So as I said, I was waiting to find out if my essay about Dollhouse was accepted into the Smart Pop Contest before I published it on the blog. Well, it wasn’t. (*Cries into her pillow.*) So, as promised, here it is:
*Trigger Warning*
“Missing the Mark of Consent”
Savvy audiences expect to find certain tropes in works by Joss Whedon. His humor is a well-known trademark among his TV shows, he will usually kill a fan favorite character, and he, a self-proclaimed feminist, will have a level of feminist thought running through his work. Part of the goal in Dollhouse was to blur the line between fantasy and real-world situations, and to see how far viewers would let it go.[1] The problem is that Dollhouse continually stepped over the line, and went from an exploration of rape to an advocate of rape. Through the architecture, the gender divide between Dolls and Actuals, what is given the label of rape and what isn’t, and who the Dolls are, the show ends up normalizing rape and rape-culture.
The Dollhouse Structure
The intention of the artist does not always match how the reader interprets the art. This is especially seen in film and TV, where camera angles can subvert, avert, invert, or enforce the dialogue and action of the scene. If the audience comes fresh to a scene where two characters are pointing a gun at each other, and the camera is at eye level, we expect them both to be on equal footing. However, if the camera is showing one character from above (high angle) and the other from below (low angle), we assume the character shot at low angle will win the gun fight. The camera angle dictates which of the two neutral characters will win by showcasing one at low angle, making the person appear powerful, and one at high angle, making the person appear smaller. When the latter character dies, the subconscious expectation created by the camera angle is met.
In Dollhouse, it is not only camera angles but the actual setting that dictates how we look at each character. Besides being beautiful, the architecture of the dollhouse sets up who is in control and who is being controlled. Focusing specifically on the LA branch, the dollhouse can be broken into three levels: the ground floor, where the Dolls live, the second floor, where Topher imprints the Dolls, and the top floor, where Adelle has her office.[2]
Dolls live on the lowest level. They get massages, take showers, sleep in pods, and eat on the bottom floor of the dollhouse. They are only allowed above this designated space when they are called up to be imprinted into a person. That Dr. Saunders is really the Doll Whiskey should not come as a surprise; Whiskey works and it is suggested lives on this floor with the Dolls. The first time we see Whiskey enter the floor above, she was called into Topher’s office to help control Dominic, who revealed that Dr. Saunders is actually the Doll Whiskey. It is after this point, when she – and the audience – realized she is an active Doll that she begins to enter into Topher’s space (both his office and bedroom) without permission. As shown again with Echo, it is only after a Doll realizes they are more than a Doll (and therefore become more than a passive body and blank mind) that they can start to enter the space originally reserved for Actuals.
The floor directly above (and more importantly, overlooking) where the Dolls live and interact with each other is Topher’s space. Though Handlers transverse the Dolls’ space and Topher’s space, Topher rarely does the same, preferring that the Dolls are brought to him. Throughout the first season there are a number of shots of Boyd and Topher standing watch over the Dolls in Topher’s office as they talk about the Doll’s blank state and how Echo is fighting this unawareness. This space is considered Topher’s domain, and acts as the center of what happens inside the dollhouse. Without this space, Dolls can not be imprinted. It is here that Topher creates and changes personalities, playing God. Like his trampoline, the Dolls are another type of toy for him to play with, something Adelle later calls him on (“Belonging,” 2- 4). He may get a parameter for the game (spy hunter, midwife, thief, party girl), but he is allowed control over what happens inside that parameter. Though he has been forced to give up his toys – Sierra to Nolan; Echo, Victor, and Sierra to the Attic; November when her contract was up – he is still in control of who they are when they get in the chair and who they are when they get out of the chair.
At least one floor above[3] is Adelle’s space. Not only is it positioned above all others, her space is also separate from the main quarter where the Dolls reside and are allowed in. With the exception of Whiskey when she was assumed to be Dr. Saunders, only Dolls reaching some kind of self-actualization are allowed in her space. Her space is used continuously as a power struggle, and blank Dolls do not have the mental capacity to take part in this struggle. Adelle uses this space to control Handlers, to control her head of security, and to address the core group against Rossum Corporation. However, as much as Adelle is in control of this space, she is also controlled by her bosses, by self-actualized Dolls like Alpha and Echo, and even by Boyd (as when he threatens her if she doesn’t stop drinking). When Harding takes control over this space, it is only by stealing Topher’s design for remote wiping that she gets it back. It’s important to note she did not take it, she was given both the space and control over the LA branch once again by her boss. Despite her beliefs, she can not act on them unless she is given permission to by her boss – as seen when she gives Sierra to Nolan though she doesn’t want to – until she and the others start moving towards taking Rossum down. When that happens, the core group moves outside of her space of “authority” and into the larger world.
The main Dolls are female; the main Actuals are male. With or without meaning to, just like camera angles, the way the characters move through space creates certain assumptions with the audience. The Actuals watch over the Dolls, but specifically and visually we watch as Boyd watches with a paternalistic care for Echo, Dominic watches them with mistrust and distaste, Topher watches them with a sense of detached ownership, and Ballard watches the Dolls – especially Echo – with a hero-complex complicated with romantic undertones. Adelle, the female Actual, does not watch them but rather gets reports from these men. Though she gets final say and repeatedly says she cares about the Dolls, she almost exclusively relies on reports about the going-ons in her house. Adelle is out of touch on what is really happening with the Dolls and what is happening inside the dollhouse. Hearn, after he is discovered raping Sierra, tells her “And you don’t get how it actually works down there…Did you think this wouldn’t ever happen?” (“Man on the Street,” 1-6). Though there is plenty of proof beginning in season one, where Boyd, Topher, and Whiskey discover how Sierra and Victor are grouping together, it is only when Victor, imprinted as Roger, overrides his programming later on in season two that Adelle realizes the ramification that Victor and Sierra remember each other when imprinted, in their Doll state, and as their original personalities. This dynamic – that the only female Actual is also the most ignorant – is illustrated by the fact that Adelle’s office, while physically higher, is also detached from the rest of the dollhouse. Many of the power struggles between Adelle and her boss occur in her office, but the power struggle of identity actually goes on under the noses of the men as they watch Echo, and to a lesser extent Victor and Sierra.
The Dolls are given to the care of the men in this series, and as the series progresses the men all try – or at least desire – to save the Dolls, especially Echo, from their own control. This is in no way diminished by the big reveal that Boyd is really the founder of Rossum. Adelle and Topher are invited because they are family, while Ballard and Mellie are dragged along because it is easier than getting rid of them at that moment; but who he really wants is Echo, because he believes her body has a specific gene that can be used as a cure for wiping. It is clear throughout the series that Boyd watches with care over Echo, not the Dolls.
The controllers are the ones championing the dialogue of the savior; a problem of the show is that the dolls, when trying to save themselves, don’t point out this contradiction. The second season ends with the dolls teaming up with the people who put them in the position of needing to save themselves in the first place in order to save the world from Rossum. The only controller we see suffering for how he treats the Dolls is, surprisingly, Topher. Adelle explains, “You, Topher, were chosen because you have no morals” (“Belonging”, 2-4). Yet it ends up being Topher who realizes the horror he placed Dolls like Sierra in, and he slowly goes mad so by the time he can save the world, he is ready to kill himself to escape his own guilt. Boyd[4], Dominic, and Hearn show regrets, but not about the underlining factor of pimping dolls. Ballard positions himself as against this, yet uses Echo to go after his own personal list of bad guys that escaped the FBI.
The show divides the controller and the controlled along strict gender lines which reinforces ideas about the patriarchy that Whedon previously, especially on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, tried to contradict. The visual of controller and controlled plays out not just by the visual clues of the architecture of the dollhouse, but also through the dialogue of what is and isn’t rape. The myths about what rape is can be seen by the distinct treatment of three Dolls: Sierra, November, and Echo.
The Dolls and Rape
Priya was pursued by Nolan, who was told no. Nolan then drugged her so she appeared to be schizophrenic, committed her to his own mental institution, and later sold her to the dollhouse so he could repeatedly have her imprinted with a “willing” personality. All of his engagements with Sierra were about having the sex Priya denied him, and taking pictures of her used for sickening proof of the number of times she “willingly” came to him. The dollhouse makes it clear that Nolan’s actions are to be condemned. There is a running gag that Topher, of all people, is bothered by it, and Adelle even says directly to Nolan “you’re a raping scumbag one tick shy of a murderer” (“Belonging,” 2-4). Nolan is the cause of an emotional trauma that still causes the blank slate Sierra to react. Added to this is the subplot of Hearn, Sierra’s original Handler. While in Doll form Hearn rapes Sierra. (Hearn continues his actions with November, when he breaks in and attempts to rape and murder Mellie. While it was a way to kill Hearn, it was really a way to punish and psychologically screw with Ballard.) Both of these men are rapists. They are called such by the dollhouse and by the audience. Priya/Sierra and Mellie/November are the victims.
These names are written specifically. Both Priya and Sierra are “real” people. Priya is the original person and Sierra is the basic version, the underlining personality or soul Priya has even without her memories and experiences. Both are victims of different rapes, so while they both share the experience they each also have their individual experience to tell. November, who is the same basic version of Madeline as Sierra is of Priya, is the person behind the Mellie mask, and so she too was an attempted rape victim. However, “Mellie”, while existing on a harddrive, has been created as a person who thinks what she is experiencing and feeling is real. Mellie is also the victim of an attempted rape, and the character Mellie – for as long as she exists inside a body – must go through the trauma and processing of an attempted rape victim.
In the cases involving Nolan and Hearn, an easy consensus was reached by both the characters in the dollhouse and the audience. Rape, in this case, is rape. However, Echo is used to show both the characters of the show and the audience a different form of rape. Where the show fails, however, is showing that there are many different ways of raping someone (through force, through coercion, through drugs, etc), and they are all rape. It’s not that the dollhouse leaves it to the viewer to make that connection, but rather even as they say things about certain situations being rape, the rest of the action and characters do not back up what is being shown. This is clearly seen in the depiction of rape relating to Echo.
Actives do not give consent. The majority of them are coerced into joining the dollhouse. Sierra was put into the dollhouse by Nolan, but even if her cover story of “being crazy” was the reality, she had no way of giving informed consent to what she would be forced to do. Topher saw her and decided what would be good for her; her opinion was neither solicited nor needed. Echo is coerced into signing the contract because she has to sign or she’ll be killed. Her intention was always to bring down Rossum, not join its forced labor. Alpha was a prisoner and was simply exchanging one form of prison for another. Victor, and even to an extent November, were promised help in exchange for signing. The same situation can sometimes play out with rapists, especially in situations of fathers/father-figures raping daughters, who buy their victims things they want in exchange for their silence so the rapist can say the victim wasn’t coerced but complicit.
When people argue that the Actives willingly signed over their bodies, they ignore that they were forced to do so. They did not give original consent, nor can they give consent for each assignment. But because they signed a contract, the audience is given permission to believe they gave up all control over their body willingly. Because we are shown the Actives as enjoying and/or initiating the sex, the audience is once again given permission to believe that they consented to sex, ignoring that they are programmed to give consent. Adelle explains to a new client, “An Active doesn’t judge. Doesn’t pretend” (“Epitaph One,” 1-13). Unstated and unrealized is that an Active doesn’t judge nor pretend because they are unable to. And even if an Active is able to mentally move against their imprinting as Echo did, the threat of the Attic can still act as a sufficient deterrent to keep any Active complacent.
To be fair, the writers work to say that what happens to the Actives is rape, and therefore wrong. The message just doesn’t come across. In the episode “Man on the Street” (1-6), Echo is hired to be the wife of internet mogul Joel Mynor. Joel is portrayed as a sweet, lonely guy, recreating the moment he wanted to give his wife, who in reality died on her way over and never got the chance to see that her husband made it big. The idea of this perfect moment he recreates once a year in her memory is brilliantly demolished when Ballard says, “And then you sleep with her” (“Man on the Street,” 1-6). Whatever the day may have been about, it is still just prettying up a rape scene. However, the writers then divert this point at the end of the episode. Echo, back in her doll state, tells Adelle “It isn’t finished.” Adelle asks Echo if “You’d like it to be finished?”, and then the scene cuts to Echo once again pulling up in front of Mynor’s house as Rebecca (“Man on the Street,” 1-6). While this shows Echo still retains some of her imprinted memories, it suggests that she wants to help her rapist and is okay with having sex with Joel.
This normalization of rape is the problem, as is the absolution of the rapists. Topher and Adelle, charged with sending out the Dolls to be raped, and the clients who are paying for the Dolls, are portrayed with sympathy, likeability, and/or humor. This causes the audience to acquit these people from the crimes they are committing. The characters exonerate themselves by explaining either that they don’t think they were doing anything wrong or by saying they don’t care. On the other hand, Boyd and Ballard do realize the actions they take are endorsing a wrong, yet they still work there. Ballard, who originally played the role of pointing out that any of the sexual contact on assignments are rapes, begins to actually use Echo to fight his personal list of bad guys. When the “hero” Ballard falls under the same thinking of the dollhouse, the audience is allowed to ignore any twinges they may have had about sex on assignment. Echo tells Ballard “Is this about the sex? I know for you the act of love is the most intimate and precious thing two people can share. But it’s just bodies. It’s useful” (“Vows,” 2-1), and the audience is allowed to agree it is just sex, not rape. Once again, the programmed response of consent acts as consent for both the characters and the audience. When November and Victor finished their contract, they expressed no horror over what had been done. Echo, even as she grows self-aware, is not bothered by the rapes so much as being imprinted. The victims express no horror which means the audience doesn’t have to express horror.
When looking at narratives about rape, it is not just the rape but the aftermath that is talked about. The myth that rape victims can not experience physiological responses to sexual contact that read as pleasure (i.e. the body creates natural lubricant and/or can experience orgasm) is false. By expressing the rapes as love-making and casual hook-ups that the Dolls enjoy and/or initiate, the writers feed into this myth rather than denounce it. This creates the atmosphere that there is no trauma because the Dolls enjoyed their rapes, ignoring the fact the Dolls are programmed to enjoy their rapes. Rape is a trauma that usually provokes flashbacks, triggers, self-blame, and/or stigmatizations; the show depicts none of this. Beyond the emotional trauma is the physical trauma of being raped. While Dr. Saunders was around – and notice that her position was apparently superficial since they never filled it after she runs – she performed vaginal and hopefully oral and anal exams to check for physical injuries. There is, however, no mention of STDs or contraceptives, and it’s ludicrous to believe all clients even attempt to use condoms, which are not a 100% effective anyway. If a Doll gets pregnant, will an abortion be performed? If a Doll contracts an incurable STD, will the Doll be released from the program or sent to the Attic? If a Doll gets a client pregnant, what happens to the client’s pregnancy? Will the Doll be told they created a child while at the dollhouse?
Victor and Alpha
Contrasted to Sierra and Hearn, which is clearly labeled rape, Victor and Adelle’s arc ignores Victor’s rape and focuses on how pathetic Adelle is. Part of this is the same reason Echo’s rape stories while on assignment are ignored: the show normalizes the rapes that the Actives “enjoy” while with a client, as Victor and Echo are, and condemns rapes that happen against the dolls and their inability to offer even programmed consent. Yet Adelle and Hearn both occupy positions of authority and are charged with protecting the Dolls they rape; there are more similarities than differences between Adelle and Hearn.
The other reason Victor’s rapes as Roger are ignored is because Victor is male. There is a myth that only females can be raped, as all males always want to have sex, and once again the show endorses this myth rather than acknowledge that it is false. Adelle as a rapist is ignored even more than the usual male clients as rapists are ignored. Instead, the storyline of Roger and Miss Lonelyhearts becomes Adelle breaking the rules of the business. What she is actually doing is conforming to the same rules as the other clients: it’s not rape if they offer the programmed consent. When Victor breaks it off with Adelle because he is in love with someone else, Adelle drops the relationship. Like most of the other clients of the dollhouse, she needs the feel of informed consent.
Like the other Dolls, Alpha was a rape victim. Unlike the other Dolls, the audience is never shown this role. Even as a Doll Alpha is granted some measure of control over his movements. His violent psychopathic tendencies always come through, whether he is in Doll state or imprinted with a different personality. The show has only a very limited number of scenes where male Dolls are raped, and Adelle is one of the few female clients, and the only one who hired a Doll for sexual pleasure. Both of these circumstances are very telling about how prevalent the myth that men cannot be raped and females cannot be rapists is.
Beneath the narrative of rape mentioned above is another prevalent theme: that the women rape victims must be saved. Even though Victor and Alpha are rape victims like Sierra, November, Whiskey, and Echo, they are also allowed to occupy the space of savior. Alpha runs parallel to Ballard in season one as both use extreme and illegal moves to free Echo from the dollhouse. Victor is allowed to watch out for Sierra, so that when they both go to confront Nolan it is Victor who punches him, not Sierra.
The Doll-Rape Myth
The problem with Dollhouse blurring what is and isn’t consent is that it is not contradicting but rather reinforcing an already set rape-culture. FBI Agent Tanaka says “This the alleged victim? Guy said she had a face. Damn. No wonder you’re foraging for hand cream. Had a million bucks, I could blow it on that” (“Man on the Street,” 1-6). He sums up the experience a lot of the audience is having: not only is the exploitation and rape of people okay, but if he had the money he would be a client.
The show sets up a very specific dynamic of who is being raped and how, and the dynamic is closely aligned to real-world myths about rape and rape victims. The show depicts myths that rape is about sex and so only beautiful, able-bodied people are raped. When Whiskey’s face is scarred, she is no longer “number one”, and it is implied that Victor – without his scar removal surgery – would also be put out of commission (“Omega,” 1-12). The majority of the Dolls are white (Sierra being a notable exception), female, and young, which fits the myth about who is a rape victim without actually fitting the reality of who is a rape victim.
Dollhouse may have wanted to explore the different forms of rape and what it means, pushing the envelope of what we find acceptable and what we don’t. But instead the show ends up glamorizing rape, because it doesn’t make the distinction between programmed consent and real consent clear, it falls to prey to a number of rape myths, and it consistently displays rape as a form of entertainment. There were a number of enjoyable debates that take place in Dollhouse’s narrative, but on the subject of rape they failed to do anything but promote a destructive standard already in place.
[1] The idea was always, how much of the fantasy will [viewers] accept and how much will they go, ‘You know what, this just is too much like real-world situations that are truly appalling and so I can’t let the fantasy happen.’” – Joss Whedon
[2] There is actually one more main level to the Dollhouse: the Attic. There are factors pointing to the Attic being below the bottom floor where the dolls live, however the show never actually shows its placement in regards to the rest of the dollhouse. When Echo first exits from the Attic in her nightmare, the staircase positions the Attic at the top of the staircase. However, when she uses the trap door above her head, she exits onto the bottom floor where the dolls reside (“Attic,” 2-10). Because this is a nightmare, nothing can be taken literally, including how she positions the architecture of the dollhouse.
[3] They arrive by elevator, but the window view overlooks at least several levels.
[4] After seeing that Boyd is the master behind Rossum Corp., we can assume that the moral dilemma he spent season one commenting on, saying “We’re pimps and killers, but in a philanthropic way” (“Spy in the House of Love,” 1-9) is not real. He may explain that he seems them as a family, but he doesn’t mind using Echo’s body to produce a “cure” with or without her permission.
****
Now, this is barely a tip of the iceberg of the portrayals of rape on that show, but I had limited word space. It was very narrowly focused on rape, in which I only talked about a few of the realities of rape; there is so much more. I also did not go into depth about a number of issues that intersect rape. And, I kind of lied; I don’t necessarily think Whedon’s previous shows were the epitome of feminism. Or even necessarily close. It scares me that he did not realize he was writing a show about human trafficking until someone pointed it out.
I leave you with this:
Someone shows you 44 minutes of rape and you start talking about the deeper commentary on patriarchal values entrenched in mass media culture, and somehow overlook the fact that millions of people are sitting in their living rooms watching 44 minutes of rape. – Joseph Lewis
***
Just as a quick aside, because I forgot about this quote when I originally wrote about him. “I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Mynor. It doesn’t make you anything other than a predator.” – Paul. Does this not remind you of Roman Polanski? He was in the Holocaust/his wife died/etc, he suffered enough. Yeah, well, you’re still a rapist you piece of shit. And it is not just Polanski. There is such a narrative in our rape culture about how the rapist is suffering. I can never find a small enough violin for those raping pieces of shit, as they talk about their ruined life and how jail will affect them and how why won’t their victim think of them? HATE HATE HATE.
