Dollhouse 1x01

[oyceter]

Dear Joss,

While it's nice that you have an Actual Asian Person (TM) in your cast, it would be even better if you would stop using things like Asian teapots, hotels, clothes, and geisha (who seem to, like all the others, act as scenery in your world) while populating the surroundings with all white people.

No love,
Another Actual Asian Person (TM)

Spoilers

I will probably keep watching for now, because despite the extremely sketchy premise, the amnesia and the doll bits are right up my manga kink alley.

On the other hand, WOW sketchy racial politics! We have Latino victim/businessmen, threatened by a Latino gang, disembodied Asian artifacts set in a world of white people, and even more white people with all the power and control! And another white person investigating. (see ETA)

And a single black man, who though I like so far as a character, have almost zero faith in his development.

I know I read as very cynical and angry. I love Buffy, but I feel that with each continuing product, Joss gets more and more problematic, like he spent all his feminist cred on Buffy (hello, Angel) and then basically just stopped thinking about anything past what floats his own boat, id-wise. It's lucky for us that some of it involves women with guns, but at this point, I'd like a little less crazy brunette and a little more of something else.

Also, the writing in Dollhouse wasn't so great—clunky As-You-Know-Bob's, not much humor or wit, and characters who I feel I've seen in many other Joss shows before (hello Warren! hello damaged brunette out to get her abuser! hello Lilah! hello Wolfram & Hart! hello police guy who vaguely looks like Nathan Fillion!).

ETA: Wait, FBI guy is Helo? Wow, I am out of it fannishly. OK, another plus for a POC actor, and I am crossing my fingers that they are not doing the "multiracial person coded as white" and actually write the agent as POC.

ETA2: And apparently the Spanish is not so much with the grammatical! Why am I not surprised?

Comments

[tatterpunk.livejournal.com]

Gosh, people get ticked with me for pointing out how much I hate the dialog in Firefly.

Hey, I don't pretend. I did not fall off the Whedon bandwagon out of some sense of moral superiority. I initially disliked Firefly because it was BAD.

Then I had lessons in Racial Awareness 101, and realized it was REALLY BAD.

I... don't know about Topher, sorry. ;)

[livinglaurel.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD WHERE WERE YOU when I posted about how I thought Serenity was a BAD movie and people were defriending me? -- Yeah, even in the original order on DVD, so much of Firefly is BAD, particularly the dialogue, ESPECIALLY the crunchy fake Westernisms.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Let's not forget the whole "Although Mal's side is clearly modeled on the Slaver's side of the American Slaver's rebellion in the 19th century [1], not only will we erase that aspect from his side, we'll give it to the elites supported by the Alliance of Evil Doormen," which managed to look like dog whistling for the stars-and-bars crowd.

And they noticed:

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.tv.firefly/msg/0d4963babfd37455

people were defriending me?

Someone basically said I was off my meds for not liking something or other by Whedon that the Whedonites were squeeing over. Maybe the musical Buffy episode, which mainly served to demonstrate that most of the cast wasn't cast on their ability to sing or dance. Whedonites get cranky when people don't adore their idol.

1: http://www.trektoday.com/news/201201_04.shtml

"The concept was inspired by the aftermath of the American Civil
War. 'I wanted to make something that's about a guy who fought for the
South, lost and doesn't like anybody anymore,' Whedon said. 'This show
isn't about the people who made history; it's about the people history
stepped on. [...]'"

[livinglaurel.livejournal.com]

Ohhhh I REMEMBER, man....I was all "BROWNCOATS? Do we really, really, really have to go there?"

[oyceter]

Let's not forget the whole "Although Mal's side is clearly modeled on the Slaver's side of the American Slaver's rebellion in the 19th century [1], not only will we erase that aspect from his side, we'll give it to the elites supported by the Alliance of Evil Doormen," which managed to look like dog whistling for the stars-and-bars crowd.

[...]

'This show isn't about the people who made history; it's about the people history stepped on. [...]'"

Oh the bitter, bitter laughter. Yes, let us make a show about the people history stepped on—the Confederate Army! But while we do so, let us ignore that nasty thing about slavery, the genocide of Native Americans that goes hand-in-hand with the Western expansion narration, and the Chinese labor that helped build those trains you see see running across the desert that are so fun to rob! That's a great idea!