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Oyceter ([personal profile] oyceter) wrote2009-03-02 01:47 am
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Dollhouse 1x02-1x03

Still incredibly problematic, and yet, it is so incredibly boring that I can't even bring myself to get angry. Dropping it.

For episode 2, we get a ton of eroticized fear with only a little turn at the end. Maybe the trust bit between Boyd and Echo would have worked had I more faith in Joss' portrayal of black men; as it were, I am cynically certain the Boyd-Echo relationship is eventually going to end up echoing the threatening black man/delicate white woman stereotype.

And maybe I would have been more impressed by Echo being violent had the other thirty minutes of the show not been her cowering in fear.

For episode 3, I am not sure it could have possibly gotten more boring or more exploitative. Yay black woman. Boo black woman shown as a suicidal and selfish diva, at Echo (a white woman) calling her a "bitch," at the gratuitous use of gospel music and references to political freedom to refer to personal freedom, women in bikinis dancing in cages, Asian girl getting threatened by white man saved by white girl, and how every woman in the show maximizes cleavage, belly, crotch, or all of the above.

I was spoiled for the Victor reveal, but frankly, I'm not that impressed anyhow. So the guy doll gets to be an informer and play a Russian mobster while the female dolls get to dress in nearly nothing, strip on camera (Echo in the dressing room, and wow that was a completely unnecessary scene), and get threatened.

And did I mention the boring?

[identity profile] lady-ganesh.livejournal.com 2009-03-02 11:37 pm (UTC)(link)
Note that the one Active with an interesting assignment-- Victor-- is a white male. Thanks, Joss.

[identity profile] parallactic.livejournal.com 2009-03-03 01:36 am (UTC)(link)
I like that we get a male doll. I don't like that the one male doll gets the only non-sexed up assignment we've seen.

I think I keep waiting for Dollhouse to do something like Tiptree's "The Girl Who was Plugged In", or Maureen McHugh's "Nekropolis". But like a post I read somewhere said, the TV formatting might not allow Dollhouse to do that sort of thing.

[identity profile] lady-ganesh.livejournal.com 2009-03-03 02:54 am (UTC)(link)
If that sort of thought ever crosses the creators' minds.