xavienne (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} xavienne) wrote,@ 2009-02-18 23:44:00 |
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Love's bitch...
Recently there have been a lot of comments on how OMG misogynist Joss Whedon is, and how Dollhouse is just a whorehouse with extremely wealthy clients, etc. etc. I've even seen one person call Joss a child pornographer because she didn't like the way female characters were portrayed in the Buffy comics. She figured because the two females in bed together are lean and young looking they must be kids, especially since there is a stuffed animal in the picture with them. Oh, and she just had to say "DYKES DO NOT LOOK LIKE THIS JOSS WHEDON YOU PERVERT!!!!"
Well, for someone who claimed to have watched Buffy she couldn't have paid much attention, since the stuffed pig is Mr. Gordo, a critter Buffy always had with her, a childhood friend who never really left. The bit about lesbians not looking like that? Um, hi, I happen to know a few lesbians who make the two girls in that comic panel look like Plain Jane. Part of the justification for the child porn comment is that the girls lack body hair. Ya know, so do I. It's called a razor. Some folks go for a Brazilian wax. Either way, in the image the two girls have a sheet over them so unless they had major jungle bush there is no way you would be able to tell if they had body hair or not! The comics take place after the series ends, and by that time Buffy is old enough to have been to and out of university. She's not a child.
As far as Joss writing nasty woman hating characters, did no-one notice the whole storyline of Spike's existence? In his first episode we see him standing on the side of the dance floor looking at Buffy and you can tell he's suddenly feeling something other than "I want to kill her." He looks like a man who has just fallen in love for the very first time. As we see more of Spike's life revealed, we see that everything he has ever done was for the love of a woman. He was a poet, a writer who walked into the arms of death after being rejected by the effulgent beauty who had stolen his heart. Dru offered him love, and he blindly accepted. When he squares off against Angelus and does all he can to be a bigger big bad than his mentor, it is because he wants Dru to love him. In one of the earlier episodes, he flat out says, "I may be love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it." Spike turns his dying mother into a vamp, expecting that she will be grateful and will retain as much of her humanity as he has (one could argue that Spike held more of his humanity than any other vampire on the show, but that's a whole different topic to rant on.) When she doesn't, and when he sees the monster she has become as she tries to seduce him, he destroys her rather than see the demon control her forever.
Even in talking about how he killed the two slayers, one during the Boxer Rebellion and one in the 70s from whom he got the coat, he reveals that it wasn't just a kill. He tells Buffy, "sooner or later every Slayer has a death wish." Maybe I have a skewed perspective since I have had suicidal thoughts more than once, but from the perspective Spike must have, as a demon who can't die, if someone wants to die and is tired of the fight then you are being merciful to kill them. For a Slayer to go out fighting and fighting hard would be the most honourable way to go, wouldn't it?
Spike stands by Buffy, helping her when he doesn't have to, when by all means he ought to kill her for what she has done to him and to Drusilla. Instead he lets his heart get the better of him, and ends up acting as a protector to Dawn. He is thoroughly used by Buffy, as both a punching bag and a fuck toy, and he knows it: " So, what now? You go back to treating me like dirt till the next time you get an itch you can't scratch?" " I may be dirt ... but you're the one who likes to roll in it, Slayer."
She drives him to distraction, wanting him and using him but being too ashamed to let her friends know the truth. She turns to him for the emotional needs that her friends can't meet, and then pushes him even further away. In a desperate bid to make her see how he feels he attacks her in her washroom -- this is probably the most misogynist scene in the whole show, and it was written by a female writer who states in the interviews that the scene was taken from things she wanted to do in her relationships when she knew they were ending. She compared it to that one last fling you have with the guy who is leaving you, thinking if you can just make the sex good enough maybe he'll stay.
Finally feeling utterly rejected and crushed Spike goes off to petition higher (lower?) powers to give him what he needs so he can give Buffy "what she deserves." They grant him a soul, and when he returns to Sunnydale he is completely mad, but still drawn to Buffy, arguably the cause of much of his madness. Remembering how she had treated him when she corners him in a church, he offers to service her, thinking that's what she has come for like so many times before, only to be thrown across the room in another rejection. In the final episode, he finally gets his redemption. He dies so she and the other slayers can escape and live. He knows she doesn't mean it when she tells him she loves him, and we can see in his eyes that he accepts that now. That saving her life and the lives of others is, in the end, more important than saving his own. Yes, he's love's bitch, but he's man enough to admit it and accept it.
What does all this have to do with Dollhouse?
People are judging Dollhouse based on one episode. That's like reading the liner notes of an album and deciding you hate it. They have barely had time to introduce all of the characters. There's this thing called plot development. Let it happen and see where Joss goes. No, it's not all about his sense of humour in this one, but neither was Angel at first, and that got pretty goofy. (Angel as a muppet, anyone? Not to mention one of the show's writers starring as a puppeteer who gets used as a muppet by a muppet...You'd have to watch it to understand.)
People are saying there are no male Actives. Apparently they weren't watching the shower scene, nor the scene where all the actives settle into their pods for sleep. You can spot at least two male Actives in this clip: http://video.yahoo.com/watch/2704002/78
"OMG Joss calls it "the sexy human trafficking show." Um, hello, might that be his "quirky sense of humour" that you've just been bitching about not seeing in the show? Its a show that focuses on human trafficking, yes, and the characters are sexy, yes. Wouldn't be much call for rich people hiring fat ugly old geezers as weekend playmates, now would there? How would they advance the secret agent plots if all the Actives were traveling around in motorized scooters? "I'll come rescue your kidnapped child but hang on, have to take my lorazepam first so I don't pop an artery from stress." "Damn it, he's getting away, I can't get my walker up that spiral staircase!"
Hrmph. Seriously people, get over yourselves and give the show a chance, and try to see things from perspectives outside of your own limited life experience. The show is fiction, just like the comics. Everything doesn't need to be 110% realistic. We don't need to see that she gets zits two days before her period or be told that the guys stink of sweat after they have worked out. Unless you're going to slam every single piece of fiction out there, either walk away from the Whedon or open yourself to the idea that maybe he really is a kickass writer, and if you looked at his characters as people first and then as their gender or race, maybe you'd see he writes about strong people, period, end of story.
Recently there have been a lot of comments on how OMG misogynist Joss Whedon is, and how Dollhouse is just a whorehouse with extremely wealthy clients, etc. etc. I've even seen one person call Joss a child pornographer because she didn't like the way female characters were portrayed in the Buffy comics. She figured because the two females in bed together are lean and young looking they must be kids, especially since there is a stuffed animal in the picture with them. Oh, and she just had to say "DYKES DO NOT LOOK LIKE THIS JOSS WHEDON YOU PERVERT!!!!"
Well, for someone who claimed to have watched Buffy she couldn't have paid much attention, since the stuffed pig is Mr. Gordo, a critter Buffy always had with her, a childhood friend who never really left. The bit about lesbians not looking like that? Um, hi, I happen to know a few lesbians who make the two girls in that comic panel look like Plain Jane. Part of the justification for the child porn comment is that the girls lack body hair. Ya know, so do I. It's called a razor. Some folks go for a Brazilian wax. Either way, in the image the two girls have a sheet over them so unless they had major jungle bush there is no way you would be able to tell if they had body hair or not! The comics take place after the series ends, and by that time Buffy is old enough to have been to and out of university. She's not a child.
As far as Joss writing nasty woman hating characters, did no-one notice the whole storyline of Spike's existence? In his first episode we see him standing on the side of the dance floor looking at Buffy and you can tell he's suddenly feeling something other than "I want to kill her." He looks like a man who has just fallen in love for the very first time. As we see more of Spike's life revealed, we see that everything he has ever done was for the love of a woman. He was a poet, a writer who walked into the arms of death after being rejected by the effulgent beauty who had stolen his heart. Dru offered him love, and he blindly accepted. When he squares off against Angelus and does all he can to be a bigger big bad than his mentor, it is because he wants Dru to love him. In one of the earlier episodes, he flat out says, "I may be love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it." Spike turns his dying mother into a vamp, expecting that she will be grateful and will retain as much of her humanity as he has (one could argue that Spike held more of his humanity than any other vampire on the show, but that's a whole different topic to rant on.) When she doesn't, and when he sees the monster she has become as she tries to seduce him, he destroys her rather than see the demon control her forever.
Even in talking about how he killed the two slayers, one during the Boxer Rebellion and one in the 70s from whom he got the coat, he reveals that it wasn't just a kill. He tells Buffy, "sooner or later every Slayer has a death wish." Maybe I have a skewed perspective since I have had suicidal thoughts more than once, but from the perspective Spike must have, as a demon who can't die, if someone wants to die and is tired of the fight then you are being merciful to kill them. For a Slayer to go out fighting and fighting hard would be the most honourable way to go, wouldn't it?
Spike stands by Buffy, helping her when he doesn't have to, when by all means he ought to kill her for what she has done to him and to Drusilla. Instead he lets his heart get the better of him, and ends up acting as a protector to Dawn. He is thoroughly used by Buffy, as both a punching bag and a fuck toy, and he knows it: " So, what now? You go back to treating me like dirt till the next time you get an itch you can't scratch?" " I may be dirt ... but you're the one who likes to roll in it, Slayer."
She drives him to distraction, wanting him and using him but being too ashamed to let her friends know the truth. She turns to him for the emotional needs that her friends can't meet, and then pushes him even further away. In a desperate bid to make her see how he feels he attacks her in her washroom -- this is probably the most misogynist scene in the whole show, and it was written by a female writer who states in the interviews that the scene was taken from things she wanted to do in her relationships when she knew they were ending. She compared it to that one last fling you have with the guy who is leaving you, thinking if you can just make the sex good enough maybe he'll stay.
Finally feeling utterly rejected and crushed Spike goes off to petition higher (lower?) powers to give him what he needs so he can give Buffy "what she deserves." They grant him a soul, and when he returns to Sunnydale he is completely mad, but still drawn to Buffy, arguably the cause of much of his madness. Remembering how she had treated him when she corners him in a church, he offers to service her, thinking that's what she has come for like so many times before, only to be thrown across the room in another rejection. In the final episode, he finally gets his redemption. He dies so she and the other slayers can escape and live. He knows she doesn't mean it when she tells him she loves him, and we can see in his eyes that he accepts that now. That saving her life and the lives of others is, in the end, more important than saving his own. Yes, he's love's bitch, but he's man enough to admit it and accept it.
What does all this have to do with Dollhouse?
People are judging Dollhouse based on one episode. That's like reading the liner notes of an album and deciding you hate it. They have barely had time to introduce all of the characters. There's this thing called plot development. Let it happen and see where Joss goes. No, it's not all about his sense of humour in this one, but neither was Angel at first, and that got pretty goofy. (Angel as a muppet, anyone? Not to mention one of the show's writers starring as a puppeteer who gets used as a muppet by a muppet...You'd have to watch it to understand.)
People are saying there are no male Actives. Apparently they weren't watching the shower scene, nor the scene where all the actives settle into their pods for sleep. You can spot at least two male Actives in this clip: http://video.yahoo.com/watch/2704002/78
"OMG Joss calls it "the sexy human trafficking show." Um, hello, might that be his "quirky sense of humour" that you've just been bitching about not seeing in the show? Its a show that focuses on human trafficking, yes, and the characters are sexy, yes. Wouldn't be much call for rich people hiring fat ugly old geezers as weekend playmates, now would there? How would they advance the secret agent plots if all the Actives were traveling around in motorized scooters? "I'll come rescue your kidnapped child but hang on, have to take my lorazepam first so I don't pop an artery from stress." "Damn it, he's getting away, I can't get my walker up that spiral staircase!"
Hrmph. Seriously people, get over yourselves and give the show a chance, and try to see things from perspectives outside of your own limited life experience. The show is fiction, just like the comics. Everything doesn't need to be 110% realistic. We don't need to see that she gets zits two days before her period or be told that the guys stink of sweat after they have worked out. Unless you're going to slam every single piece of fiction out there, either walk away from the Whedon or open yourself to the idea that maybe he really is a kickass writer, and if you looked at his characters as people first and then as their gender or race, maybe you'd see he writes about strong people, period, end of story.