Dollhouse

[Kalbear]

I don't expect them to be moustache-twirling villains.

At the same time, I do absolutely expect that normal people are not so blithely meh about a job that has them pimping out people, mindraping them and enslaving them. This is not a societal normative behavior. Do they have to be cackling evils? No. I would expect them to be quite amoral, sociopathic (especially the higher-ups) and more interesting and layered because of it. As it stands, only Dominic comes close to this. And he's IMO the most interesting of the choice.

[quote]Does the show generally avoid showing how bad they are? Yes, it does, but I don't believe this is in an attempt to sugarcoat things. It's because the show isn't a discourse on the immorality of slavery, mind wiping, human programming, and prostitution. And what the show is, which I'm honestly not sure yet, would be totally lost in cackling sociopathic evildoers.[/quote]Right, and that's exactly what I don't like about the show. It glosses over the most horrible part of this whole thing. I mean, let's say that this was a show where there was no mind control and reprogramming of human brains - just some pimps sending out men and women to be abused and degraded as rich people saw fit.

Would it be a weird show if one of the eps was the zany hijinks when the pimps were on drugs? Would it be odd if none of them seemed like...well, like pimps at all, but were basically office workers with really nice designer furniture? That's the disconnect for me.

[quote]So just because you do immoral stuff you can't have a moral code?

Plenty of 'normal' people commit truly horrific acts, but continue to live 'normal' lives as if everything is 'normal'.[/quote]Having the moral code where it's okay to rape people day after day but it's not okay to rape people when it's not proscribed by you and thinking that that action somehow justifies some odd comeuppance? Yes, that's a really weird moral code. I actually was really happy she was turning him into her own personal monster, and thought that was a great place for the show to go - and then it went all girl power in an idiotic fashion. Yes, DeWitt should care that one of her employees went off the reservation.

But why cause one of her deep operatives to have anything remotely questioning his death? Why tie those in at all? This'll come up later as some random plot point that Ballard finds out - that the guy that tried to rape her was in fact connected to the Dollhouse. Which makes it even more of an idiotic move.

I have a problem with people justifying odd actions like this and not having anyone question it. It just doesn't seem reasonable. They don't seem reasonable enough characters; they're doing something so totally abnormal (in the sense that it is well beyond 'normal') that for them to act like characters from the Office or the West Wing just doesn't fly.

[PhelanArcetus]

I'm pretty sure Ballard is assuming that Boone was sent to rape and kill Mellie by the Dollhouse, as a pointed "get off our back" message. I'm also pretty sure that's what he's meant to think. The guy already knew there was a Dollhouse. He's been suspended, pulled off the case, denied FBI resources. And he's also been told that if he keeps pursuing the case, or sharing information with people, they'll hit those people close to him. He's obviously not meant to know that Mellie is a planted doll, but he is meant to believe she accidentally killed her attacker through freakishly good luck.

Obviously, to these characters, working at the Dollhouse is normal. Why? Well, Topher is to all appearances 100% amoral. He's a science geek, and at the Dollhouse he gets to play with his science and see lots of pretty girls smiling at him. I don't think he cares at all that he's facilitating rape several times a day. He cares that he gets to be treated well and play with his toys to build imprints.

While I can't say I payed close attention to the specific scene the last time I watched Man on the Street, and I don't want to rewatch as I saw it again this weekend to catch my houseguest up, I don't recall DeWitt seeming to pass moral judgment on Boone. Ethical, perhaps. Raping blanked Sierra is no worse than imprinting Sierra to have sex with someone (except potentially in the ease of memory wiping?) from a moral standpoint, but from a business standpoint? The man was hired to watch over Sierra, protect the investment that is a mind-wiped woman, and what did he do? Gratified himself by raping Sierra, risking the investment and breaking the trust of his superiors.

If you aren't able to live comfortably with yourself given the job you're doing, then you need to get out of that job. Now I'll grant that we don't know why most of the characters are comfortable with themselves in their despicable jobs, but that doesn't mean that they can't be comfortable with themselves in those jobs without being overtly sociopathic. I'm reasonably sure I've never met a pimp. I have no idea what actual pimps are like, only what the standard stereotype is like.

[Kalbear]

[quote]While I can't say I payed close attention to the specific scene the last time I watched Man on the Street, and I don't want to rewatch as I saw it again this weekend to catch my houseguest up, I don't recall DeWitt seeming to pass moral judgment on Boone. Ethical, perhaps. Raping blanked Sierra is no worse than imprinting Sierra to have sex with someone (except potentially in the ease of memory wiping?) from a moral standpoint, but from a business standpoint? The man was hired to watch over Sierra, protect the investment that is a mind-wiped woman, and what did he do? Gratified himself by raping Sierra, risking the investment and breaking the trust of his superiors.[/quote]Right - so why feed Ballard any lead? That's the dumb part. I mean, she could have used any flunkie that didn't have a particular connection to the Dollhouse. But Boone was a senior executive there. If Ballard starts digging on him, he'll find quite a bit, I bet.

No, the reason she used Boone was because she wanted to end him dramatically and ironically, and as a story arc to give us satisfaction at a rapist getting what he deserved. Except they're all rapists, yet the resolution is 'yay, we win'? Give me a break.

It's just weird seeing Boone put into the stereotypical "He's a rapist/so horrible/villain' storyline where he actually does get his comeuppance - in a very standard storyline. Yet we get nothing for the rest of these people. And it's not like Lolita, where the people are doing horrible things and we're sympathetic in spite of the horribleness. It's that they're written sympathetically and almost no focus is put on what the dolls are actually going through. The trauma to the dolls is only in either memory of their 'real' lives or memory of their non-programmed lives.

[SpaceChampion]

[quote name='Shryke' post='1738827' date='Mar 30 2009, 14.37']Interestingly, DeWitt seems to think that whatever the real goal is, it's something worth doing. I'm curious as to what the plan actually is.[/quote]

It's all probably financed by Haliburton and Blackwater. They're building the perfect Manchurian candidate, in order to bring about a fascist dictatorship in America, under Dick Cheney.

DeWitt is just a less mannish Ann Coulter.

[PhelanArcetus]

[quote name='Kalbear' post='1738889' date='Mar 30 2009, 15.50']Right - so why feed Ballard any lead? That's the dumb part. I mean, she could have used any flunkie that didn't have a particular connection to the Dollhouse. But Boone was a senior executive there. If Ballard starts digging on him, he'll find quite a bit, I bet.

No, the reason she used Boone was because she wanted to end him dramatically and ironically, and as a story arc to give us satisfaction at a rapist getting what he deserved. Except they're all rapists, yet the resolution is 'yay, we win'? Give me a break.[/quote]

Well, leaving aside the possibility of DeWitt herself being Alpha's mole, a couple of things. How senior is Boone? He's a handler, ok. How high in the hierarchy are they? Is he a long-term handler, or was he recruited around the time Sierra was wiped, meaning rather recently? Obviously Boone's prints are not in the standard FBI databases, at least not connected to any real person; the FBI already gave Ballard some worthless info. The Dollhouse feels pretty secure against investigations using entirely normal channels. Is DeWitt aware of how many contacts Ballard has outside of normal channels, or quite how determined he is to pursue this?

DeWitt got him killed in a pretty dramatic way. She could have consigned him to the attic or taken out back and shot, presumably. But she'd still need to use someone to carry out the attack on Mellie and get killed. Why involve someone else when she can, effectively, kill two birds with one stone?

We, the viewers, certainly did get to see one particular rapist get what he deserved. Not that I was sitting saying "oh you deserved that, I'm glad you're dead you worthless scumbucket". I was waiting for Ballard to get back and be too late to save Mellie, which was of course the case, but my reaction to Boone getting himself killed rather brutally and efficiently was one part sorrow because I like the actor, and a lot of parts "Oh, DeWitt is rather prepared regarding Ballard." I was much more interested in the plot reveal than the comeuppance.

[Kalbear]

[quote]DeWitt got him killed in a pretty dramatic way. She could have consigned him to the attic or taken out back and shot, presumably. But she'd still need to use someone to carry out the attack on Mellie and get killed. Why involve someone else when she can, effectively, kill two birds with one stone?[/quote]Because it's a lot easier to hire some drugged-up flunkie to do your work that is disposable than it is to get someone who has already demonstrated a lack of loyalty and controllablility AND actually has high connections to your organization to do something.

Though really, I had more of a problem with the girl power message in killing Boone than I did actually using him as a flunkie.

[Shryke]

It's also important to think of what DeWitt's plan is, without considering what Echo/Mole told him. Because DeWitt, unless she's the mole, which I find doubtful, has no knowledge of that.

The dead guy in his apartment is meant to scare him. "I kept going after the Dollhouse and then the Russians came to murder my girlfriend. Maybe I should back off.".

Ballard connects the dots from Boone -> Dollhouse mostly because of what Echo/Mole tells him.

[felice]

[quote name='Kalbear' post='1738682' date='Mar 30 2009, 13.07']DeWitt has always been played as sympathetic, down to how she executed the guy who was raping her Dolls[/quote]
That's sympathetic??? I suspect Mellie and Ballard would have a different perspective on the matter...

[Kalbear]

[quote]That's sympathetic??? I suspect Mellie and Ballard would have a different perspective on the matter...[/quote]Compare her to Boone and tell me how unsympathetic she was. Heck, look at her in the last episode, all silly and whatnot.

This is someone who is at least the primary manager for a rape factory.

[Shryke]

[quote name='Kalbear' post='1739088' date='Mar 30 2009, 17.37']Compare her to Boone and tell me how unsympathetic she was. Heck, look at her in the last episode, all silly and whatnot.

This is someone who is at least the primary manager for a rape factory.[/quote]

You can't be sympathetic and bad at the same time now?

[Kalbear]

[quote]You can't be sympathetic and bad at the same time now?[/quote]Not bad in that sense, no. The reason she's at all sympathetic (and she clearly is) is largely because her job is basically glossed over. There's very little thought put into what she does or how she does it. She's just a smooth, calculating exec. She's a badass, she makes cool decisions that work out, she has a nice accent, she's hawt, whatever. These are typical sympathetic tropes of TV. This isn't that you sympathize for all the horrible things DeWitt has gone through; you don't know a damn thing about her or why she chose the Dollhouse, other than that she feels it's important. It's not that kind of sympathy. It's the kind that makes you root for her to win. Her killing Boone - that engenders sympathy for DeWitt. That makes you want to root for her.

Again, compare her to Boone. Think about the creepiness that Boone has. Or his honesty about his position for raping. Or the scene with Sierra and him. These are things that are designed to engender squickiness. To remove sympathy. To make him the villain. In the same way, DeWitt is being made something of the hero. (even moreso if she's the leak).

And yet they're both rapists and slavers.

[Shryke]

I don't get what your trying to say.

[Third Knight on the Left]

I don't either, when she gave the orders to Mellie, to me that was rather creepy. I'm just not following you at all Kal.

[Max the Mostly Mediocre]

[i]I[/i] understand you, kal. And I pretty much agree.

Let's try another angle; in what ways is the manner in which DeWitt is portrayed by the actor, writers, directors, producers, etc. different from the way, oh, Giles, Agent Abigail Brand, Wesley, or Cordelia were portrayed.

Actually, I think the Brand comparison may be the most apt. The difference? The reader in AXM was essentially fooled into thinking Brand was a heartless sociopath when in fact she was...not. In Dollhouse? DeWitt is being treated [i]much more[/i] sympathetically than Brand was. And yet she's clearly a [i]much worse[/i] person than Brand.

[EHK for Darwin]

[quote name='Shryke' post='1738827' date='Mar 30 2009, 13.37']Agreed. It seems like many are mad that the show isn't full of moustache-twirling villains and virtuous, uncompromisable Heroes.

Shit people, just look at the mob. People who do evil don't have to be capital letters EVIL!!![/quote]

Can you manage an argument without insulting and denigrating those who disagree? This shit is getting a bit to common from you. In either case, Kalbear seems to be handling it. I'll munch popcorn.

[Shryke]

[quote name='Max the Mostly Mediocre' post='1739414' date='Mar 30 2009, 22.15'][i]I[/i] understand you, kal. And I pretty much agree.

Let's try another angle; in what ways is the manner in which DeWitt is portrayed by the actor, writers, directors, producers, etc. different from the way, oh, Giles, Agent Abigail Brand, Wesley, or Cordelia were portrayed.

Actually, I think the Brand comparison may be the most apt. The difference? The reader in AXM was essentially fooled into thinking Brand was a heartless sociopath when in fact she was...not. In Dollhouse? DeWitt is being treated [i]much more[/i] sympathetically than Brand was. And yet she's clearly a [i]much worse[/i] person than Brand.[/quote]

So your mad that the one character is portrayed as worse then the other?

I'm seriously not getting what you or Kal are talking about.

[quote]Can you manage an argument without insulting and denigrating those who disagree?[/quote]

I haven't insulted or denegrated anyone here.

But seriously, your post is the biggest "Pot calling the kettle black" moment I've ever seen in my life.