Dollhouse Is Feminist (Part 11: 1x09)

(Written for the video version)

The ninth Dollhouse episode “A Spy in the House of Love” is a partially nonlinear story following the four main Actives in separate storylines that intersect with each other. The first part is a set up that doesn’t follow anyone specifically.

It starts out with Echo as a dominatrix talking to Boyd about her job. I have issues with the portrayal of BDSM here, but I’ll leave that to the previous post “S&M Barbie”. I’ll just point out that Echo’s outfit is incredibly revealing and even though she’s supposed to be dominant, she comes off as just a sex object for the male gaze. Anyway, she talks to Boyd about the importance of trust and how it’s beautiful when a submissive trusts a dominant enough to submit to her. Boyd talks about how it’s dangerous to trust people, and it has the implication that the Dollhouse can’t be trusted and he feels bad for lying to her. Trust and specifically misguided trust is the theme of the episode.

My Thoughts on Supernatural 7x08 "Season Seven, Time for a Wedding!"

Considering all the hits I've been getting from Supernatural fans looking at my post on the Wedding Crashers male rape scene to compare it to the latest Supernatural episode "Season Seven, Time for a Wedding!" (thanks to whoever started sending that link around, by the way), I thought I'd write a post sharing my feelings on the episode. This is that post. "Season Seven, Time for a Wedding!" is a problematic episode involving obsessed Supernatural fan Becky giving Sam a love potion, and they become a cutesy couple until the potion wears off in the third act... and it's still too cutesy.

A lot of feminists think Supernatural is misogynistic, but I generally don't see it. The main complaint is that female characters are often killed in a way where the camera lingers over their pain and/or to hurt Sam and/or Dean in a women in refrigerators situation. Well, it's a horror story featuring gruesome deaths all around. The focus is on two male characters and everyone keeps dying around them, anyway. They even liquified Castiel (though possibly not for good). That said, there are a few things here and there that annoy me as a feminist, like practically the entire episode of "Season Seven, Time for a Wedding!".

From Here to Misogyny (Angel)

There are very few episodes in Buffy and Angel that I find outright scary. One of the exceptions is “Billy” from season three of Angel. I used to actively avoid it, skipping around it when watching my DVDs, and only fairly recently have I felt comfortable watching it. Instead of a scaly demon or fanged vampire, the titular villain is very human in appearance, and his power evokes human evil. Joss’ thing is that he tries to promote feminism, and “Billy” might be his most overt attempt with a villain that exists as an embodiment of misogyny.