julieandrews (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
julieandrews) wrote2009-04-11 03:57 pm
julieandrews) wrote2009-04-11 03:57 pm
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Thoughts on Dollhouse Episode 9
Why am I still watching this?
I suspect I'm watching it because I started and now I might as well see it through if there's only a couple episodes left. But it continues to offer me very little. Some amusing lines. Some thought-provoking thingees. But you can't like anyone. Because if you decide to start liking someone even a little bit, they're going to turn out to be the worst sort of jerk. Or a rapist.
Which brings me to my largest problem with the show. It's all about rape. Which is not a theme that interests me. Is it saying anything new about rape? Is it making people look at rape in a different way? What is the moral stance of the show? Of its writer/producer/creators? You can't really tell. I wonder if we'll be able to tell by the end of it.
In this episode, we find out the head boss lady is also a rapist. Lovely. So on the one hand you have the clients, who're paying for the privilege of raping these people. So that's okay. On the other hand, you have a handler who rapes one of the dolls, and he gets executed for it. That's not okay. Then on the third hand, you have whatshername who repeatedly rapes one of the dolls, and that's not quite so okay. She has to do it in secret, because she's not supposed to be doing it, even though she's quite probably paying for it. But she doesn't get caught and she doesn't get punished.
The only difference between what she does to Victor and what the handler did to Sierra(?) is that Victor's imprinted at the time and Sierra isn't. So is it supposed to be nasty, bad rape when the victim is innocent and mind-wiped? But it's only morally ambiguous rape when the victim is imprinted with a personality who's consenting to it?
And is FBI guy supposed to be our moral center? Because now he knows Mellie is a doll, and his conscious is going to twinge him, but I don't think that's going to stop him from having sex with her anyway.
And what's that line about Dolls never being submissives? Yea, that makes it all okay?!
I can't like this show. The only real positive thing I can say about it is that it's a good discussion-starter.
I suspect I'm watching it because I started and now I might as well see it through if there's only a couple episodes left. But it continues to offer me very little. Some amusing lines. Some thought-provoking thingees. But you can't like anyone. Because if you decide to start liking someone even a little bit, they're going to turn out to be the worst sort of jerk. Or a rapist.
Which brings me to my largest problem with the show. It's all about rape. Which is not a theme that interests me. Is it saying anything new about rape? Is it making people look at rape in a different way? What is the moral stance of the show? Of its writer/producer/creators? You can't really tell. I wonder if we'll be able to tell by the end of it.
In this episode, we find out the head boss lady is also a rapist. Lovely. So on the one hand you have the clients, who're paying for the privilege of raping these people. So that's okay. On the other hand, you have a handler who rapes one of the dolls, and he gets executed for it. That's not okay. Then on the third hand, you have whatshername who repeatedly rapes one of the dolls, and that's not quite so okay. She has to do it in secret, because she's not supposed to be doing it, even though she's quite probably paying for it. But she doesn't get caught and she doesn't get punished.
The only difference between what she does to Victor and what the handler did to Sierra(?) is that Victor's imprinted at the time and Sierra isn't. So is it supposed to be nasty, bad rape when the victim is innocent and mind-wiped? But it's only morally ambiguous rape when the victim is imprinted with a personality who's consenting to it?
And is FBI guy supposed to be our moral center? Because now he knows Mellie is a doll, and his conscious is going to twinge him, but I don't think that's going to stop him from having sex with her anyway.
And what's that line about Dolls never being submissives? Yea, that makes it all okay?!
I can't like this show. The only real positive thing I can say about it is that it's a good discussion-starter.
no subject
no subject
And teeheehee. That was great.