixth or so episode, and in the modern era of television that is just too long a wait for network executives.  They were already salivating over what reality show to put in Dollhouse’s slot next season.

Dollhouse eventually did air 12 episodes, including a season (possibly series) finale.  What it didn’t air was a 13th episode which Fox wanted to hold for the season one (complete series?) DVD set.  That’s right, Fox held an episode and just decided not to air it.  But one shouldn’t be surprised, they did the same with Firefly.  So while Dollhouse hasn’t been cancelled yet, it seems a foregone conclusion that Dollhouse is gone.

What to make of the friend we hardly knew?  Is there any significance to Dollhouse beyond a Friday night sci-fi action romp?  Yes, though not in the way many viewers likely realized.  You see, Dollhouse is likely the most intellectually  feminist show to ever air on network television.

Oh sure, there have been shows like The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Maude before it that argued a woman deserved equal treatment to men, and equal pay.  These were, for the most part, tangible feminist arguments.  What is the place of a woman in society?  In the home?  In the workplace?  What is the place of a woman?  Tangible questions about abortion and sexual harassment that have further exploded over the years in shows such as Ally McBeal and Whedon’s own Buffy, The Vampire Slayer.

Dollhouse, however, was different.  The questions were not concerning abortion, sexual harassment, equal pay, or anything else quite so tangible.  The series presented an examination of woman’s place not just in physical society (bank teller versus bank president), but the perception of female value and use in society.  If a woman can be a serious contender for President, such as Hillary Clinton, then the feminist questions must dig deeper.  It is akin to skipping the affirmative action question with a black man in the White House, and instead focusing on the still underlying perceptions of people of color.

That, however, does not easily make for compelling television.  HBO’s The Wire showed us that by wrapping such questions of race and poverty in a cop drama veneer, you can entertain audiences while entertaining ideas.  Dollhouse tried a similar tactic, but one far more subversive.  How do you address issues of feminism?  By putting all your female characters in short skits and low-cut blouses.

This, of course, seems horribly counter intuitive, and such was the point.  Males age 15-25 are not going to willingly sit through a retelling of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House.  So, drop the story of a woman unshackling herself from an oppressive husband, and figuratively doll up the female cast in 4-inch heels and red lipstick.  Give them the sugar they desire to take the medicine they need.

And that’s exactly what Whedon did.  By dressing up series lead, and producer, Eliza Dushku in every manner of fetishist garb, Whedon was able to accomplish two things.  One, as noted, he was able to attract the young male audience the show needed to survive.  Two, he was able to make commentary on the fact that such tactics were even necessary to attract a male audience.  Every time Dushku walked on screen in a new short skirt, there was a knowing wink from the star and creator that most of its audience was being manipulated by the very thing restraining the show.

If visual objectification was the outer shell of the show, the far more interesting nougat center was the debate over societal objectification.  But what does that even mean?  Consider that the show, which overwhelmingly focuses on female characters, has as its central concept that people can be mentally wiped clean, and replaced with new personalities.  In other words, the body stays the same but not the mind.  What is this saying about women?

The clients indulging in Echo’s (Eliza Dushku) servies are normally men wanting to fulfill sexual fantasies.  In its very first episode the show questions its own premise, asking why would millionaires bother with such a service?  If they want something or someone, surely they can just buy it, right?  But that neglects to address what money can never purchase someone—desire.  Prostitutes might be complicit in the sexual activity, but the money is their desire, not the client.  Echo can be made to have desire.  Her personal wants, such as money, are taken from her, or as the case may be, never even granted to her.  She’s not a robot, for she still has feelings and emotions, but they are not her own and she has not earned or chosen them through actions of her own.

Which gets to the central conceit of the show—what is the soul?  Is what Western civilization deems a soul nothing more than our memories and attitudes shaped through experience?  Or is it something deeper, something that exists beyond the grey matter of the physical brain?  That’s a spiritual question to be sure, and though Whedon teases around the idea of what this all means for religion, it is never directly addressed in the first season.  That’s because the central issue is not the soul when it comes to God, but the soul when it comes to man, or woman in this case.

If the character Mellie is given no choice but to love FBI Agent Paul Ballard, then is the love she feels real?  Is it programming, or is it organic?  Grey matter, or soul?  If there is no soul, then the body is an empty shell waiting to be filled with data.  It is essentially a computer floppy disk with no program to run.  But if there is a soul, then anything written over it is simply a virus infecting the underlying program.  It may supersede and overpower it, but the underlying program remains functional at its core, wanting to work.

Whedon seems to be saying that this is the way women are often treated, even in today’s society.  It isn’t enough to work hard, get educated, and land the great job.   Society writes superseding code over all of that.  A woman must be a good cook, dress immaculately, accept bawdy boy talk in the office, etc.  We objectify women—viewing them as dolls to be dressed up for our amusement, and to be programmed according to our liking as men.  If given the chance, perhaps we would order them to specification as the men in the series do.

In Ibsen’s A Doll’s House the main character, Nora, eventually leaves her husband.  She breaks free from being a doll in a dollhouse.  The comparison with Echo is obvious.  Unfortunately, it’s likely we will never learn if, when, or how she might escape herself.  But in echoing many of the sentiments that women simply play a superficial role in the minds of many in society, Whedon has done the unthinkable.  He has made feminism hip for young men to watch on television.

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