Overseen in Pandemonium, and XKCD #386

[jere7my]

Dan Simmons, whose Terror was one of my favorite books of 2008, has just come out with a book called Drood, all about the curious conclusion of Charles Dickens's life. Please, sir, may I have some more?

Unrelatedly: how can anyone watch Dollhouse and not notice that the Dollhouse people are, at best, swimming in morally murky waters, and, at worst, the outright Bad Guys of the series? Sheesh. I have problems with the execution of the show, but to judge by 85% of the online criticism you'd think Joss Whedon was personally endorsing semiconsensual Dushku farming. Next week is supposed to flip over the tables a bit, so perhaps this blindingly obvious subtext will rapidly become, ah, text. (I am hoping for little devil horns, mustache-twirling, and cackling maniacal laughter.)

Comments

[jere7my.livejournal.com]

Well, I agree that it's kind of dumb. But my personal theory is that we're actually rooting for Echo to have a composite event, like Alpha did, and knock over the Dollhouse Corporation, or at least escape and fight them from without. I think that's what the real premise of the show is going to turn out to be, and all this early stuff is misdirection.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_swallow/]

I mean-- and, OK, I haven't actually seen an episode, so GIANT GRAIN OF SALT. But I have read the leaked pilot script and also compulsively read reviews on dozens of LJs, so I have some picture of what's going on with the show, I think. So: I mean, every criticism I've read of Dollhouse also presumes your personal theory. The problem I've seen articulated, and the reason I'm not watching it, is that it's not OK to say that sexism is wrong if your vehicle for protesting sexism is 45 minutes of gleaming bikini-clad sexually exploited women, that you set up to be eventually subverted. That punchline isn't worth it. (And this is where the critics I've been reading point out that Whedon's strong women often become strong because they have overcome degradation, often sexualized degradation. Rather than... just being strong to begin with.)

It's the same problem as hipster racism. It's wrong, unproductive, and ACTUALLY RACIST if your vehicle for protesting racism is a 2-hour movie in which racist jokes are wallowed in for your ironic pleasure, or a televised interview in which a white comedian insults a (not-in-on-the-joke) black man at length in order to satirize racist attitudes. Wrong, and not worth it.

[jere7my.livejournal.com]

Keep in mind that I don't actually have a problem with gleaming bikini-clad women, and attractive half-naked people in general (there are plenty of gleaming half-naked men in those showers) — I am of the porn-positive school of feminism. But I lay most of the blame for that aspect of the show at the feet of Fox, since I think Whedon actually agrees with you more than me on that point. The show as we're seeing it is (I've been told) a fairly corrupt version of the original concept. It's my hope that, as it progresses (and if it's not cancelled), it will hew closer.

But the criticisms I'm referring to aren't as nuanced as yours. I'm talking about those that say, for instance, "we all get so very upset when [...] Dollhouse makes rape so neat and pretty," as Cat Valente's did. I can see an argument for pretty, but it's built into the fundamentals of the show that the situation is anything but neat. We've already seen fallout from the Dollhouse's exploitative practices, and the two most sympathetic characters on the show (the FBI agent and Echo's handler — Echo is not a character at this point) both have explicit qualms with the setup.

[(Anonymous)]

i am of the feminist-porn-positive school of feminism.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_swallow/]

logged out by accident.

[jere7my.livejournal.com]

Well, I am too — I'm pro-feminist-porn. As with anything else, porn that isn't produced exploitatively is more appealing than porn that is. And I think things like Maxim and Axe Body Spray commercials are ridiculously offensive, though more for the frat-boy view of masculinity and sex than for any particular cheesecake content. (Insofar as Dollhouse veers into Maxim territory, I blame Fox Corporate.) But there's a big middle ground of porn that's neither exploitative nor specifically feminist (or for-women-by-women).