#tim minear hire me please

[buck-up-buck]

7x09 is titled "Unfinished Business" ....

Tell me that is not a revenge plot against Bobby. TELL ME. You can't. If I was not convinced before, I AM NOW.

hErE mE oUt.

I'm not saying they are going to burn down Buck's loft, I AM NOT... BUT, imagine Bobby is dropping a patient off at the hospital with Hen and Chim (I know this hardly ever happens but roll with me guys), and our friend, the Burn Unit Nurse, sees him, and is like...

"Bobby?" BECAUSE, he recognises him, from all those years ago in Minnesota. He lived in Bobby's apartment complex, they were somewhat neighbours, and he saw Bobby go into that vacant apartment that night (the night we do not DARE talk about), on his way to work, and was working a night shift at the hospital when suddenly, they get an influx of patients with burns and smoke inhalation from an apartment fire downtown, and he hears in passing from a nurse the address, and his heart sinks because no his fiance was at home asleep at that address and he hears from someone a few weeks later that the fire started in a vacant room due to an electrical issue with a space heater and HE JUST KNOWS.

And Bobby turns around to face him and is like "Sorry, do I know you?" Because Bobby was going through it back then, he doesn't remember this guy, and the guy is like, "Sorry, no, I was mistaken." And he walks away leaving Bobby all like huh.

Then the episode ends with the truck pulling into the firehouse and the camera pans out and we see BURN UNIT NURSE GUY STOOD ACROSS THE ROAD STARING UP AT THE FIREHOUSE BECAUSE DUN DUN DUN- He has some Unfinished Business to attend to.

If this so happens to lead to the burning down of Buck's loft because this guy does his research and he does some stalking and he sees a connection that Bobby has with Buck that he doesn't seem to share with the other members of the team, then well, ya'll didn't see it here first but I fucking called it if so, because you're telling me that is not a CRAZY storyline right there.

BUT, even if not, even if we do not get our beloved loft burning down scene that we have been writing and praying for on Fanfiction for years, you cannot tell me that there is not going to be some kind of dark revenge plot going on in the last four episodes. This nurse is about to cause some HAVOC I CAN SENSE IT. MY SPIDEY SENSES ARE TINGLING GUYS.

Anyway, @whollyjoly and @thetangycheesemanwithaplan had the absolute joy of hearing this from a very sleep-deprived me last week and now that the episode titles have been released, Buck's loft burning down and Burn Unit Nurses revenge plot is going to be my new personality trait. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU.

[eddiegettingshot]

Buck and Tommy break up because Tommy’s old friend Evan from the army comes back and turns out he was in love with him the whole time and was substituting one Evan for another. Tim Minear hire me please

LITERALLY JUST LAUGHED OUT LOUD. LIKE SO LOUD

[wannabanauthor]

So Tim Minear,

Season 7 had Buck heading out with a spend-a-night bag to be with Tommy after his shift, and all of a sudden Tommy doesn’t want to move in together?

Also, Bobby gave his blessing, so did Eddie, Tommy made sure to include Eddie as much as he could while he was dating Buck.

See what I’m getting at here?

If Tommy is truly gone from the show forever, you’re fucking idiot. A new kind of stupid. A “you didn’t think that through” kind of stupid.

I’ve given as many explanations as I can for your subpar writing, but in the end it all comes back to “you’re really fucking stupid”.

Not to mention the Abby retcon, which doesn’t even match up with previous canon.

You really thought 2024 was the year to play with queer people even though you pulled out some early 2000’s harmful queer tropes?

I can’t even ask if you have debilitating ADHD because I have ADHD Combined type, and your show writing is on the same level as me when I was an undiagnosed teenager writing fanfiction.

Do you not have a show Bible?

Are you not embarrassed with this half-assed storyline?

Did you think you were going to be viewed as edgy?

After Game of Thrones last season? After The 100 went off the deep end?

On the same network as Shondaland?

Do you realize how bad you look? Fans have to dig deep into psychology to make your storyline make sense to the general audience and shippers.

Do you know how bad that is?

We need to stop letting mediocre white men write for shows. Y’all don’t know how to handle it.

You had so many golden opportunities with Tommy, and you threw it all away. For what exactly?

I really want to know what your reasoning or plan is.

What was the whole point just to retcon everything?

What was your end goal?

Please don’t tell me you thought you were being clever.

Because you weren’t.

You’re just a fucking idiot.

Plot twists need to make sense and the groundwork needs to be laid before executing it.

I want to have faith that you’re not this fucking stupid, but half the country voted for a convicted felon to be president.

I think you’re just stupid. Which is sad because there are so many other people who would love to have your career and not fuck it up.

Fucking hell, you’re really fucking stupid.

Not even a new level of stupid. Using 20 year old harmful queer tropes kind of stupid.

You weren’t even being original kind of stupid.

So fucking stupid that Trump is going to hire you as part of his cabinet.

Were you one of the ones googling what a tariff was?

Because that’s how fucking stupid you’re coming across.

Goodness gracious, you are just the worst.

And really fucking stupid.

[ssfghfrrggf]

sooo 911 season 4.... start it off nice and hot with a wildfire? wrap it with hmm... idk.... a ship wreck? freighter meets cruise ship? yeah? yeah. that's how it should go down. just like that.

[911bts]

I‘m really worried about 911 right now. It seems like they reduced the shows budget, hired the same 4/5 writers and directors and that‘s it. The way i see it is the show heading to its final season and i would be ok with it if it wasn‘t for that medicrity in the story telling part that somehow made it into the show the last two seasons.

Please don't send me messages like this. I enjoy the show and don't want negativity in my inbox (this may feel harsh but I've gotten MULTIPLE negative asks since making that last post. I'm just over it). Also, this isn't a blog where I typically acknowledge messages like this because it's about an opinion and I try to just present the facts.

But while we're doing this. The way shows work is they use the same writers and directors with some outside variations. It's how a writer's room works. They have a staff of writers who come up with episode plots, write the episode, and other writing related things. If you want to learn more about it, I recommend listening to Tim Minear's appearance on the Lois and Clark podcast. He talks a lot about his career as a tv writer and the different environments he's worked in.

And yes, they reduced the show's budget, that's why they threw an actual firetruck off a cliff for fun last season and rented out a whole soccer stadium this season.

This is Fox’s top show. They're begging Tim to make a 3rd show. Yes, it's totally ending.

[outrunningthedark]

Y’all. Someone gotta turn my brain off.

I am now imagining a scenario where the Diaz family dinner is legit and the ACTUAL cliffhanger is Buck showing up because “I need to talk to you.”

Then we spend all summer wondering what the fuck he had to say.

@Tim Minear please hire me.

[detectivereyes]

Lone star season 3 wishes/hopes/dreams/ stuff the writers will never give us but i want to hope for anyway: tarlos house hunting, the team rebuilding the 126 together somehow, tommy dealing with the trauma of losing charles, more emt crew scenes, more carlos being his own character (working on cases, having friends, i'll take anything), more nancy, gwyn + enzo + baby making appearance, proper storyline for grace's pregnancy (i might cry if they do a time jump to the baby being born) and obviously more scenes with marjan and paul

god i want house hunting so bad... can you imagine the montage of them just showing each other all the listings on zillow and having petty disagreements about like the square footage and stuff and then getting to bring back stephanie mcvay as the realtor (showed the house to tk and owen in 1x01 and the house to tommy and charles in 2x13.. yea same lady). ugh the potential i need it but will tim minear deliver? unlikely.

for real though he's going to time jump so far that the 126 station reopens by the end of 3x01 (better yet it's already reopened when the episode starts lmaoo) but he already admitted he doesn't want to keep them apart for too long which of course makes sense but at the same time that's minear speak for "i wrote myself into this plot line and i can just write my way out of it" as in... yeah it will not last long At All.

i would hope after 2x13 showed what a fucking powerhouse gina torres is, we get to continue to see her dive into that. she can literally carry the show and tim minear can’t possibly be dumb enough to kill charles off and then do nothing with it (actually, yes. yes he can). 

and yes to more emt scenes!! i mean with nancy now as a main, and ronen and gina are two of the hired billed actors on the show, i want to say it’s guaranteed, but obviously nothing its. i feel like we got a lot more just emt calls in s1 (the one with the lady and the steak eating contest at the bar, the crazy dude and the dead mom...) and that point, mark and brianna weren’t mains so i can only hope we get to see that replicated in s3. and of course them chilling at the fire house would be fun too! i want to see tk and nancy chillin with marjan paul and mateo while they’re on quiet shift!! still with brianna as a main, we HAVE to get more nancy. what if we get some flashbacks and then they can bring tim back ahhhh

i’m seriously trying to keep my hopes in check for carlos bc i feel like i set my expectations too high for s2... however yes. give me a call with just him. give him friends that aren’t tk’s friends. make officer mitchell his regular partner and give her a first name!! more andrea and gabriel!! tia lucy!!! reyes family ranch!! siblings? cousins?? basically just give me an entire show about carlos. but what i actually want is for him to get more than 1 big episode; to have no credit-only episodes; and for him not to be reduced down to a few scenes in every episode that isn’t his big episode(s). @ tim i don’t think that’s too much to ask?

i NEED to meet enzo on screen. anyone know if timothy olyphant is available? that’s the only fancast (ronen cast..) i accept. i hope the time jump isn’t too far that we can see tk and owen learning that gwyn had the baby (by my math, she is almost at the end of her pregnancy at the end of the season... though it’s hard to tell with not knowing how much time is between 2x08 and x09..). though i’m not getting my hopes too high for that. still really hope we get to see tk meeting his baby brother.

and of course to your last points, major clown bc i don’t trust tim’s interviews but i don’t think he wants to jump too far ahead in the pregnancy... just please can we see them still getting ready? and always more marjan and paul (and mateo!!! love my bb)

sorry this got so long lmao you gave me a lot to address

let’s clown about s3

[thessalian]

Thess vs American Horror Story: Murder House

One thing I admit I like about this series is that each season is stand-alone ... mostly, from what I can tell. Also Tim Minear, who wrote some of the creepier episodes. But I admit I’m a little bit ambivalent about the ending of the first season. The Harmons’ story may be over, but there’s a certain amount of “what the fuck” in the tonal shifts. And since this particular season ended in 2011, I’m well past my usual moratorium for spoilers, but it’s also pretty damn long, so here we go:

Why is no one tearing that fucking house down?

No, seriously; the entire thing is insane. We so far have: one of the psychiatrist resident’s patients who injured herself in that house and then went on to commit suicide outside of it immediately after a session. One of the psychiatrist resident’s patients a victim of murder immediately after a session. One of the psychiatrist resident’s patients turned out to be obsessed with serial killers and came in with a bunch of friends to re-enact one of the historical murders in the house. The psychiatrist resident’s wife was fucking committed. This was 2011, for fuck’s sake; that psychiatrist should have been on fucking probation pending review. Daughter doesn’t turn up to school and no one insists on seeing the daughter. First person who shows any real interest in buying the house prior to the last deaths of the season goes missing. Exterminator hired to go into the large crawl spaces under the house goes missing. Neighbour’s lover found murdered (though, yes, someone on the outside took the fall for that but isn’t it convenient? And how was someone who could barely straighten his arm cutting a body into pieces, exactly? These are questions for which there are never sufficient answers). This was 2011. People should have been brought in for questioning and there was probable cause to search that fucking house. Also, how come no one noticed that the last murder-suicide (late 90s / early 00s, thank you, so decent forensics) involved the murderer half of that little folie a deux with a neck broken before he shot himself in the heart? Do we not do autopsies anymore? Yeah, sure, the restless dead of that place might kill the cops too, but if a couple of cops go missing, they’re going to send a LOT more cops. One way or another, that place is going down.

I know it’s a conceit and a convenience, but holy fuck, if you’re going to have suspicious-seeming cops roaming the place, can we please at the very least have something come of it beyond unresolved tension? Or at least a rational explanation as to why we aren’t taking the kind of steps law enforcement can take in 2011? And particularly once the family died, why weren’t we searching the house? And why aren’t we looking for the people who smashed the family car’s windows and slashed their tyres, thus preventing a woman with a history of miscarriage and a complicated pregnancy from getting to a hospital, and thus causing her death, not to mention leading to the suicide of the father? Cops tend to get curious with that many people missing and / or dead.

I suppose the good thing is that these are the questions that occur later, rather than during the whole thing. The focus on the creepy shit was strong enough that I was drawn in enough to not play my usual Jenga Tower of Logic-poking game with it. The problem is that afterwards, I’m doing the poking a whole lot, and there are so many unanswered questions that are a little too mundane to maintain the eeriness of the whole thing.

I suppose the tone of the ending didn’t help. There was a kind of a Beetlejuice feel to the whole thing, at the end, and that was fine enough, but it did make me wonder - why didn’t the ghosts of the innocent victims just kind of overpower the nasty ones, and talk the more ambivalent ones around? I mean, the innocent victims kind of outnumber the truly twisted ones at this point, if you take the selfish jackasses out of the equation, because honestly they’re a little more neutral. Good, bad, or really fucking confused, they’re stuck together for all eternity, scaring people out of a house with power of its own ... that or killing them in it. And if that latter’s the case ... surely the ghosts themselves must be sick to the back teeth of it. Yeah, big house, but it’s going to get crowded eventually. It kind of already is. Eventually, aren’t even the most selfish and warped of the spirits within it going to go, “No, you know what? I’m not killing these people anymore; I honestly don’t care about their lives one way or another but I’m not having another bunch of people stuck in this house with me”?

And then let’s talk ... *siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh* ... the fucking Antichrist.

Look, I’m never entirely sure how to take it when we start invoking the Antichrist, particularly in something whose horror is largely secular. God won’t save you, God can’t save you, there’s a house powerful enough to stop God from raising the faithful up to heaven (and yes, there were a couple who should by rights have been taken to heaven no matter what your view on sin is), there’s no indication of an all-powerful father figure in the sky ... but we have the Antichrist. More, we have the Antichrist whose conception rivals Twilight’s Renesmee for “...that makes no fucking sense...” The devil can make miracles but God can’t? What tone are we trying to set here? Is it trying to be grimdark? I mean, seriously, is it trying to be grimdark when our ending involves a game of paranormal happy families? If you’re going to posit the Antichrist, at least invoke Yahweh once in awhile ... and not just for poignancy points on a murder victim in a flashback.

The thing I’m finding about Netflix horror is that its execution throughout is brilliant but there tends to be a serious shakiness on the dismount. The endings seem to be trying too hard to inject light into their previously grimdark horror and end up with the thematic equivalent of shifting gear in a car too abruptly and causing those awful grinding sounds. I noticed this with The Haunting of Hill House too; I don’t know if this is because of what Netflix itself is greenlighting or just some really weird reluctance on the part of horror writers to commit to the dark in the current social and theological climate, but the end result is a tonal shift that causes no small amount of conceptual whiplash. 

Don’t get me wrong - I liked this. I liked this a lot. I’m looking forward to season 2 (though I imagine it’s going to be hard for me to watch, as I have a thing about asylum-related grimdark). The imagery was fantastic, it was shot superbly, the characters were believable, if often conflicted (probably because they were so often conflicted; overall themes of narrative can’t shift gears too abruptly, but people do it all the time, so it’s nice to see writers who acknowledge that), they handled some sensitive topics fairly well, and it was acted very believably. Just ... yeah, I think we all know how sometimes “having an ending that sticks with you and really makes you think” isn’t the be-all and end-all, because sometimes the thoughts that come involve the kind of nit-picking that destroys the mystique and ephemeral beauty of the whole piece. A tonal shift of that magnitude is bad enough with something like Mass Effect 3, but when the piece in question relies entirely on subtle, ephemeral horror ... it can be a death knell.

[preserving-ferretbrain]

Dollhouse: Thoughts

by Rami

Monday, 16 February 2009

Almost completely by accident, Rami happened to catch the season premiere of Joss Whedon's latest oeuvre.~

I'll be one of the first to admit that I don't exactly fit into the typical audience focus-group that American TV networks base their decisions around. Having seen (and, to be fair, adored) Firefly but not seen much of any of his other work (most notably Buffy or Dr Horrible), I am not enough of a Whedon fanboy to have seen all the buzz about it. Although since the buzz has been piling up for a good few months if not well over a year, I did notice one or two hints in the blogs I read.

So, with my laptop open in front of me I was engaged in what appears to be the traditional American pastime of not paying huge amounts of attention to the television when I noticed

Eliza Dushku

sprawled across the screen. Needless to say, that got my attention enough to notice that the much-talked-about season premiere of

Dollhouse

was coming up. For those of you who aren't completely up-to-date with Whedon's work, Dollhouse is about a secret facility housing a number of "Dolls", people whose personalities have been wiped out so that they can be imprinted with fresh ones to handle the missions that the Dollhouse hires them out to do – these missions, then, can be pretty much anything from seduction to assassination, and I have no doubt they will be the ostensible focus of each weekly episode. The ongoing story follows one Doll in particular, Dushku's character Echo (one of her fellow Dolls is called Sierra; clearly they have disposable

alphabetical identifiers

to go with the disposable people), who begins to become self-aware.

I won't spoil the actual plot of the pilot or sketch out more of the characters for you, although

Wikipedia is happy to do so

. What I will say is that the premise is handled very well, with lots of out-and-out cool technology (mixing and matching personality traits to construct the perfect composite for a mission; recording memories onto disk for later playback; making someone appear nearsighted by altering her brain's perception of her optical signals) and suitable amounts of on-mission action and adventure. There's also the rather more interesting matter of Echo herself, who seems to be breaking out of the personality wipe (Dushku plays this pretty well, being fairly convincing in each of her mission-specific roles and her reactions to her personal flashbacks), and a couple of hints as to who she was before becoming a Doll; some continuity and quite a few options for sub-plots in the Dollhouse staff (including doctor, geeky tech-guy, mission handler, etc); and for those who are into it, high-level political machinations involving the Dollhouse's CEO and the corporate world in which she moves.

There's a tantalizing possibility, in other words, that there might be something for nearly everyone in there. Online reactions have been mixed, some

liking it

and some

doubtful

. I think it's too early to tell, but seeing as the writing and direction will include

Whedon himself

and

Tim Minear

, both of whom I have seen do amazing work on Firefly, I'm cautiously optimistic.Themes:

TV & Movies

,

Sci-fi / Fantasy

,

Whedonverse

~

bookmark this with - facebook - delicious - digg - stumbleupon - reddit

~Comments (

go to latest

)

Nathalie H

at 23:44 on 2009-02-16To be fair, I haven't seen it. But I have seen this summary:

"The most interesting point that Whedon made about his new show, Dollhouse, was the unlimited possibilities associated with characters that quite literally have their mind wiped when their job is done.

These for-hire bombshells show up with a blank slate, perform the task they are hired to do - which can vary from being the perfect date, cracking safes or fulfilling the sexual fantasies of whomever they’ve been hired to please."

And I don't know about you, but that creeps me out quite substantially. Joss Whedon has this very interesting image of himself where he thinks he's immune to gender issues because 'hey look female protagonist', and I have a horrible feeling he's getting into territories related to prostitution and sexual abuse that he simply can't handle without screwing up appallingly.

Who knows, I may have to watch this and have a rant going the other way. ;)

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Gina Dhawa

at 00:09 on 2009-02-17The most often used word I've seen to describe Dollhouse is "skeevy", which, to be honest, sums it up best for me. I most likely will give it a chance to redeem itself - I do like some of the characters enough to give them another episode or two - but in general, it makes me uneasy.

I was unimpressed at the use of child abuse as a plot device - you can see where it's going, but there are ways to use that story sensitively and I don't believe it's done well here. I'm also not too happy with the heavyhandedness of the Dolls = Female Prostitution = Look at Eliza Dushku's body! situation. To create the Dollhouse as an exploration of human trafficking is fine - but to create it only with sexy women controlled by (mostly) men? That pings a little too high as titillation rather than any kind of social commentary.

I am pretty sure the premise can be done right. I'm just not entirely sure - and agree with Nathalie on this point - that Whedon is going to be able to this time. Which I say as a Whedon fan.

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Viorica

at 04:30 on 2009-02-17I watched the premiere, and was slightly disappointed, mostly because I went in with sky-high expectations. While I am a bit skeeved by the premise, I am giving Joss some credit- he's made a career out of subverting expectations, so I think/hope that's what he's planning on here. The one thing I was unimpressed by was the use of child abuse as a plot point. It's cheap, it's gratuitous, and it's demeaning to everyone involved. Still, I'm hanging on to see where it goes.

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Arthur B

at 09:42 on 2009-02-17I'd be interested to see what people think about this by the end of the season, because it strikes me as the sort of thing that is very, very difficult to judge solely on the basis of the first episode, especially since there's so many ways it can go wrong. The much-vaunted feminist allegory might become oppressively heavy-handed (or indeed might just fail and end up being a skeevy old man-fantasy), Echo's emergent personality might prove to be intensely irritating. the big reveals might fizzle horribly...

It strikes me that the free will plotline is going to need to be handled very carefully by Whedon; if he intends to have the show finish once Echo becomes fully free and recaptures her past, then he's going to be pressured to stretch the thing out horribly to fill out more seasons (if

Dollhouse

is successful, that is). If he intends to keep going at that point, he's either going to have to completely rethink the premise of the show or present the ludicrous situation of a self-aware and free-willed Echo who hangs around the Dollhouse and does missions for them anyway.

I mean, it might all turn out fine; Buffy didn't turn sour for five or six seasons, after all. But then again, Buffy also struggled to adapt the premise to the characters' continued development ("oh shit, they grew up, we can't set it in a school any more"), and was often too heavy-handed with the social commentary (

THE GODDAMN MAGIC-IS-CRACK PLOTLINE

), Since

Dollhouse

's success seems to hinge on adapting the premise to Echo's continued awakening, and walking the fine line between not being too heavy-handed with the social commentary on one hand and being flippant about serious issues on the other, I have to say I see trouble brewing.

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Wardog

at 10:37 on 2009-02-17I have to admit I have on-going issues with Whedon's presentation of women / his self-proclaimed feminism.

There's an insanely hysterical

LJ post

about Firefly which kind of dashes to the opposite end of the spectrum.

But there must be some middle ground between declaring him a feminist messiah and a de facto rapist...

Sorry, the reason I have gone off on this massive tangent is because some of the sex / power / titillation aspects of Dollhouse's premise concern me.... but, hey, I haven't seen it so who am I to bitch/

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Arthur B

at 10:49 on 2009-02-17From that LJ post...

I have become increasingly interested in examining Joss Whedon’s work from a feminist perspective since I had a conversation with another lesbian feminist sister at the International Feminist Summit about whether Joss was a feminist.

Are we sure this person is serious? It almost looks like a parody, between the psychotic misandry and "lesbian feminist sister" and the repetition.

Seriously, it scans like "I live to play punk rock and will never do anything else. Punk rock is my life and without it I would rather die. It is the greatest feeling in the world to perform punk rock in a packed club full of punk rock fans." GET A THESAURUS, _ALLECTO_.

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Wardog

at 10:53 on 2009-02-17I'm afraid ... I think it's dead serious.

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Wardog

at 11:17 on 2009-02-17Actually, having posted rampant insanity here - I think I ought to also post to some sensible discussions of Inara. These are old but I remember they articulated some of my concerns nicely (and do not once claim Whedon is a rapist, oddly enough) -

this

is a good one.

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Dan H

at 15:37 on 2009-02-17

To create the Dollhouse as an exploration of human trafficking is fine - but to create it only with sexy women controlled by (mostly) men? That pings a little too high as titillation rather than any kind of social commentary.

This sort of thing is exactly why I'm officially Off Joss Whedon. He just can't shut the fuck up about his feminist credentials while at the same time writing TV series which involve hot young girls posing in short skits.

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Wardog

at 16:28 on 2009-02-17I would like to control Eliza Dushku but I don't think this is especially feminist of me...

*dreams*

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Rami

at 17:23 on 2009-02-17I'm afraid ... I think it's dead serious.

Oh god.

writing TV series which involve hot young girls posing in short skits.

According to the Internets there was meant to be a

hot young boy posing in tight trousers

, too, but he was moved around to fit a stereotype better and is now with the Russian mob...

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Viorica

at 18:03 on 2009-02-17The thing is, I'm not entirely sure how much of the skimpy-skirtedness is Joss's idea, and how much is the network's. I know that TV shows tend to be heavily edited by network execs, and it could be that they were worried about the mass appeal of the series itself, and had Whedon throw in some girls in skimpy clothing to attract the drooling fanboy crowd.

One thing I am concerned about is what Arthur mentioned- the series' lasting potential. They can't drag Echo's awakening out too long without it getting stupid, and without that, there's only so much material they have to work with.

(The LJ post is, to my knowledge, dead serious.)

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Nathalie H

at 19:15 on 2009-02-17@Kyra - I was planning on pointing to some discussions of feminism in Firefly, but that extreme one was the only one I could remember! Which I think does go too far the other way too.

@Dan - exactly.

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Nathalie H

at 19:23 on 2009-02-17An example of just one reason I find him annoying, from that Firefly discussion Kyra linked:

"My only contribution to this discussion is that Whedon appears somewhat defensive about Inara's reception among fans. He says his wife is the one who suggested the character and therefore he doesn't understand why women, especially, seem affronted by her."

OH, SHUT UP.

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Wardog

at 21:46 on 2009-02-17Dan and I used to have (well, still have really) this joke called Joss Whedon: Minority Warrior. We can't draw but that's the only thing that's stopping us making a detailed cartoon of the scenario. Basically it would consist of lots of women crying out for aid: "Help help! We are being oppressed". And then heroic Joss Whedon: Minority Warrior would swoop in with cape flying and liberate them.

Mind you, it's easy to whinge but I did love Firefly so very very much, despite Inara.

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Arthur B

at 23:02 on 2009-02-17@Viorica:

I know that TV shows tend to be heavily edited by network execs, and it could be that they were worried about the mass appeal of the series itself, and had Whedon throw in some girls in skimpy clothing to attract the drooling fanboy crowd.

This is definitely a factor, although it's insanely difficult from the outside to judge how much it is. It's worth bearing in mind that Joss Whedon is one of the few writer/directors working in TV whose name is itself a draw; Dollhouse is, after all, heavily hyped on the basis that it's The New Joss Whedon Show (and I do wonder whether we'd be giving it as much attention if it wasn't Whedon). While it's true that Whedon can't use the force of his name to just steamroller the network execs, he is still applying his name to it; he's not quitting or making this an Alan Smithee project. Even if he didn't make all the decisions about the content, even if he might have private objections to some of the content, he's still standing by it. And in my book that still makes him partially responsible for it.

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Dan H

at 23:16 on 2009-02-17

The thing is, I'm not entirely sure how much of the skimpy-skirtedness is Joss's idea, and how much is the network's.

I think it's easy to point the fingers at networks about these sorts of things, but when you get right down to it, I don't think Joss Whedon ever walked into a studio execs office and said "Okay, I've got this idea for a show, and I think it's really important that the main character actually be kind of plain looking and dress sensibly."

Whedon's actually pretty good at fighting for what he wants (he got a married couple into Firefly). If he really wanted to have a protagonist who wasn't a hot kung fu chick, he could probably make it happen.

The thing that bugs me about Joss Whedon is that he shouts so much about his feminism, all the while being

very slightly sexist

.

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http://roisindubh211.livejournal.com/

at 03:19 on 2009-02-18That livejournal post is SCARY.

I could never figure out what I thought about the whole Inara thing- I thought it was neat that she clearly liked Mal but wasn't willing to give up her career for him (DIDN'T see Serenity, so I don't know what happens there) but the combination of her character and the beautiful actress that played her sort of makes my brain go "guh pretty" and stop working.

Dollhouse...the idea creeps me out, even without having seen it. I just expected it to be along the lines of "real dolls" that move and talk, so I didn't want to, and now I'm kind of glad that I didn't.

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Viorica

at 06:08 on 2009-02-18I

posted

my thoughts on the whole sexism debate on my LJ. The problem with debating it is, it always ends up with people flinging accusations of sexism and extremist feminism respectively, and nothing actually gets discussed.

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Wardog

at 09:32 on 2009-02-18but the combination of her character and the beautiful actress that played her sort of makes my brain go "guh pretty" and stop working.

Yeah, I get that all the time. The other thing, which I suppose, we have to bear in mind is that "whore with a heart of gold" is a Western trope, updated to fit a sci-fi premise. I suppose the problem is that you can't have it both ways. You can't say "well, this is a typical character that occurs in the genre so we're going to use" AND say "well this is a typical that occurs in the genre so we're going to use and, by the way, it's *empowering to women* as well".

I was very interested by your LJ post, Viorica. I'm not sure whether to respond to it here or over at LJ. I feel a little bit bad since we've all jumped into Rami's article and starte weighing in, despite the fact nobody in England has seen the damn thing yet =P From your LJ, then, I think this raises a point:

They're saying that the idea of the Dollhouse makes them uncomfortable because it represents the ideal of a woman being utterly passive and fulfilling any (presumably male) fantasy.

You've said a couple of times that it could be argued that the premise of Dollhouse is supposed to be skeevy ... but skeevy is ultimately still is skeevy, which I suppose is the flaw in that kind of defence. I think we kind of have to wonder who Dollhouse is *for*, really - with Echo's growing awareness she may evolve into a character we can identify with / want to be / admire ... but at the moment she's very much a character we *look at*. Mulvey would have a field day with this one, I reckon. I never saw a gaze so male =P

The other thing is that it does remind me a little of Victorian redemption narratives (stick with me on this one) - I mean it's *okay* if she's totally a passive fantasy figure onto which to project male sexual desire *at the moment* because *she will be liberated later*.

Also

this trailer

is quite illuminating as far as target audience is concerned - I know it's self-consciously pulpy but STILL!

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Shim

at 22:31 on 2009-02-18

For those of you who aren't completely up-to-date with Whedon's work, Dollhouse is about a secret facility housing a number of "Dolls", people whose personalities have been wiped out so that they can be imprinted with fresh ones to handle the missions that the Dollhouse hires them out to do – these missions, then, can be pretty much anything from seduction to assassination, and I have no doubt they will be the ostensible focus of each weekly episode.

Okay, I have no TV (shock!) and haven't seen any of this. Actually, the bit I find most striking/interesting is not the sexism debate (I'd need to have watched it), but the premise itself. Because if I were setting up a (secret?) "guild" that took on all these kinds of missions, it seems to me incredibly unlikely that the "operatives" would be dreamy women in skimpy outfits. Okay, the seduction part I'll allow. But even allowing for some kind of brain transfers, it seems far more likely you'd have a completely different lot of (probably not all attractive young female) people for assassinations, espionage and whatever, because of the physical/mental demands of each job.

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Rami

at 05:55 on 2009-02-19@Shimmin: Don't worry, I think the Ferretbrain style is rather more to curl up with a book than in front of the TV ;-) In any case, I'm not sure it's actually showing in the UK (or rather, on any free channel; it's probably available on Sky) at this point, so it's probably just those of us across the pond who have seen it so far...

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Nathalie H

at 21:57 on 2009-02-19@Kyra: Joss Whedon: Minority Warrior is an excellent name for your Joss Whedon joke! Mine is Joss Whedon Understands, followed by it's sequel Russell T Davies: He's Gay, So He Understands Too.

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Dan H

at 19:18 on 2009-02-23

I posted my thoughts on the whole sexism debate on my LJ. The problem with debating it is, it always ends up with people flinging accusations of sexism and extremist feminism respectively, and nothing actually gets discussed.

I've just read your post, and I think you basically sum up the core arguments very well. It's the women-as-victims thing that bugs me, particularly I think because it's exactly the sort of trap that Man!Feminists can easily fall into. You get so busy saying "look how awful it is that society treats women this way!" that you forget to actually show any women who don't get treated this way, which winds up reinforcing the stereotype that women are just supposed to get treated badly because that's how things work.

Ironically (contrary to what one of the posters on your site suggests) I actually think having Eliza confront her abuser and win makes things worse, not better. "You can't hurt me any more" sounds empowering until you realize that what it really means is "you have been hurting me constantly and, until this moment, there has been nothing I can do about it."

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Viorica

at 21:01 on 2009-02-23I have to disagree on the meaning of "You can't hurt me any more" She's not nescessarily saying that he's been hurting her up to this point, but rather that she's not nearly as vulnerable as she was the last time she encountered him, and he isn't able to hurt her now. Small difference in meaning, big difference in interpretation.

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Dan H

at 22:21 on 2009-02-23I'll bow to the interpretation of somebody who's actually seen the episode, but isn't part of the setup that the person whose memories Eliza is using actually ... y'know ... killed herself?

The thing that I find so shonky about the whole abuse-empowerment deal is that whether she finally defeats her abuser or not, her entire character is still defined by that experience. It's problematic because it winds up being a manifestation of the whole "virtue of oppression" fallacy. You wind up with a situation where the noblest thing a female character can aspire to is to deal courageously with abuse.

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Viorica

at 04:50 on 2009-02-24Oh, I don't dispute the abuse = empowerment message- it's something that always irritates me, especially since it seems to be a way of saying "Hey guys, see this strong, empowered woman? She used to be in the ultimate helpless position! She isn't threatening anymore!" but I do think the specific line is open to interpretation.

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Wardog

at 09:16 on 2009-02-24I do think the specific line is open to interpretation

I agree.

Because if I were setting up a (secret?) "guild" that took on all these kinds of missions, it seems to me incredibly unlikely that the "operatives" would be dreamy women in skimpy outfits.

Actually this is vaguely addressed in the pilot because the person for whom Eliza Dushku is meant to negotiating hostage release for wastes a lot of valuable negotiating / thinking time by not letting her do her job, and basically following her around going "wait, you are far too young and hot to be a shit-hot hostage negotiator".

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Arthur B

at 09:44 on 2009-02-24Surely this makes the objection even more valid, not less? It's clearly a flaw in your mind-controlled duplicate operation if your mind-controlled duplicates don't even slightly look like the real deal, to the point where people are openly questioning exactly how 50 years of experience got into 29 years of Eliza Dushku.

If people aren't buying your cover story when it's imprinted in your very mind, then you're doing espionage wrong.

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Wardog

at 09:57 on 2009-02-24If people aren't buying your cover story when it's imprinted in your very mind, then you're doing espionage wrong

Like this?

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Dan H

at 14:32 on 2009-02-24

it seems to be a way of saying "Hey guys, see this strong, empowered woman? She used to be in the ultimate helpless position! She isn't threatening anymore!"

I'm, afraid it's even worse than that. It's a way of seeing "see this woman who you were

totally getting off

on imagining totally helpless, well she's

also

strong and empowered, which means wanting to have sex with her makes you

a really good guy