Barbelith Underground > Film, TV & Theatre > Dollhouse: New Joss Whedon show

Well, yes. I'm not wholly sure whether or not Whedon has ever fully owned up to writing the kind of female characters whose toes he'd like to nibble

It's a criticism I've seen levelled at Whedon before, but it's not one that I'm entirely sure holds a whole lot of water. Last night, I finally started watching the last season of Buffy and I'd forgotten how much I loved that show (I used to follow it religiously, but for one reason or another let it hang after the disappointing sixth).

Point is, that while Whedon has a knack for writing sassy, pretty ass-kicking girls it's far from being his only trick. In Buffy, in particular, the men spend far more time smouldering and flashing their flesh than any of the women. While in Firefly, the most complex, interesting and sexiest character by quite a margin is Mal Reynolds. I'm not sure you could really pin River to him in the same way you could Buffy. She's an exploited, mentally-damaged young girl. If anything, she's the beginnings of critique on exactly this.

I don't think it's entirely surprising that Whedon has written female characters that he'd like to get with. As a writer, you go with what you know, so inevitibly his creations are going to reflect those parts of his personality somewhere down the line. I do think however that Whedon writes his female characters with a depth and understanding that is a good step above most of what is (or at any rate was pre-Buffy) being shown on TV. He writes intelligent, strong, passionate and vulnerable characters (most prominently women) in such a way that if you're any sort of smart, empathic person you can't really help but be attracted to them.

Anno is very clever in being upfront and honest about the use of female characters in his work and in his medium, but in doing so, his heroines do end up half naked quarter the time and I don't think any of really them measure up to the depth of character laid down in Whedon's oeuvre. That's not necessarily a completely fair comparison though when you weigh up the collective screentime of Whedon's against Anno's.

I think a large part of Whedon's work does address the exploitation of women, though its not really framed in such meta terms. River and Buffy are both reflections of this, young girls exploited by stuffy old men in suits, whether it be for the greater good or evil. Dollhouse sounds as if it could well be the development of this trend to the point of proper dissection. Certainly from the way that he and Dushku talk in the interview is sounds as being such, and really, for a writer of Whedon's depth and smarts it's seems kind of impossible with a setup like this that it's going to miss the glaringly obvious themes that seem hard-wired into its concept.