The show was Dollhouse, and if you plan on watching it ever, be warned: SPOILERS. SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS!! Okay, now that we've got that out of the way, what do my embarrassing Netflix habits have to do with women in the media?
A surprising amount, actually. I chose to blog about Dollhouse for quite a few reasons. First, the creator, Joss Whedon, self-identifies as a feminist. Given the representations of women we see in quality programming like Jersey Shore and Gossip Girl, I was very curious to see if having a self-declared feminist with creative power over a show would make a significant difference in women's portrayal. Second, and related, I felt like the show was purposefully trying to say something about women and their access to/use of power. It's true that I've been hyper-aware of how women appear in various media forms ever since beginning this blog, so maybe that accounts for it, but regardless of whether it was intentional or not, the messages are still interesting.
Dollhouse is about (of course...because it's sci-fi) a new, underground technology that removes a person's existing personality and temporarily implants a false one into their body. These "custom made" humans, ordered by rich people, can be whatever the buyer wants--slavishly in love, an expert in any given field, stunningly talented, you name it. The technology is secret and housed in a compound called the Dollhouse hidden underneath LA (it's one of many across the globe). The unfortunates who inhabit it are called...obviously...dolls. In their mind-wiped state, they show no personality at all. They are merely passive victims waiting to be imprinted with a new set of parameters. Over the course of the show, one doll, code named Echo, somehow manages to hold on to a few fleeting memories of her past selves, including her original, real personality, Caroline. She works with various others throughout the series to save the dolls. In the end, we discover that her genetic code makes her resistant to the technology, and that a vaccine can be made from her cells that, after the technology becomes widespread, has the potential to save all of humanity from becoming dolls and slaves. (Or does it? I won't ruin the ending.)
I want to say right upfront that I am very ambivalent about Dollhouse's representations of women. While I thought the series showed women in more complex ways than most, not all of that complexity was positive. So, in this order, I present to you the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The Good: Women had a surprising amount of power in the show, and some of them used it in non-stereotypical ways. In fact, sometimes the plot relies on viewers' stereotypes of women and then twists by debunking the stereotype in some way. For example, we learn that the creator of the most impressive, cutting-edge technology is named Bennett Halvorson. Any tech problems not resolvable by the LA dollhouse are referred to Bennett in DC. One of the characters brings a problem to Bennett's lab. Encountering a petite young woman at the front, he asks for Bennett somewhat condescendingly, only to find out that the young, pretty woman IS Bennett, tech master extraordinaire. Engineering and technology are normally male dominated fields, so I appreciated the shift, and the acknowledgment in the show that society holds this stereotype.
However, far more impressive is the character of Adelle DeWitt, the woman in charge of running the LA dollhouse (though she does begin as a stereotype: the madam).
I love this character because she defies the two ways women usually get power on TV: by being sexy and manipulative (think Mean Girls or Gossip Girl) or by taking on "masculine" qualities (NCIS, Bones--these women have disdain for emotions and act aggressively). While both methods can represent strength in certain circumstances, I dislike the idea that women must embody the traits associated with the worst parts of femininity or reject it all together in order to be powerful people.
Adelle has both "feminine" and "masculine" traits: she wears blouses and pencil skirts and serves tea in her office, and she gives orders to her entirely male staff and is obeyed. She does not use her sexuality to get what she wants, nor does she use physical violence. She shows emotion--she cares about the welfare of the dolls and tries safeguard their well-being--but she also shows a cut-throat business sense. Adelle does not fall into any easy stereotype: she's not a mother or a wife, but she's also not a spinster or a witch. She fights for what she wants, and gets it, but she uses her brains, not her body or her brawn.
Occasionally she exploits stereotypes about bodies or brawn, however. In one memorable scene, Adelle must convince her boss to send her back Echo, the most lucrative doll. She acts seductively and implies she'll sleep with him. I was bitterly dissapointed to see Adelle sink to such tactics, but once he lets her get close enough, she literally grabs him by the balls. Then, she demands Echo back. "What if I don't?" her boss squeaks out, "Are you going to have me killed in some dark alley?" She says no, and details how she'll use the tools she has at her disposal to make herself invaluable and get what she wants. Echo is returned.
Echo is another positive aspect. She is humanity's savior, the hero of the show, and she is also a woman. From inside the dollhouse, she organizes and schemes, using her limited resources to make slow progress toward freeing the dolls. We learn that when Echo was Caroline, she was a student protester who wasn't afraid to break into secure compounds and expose unethical practices. Her attempt to expose the company running all of the dollhouses is what got her stuck inside.
The Bad: Unfortunately, though Echo is the savior, the ways she takes power are fairly stereotypical.Two episodes, "Briar Rose" and "Belle Chose," deal with this subject explicitly.
In "Briar Rose," Echo talks with a young girl who has recently entered foster care after being abused by her mom's boyfriend. The girl is angry with herself because she didn't run away when she had the chance. She reacts violently to the story of Sleeping Beauty and screams "Why didn't she just wake herself the f*** up?!" Echo reinterprets the story for the girl, explaining that the princess dreamed of the prince and drew him toward her with the power of her thoughts. The prince seems to rescue her, but really, she rescues herself by admitting she needed help and summoning him. Of course, the reinterpretatoin also applies to Echo herself, who tries to get FBI agent Paul Ballard to expose the dollhouse by momentarily breaking free of her "imprinted" personality when she sees him. It's nice, but it's still the same story: women can't rescue themselves--they need men to protect them.
"Belle Chose" is raunchier. It is related to one of the Canterbury Tales, in which the narrator explains that what women desire most of all is power over their husbands. It's implied that they get it through sex. Echo is programmed, in this episode, as a student who struggles with understanding the tale. Her professor's fantasy is that she will come to his office hours for help and then use what she "learns" about it to seduce him, hoping for a higher grade. Again, this shows that women can only get power through manipulation and sex appeal, which is uninspiring. The episode does twist, however, as Echo's personality is remotely swapped with one of the male doll's current imprints. The male doll thinks he is Echo's character and flirts and dances as if he were. No one takes him seriously. I'd like to think this shows how ridiculous it is that we only afford women sexual power, and how much of a double standard exists between men and women--the male doll is laughed at and not remotely powerful. Echo becomes a serial killer and murders her professor. Revenge?
The Ugly: There is a LOT of violence in the show. A LOT. I am one of those people who winces when someone so much as gets a paper cut on TV, but I understand that I am going to be exposed to a certain amount of violence in the media. I don't like it, but I can deal with it. Except when it's like this. By my very unscientific estimate, the violence in Dollhouse was perpetrated by men against women at least three times more often than violence between two men, two women, or perpetrated by a woman against a man. It is absolutely brutal to watch in some instances; for example, in one scene, the FBI agent's girlfriend (he doesn't know she's a doll) is attacked by a potential rapist. She is barely able to defend herself as he throws her into tables and drags her across the floor. However, she's a "sleeper" doll, meaning she can be remotely turned into an aggressive weapon, and, when Adelle calls and speaks the code, she promptly dispatches the man with a single blow.
As in this example, the women always get revenge on their attackers, but the amount of time it takes is short and it is much less likely to be replayed in a flashback. The example above is shown at least three times in the episode (as the dollhouse's employees check in with hidden cameras) but her killing blow is shown only the first time. I'm not saying that the answer to this problem is for equal representation in violence--I'd much prefer that we simply show less of it, period--but I was extremely concerned by how often women were shown as helpless victims. I am afraid that those images, those images that made me sick, lose their power and become normalized when they are aired with such frequency. It shouldn't be "normal" to see a woman beaten by a man, even if it's only fiction, and even if she ultimately "wins."
Well, if you made it this far, you deserve a medal. I hope my little sci-fi obsession has shed some light on the role of female characters on TV. I dutifully searched for some YouTube videos to illustrate my examples, but I didn't have much luck--you'll have to try for yourself. If you do, pay attention to what you're seeing. How are women portrayed and what does it mean? How does this compare to how they are portrayed in your favorite show, and how do you feel about that representation? Share your thoughts!
~Jennielee
No comments:
Post a Comment