The Life of the Mind
Jun. 22nd, 2010 09:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
franceslievensBig problems ask for big and complicated causes. It's what makes people believe in conspiracy theories: the certainty that something so important cannot be brought down by a simple human flaw. Big corporations are never there to help the public. Their aim is always to gain profit for shareholders. Especially pharmaceutic companies get a lot of bad press when using people for tests, only researching those drugs that can make them lots of money, and behaving plain evil.
In his short-lived series Dollhouse Joss Whedon takes us to Rossum Corp, a big faceless entity that meddles in everything bordering on the illegal, but has the power and the long arms to keep it all hushed up. They own several Dollhouses, opportunities for the rich and wealthy to get their heart's desire, to fulfill their needs. The Dollhouse trades in dreams and wants, using real people to be able to do it.
The dolls that live in a Dollhouse are real persons who have signed a contract to have their memories wiped clean for a period of five years. They are held in a state of "dementia", knowing how their body works, but not remembering who they are. Whenever such a doll or active enters an engagement, they get imprinted with everything they need to know to bring the engagement to fulfillment. They become a different person, designed from bits and fragments from other characters. Geeky tech-guy Topher (Fran Kranz) thinks himself a genius for being able to concoct the perfect active for every engagement. He simply solves the problems that are thrown his way, not thinking once about the people he uses for his experiments. They signed the papers. He can do what he wishes, because actives in their doll-state aren't "people".
The L.A. Dollhouse, where we meet Topher, our heroine Echo (Eliza Dushku), and big boss-lady Miss DeWitt (Olivia Williams), has everything to be an underground brothel. And most of the engagements of the actives are just that: being the one true love of the person who has ordered them. The first couple of episodes of season 1 we see Echo with her new handler Boyd Langton (Harry Lennix) on a new engagement of the week. The episodes are interesting, but not mind-blowing. We get glimpses of FBI-agent Paul Ballard (Tahmoh Penikett) closing in on the Dollhouse, but no-one else believing it exists. Those interludes sometimes halt the action. It's not completely clear what Paul Ballard is doing in the series, and Echo's engagement of the week is sometimes too thin to keep the story going.
That's when Alpha (Alan Tudyk) is introduced in the story. He's an anomaly, a problem, a mystery that wreaked havoc once. Together with other dolls coming in view, the pace of the series picks up and one is left wondering where the viewer will be taken next. Dollhouse becomes Joss Whedon's trip into the workings of the human mind. It's a great starting point: psychology explains the workings of the mind by comparing it to a personal computer. What would happen if we were able to wipe and reprogram that computer? Whedon's answer is very clear: the ones with the technology to do this, have lots of power over those who have their minds wiped. But it wouldn't be Whedon if he didn't implement a means for the dolls or actives to fight back. Echo (the doll-state of Caroline) has a tendency to evolve. She makes decisions, remembers things she shouldn't remember. Throughout the first season it becomes clear there is something that can't be wiped. Paul Ballard calls it a "soul", but maybe it's the bit you need to leave in, because otherwise you'd have plants instead of dolls.
What makes Dollhouse so compelling as a series, is the fact that the story is driven by the envisioned technology. Philosophy would call it a thought experiment – a very entertaining one. With every step the technology takes, there are moral judgments to be made – or not. Joss Whedon can place his characters into moral dilemmas that wouldn't be possible in our current world. They change because of the choices they make, and those choices are brought to them because of the technology they have access to.
The series grows on the viewer when it builds layer upon layer of meaning. First there's the technology and the consequences it has on the meaning of having an "identity". Second there are the different characters, morally flawed, but all of them trying to do the right thing. And then there are the dolls, that slowly start to evolve, to become their own person. Such a well wrought series deserved more than its short television life.
In his short-lived series Dollhouse Joss Whedon takes us to Rossum Corp, a big faceless entity that meddles in everything bordering on the illegal, but has the power and the long arms to keep it all hushed up. They own several Dollhouses, opportunities for the rich and wealthy to get their heart's desire, to fulfill their needs. The Dollhouse trades in dreams and wants, using real people to be able to do it.
The dolls that live in a Dollhouse are real persons who have signed a contract to have their memories wiped clean for a period of five years. They are held in a state of "dementia", knowing how their body works, but not remembering who they are. Whenever such a doll or active enters an engagement, they get imprinted with everything they need to know to bring the engagement to fulfillment. They become a different person, designed from bits and fragments from other characters. Geeky tech-guy Topher (Fran Kranz) thinks himself a genius for being able to concoct the perfect active for every engagement. He simply solves the problems that are thrown his way, not thinking once about the people he uses for his experiments. They signed the papers. He can do what he wishes, because actives in their doll-state aren't "people".
The L.A. Dollhouse, where we meet Topher, our heroine Echo (Eliza Dushku), and big boss-lady Miss DeWitt (Olivia Williams), has everything to be an underground brothel. And most of the engagements of the actives are just that: being the one true love of the person who has ordered them. The first couple of episodes of season 1 we see Echo with her new handler Boyd Langton (Harry Lennix) on a new engagement of the week. The episodes are interesting, but not mind-blowing. We get glimpses of FBI-agent Paul Ballard (Tahmoh Penikett) closing in on the Dollhouse, but no-one else believing it exists. Those interludes sometimes halt the action. It's not completely clear what Paul Ballard is doing in the series, and Echo's engagement of the week is sometimes too thin to keep the story going.
That's when Alpha (Alan Tudyk) is introduced in the story. He's an anomaly, a problem, a mystery that wreaked havoc once. Together with other dolls coming in view, the pace of the series picks up and one is left wondering where the viewer will be taken next. Dollhouse becomes Joss Whedon's trip into the workings of the human mind. It's a great starting point: psychology explains the workings of the mind by comparing it to a personal computer. What would happen if we were able to wipe and reprogram that computer? Whedon's answer is very clear: the ones with the technology to do this, have lots of power over those who have their minds wiped. But it wouldn't be Whedon if he didn't implement a means for the dolls or actives to fight back. Echo (the doll-state of Caroline) has a tendency to evolve. She makes decisions, remembers things she shouldn't remember. Throughout the first season it becomes clear there is something that can't be wiped. Paul Ballard calls it a "soul", but maybe it's the bit you need to leave in, because otherwise you'd have plants instead of dolls.
What makes Dollhouse so compelling as a series, is the fact that the story is driven by the envisioned technology. Philosophy would call it a thought experiment – a very entertaining one. With every step the technology takes, there are moral judgments to be made – or not. Joss Whedon can place his characters into moral dilemmas that wouldn't be possible in our current world. They change because of the choices they make, and those choices are brought to them because of the technology they have access to.
The series grows on the viewer when it builds layer upon layer of meaning. First there's the technology and the consequences it has on the meaning of having an "identity". Second there are the different characters, morally flawed, but all of them trying to do the right thing. And then there are the dolls, that slowly start to evolve, to become their own person. Such a well wrought series deserved more than its short television life.
