Talking about talking about pornography

“If I go to the debate on pornography, I’ll just fume about the fact that everyone’s got stupid analysis but me.” I said that a couple of months ago, and I was joking, but only a little bit.

Feminist discussions on sexually explicit material tend to be heated, and change no-one’s mind. The latest discussions on The Hand Mirror have followed this pattern. I want to explore why.

Media that has been created for the purpose of sexual arousal and produced to be bought and sold (which is a mouthful, but I think more precise than ‘pornography’) sits at an intersection: Desire, sex, the construction of men’s sexuality, the construction of women’s sexuality, bodies, work, the role of the state, objectification, the creation of rape culture and commodification (and much more, those are just what’s on top for me).

It only takes small differences in feminists’ analysis, weighting or experience of a couple of these before they’re coming at the issue that we call ‘pornography’ from completely different angles.

As well as making the issue complicated, these many facets also mean that those no such thing as a disinterested party. Everyone has a stake in what is being discussed, but what is most triggering about the discussion about sexually explicit material varies widely.

To simplify one example more than is really justified: discussions of sexually explicit material may trigger some women’s experiences of having their sexuality and desire denied, while the same discussion might trigger other women’s experience of having other people’s sexuality or desire forced on them. (I don’t mean this as a dichotomy, just an example of the sorts of talking past that can happen in these discussions).

I think it’s very difficult even to talk about, or articulate any of this, because the vocabulary we have around sexually explicit media is so limited. The distinctions I think need to be made about are numerous and complex:
Was it made by an individual expressing their personal desires?
Was it made to be bought and sold?
Did everyone involve in making it give genuine consent?
Does it normalise misogynist ideas about women, women’s sexuality, women’s bodies, or sex?
Do they normalise racist ideas about any group of women or men, their bodies or sexuality?
Does it normalise a limited view of human sex or sexuality?
How do the ideas it contains interact with rape culture?
Does it normalise a particular type of body?

Now the answer to most mass-produced mainstream pornography from Ralph to are yes (or no depending on the question). But my point is that these are different questions, and they’re different again from:

What do we do about it all? What do we expect other organisation, or the state to do about it all?

Those are just my questions, I’m sure other people have different ones (I’m sure I’d have different ones if I wrote them on a different day, after reading different material). Unless we are clear about what exactly we’re talking about, unless we actively try and overcome the difficulties I’ve outlined, we’ll never have anything useful to say.

I wrote this post - I decided to continue talking about pornography, despite my cynicism, because I think it’s important. I think untangling these threads, understanding the role of sexually explicit material in women’s oppression is vital. I think the first answer to the question: ‘what is to be done?’ Is that we have to figure out how to talk about this.

Victim-blaming round 4,506

It’s depressing, being a feminist blogger, for the same reason that it’s depressing being a feminist. The world is quite predictable. None of the media’s coverage of the Richard Worth’s treatment of women is surprising (neither is his behaviour).

What is the message in all this for women who are being sexually assaulted or harassed?

Stay quiet, particularly if a famous man is involved.

The woman who complained to the police about Worth has been attacked in the media as someone who has made false complaints before.

The woman who took her complaint of sexual harassment to the leader of the opposition has been dismissed, outted, psychoanalysed and attacked in disgusting ways.

There couldn’t be a clearer message to women that if we complain about the way men with power treat us then we will be put on trial. In particular, if there’s anything in our past that is messy or complicated, or just capable of being construed as messy or complicated, it will be attacked. We have no right to complain of male behaviour unless we fit neatly into the ‘virgin’ side of societies virgin/whore complex.

This is so familiar, so expected, there are only so many times that I can go into great detail about the victim-blaming and impossible situations women are put into, until I have nothing left to say.

What has surprised and disappointed me this time, is the other message that has been getting louder, particularly from left-wing men. That message that Richard Worth is irrelevant, and the discussion around what he did is unimportant (Against the Current and Fatal Paradox are both left-wing bloggers who have said exactly. Dennis Welsh gave a liberal-left example of the same argument on nine to noon on Tuesday)

I understand, and share, a disgust at the party political analysis and response that has gone on – the endless discussion of political management and Goff vs. Key. I have no more interest in that than anyone else. But I would hope that left-wing men could see that there is a political issue here, both in the way Worth treated women, and in the way those women have been treated by the media. I’m not asking any of those men to write about Richard Worth. But I would like them to acknowledge that there is an important political issue involved.

Why I wouldn't vote for Russel Norman

I decided in 2007 that I would not vote for for the Greens while Russel Norman is on the list.* With Russel Norman running in Mt Albert, I wanted to outline why

In March 2007, the jury in the second rape trial of Clint Rickards, Bob Schollum, and Brad Shipton came back with a not guilty verdict. I had been following the case - well obsessively is probably an understatement (I wrote about it a lot). Less than a week after the verdict, Russel Norman wrote a post about the cases on frogblog. The whole post is trivialising, and completely misses the important issues involved (power, consent and abuse). But what angered me most is his claim that Louise Nicholas had consensual sex with Clint Rickards:

I don’t see that being involved in consenting group sex is any reason for him not to go back to work. And people use sex aids so using a police baton in a consenting situation doesn’t seem grounds for refusing him his job back.

Now I understand that Russel Norman would have faced consequences if he'd said "Clint Rickards is a rapist." Although, for the record, Clint Rickards is a rapist. But just because you can't call Clint Rickards a rapist, is no reason to describe sex as consensual, when the women involved have stated repeatedly and clearly that it was not.

Most people that I've talked to about this acknowledge that the post was stupid, and wrong, but many don't understand why I care so much. I've been told "wow it doesn't take much to lose your vote" when I explain my decision not to vote for the Greens. Partly I think this is because rape is not seen as political, I don't think the people who saw this is a small thing would have taken the same position of Russel Norman had, say, criticised striking workers.

The kindest interpretation of what Russel Norman said was that he believes that the police rape cases were a relatively trivial matter, so the implications of his words don't matter. The alternative is that he believes that Louise Nicholas is lying when she says that Clint Rickards raped her. Either show that he doesn't take rape seriously as a political issue.

I do take rape seriously as a political issue, and I don't think that's a trivial difference.

My original post is here.

* I've no idea if I would have voted for the Greens in the last election if Russel Norman wasn't on their list. I got to the voting booth and discovered that I had absolutely no desire to vote for them. So I probably wouldn't have voted for them, even without the resolution not to vote for them 18 months earlier. But my life was extremely chaotic when the election was held, and so to second guess what my state of mind would have been is a challenge.

Issues effecting women

The soon to be MP for Mt Albert answered the Hand Mirror's election survey. He was asked what were the issues facing the women of Mt Albert:

Women come from many different groups – with different issues: For many professional women the gender pay gap is a constant problem which the National Government has made worse by backtracking on all of the previous Labour Government’s initiatives to fix – such as canning the Pay & Employment Equity Unit that was undertaking reviews in the public service.

Professional women? The deep ignorance of politicians and the stereotypes they propagate can be staggering.* It's also a neat trick, a way of minimising women's concerns - those professional women and their desire to be paid the same as men, that's only one group of women's problem.

The gender pay gap is not some obscure concern of professional women, but a systematic differentiation which effects almost all women in some way or another. Women as a earn on average 85% of what men earn - but the gap gets bigger for non-white women, and working class women.

Pay equity is the demand for equal pay for work of equal value and one of the reasons for that gap.** The difference in pay between female dominated industries and male dominated industries doesn't just involve nurses and teachers and the limited number of women dominated professional jobs, but also caregivers, teacher aides, cleaners, and retail workers.

I've seen it before, the tendency to assume that the fight for equal pay, and the end of the gender pay gap is mainly a middle class women's concern. This does a great disservice to the history for the fight for equal pay in New Zealand, which was fought and won over decades.

As a unionist I couldn't finish this post without pointing out that the gender pay gap is not just a women's concern. I was working late tonight, and was still there when the cleaners came round - they were all men, but they were paid women's wages.

* Further on David Shearer also states that 'stay at home mothers' might worry about not being able to afford things for their children. Ignoring that mothers do the vast majority of the shopping and childcare, whatever other work they do. The ideology of the public sphere and the private sphere appears to be alive and well as a way of dividing women.

** Other reasons why women earn less include straight out discrimination in pay and promotion, and the effects of men doing considerably less unpaid work than women.

A nuisance

John Key has said that he had received more than one complaint that Richard Worth was "making a nuisance of himself towards women." He told the media:

All I can say I treated the allegation seriously. I investigated it and I was satisfied with the answers I received.

From the statements John Key has made it seems to be a reasonable supposition that the unknown crime the police are investigating Richard Worth for is an offence that is in some way similar to 'making a nuisance of himself towards women'.

Now if you want the political point scoring I suggest The Standard or Kiwiblog. They will argue about how this compares with Clark's actions, and the political management of it all. These are not things I care about.

There's something very born to rule about the euphemism 'making a nuisance of himself'. Just the language, unfortunately, not the activity. Like many born to rule terms, it's quite honest. I can imagine quite a range of activities that Key would refer to in this way: it could refer to language, either abusive or explicitly sexual, or unwanted physical contact, even protracted unwanted physical contact. These are all nuisances, women should put up with them in the same way they might a missed bus.

And what is telling is that John Key ignored the first indications that Richard Worth was nuisance-ing woman (and we can only conjecture what that euphamism covers in John Key's mind). Or in the language of politicians - John Key was satisfied with the explanation the Minister gave him.

Which, if you think about it, isn't that different to what happens outside of parliament. A man (say) hears that his friend has been 'being a nuisance to' (or the euphemism which is most appropriate to the social circle they belong to) a woman. The man talks to his friend about it. His friends gives a response, which is either "she's lying" or "she was asking for it" (both these responses will probably be clouded in layers of euphemism as well). And he is satisfied with that response.

And so the friend keeps doing it. Who wouldn't? Everyone is satisfied.

Except the woman involved, who is, as so often happens, rendered, as usual, with the focus on the man, and his explanations.

Dear Radio New Zealand

Laniet Bain was not 'having an incestuous relationship with her father'. Robin Bain was raping his daughter.

It's not that hard.

Maia

PS Why are you even talking about this? If she was alive she would have name suppression. Why isn't their a course on reporting on sexual violence with respect and accuracy in journalism school?

Omega: the semi-finale - Dollhouse review

While I was watching Omega I enjoyed it quite a lot. The pacing was good, and the dialogue was great – at times it was fantastic. But at the end, with the montage and music, I felt nothing. And when writing this review I’ve had very little interest in watching the episode, or even any of the individual scenes, again.

For me this was a huge disappointment. I’ve always thought that season finales were Joss’s forte. Although I love some of the series, and season, openings they’ve never been the strongest episodes. I wasn’t surprised when Dollhouse started slowly. But endings, that’s completely different. There are scenes from Buffy season finales that I’ve watched over 100 times* – every single Buffy finale Joss wrote would be a contender for one of my top 10 Buffy episodes. Maybe, when I finally see the thirteenth episode, my faith in Joss finales will be restored. But Omega wouldn’t even be in my top 5 Dollhouse episodes.

The more I’ve thought about this episode, the more I’ve realised the ways in which an episode of television can fail slightly, and the culmulative effects of these failings. I’ll be focusing my review on the issues that I had with this episode, not because I thought it was irredeemably bad, but because I want to know how the season finale of a show I have become so engaged in in such a short time can leave me so cold.

I thought there were several serious execution problems, which I’ll cover first. But also that the underlying concept would have never made a season finale of the strength that I’d come to expect. Even if it had been perfectly executed, this episode was never going to be a Becoming, Gift or even Not Fade Away.

My first big problem with the execution surprised me. I thought the Whiskey/Dr Saunders plot was the strongest part of this episode. But I really, really didn’t like the reveal, or more importantly the sexy killing someone scene immediately after the reveal. It may seem strange, at this point in the series, to start complain about objectification. Eliza Dusku started the series in a dress that wasn’t, and that hasn’t changed.

But, until the scene with Whiskey and Alpha, I’ve felt that the camera remained neutral in these scenes. Yes Eliza Dushku in particular wore some ridiculous clothes, but the camera didn’t say ‘oh look Eliza Dushku is a dominatrix you must think that’s sexy’. Instead we get to choose whether we think the short pleated skirt and ugliest stockings in the world from Echoes were sexy, or whether we just spend time laughing at Matt, for being a dick. The only exceptions to that neutrality were the scene with French-Tango in Needs, where Tango’s objectification is emphasised by the camera to demonstrate Echo’s horror at the Dollhouse. And when Hearn tries to rape Mellie, where I felt there was a concerted effort to not eroticise that scene.

When Whiskey and Alpha torture the guy I felt every choice about the directing and editing was eroticising the scene. For the first time I felt that the show was leaving no room in the scene for the fact that the dolls were unable to give meaningful consent, and was actively promoting an eroticisation of sexual violence.

I’m not sure if it’s fair to call this an execution problem – but I wanted some Victor/Sierra. The shot of them getting into the pods together at the end of this episode is the first time they’ve shared a scene or a shot since the end of Needs.** I am so invested in Victor and Sierra’s relationship, and there was such an opportunity here – for her to be the one comforting him. I was really disappointed they didn’t take it.

A lot of my other problems were with the ending at the power station, which felt v which felt very anti-climatic. Some of these problems were less severe in the shooting script (which is available here and is well worth a read). These cuts are pretty obvious watching the episode, with the non-appearance of bounty-hunting Sierra and November. In the shooting script, Alpha doesn’t just drop Caroline because he feels like it, and the entire end sequence is less perfunctory. I think cutting the end, rather than the sexy torturing someone scene, or editing down some of the flash-backs, was a very poor one. It reduced the impact of the ending, and the episode had enough plot-holes without introducing more.

Plus Sierra and November are many times more awesome than Alpha.

I was pretty annoyed that they ended with Ballard saving the girl.*** In fact I felt this episode undid all the interesting things that they had been doing with his character over the last few episodes.

I would have been Ok if Ballard’s arc for this episode had been that he came to realise that actives were people, and his attitude towards Caroline was everything Joel Myner had said it was, and this led to his changed his attitude towards Mellie. It’s not where I would have gone with the character, but I wouldn’t have minded if they’d done it. But instead they just ended on him choosing Mellie, as a twist. In Haunted and Briar Rose, the character had gone to a dark place, but a necessary and inevitable dark place. But rather than develop that they just ignored it. It was a cheesy catch, a hand-shake with Madeline (sorry about that time I knew I was raping you) and that’s it. I didn’t think his reasons to start working for the Dollhouse made much sense, but their sense-that’s-not-ness paled compared with his change in attitude.*****

Although that plot-line left me in a bit of a quandary, because I think it’d be better from a story perspective if Madeline left, but I really love Miracle Laurie. I’d be very sad if she wasn’t in season two.*****

And Ballard wasn’t even the character whose actions made the least sense in this episode. How did they get Echo back to the Dollhouse?

When she talked with Wendy as Caroline composite-Echo had decided that she wanted to put Caroline back. Once Ballard had caught the wedge, why didn’t she go downstairs and fulfil the plan? I don’t care what sort of arc Ballard was on, there is no way he wouldn’t have sided with her, and given her herself back if she’d wanted to. Or why didn’t she walk off into the sunset? It’s no good suggesting that Boyd came up to her and said “Do you need a treatment?” If that could work with a composite then they would have done it with Alpha. To have composite-Echo decide on what she wants to do and then just ignore it is lazy writing of the worst kind.

I think the only reason that this didn’t hit me harder when I first watched it, is that I didn’t believe the scenes between composite-Echo and Wendy-as-Caroline. I’m inclined to blame this on Tim Minear, because the dialogue for Wendy-as-Caroline was terrible. Caroline, even the most pathetic, analysis-lacking, Caroline that I could imagine, does not respond to the possibility of freedom from the corporation that shot her boyfriend, held her hostage and she ran from for two years with: “I did sign a contract.”

Tim Minear is a libertarian, so it’s possible that he likes to think that he’d honour a contract signed under such duress (not that he would sign a contract under duress, because there’s no duress when it comes to contracts, they’re shiny), but Caroline is not, and so she wouldn’t.******

Neither the dialogue nor the performance convinced me I was watching Caroline. I liked the actress, but for those scenes to work, we needed to see an Enver Gjokaj as Dominic sort of performance, where there was never any doubt who we were watching. I don’t know if that was the actor’s choice or the director’s, but we’d seen enough of Caroline that Wendy could have embodied her (except when saying the stupid contract line), and it was a real problem that she didn’t.

The reason it was such a problem, the underlying problem of the episode was Alpha. Dangerous psychopaths don’t automatically have resonance, they’re not automatically interesting. If you’re going to make the big bad interesting you have to make the story that you’re telling about the main characters, the ones we already care about. Not just stories that include the characters, but that matter to them. I can’t believe I’m saying this about a mutant enemy production – I know they know this. I have no idea why they thought Alpha was interesting. Why was anyone supposed to care about some psychopath?*******

To make it worse, I felt that every decision they made about Alpha’s character this episode made him less interesting rather than more - made this story less about anything that might resonate.

Alpha’s obsession with Echo – that we were supposed to get the answer to this episode – appears to come down to he thinks she’s pretty.******** It would have been much more interesting to me if Alpha has been angry and resented the Dollhouse, and had identified with Caroline’s anger and resentment (and prettiness). That would have been a starting point that had depth and potential.

The ‘composite event’ that I’ve been wondering about all season was actually just a technical glitch, a literal technical glitch that can be reproduced, and didn’t bear any necessary relation to Alpha’s self-awareness, that had already been referred to. It didn’t say anything about self, awareness, or the nature of what the dollhouse was doing. It’s just something the chair can do.

Then, my ultimate disappointment – ‘Alpha was always a psychopath’. Neither compelling nor resonanant. And worse – that’s what they’ve got to say about people? Some men just want to cut up women – it’s in their essence, they’ll always want to do it and you can’t stop them, even if you wipe their brain.

I don’t understand the need for a ‘big bad’ – everything in the show that has been interesting so far has been about the evil normal people do (and the resistance normal people do). Introducing a homicidal maniac to end the season shows a lack of faith in Dollhouse’s strengths.

I think Needs would have made a much more fitting and compelling season finale (although I think as a season finale, with no certainty of renewal, I would have needed a smidgeon of hope at the end)

There was one plotline that was interesting and resonated with me – and that was Dr Saunders and Whiskey. I thought that was interesting, resonant and well done. It had been very well sign-posted in the rest of the series. Hitting the balance between something that feels right, and is surprising is one of the glories of TV, but it’s very hard. Dr Saunders’s line: “Echo wasn’t always the best” has a completely different meaning now. My only fear that the potential in this concept won’t be fully explored in the second season********* because Amy Acker has another job.

I was particularly impressed with the scene between Topher and Dr Saunders at the end. It was an interesting and powerful scene that asks so many questions, and the acting was fantastic.

But I felt it didn’t get much space in this, already overloaded, episode. I think it should have had an episode for itself. I understand that Dr Saunders’s origin story was connected to Alpha, but that didn’t seem enough reason to include it the same episode. There didn’t seem to be significant thematic unity between the story of Alpha that they ended up telling and Dr Saunders’s, and our, discovery that she was Whiskey.

More than that, I felt they weren’t doing the questions they raised justice. Why do scars render Whiskey unhireable? I don’t think that’s a given. Even if you assume that every sexual fantasy requires beauty, and scars cannot be part of beauty (and I don’t think either assumption is supportable), many of the engagements we’ve seen haven’t been sexual. Whiskey could have been any of Sierra’s imprints, or a hostage negotiator, cult member, Taffy, the person who beat up Ballard, a NSA agent, a spy-catcher, Adelle’s friend, or Susan.

I don’t necessarily think that makes the Whiskey story line untenable. I can think of many reasons why the Dollhouse wouldn’t hire out scarred Whiskey, besides there being no assignments. I don’t want to theorise about what they might be here. I’ve got a long post, which started out being about race and the dollhouse and has become about identity embodiedness and the dollhouse (it’s that long), and I will explore these ideas more now.

I felt that they hinted at some of the interesting ideas about bodies that they could explore with the first scene between Dr Saunders and Victor, where he wants to know how to be his best, and she takes out her anger with him. To me, particularly given the meaninglessness of dolls idea of their best, that scene could have been the beginning of something interesting. But they didn’t develop it. There’s this big well they’re circling round, and so many interesting ideas they could explore. But by not going far enough I felt this episode ended up normalising the idea that scars are disgusting, more than it said any of the interesting things it hinted at.

I know I’ve made it sound like I hated the finale – and I didn’t. I just didn’t love it, and wanted to know why. I’ve mentioned most of the aspects of this episode I liked somewhere in these rants (although I don’t think I’ve mentioned the scenes in the imprint room when Sierra and November were being imprinted, which were very well done). While I was watching Omega I was really engaged. But it hasn’t stayed with me. I don’t think it reflected what was great about previous episodes or what is interesting about the show. And the greatest dialogue and pacing in the world won’t save you from that (although “…and I’m smarter than everyone in this room – but not as scary” tries pretty hard).

* the end of Becoming II starting from the fight between Buffy and Angel and the sharing the power moment of Chosen, for those curious

** That scene of them going to the pods is cannibilized from the original pilot. So I guess I can’t blame them for not including Victor and Sierra in that scene, since they’d shot it months before.

*** Although a special shout-out to Adele’s “Alpha’s a genius” when explaining to Paul why Alpha could get out and he wouldn’t. No, Mr-Mind-Control-? is not a genius.

**** And I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more going on with his decision to join the dollhouse than we know at this point. But if there’s not, it’s not earned at all.

****** la-la-la I can’t hear you

****** Oh and while I’m on it the “especially we now have a black president” is the worst line of the entire season. The line itself was ridiculously stupid, but Caroline’s response was incromprehensible. Given the likely dates of her capture by the dollhouse surely the most likely candidates for first black president would be Condeleeza Rice and Colin Powell. I would guess that Caroline’s politics would fall somewhere on the “Shill for the Democrats to Ignore Electoral Politics, Change Happens in the Streets” scale – that’s not a scale that decides to live because Colin Powell might be president

******* I decided to relegate this rant to a footnote, because I know people who read this don’t necessarily want a complete history of Buffy. But the Master wasn’t automatically interesting, that’s why they had to make the story about prophecy, Buffy’s fear of death, and the role of her friends. Angelus is interesting, because Buffy cares about him. Faith is more interesting than the Mayor, so the story in Graduation II is about everyone banding together to fight the Mayor, not about the Mayor himself. The Initiative was never interesting, and Adam sucked all the interesting from a two mile radius. That’s why the finale of that season is Restless. They know this stuff. Joss has talked about it in every commentary that I’ve ever listened to. How did they forget it?

******** Although there was something awesome about the scene where he kissed her and she kept talking. His sexual violence had no meaning for her, and therefore lost its power and control. This was underscored by his Handler’s complicity.

********* la la la la la I can’t hear you

********** I’ve always liked Fran Kranz as Topher, but I’ve read a lot of negative comments, mostly I think because Topher is really annoying. I think this scene made clear that Fran Kranz is more than capable of creating the layers

Briar Rose: Dollhouse review

I don’t like the first part of two-part episodes. It’s fine when you’re watching them on DVD (unless it’s late and you know you shouldn’t watch another one, but you do it anyway and then it turns out to be a cliff-hanger so you have to watch the next one as well), but a week is a long-time between Echo walking out the elevator with Alpha and finding out what the hell is going on.

Or at least I don’t like the first part when I haven’t read spoilers, which has happened to me exactly once (I’ve been spoiled for every show that I was a fan of since 1995). I’m not sure that’s a good sample. But I’m sure I hate it.

But reviewing the first part of a two-parter is particularly difficult. So much of the meaning and point of this episode depends on what happens next. This episode raised far more questions than it answered, and while there is a lot to talk about, there’s a lot I won’t comment on (like who was Echo when Alpha left with her. We’ll all know in a couple of days, and speculating on it wastes precious review time that should be spent laughing at Paul Ballard). So consider this the first part of my review as there are many things that I am reserving judgement on, although my cliff-hanger won’t be as exciting as the show’s.

The theme of this episode - an inversion of Sleeping Beauty - couldn’t have been more clearly signposted if they’d spelled it out in flashing neon lights. But I think I liked it. I found the literal inversion of the sunken tower quite a compelling image.

I’ll talk more about the general ideas of rescue and waking when I talk about the whacky cop adventures of Ballard and Alpha. But I really appreciated that in the end Susan was the only person in this episode who rescues anyone. And she does from a place of solidarity and support, not from chivalry.

I liked the counter-point between the men’s selfish attempts to capture Caroline’s body, and Susan’s advocacy of rescue. Because obviously Ballard’s ridiculous effort to save Caroline needed to be undercut. But I don’t think that’s enough – to reject rescue without offering an alternative is dangerous individualism. The way Susan reached out to Susan shows that there is an alternative

This felt like a reworking of some of the ideas of Ghost, and generally I think this episode was a much stronger take on those ideas. But the similarity between the two did bother me. I find it hard to find the language to describe what I mean, so I hope people will understand the point I’m trying to get at. To me, it feels exploitative, how extreme the abuse depicted in this episode and Ghost. The abuse that Susan, and Eleanor Penn experience is a stand-in for abuse, rendered less real by its enormity.*

Also, I think the issues that Ghost brought up are still sitting there - while there was no space in this story to explore the ethics of inserting memories of abuse into people, I hope they will acknowledge it at sometime in the second season.** Because, no matter how altruistic the assignment, forcing memories of abuse on people is horrific.***

But what was strongest about this plotline was what Susan offered Susan. And it wasn’t help retelling the story, (although I enjoyed the Firefly reference) or giving up her knife, but the hope that she represented, the hope that she was. Hope.

I know everyone has said it, but Enver Gjorkaj was mind-blowingly amazing as Laurence Dominic in that chair (and his “people were fighting on me” is possibly my favourite line of the series). It was a deeply, deeply creepy scene that worked because of his acting.**** It was a great way of showing the power, reach, and creepiness of the Dollhouse.

One of the questions I’m not going to leave unasked, even though we better know when the finale airs, is what did Dominic mean when he said “Whiskey” to echo. Whiskey like Echo, Sierra, Victor, November, and Alpha is part of the military alphabet. He clearly wasn’t asking for a drink. I still like the theory me and my friend Betsy developed that she’s an ex-doll (or maybe doesn’t know it, since she thought he was asking for a drink). But it’s looking possible that she is actually a doll. Which by itself doesn’t make much sense, since they can surely hire a doctor for a lot cheaper than the labour that they’re foregoing by having her not active, but we’ll see where it goes.

But the centre of this episode was Ballard and Alpha – the relationship and resonances between them.

Like everyone on the internet I knew that Walsh was playing Alpha. I was really annoyed when watching the episode that I’d been spoiled.***** I loved the conspiracy-theorist-environmentalist-stoner-misogynist persona of Alpha for most of the episode – hilarious and familiar. Although it did leave me wondering how Alpha worked. Are there different imprints competing in his brain – had the Dollhouse once imprinted him with the character we saw, or someone who could act like the character we saw? Or can he create imprints in his head, the way Topher can on the computer? Or maybe it’s something else entirely.

I’m sure the nature of Alpha will be explored more next episode, that wasn’t really the point of this episode. This was about Alpha, and Ballard’s quest to rescue Echo, Caroline, and maybe just Eliza Dushku’s body.

And Ballard’s version didn’t come across as righteous. Ballard has reclassified Mellie as a thing, not a person. It was clear in the break up scene and when he talked about her with Loomis – she called Mellie a victim – he called her a doll. And it was horrible to watch not because it was strange, but because it was familiar. Ballard doesn’t trust the women he knows because she’s in the same state that makes the stranger Caroline pedestal-worthy – that’s a nasty truth showing.

Ballard had a purpose to his actions; he was breaking Mellie’s heart, so he could use her reaction to find the dollhouse. That makes it worse to me – he has no more respect for the dolls humanity than Topher. And now, because of Ballard’s actions, she is, in all probability, dead.

When he actually finds Echo he has no respect for her as a person, or her autonomy. He talks to her slowly about being brainwashed, as if that’ll make a difference.****** And when she doesn’t come he drags her where he wants her to go, just like Alpha.

In fact, Echo made a choice, and fought against him.******* I loved the ridiculous over-signalling of Ballard’s eventual down-fall through the steps by Stephen’s fear (a combination of very fine writing from Jane Espenson and fantastic acting from Alan Tyduk), and that his downfall was at Echo’s hands.

I think there’s a lot packed into that fight, because people do choose oppression over alternatives, and for many different reasons. This episode makes it clear why Echo sides with Boyd over Ballard, and makes you side with her - partly it’s lack of information, partly it’s relationships, partly it’s that the alternative isn’t any better. None of those are fixed, none of those are impossible to overcome, but they all exist in our world as well as in that fight.

But my favourite part of this episode was that it revealed that Ballard is also programmed – he has had less agency than Echo. Everything he has done since the beginning of the show he has done because someone wanted him to, either the dollhouse, or Alpha.********

There is much more to say, but that’s the thing with reviewing the first half of a two-parter. You’ll have to wait to find out the rest of my opinions, just like you’ll have to wait to find out why Alpha wants Echo.

* and I really don’t mean that abuse over a less extended timeframe is not enormous – just that it’s comprehensible to the viewer.

** There will be a second season. La-la-la-la-la I can’t hear you.

*** Although Jane Espenson did a very fine job with Topher’s characterisation. It was very clear that Topher’s pride came entirely from his programming skills. But clearly that wasn’t the place to explore the ethics – because Topher does not care

**** I quite enjoyed Sierra’s character, and loved Topher’s explanation that she was exposition central because he hadn’t had much time. But Dichen Lachman has been imprinted to fill the plot-hole in every episode since Needs, and she’s capable of so much more than that

***** and feeling guilty. I told my friend Betsy about Walsh playing Alpha in much the same way I told her that Fred was playing Dr Saunders. Bad me

****** One of the things that cracks me up, that I’ve never mentioned before, is that in Ballard’s web of Dollhouse obsession there’s a post it that says ‘Mind Control?’ I don’t know what’s funnier, that Ballard isn’t sure whether or not the Dollhouse involves mind control, or that they’ve shown that post-it at least half a dozen times

******** In a fight where a table broke. Every time a table breaks during a fight on this show, I expect someone to pick up the remains and stake someone with it.

******** At this stage I think Alpha was using the NSA chip to imprint the messages. If so my special review stop-watch action was pointless.