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Let me point out before I start that I have as yet to see Dollhouse and I don't want it spoiled. The general consensus has tended to be that the early part of season one was worrying because of the amount of non-consensual sex (i.e. rape). Then later on (about episode six, I believe) the series suddenly improves dramatically. We had always presumed that Fox had screwed up the beginning of the series and that Whedon managed to wrestle it back in the direction he originally intended.
It seemed quite obvious really. Whedon explained how he fretted over the more worrying direction that everyone feared the series was taking to begin with:
There were times when I'd wake up in the middle of the night and go, "Oh my God, I've just written the sexy human trafficking show."
However, new information has come to light:
[Dollhouse] became just a scoach too whore-y. Never had a better meeting, everything was great, then they [FOX] said "so they're kinda like prostitutes and that's not ok" Word came down that it wasn't ok.
Um... sorry what? You mean to say that the decision to stop the sexy human trafficking show was Fox's idea? And apparently Joss was upset by this:
I wanted to make a show that's about feeling bad about feeling good or good about feeling bad. Fantasy is just that, fantasy. FOX wanted to back away from these implications.
Actually it looks like they recognised the implications perfectly well.....
Searching for a longer version of the quote which might put this in context I came across the Monsters and Rockets blog, where they had this to say:
I'm amazed to say that I kind of side with Fox against Joss on this one. The more "whore-y" aspects of the show often felt just plain sleazy - and not fun-sleazy, either. Sleazy-sleazy, like we were expected to get off on the idea of Eliza Dushku as somebody's literally mindless, progammable love slave. Whedon's shows have been just acclaimed for their feminism, but Dollhouse's Echo was an airhead whose only function in life was to gratify the kinks of her clients, after which she was shut up in a box until next time. You don't have to be Gloria Steinem to be skeeved out by a premise like that, and the episodes where Echo was a jewel thief or something else a little less sexbot-ish were kind of a relief.
I'd assumed that the network had been pushing Whedon to tart Eliza Dushku up more, not the other way around.
This sleazy direction was Joss' idea and Fox were reluctant? When did I enter 'opposite world'?
It seemed quite obvious really. Whedon explained how he fretted over the more worrying direction that everyone feared the series was taking to begin with:
There were times when I'd wake up in the middle of the night and go, "Oh my God, I've just written the sexy human trafficking show."
However, new information has come to light:
[Dollhouse] became just a scoach too whore-y. Never had a better meeting, everything was great, then they [FOX] said "so they're kinda like prostitutes and that's not ok" Word came down that it wasn't ok.
Um... sorry what? You mean to say that the decision to stop the sexy human trafficking show was Fox's idea? And apparently Joss was upset by this:
I wanted to make a show that's about feeling bad about feeling good or good about feeling bad. Fantasy is just that, fantasy. FOX wanted to back away from these implications.
Actually it looks like they recognised the implications perfectly well.....
Searching for a longer version of the quote which might put this in context I came across the Monsters and Rockets blog, where they had this to say:
I'm amazed to say that I kind of side with Fox against Joss on this one. The more "whore-y" aspects of the show often felt just plain sleazy - and not fun-sleazy, either. Sleazy-sleazy, like we were expected to get off on the idea of Eliza Dushku as somebody's literally mindless, progammable love slave. Whedon's shows have been just acclaimed for their feminism, but Dollhouse's Echo was an airhead whose only function in life was to gratify the kinks of her clients, after which she was shut up in a box until next time. You don't have to be Gloria Steinem to be skeeved out by a premise like that, and the episodes where Echo was a jewel thief or something else a little less sexbot-ish were kind of a relief.
I'd assumed that the network had been pushing Whedon to tart Eliza Dushku up more, not the other way around.
This sleazy direction was Joss' idea and Fox were reluctant? When did I enter 'opposite world'?
