Dollhouse 1.3

[lotesse]

I both adored and hated the new Dollhouse - and I felt those two ways about the exact same aspect of it.

As a feminist-trained woman, as someone becoming more and more radical in that feminism every year, I can say that at this point in my life I no longer recognize the bra-and-booty-skirt shake-and-grind routine as any sort of sexual cue. I'm not just saying that I don't find it sexy - which would be true - but that in my head that sort of thing sets up/directs toward oppression rather than libido. Show me a woman dressed like Rayna, dancing like Rayna, and I'm narratively cued that she's subjugated. I find her clothes every bit as symbolic of horror as Claire's scars.

But I know that most people aren't there. They see it as meaning sex still, and sexual availability. The intended response is libidinal, not political, not analytic.

So for me, the episode was a lovely diatribe against the iron bars of empornulation, in which Rayna's scanty clothes and gyrations served as signifiers of her enslavement. They sing a spiritual, a freedom-song, because freedom is exactly what they don't have, because they are indentured members of the sex class. And I loved the episode that I watched. But I'm worried that not everybody - probably not even the majority - watched that ep. I'm thinking a lot of people saw some cute T&A, and some cool action scenes.

Fox is not helping me with this anxiety, btw. Their use of Eliza's body is becoming really disturbing, in that they seem to expect the viewers to happily collude with her (heavily sexualized) victimization.

Linking to miriam_heddy's very illuminating remarks on Joss and public display of id, and to yunita's unspeakably beautiful vid My Medea, on Joss and his girls in boxes.

Comments

[mayhap]

Yeah, Rayna's gold jangly outfit immediately reminded me of Leia's metal bikini in Return of the Jedi, and combined with the use of those bars as a stage prop, I thought that that reading was pretty well supported right from the teaser.

I do wonder if this is a deliberate ploy to try to build and retain a larger audience and keep the show from getting canceled -- the Neilsen boxes don't discriminate among people who get it and people who don't, so why not try to appeal to both? Each episode stands mostly on its own in terms of action and characters, with the effort to string together a coherent narrative falling mostly on the regular viewers. Setting aside whether or not that is an ethical tactic, based on the number of smart people I see cringing away from the show wholeheartedly, I'm not sure it's working ...

[lotesse]

It's exactly that "tactical" aspect of it that's got me freaked out, maybe because it just feels so cynical - do a feminist high concept, but dress it up as soft porn so the doodz won't be offended and turn off the show. Ugh.

[ladymordecai.livejournal.com]

I was so all over the place about this ep because of the cross-symbolism you're talking about here. On the one hand, blatant objectification. On the other, legitimate commentary on the female/female body as prepackaged entertainment.

THE ADS ARE FREAKING ME OUT, MAN. I keep wondering why Eliza agreed to do them. I know JOSS has no control over the marketing, but I don't know how much control Eliza has over her body as marketed image. Doesn't agreement for nude and semi-nude scenes have to be in the contract?

[lotesse]

Weeeel, Eliza's never really been terribly discerning wrt nudity - girl's done Maxim! I think that allowing objectification has kind of been her gig, since none of her shows have lasted up to this point. So that doesn't surprise me. Oddly enough, I expect more feminist consciousness from Joss than I do from Eliza, at least in terms of the Gaze and the semiotics of images.