Dollhouse – Bitch Flicks

The Chameleon Woman in ‘Dollhouse’ and ‘iZombie’: Personality Swapping and Agency

The problem presented by both ‘Dollhouse’ and ‘iZombie’ is that of the “Chameleon Woman.” Both Echo and Liv carry the metaphor of the expectation that women adapt based on the needs and desires of others. However, both TV series point to this societal issue with two very different takes.

Guest post written by Audrey T. Carroll.

“Would you like a treatment?” This phrase is repeated throughout the course of Joss Whedon’s television series Dollhouse, meant to cue the “Actives” or “Dolls” — people, mostly women, whose personalities have been stripped from them — to let the in-house scientist imprint them with a personality, memories, or skills that someone pays for them to have. After the client encounters, they are again wiped of their memories and personalities. The “Dollhouse,” one of approximately 20 facilities that rents out Dolls, is a human trafficking ring. The Dolls are meant to fulfill the expectations of others, especially (though admittedly not exclusively) male clients and often in a sexual or sexually enticing capacity. For example, in season one episode two “The Target,” the show’s protagonist, Echo (Eliza Dushku), is sent on a date with a man who loves outdoor activities. She is clearly hired in an arousal capacity, which takes a turn for the worst when the guy starts to hunt her.

Echo changes every week. We’re supposed to root for her because she’s the protagonist and Eliza Dushku does a wonderful job infusing the character with as much sympathy as possible. Of course we feel bad for her because of her situation. However, it can be difficult to connect to a character who has to change in accordance with each situation. Echo, in a lot of ways, embodies an ideal of “the chameleon woman.” She changes depending on the needs of the partner who paid for her, a sickening representation of the expectation that women exist solely to service the needs of others, most commonly men — if they like the outdoors, then so must she; if they need a doting wife or neighbor, then she must fit that description; if they need someone cold and calculating, then that’s what she becomes.

Why, out of all of the Dolls in the House, do we predominantly follow Echo? Because Echo is unique in that she has a “defect”: she has the ability to retain some semblance of self and she becomes more self-aware. Because of this, we can root for her as an audience; it gives us some sort of personality continuity that we can connect to emotionally. But the characters in power — scientist Topher (Fran Kanz); Adelle, (Olivia Williams) who runs the Dollhouse; Echo’s handler, Boyd (Harry Lennix) — make it clear that this is a defect, not something impressive or victorious as the audience might perceive it. In fact, this can land Echo in a lot of trouble. Specifically, she can end up in “the Attic,” which serves as a punishment of permanent entrapment and mental torment for Dolls who are “broken” or “defective” (in the view of the Dollhouse).

Echo’s unique skill doesn’t help her to not be stripped of her agency the vast majority of the time. She has no say in what personalities she gets imprinted with, or who her clients are, or even the most basic “yes or no” consent. Even before she was a Doll, when she was Caroline, the head of the Dollhouse essentially backed her against the wall, making Caroline’s agreement to be a doll in the first place ethically compromised even beyond the basic premise of “humans used as shells for the pleasure of people who pay for them.” It was hardly a choice at all. And for some other characters — namely Sierra (Dichen Lachman), who was institutionalized by a man after she rejected him and then involuntarily sent to the Dollhouse — there was literally no choice at all.

Based on the comic books, the TV series iZombie, created by Diane Ruggiero-Wright and Rob Thomas, focuses on the crime-solving medical examiner and pseudo-psychic Olivia “Liv” Moore (Rose McIver). Liv helps Detective Clive Babineaux (Malcolm Goodwin) with homicide cases. She’s able to do this because, in the process of eating the brains that come down to the medical examiner’s office to keep herself as human as possible, she takes on the memories and personalities of the deceased. This can lead to visions that give Liv clues for Clive to identify the killers he needs to put away. Because of the way that eating brains affects Liv, she changes personalities every week — a dominatrix one week, a frat boy the next.

Liv is able to help in the pursuit of justice, albeit in a highly unconventional way, and she’s able to develop meaningful and consistent relationships not solely centered on sex or her sexual appeal. She has no sexual history nor, as far as the show presents, sexual engagement with most of the other characters: Ravi (Rahul Kohli), her fellow medical examiner; Peyton (Aly Michalka), her best friend; and Clive. It could be argued that Clive benefits from what Liv can do, but he is friends with her outside of her abilities and, while he can be very determined and dedicated, he’s never forced or coerced Liv into a situation or actions that morally compromise her.

Echo’s defect is that she maintains a semblance of self; Liv’s is that she can deviate from her true self. When Liv eats the brains of a deceased hitman, she almost lets Ravi get eaten by a much more monstrous “Romero zombie.” When she’s on vigilante brains, she almost gets herself killed. When she’s on nymphomaniac brains, she cheats on her boyfriend. But most of the time, Liv is still Liv, just with some goofy quirks and moments of zoning out when she sees someone else’s memories. At first, Liv’s voice-over narration in the show reflects her thoughts and demonstrates that she’s still herself. Later, the writers let Rose McIver’s acting and her consistent chemistry with the other actors do the heavy lifting of demonstrating that Liv is always Liv, and that this Liv is who her friends connect to and care about.

Liv is also not robbed of her agency. She chooses to eat the brains of murder victims for many reasons tied to her character, probably the two foremost being that the person is already dead and she wants to help find their killer. She also turns down the “brain mush” from the company Fillmore-Graves, which would give her the sustenance she needs without imbuing her with the personalities or memories of the deceased. Liv chooses to help others, to accept the drawbacks of her current feeding situation so that being a zombie — a state of being that was beyond her control — becomes something that benefits the greater good. Liv is able to make the choice to not let what she is control who she is — zombie Liv is different from human Liv, but she is still at her core Liv.

The problem presented by both Dollhouse and iZombie is that of the “Chameleon Woman.” Both Echo and Liv carry the metaphor of the expectation that women adapt based on the needs and desires of others. However, both TV series point to this societal issue with two very different takes. In Dollhouse, women (who comprise most of the recurring named Dolls) are commodities waiting to have a skin put on them. The framing can make it difficult to create emotional connection to Echo, and all of the non-Dolls are morally compromised because they are either actively involved in the actions of the Dollhouse or otherwise complicit in its continued existence.

The argument could be made that Dollhouse is about women struggling to regain agency. However, there is the example of Alpha (Alan Tudyk), a Doll who escaped and became homicidal because he, like Echo, was remembering personalities that the Dollhouse gave him. He can theoretically be read as a warning for Echo not to be anything more than the childlike drone she is when between personalities. This is to say nothing of the constantly looming threat of “The Attic.” Whether Echo retaining her memories and sense of self is a positive quality is much more ambiguous and comes with a much greater sense of personal danger for the protagonist than is presented on iZombie.

In iZombie, situations can happen to a person that they can’t control but they can still make choices about how to move forward and, in this way, maintain agency. It’s not a flaw; letting the adopted personality control you is the failing. Liv’s zombie boyfriend Justin (Tongayi Chirisa) even tells her, when she cheats on him while on nymphomaniac brains, “I’ve eaten brains before, Liv, and you can fight them if you really want to.” At the end of the day, Dolls are Dolls; they can function as objects or they can be made to disappear. Zombies can become monsters, either the ilk of serial killer criminal bosses like Blaine (David Anders) or mindless and violent “Romero zombies.” But zombies do not have to choose to be monsters.

Both TV series are all about choice, and this becomes colored a certain way with female protagonists. Women are too often robbed of choice, or are presented with choices that range from bad to worse. The struggle for women’s agency seems inextricably linked to the struggle for women’s choices. Examining what women do with choice is a natural extension of this effort. At the end of the day, Dollhouse is about what a woman does with a lack of choice; iZombie is about what a woman does within her realm of choices.

Audrey T. Carroll is a Queens, NYC native currently pursuing her English PhD at the University of Rhode Island. Her obsessions include kittens, coffee, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Queen of Pentacles, her debut poetry collection, is available from Choose the Sword Press, and she can be found at http://audreytcarrollwrites.weebly.com and @AudreyTCarroll on Twitter.

#iamnotavessel: Joss Whedon’s Romantic Reproductive Coercion

Whedon and director Jeunet thus systematically demolish Ridley Scott’s original metaphor by consistently representing Ripley’s experience of forced maternity as akin to both chosen motherhood and loss of self, and essentially different from the forced impregnation and reproductive coercion of the male characters.

Ripley, loving her "beautiful, beautiful little baby" — Ripley, loving her “beautiful, beautiful little baby”

Written by Brigit McCone.

The Alien saga offers some of the most powerful images of bodily violation in pop culture, from the metaphorical rape of the facehuggers to the victim’s resulting fatal impregnation. Ridley “Thelma and Louise“ Scott* fostered male empathy by casting John Hurt as the victim of this violation, while Sigourney Weaver’s badass Ellen Ripley defeated the monster. The sequel, Aliens, saw Ripley voluntarily assume maternal responsibility for a young girl, Newt, and fight an iconic battle against the Alien Queen to save her adopted child. In Alien3, Ripley realized she had been impregnated with an Alien Queen, and made a conscious decision to destroy herself and it. Then, in 1997, celebrated male feminist Joss Whedon scripted a fourth film in the series, Alien: Resurrection, which revived Ripley as an Alien/human hybrid clone.

When her identity is challenged, Ripley/Alien smiles, “I’m the monster’s mother,” equating motherhood with forced cloning in a lab. Realizing that Aliens have escaped, Ripley/Alien grins, later clarifying, “I’m finding a lot of things funny lately, but I don’t think they are.” Merging with the Alien has rendered her emotional responses irrational. As Ripley/Alien is anguished at being forced to destroy a room full of fellow clones, Ron Perlman’s pirate snorts “must be a chick thing”, in a franchise founded on transgressive gender-bending. Ripley/Alien weeps openly at the death of the Newborn, an Alien/human hybrid which has already devoured the brains of two people (including the film’s final person of color), which Brad Dourif’s scientist described as her “beautiful, beautiful little baby.” Whedon and director Jeunet thus systematically demolish Ridley Scott’s original metaphor by consistently representing Ripley’s experience of forced maternity as akin to both chosen motherhood and loss of self, and essentially different from the forced impregnation and reproductive coercion of the male characters.

Maternity may be forced, but motherhood is always voluntary. An adopted mother is a true mother, as Ripley is to Newt. An egg donor, a surrogate or a clone is not automatically a mother, as Ripley is not to the Newborn. Reducing the complexity of motherhood to automatic biology also implies that bad mothers are unnatural, rather than flawed humans, which aspiring writers may wish to explore in this Theme Week. As for Alien: Resurrection, Whedon’s ending was changed and he claims “they said the lines…mostly…but they said them all wrong. And they cast it wrong. And they designed it wrong. And they scored it wrong. They did everything wrong that they could possibly do.” However, three aspects of Whedon’s role as author of Alien: Resurrection still deserve scrutiny. Firstly, that it consistently rewrites and undermines the original feminist purpose of Ridley Scott’s Alien. Secondly, that it is only one of numerous dehumanizing portraits of forced maternity in the work of Joss Whedon. Thirdly, that Whedon’s status as a vocal male feminist does not restrain him from perpetuating this trope.

Sixteen percent of pregnant women surveyed by Lindsay Clark M.D. had been subjected to reproductive coercion (the sabotaging of birth control or the use of threat by male partners to force pregnancy). In a survey of women using family planning services, fully 35 percent of those who experienced partner violence had also been subjected to reproductive coercion. Glenn Close’s Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction is an iconic representation of terrifying reproductive coercion, but I can think of no equivalent portrayal of reproductive coercion by male characters targeting women, despite its staggering frequency in reality. Nobody wants to confront the possibility that a child might be unwanted, especially by their own mother. However, if we can’t admit that an acid-spitting, brain-eating Alien-child might ever, possibly, be unwanted, our denial has become dehumanizing. Male-authored horror, focusing disproportionately on women as victims of supernatural possession, almost invariably implies that women can be drained of selfhood and controlled by reproductive coercion, supporting the ideology of real-life abusers.

In The Omen, Gregory Peck’s father must confront and attempt to destroy his demon spawn while, in Rosemary’s Baby, Mia Farrow’s mother gently rocks her demon spawn’s cradle with a tender smile. Paternity is an emotional bond mediated by rational judgment, while maternity inevitably entails loss of the rational self. Some female directors have challenged this trope. In Lynne Ramsay’s We Need to Talk About Kevin, a mother’s love is alienated by her child’s sadism, joining the conflicted but humanized mothers of Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook, and Kimberley Peirce’s reimagined Carrie. Meanwhile, Roman “Rosemary’s Baby” Polanski, self-confessed rapist, has stated publicly that the birth control Pill “chases away the romance from our lives.” While celebrated male feminist Joss Whedon probably wouldn’t endorse that statement, his romanticized reproductive coercion nevertheless reflects that ideology.

Sady Doyle has praised Whedon’s Dollhouse for its exploration of the sinister implications of reducing women to manipulable male fantasy. As Doyle argues, Dollhouse can even be read as an interrogation of Whedon’s own role, as a writer who converts living actresses into creations of his fantasy. However, Doyle also highlights problems with the second season episode “Instinct,” which suggests that Echo’s being forcibly imprinted, to believe herself a mother, produces a biological response that cannot be erased, even though the woman’s entire personality can be erased, “because the Maternal Instinct has magical science-defying powers of undying devotion which are purely biological and not at all circumstantial” (Doyle’s words). Although the show’s entire point is the essential creepiness of depriving a human of consent, ‘Instinct’ suggests that the maternal instinct is capable of converting forced maternity into a positive experience. Nor is Dollhouse the only example of this.

Dawn, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is conceived by monks reprogramming the characters’ memories and emotions, echoing Dollhouse‘s premise. Since Dawn is an innocent and vulnerable being, Buffy’s decision to protect her is consistent with her established character as a natural rescuer, akin to Ripley’s decision to protect Newt at any cost. However, the show barely allows Buffy five minutes of outrage over the monks’ traumatic violation of her memories and emotional self (without even considering the implications of her fake robot pregnancy in the comics, or Black Widow’s becoming “monster” by sterilization because… dude). Like Echo’s positive experience of forced maternity, Buffy’s maternal instinct towards Dawn effectively cancels out the violation of Dawn’s conception. In the third season of Whedon’s Angel, the evil Darla’s entire personality alters through pregnancy, as she becomes mysteriously infected by the soul of her Prophecyfetus, recalling Ripley’s personality shift through Alien impregnation. Not only is Darla/Prophecyfetus redeemed by an explicitly unwanted pregnancy, but expresses her redemption through self-annihilation, staking herself to allow her baby’s birth.

Self-annihilation is likewise the ultimate expression of Buffy’s maternal instinct, the heroine killing herself for Dawn, her corpse bathed in the hopeful light of a new dawn (subtle). I can’t recall any comparable example of voluntary, fatherly self-annihilation as redemptive in the work of celebrated male feminist Joss Whedon (and even Michael Bay gave us Armageddon). Simon’s sacrifices, as adopted father-figure (and safeword-wielding controller) of sister River Tam, are rewarded with Kaylee’s love in Serenity, while Angel heroically chooses to wipe his son’s memory when paternity becomes too troublesome, and Giles dramatically rejects Buffy when she becomes too independent. Sure, there are complex undercurrents of male self-loathing and idolized female sacrifice going on here, but I can’t see how that actually empowers Whedon’s (routinely mind-controlled) women. As Angel points out in Angel‘s fourth season: “our fate has to be our own, or we’re nothing.” By this measure, Whedon’s women are constantly reduced to “nothing” by maternity.

When it comes to reproductive coercion, nothing beats the treatment of Cordelia Chase on Angel. Already forcibly impregnated by mind-controlling demon spawn in the first season’s “Expecting,” Cordelia agrees in “Birthday” to become half-demon herself, as an act of self-sacrifice to spare Angel from head-splitting visions. She eventually “transcends love” to become an omniscient “higher being” of pure light, but finds herself “so bored” by this power, echoing the vocal dissatisfaction of Whedon’s Ripley, Call, Buffy, Willow, Faith, and River Tam. If Whedon’s superstrong women didn’t all commiserate with each other about the terrible burden of power, they’d barely pass a Bechdel. In Season Four’s opener, Angel is trapped at the bottom of the sea, hallucinating visions of happiness with Cordelia. In one vision, Cordelia pledges her love as self-annihilation, foreshadowing the amnesia inflicted on her when she rejoins Angel, “I can’t remember what it was like, not knowing you”, before Angel vamps and drains her blood. At another vision’s cheerful feast, Cordelia exclaims “kill me now before my stomach explodes,” foreshadowing her next demon pregnancy, in which Cordy’s mind will be possessed yet again by the soul of her Doomfetus, just as Darla/Prophecyfetus and Ripley/Alien were.

Jasmine, the possessing being, forces Cordelia to seduce Angel’s son, Connor, primarily to provoke conflict between the male heroes, but also to conceive Jasmine’s Doomfetus vessel. Appearing in a vision, as the maternal mouthpiece of The Powers That Be, a reproductively purified and ex-evil Darla informs her son, Connor, that the fate of the world now depends on his choice, since Cordelia’s agency has been reproductively annihilated (Darla merely implies that last part). Cordelia is then forced into a coma by the birth of her demon spawn, just as Darla was dusted while giving birth, or Whedon’s Alien Queen decapitated by her Newborn. Meanwhile, Cordelia/Doomfetus has found time to bring forth a Doomsday Beast to destroy the sun (women are great at multitasking), forcing our hero, Angel, to lose his soul for various complex reasons, but mainly to confirm Cordy’s boundless power as mindless maternal mouthpiece. Powerful as she is, Cordelia’s lack of agency nevertheless reduces her, by Angel’s own logic, to “nothing.” Incidentally, Whedon’s treatment of actress Charisma Carpenter did nothing to dispel this impression.

Unmarried, pregnant Cordelia Chase is literally demonized

This feels familiar to an Irish viewer. Our feminine ideal, the “Wild Irish Woman,” gave us warrior goddesses, but never prevented pregnant girls being institutionalized as slave labor (a cultural demonizing of unmarried mothers criticized by Dorothy Macardle and Mairéad Ní Ghráda, before Peter Mullan’s The Magdalene Sisters and Stephen Frears’ Philomena drew international attention). Our pirate queen got her nationalist anthem, but our women had their pelvises broken by crippling symphysiotomy until the 1980s without anesthetic, for fear caesareans would encourage use of birth control. We boast history’s second female minister in government, army officer Constance Markievicz, but just last year, a woman raped by the murderers of people close to her underwent forced hydration (she was on hunger strike, becoming suicidal after five months pleading for an abortion) before a coerced C-section (her visa status prevented travel). Believe us, there is no connection whatsoever between celebrating women’s warrior spirit and respecting their reproductive rights. I’m a fan of Buffy. I also understand that teams of writers are involved, though Joss Whedon is ultimately responsible for the content of his television shows. I hate his portraits of reproductive coercion because this ideology repeatedly tortures and kills the most vulnerable women in my country. It’s nothing personal. Images of late-term abortions are commodified by Ireland’s forced maternity lobby, while the faces of suicidal rape victims and the corpses of women who died, denied medically necessary abortions, cannot be shown, ironically out of respect for their personhood; this is why fictional images of forced maternity become a battleground for hearts and minds. Ultimately, this torture of Ireland’s most vulnerable women is also the end goal of America’s forced maternity lobby.

* Yes, I know the rape scene in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner is problematic. It’s not like the rapid rise in ass-kicking heroines was matched by a rise in female authorship. Time for a “Microscope on Male Feminists” feature?

Brigit McCone writes and directs short films and radio dramas. Her hobbies include doodling, ducking and covering in anticipation of Whedonite backlash.

When It Seems Like the Movie You’re Watching Might Hate You

Quick – you’re all settled down in front of the TV with Cheetos and soda when you start to have an uncomfortable feeling. The characters are being really hateful, and you can’t quite tell if the writer supports them. Do you: a) keep watching the movie to see how this ends; b) stop watching the movie and do something else; or c) read spoilers for the ending, to find out if you’re wasting your time? If you answered a, b, or c to that question, congratulations! You win. There’s no single Right Way to respond when it seems like a movie might hate you.

Written by Katherine Murray.

I watched Chasing Amy for the first time last weekend, and it was a pretty intense experience. I can totally see why this film was such a boost to Kevin Smith’s career – it’s a great movie with a strong voice and an unusually forthright message about how women are actually people. What’s weird is that watching it still felt like walking through a minefield, and not in an exciting way. In a way where I was kind of scared and uncomfortable, thinking I might get blown up.

Check it out.

Chasing Amy is about a real-life experience Kevin Smith had, where he judged his girlfriend for her sexual history and then realized that he was acting like a jerk. The movie takes the situation further and fictionalizes it, giving us a story about a comic book writer named Holden who falls in love with a lesbian, Alyssa, convinces her to start dating him anyway, flips out when he hears that she’s had sex with other dudes in the past, and then alienates her completely and ends up alone. His best friend, Banky, stands on the sidelines making misogynist, homophobic jokes, before it’s revealed that the real root of his anger is his unacknowledged homosexual attraction to Holden.

The movie essentially pulls a bait and switch. The first half of the story looks like it’s going to be about a straight guy who only hangs out with a lesbian because he wants to sleep with her, and then turns her straight with his dick, but then the second half of the story is about that guy learning that he’s acting like an asshole. That, instead of treating Alyssa like a person with the right to her own sexual history and choices, he’s labouring under the belief that she’s obliged to be the Perfect Woman as created by his imagination. She calls him out on it in a pretty straightforward way – first when he assumes that his being attracted to her should mean that she’s attracted to him, and later when he tries to shame her for a three-way she had back in high school – and I can’t quite express how relieved I was when that happened.

It’s a sad commentary on the culture we live in that, as much as I like and respect Kevin Smith as a writer, I honestly wasn’t sure at first if I was supposed to think Holden was cool. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to think that what he was doing was OK, or that Banky was funny when he told jokes about man-hating dykes – I wasn’t sure if this was going to end with Holden and Alyssa getting married and living happily ever after. And I actually stopped the movie halfway through and looked on Wikipedia to see how it ended, because I didn’t think I could stand to watch it if it was really about Holden and the Bankster being awesome bros together.

It surprised me to have such a strong reaction – I mean, I will seriously sit through almost anything, no matter how annoying it is; I love sitting that much – but it also put me in mind of something Kendra James said about watching Django Unchained – “I advise seeing it in the company of people you trust.”

What makes Chasing Amy an important movie is that it taps into something that’s real in our culture – it puts its metaphorical finger right on a raw, exposed nerve. The things that these guys are saying, the things that they’re doing – these are things that some guys really do and say, without recognizing that there’s anything all that wrong with it. In fact, some guys have found it appropriate to say these things to me, for real, in my life. The fear that the movie might not have my back on that was not an abstract, intellectual concern. It was a visceral reaction. I didn’t want to let my guard down just to feel betrayed.

It isn’t just me, either.

Back when Dollhouse premiered in 2009, a lot of women I knew (and knew of, through the internet) swore off watching it. If you don’t remember the show, that’s OK – I’m pretty sure only five people actually saw it. It was made by Joss Whedon and the story was about a bunch of people (mostly women) who sell their bodies to a futuristic whorehouse where scientists have the technology to wipe someone’s mind and download a new personality into her brain. Clients could request exactly what they wanted, and the Dollhouse would give it to them by programming a human being to act like a fantasy.

Because it was an action-adventure show (sort of), the client of the week usually wanted something beyond whoring – they might need a spy, or a thief, or an expert psychologist or something to go on a mission – but it was clear that sex work was the company’s bread and butter.

As the story ultimately unfolds, it becomes clear that the Dollhouse is fundamentally evil – the first step toward the total collapse of civilization, heralded by the disregard for human life that displays itself in treating people as disposable, programmable shells. The inhabitants of the Dollhouse fight to escape and regain their identities, and find themselves at ground zero of a massive civil war. The dark desire to make women into whatever one wants or needs them to be – here expressed a little more literally than in Chasing Amy – is presented as a form of misguided entitlement, feeding into other situations where the powerful take what they want at somebody else’s expense.

Unfortunately, during the first few episodes of the series, it’s unclear whether we’re supposed to be bothered by what’s going on in the Dollhouse, or to casually accept it as a sexy, cool recipe for adventure. Just like with Chasing Amy, the attitudes expressed in the first half are attitudes expressed in real life, usually by people who don’t see any problem with what they believe – and watching the characters accept these ideas as normal raised the possibility that maybe the writers were just blind to it. The power and relevance of both of these stories comes from the fact that objectifying women is a popular pastime in real life, and not everyone sees the problem with that – the discomfort and uncertainty of these stories comes from the fact that objectifying women is a popular pastime in real life, and not everyone sees the problem with that. It’s hard to know, at first, whose side the story is on.

It doesn’t help that both of these stories also seem to be aimed at dudes. They’re both structured in such a way that the skeeviness of these attitudes toward women is something that’s “revealed” rather than taken as given. I have a hard time imagining a female audience that would begin from the position that all of this stuff is okay and need to hear an explanation of why it’s not. It’s a lot of dudes telling other dudes that women are people, and that’s encouraging, but it also reminds you that you’re not considered a person right from the start.

So, what do you do when you feel uneasy, and fear that the movie might hate you?

I think it just depends on how much you trust the people telling the story, and how much you’re willing to risk. I don’t think anyone is obligated to sit still and be insulted for two hours, so, if you feel like that’s what might be happening, you’re well within your rights to bail. I also don’t think you’re obligated to avoid watching something just because it’s problematic, so, if you want to stick it out and see the whole thing, that’s a totally awesome choice, too.

Either way, I think Kendra James has it right; when the topic is your relative equality, you need the company of people you trust–in the audience, behind the camera, on a Facebook chat after the show. People who think you’re a person right from frame one.

Katherine Murray is a Toronto-based writer who yells about movies and TV on her blog.

My Love-Hate Relationship With Joss Whedon

It started when I was 13. Some friends and I went to see Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It sounded like a lovely idea. A movie with a cheerleader as lead for my more “girly” friends, a vampire flick with a female heroine for me and the guy friends who were dragged along on this group “date” and just wanted to see vampires. It wasn’t like we had a choice–none of us had a car, and this was the only thing playing that we were old enough to watch at the theater our parents dropped us off at. I thought it would be perfect until it occurred to me in the lobby, while procuring nachos and popcorn, that this film was devised to please everyone, and usually when movies set out to please everyone, they pleased no one. But, it was a movie, and on a hot summer day that meant air conditioning; plus, there would be vampires, a female heroine and that was all I needed to give it a try.

The cast of Dollhouse — The cast of *Dollhouse*

This is a guest post by Shay Revolver.

It started when I was 13. Some friends and I went to see Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It sounded like a lovely idea. A movie with a cheerleader as lead for my more “girly” friends, a vampire flick with a female heroine for me and the guy friends who were dragged along on this group “date” and just wanted to see vampires. It wasn’t like we had a choice–none of us had a car, and this was the only thing playing that we were old enough to watch at the theater our parents dropped us off at. I thought it would be perfect until it occurred to me in the lobby, while procuring nachos and popcorn, that this film was devised to please everyone, and usually when movies set out to please everyone, they pleased no one. But, it was a movie, and on a hot summer day that meant air conditioning; plus, there would be vampires, a female heroine and that was all I needed to give it a try.

I sat, I watched, I was stuck somewhere between annoyance and amusement that my nachos weren’t the only thing in that theater covered in cheese. It seemed like for every great thing about the movie there was something equally as bad, if not worse. Even at that age, I worried that the film would be remembered more for the five-minute vamp death rattle scene at the end than for the female lead. Being the resident cinephile, or film-loving smart ass, I tried to save the film by saying it was supposed to be campy. In my head that was the only way I could wrap my mind around what had just occurred. I worried that if the film wasn’t successful there would be no more films with strong female leads–that we would have to keep being arm candy and damsels. Everything that made her complex, easy to relate to and bad ass was turned into a joke. I left the theater feeling sad.

In the interim, there were other films with strong female leads that caught my eye. Some of them were American but most of the time, I had to turn my gaze to the art houses and screening rooms of the East Village and Lower East Side. The women I was looking for could only be found in indie and foreign films. Sure, there was the pop up complex, bad ass heroine (or antihero) here and there beaming in beauty once in a while on the big screens of the mainstream, but they were so few an far between that I could count them on one hand and very rarely did they resonate in the way the other films did. Then something different happened. Studying in my dorm for midterms, during a very crazy junior year with my brain frying and a cold brewing, I turned on my TV and on some random network, there was Buffy. Buffy 2.0. to be exact, and in all of its campy goodness I could not turn away.

There was a woman on TV, being bad ass and somewhat complex (as complex as a teenage girl could realistically be), and I along with millions of other people ate it up. On the surface, it was beautiful and a pleasure to watch. In my philosophy studying brain it was full of conflicts, ideas and other interesting complexities. As the series progressed there was less complexity in Buffy and more complications. During the series run, much like the movie, I found that for every step forward there was a step sideways, often back. But, I couldn’t turn away. In my head I juggled with the bizarre coincidence that Buffy’s “virtue” was linked to the sanity of all the men around her. Her virginity literally turned Angel evil. It was a pattern that played out throughout most of the show. Her sexuality was a prize to be given and taken at will. It was also her downfall. She would be punished for choosing to express her sexuality, for having desires, for not being the “proper girl.” It was one of the themes that bothered me throughout the show.

When discussing how male writers and directors portray women and their “complexities,” the name that gets called out the most is Joss Whedon and his strong, complex female hero Buffy Sommers. I, for one, was always team Faith. She was way more complex and realistic than Buffy. I could relate to her. While Buffy spent most of her non-training conversations lamenting over wanting a relationship and kicking ass in between sessions of just trying to get a date, Faith was more concerned with finding herself, being independent, and if love came along, that’d be cool too. She wasn’t nice all the time, she straddled the line of morality and was okay with who she was. She was a creature of pure impulse, turning into the woman she was going to be, who never tried for perfection. Watching her evolve was fascinating. She was like Catwoman to Buffy’s Batman and I could relate. While Buffy went on to have “relationships” that mimicked the plot line of almost every Lifetime movie, Faith was content to be alone instead of settling for the sake of not being alone. She was punished with being labeled as insane for expressing her independence and sexuality.

Sarah Michelle Gellar & James Marsters as (everyone's favorite dysfunctional couple) Buffy and Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer — Sarah Michelle Gellar and James Marsters as (everyone’s favorite dysfunctional couple) Buffy and Spike in *Buffy the Vampire Slayer*

When the short lived Firefly and its companion movie Serenity came to us, in true to Whedon form, the “virgin” lives and is strong. The “whore” is ultimately punished for her ways and although she does manage to survive and ride off into the sunset with Mal, her redemption comes only with settling down with a man to make her honest. While I will forever love the females in power aboard the ship, they were often led astray by their desires. The message often came off as, sorry ladies you can’t have it all. Even the hard-hitting River Tam was as bad ass, complex and brilliant as they came; she was also a virgin and very broken. She had passed the age where her sexuality should be expressed. She was incapable of expressing herself, and she went insane for contact. At the end of the day, the only woman who could save herself was the one who let go of her sexual identity or any idea of companionship, and she remained isolated and broken. Despite her strength, her survival often depended on the men around her.

This trend continued with Dollhouse, where the female bodies were literally used as objects and in a way that can only be expressed as soul rape, they are forced to forget the trauma and sleep until their bodies are called upon to be used again. Yes, in some scenarios these women were called upon to be more than just a warm body in the bed of the highest bidder, only worth what someone else was willing to pay for them, but the disturbing part was that they had no choice in what was happening to them, making it akin to a psychic roofie-style rape. I’ve heard the arguments that men were kept in the dollhouse as well , or that women were in power in the dollhouse, but none of that makes the situation any less horrifying. In the end, Echo is saved by a man. She was rendered incapable of saving herself. I looked away.

That has always been my issue with Joss Whedon’s work. As strong as his female characters are, they’re often on some level tortured and in some ways punished for being exactly what I was looking for in a female lead on TV. They seemed unable to find completion without having a man in their lives. That is what completed them. That was how they found themselves. It was also how they were punished. Buffy couldn’t save the world until she fell in love with her series-long tormentor and almost-rapist Spike. River Tam would collapse under the weight of her own strength. In Dollhouse, all of his female characters were used as pleasure objects and shells for men, and other women were serving as their pimps. There was no end to his female characters’ suffering; their worlds just got grimmer. There was no chance for redemption. Yes, they’re all strong in the traditional sense of the word because it is such a rare thing to see in media, but they’re also all still traditional archetypes.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m happy that he keeps creating these strong female characters, I wish more male creators would do the same. Gender equality in casting, Salt withstanding, is often hard to come by. I just know that I would love it even more if he wouldn’t make them set up to fail, if he wouldn’t put them in situations where their survival is dependent upon men, or where their happiness was aligned with or subject to the men in their lives. I’m hoping that the Agents of S.H.I.E.L..D. proves me wrong in the long run, and a shift is coming now that he has proved his weight. But so far we’ve already seen one damaged woman, one about to fall prey to her romantic desires, one who lacks sexuality, and another who has been mind controlled. For a very long time Whedon was the only game in town for seeing a continuous flow of strong women in power. Now there are other options, and most of them are women writing and creating roles for other women. It has been proven that there is a market for the characters that Whedon has often said that he wants to create. I see glimpses of these women in the characters that he does portray. Now that he has reached the level that he has in his career, hopefully he will show us these women that he wishes he could have created, shown and brought to fruition as he often laments. I can’t wait to see them.

Shay Revolver is a vegan, feminist, cinephile, insomniac , recovering NYU student and former roller derby player currently working as a NY-based microcinema filmmaker, web series creator and writer. She’s obsessed with most books , especially the Pop Culture and Philosophy series and loves movies and TV shows from low brow to high class. As long as the image is moving she’s all in and believes that everything is worth a watch. She still believes that movies make the best bedtime stories because books are a daytime activity to rev up your engine and once you flip that first page, you have to keep going until you finish it and that is beautiful in its own right. She enjoys talking about the feminist perspective in comic book and gaming culture and the lack of gender equality in main stream cinema and television productions.. Twitter @socialslumber13

“If the Apocalypse Comes, Beep Me.” Joss Whedon Writes Badass Women

This guest post by Artemis Linhart appears as part of our theme week on Male Feminists and Allies.

Feminism comes naturally to Joss Whedon. Despite his recent rant about the word “feminist” being this day and age’s Big Bad, his shows are precisely that: feminist.

Adelle, Willow, Zoë, Natasha–you name her, Joss Whedon offers a multitude of heroines with a wide range of diverse identities. A topic as extensive as this, regarding a person with as much output as Joss Whedon’s, would serve to fill entire volumes. Accordingly, this article addresses only a few specific aspects regarding the roles of women in Whedon’s oeuvre.

It is Darla who, in the very first scene of Buffy, sets the tone for things to come when she subverts the “Damsel in Distress” routine. What is more, female-fronted bands (as for example the great Cibo Matto themselves) playing the “Bronze” is an entirely normal thing. It is subtleties like these through which Whedon continuously subverts common tropes of fiction and pushes the boundaries of our viewing habits.

What is striking in most of his work is that women are not defined by their womanhood. They are simply characters who happen to be female–much like real life.

The cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer — The cast of *Buffy the Vampire Slayer*

This holds true especially for the female villains of his shows. They tend not to suffer from what Anita Sarkeesian of “Feminist Frequency” fame calls “personality female syndrome,” wherein female characters are “reduced to a one-dimensional personality type consisting of nothing more than a collection of shallow stereotypes about women.” In general, their underlying motives are not characterized by psychological or emotional factors concerning “woman issues” or driven by some form of “hysteria,” as is the case in a lot of fiction centering around female villains. While they do tend to use their sexuality as a means of power or manipulation, they are, however, often indistinguishable from the classic, male “bad guy,” were it not for their, often “typically female” exterior.

Bold and Beautiful

Indeed, strong women are altogether normal in Whedon’s work. This suggests that they can be forceful, resolute and–quite simply–badass, without having to look “butch” or display characteristics commonly associated with men. By way of example, Buffy can be described as a stereotypical “Barbie” on the outside, yet that does not make her weak or squeamish. On more than one occasion she is seen fighting demons while wearing a mini skirt or even a prom dress.

Correspondingly, female strength is not something to be fundamentally feared by Whedon’s male characters. On the contrary, it is a desirable quality. It is Firefly’s Wash who puts this so eloquently, as he claims to be “madly in love with a beautiful woman who can kill [him] with her pinkie.”

However, Whedon makes it quite clear that not everyone has to be a hero(ine)–especially not all the time. This is what makes his characters multi-dimensional and complex. There have been many discussions amongst fans concerning Buffy’s “shortcomings” and whether she is truly a strong character. This lively, ongoing discussion just goes to show society’s overly critical attitude towards women in film and TV. Buffy should not have to be denied her strength whenever she shows weakness. After all, human beings (and even superhuman beings like The Slayer) have feelings, are vulnerable and even weak at times.

The cast of Firefly — The cast of *Firefly*

It is treated quite nonchalantly that Firefly‘s Kaylee is an excellent mechanic who also happens to enjoy wearing a pink, frilly dress. And why wouldn’t she? What Whedon portrays are multi-faceted, realistic characters.

In Buffy‘s musical episode “Once More With Feeling,” Buffy sings, “Don’t give me songs, give me something to sing about!”

And indeed, with Whedon, female characters get not only songs, with prefabricated attributes and story arcs, to work with. They get a chance to flourish into something that is their very own selves. They get real substance, real problems, personalities, flaws–lives.

This is mirrored in Buffy‘s series finale, “Chosen,” where it becomes clear that–together with both the “Scoobies” and the “Potentials,” they have created a sheer army of Slayers. Buffy is no longer The Chosen One. It doesn’t take a Slayer to fight evil. Not only does this emphasize that all women can be powerful but, more importantly, it defies the tradition constructed and determined by the Shadow Men. Buffy creates an opportunity for the “Potentials” to unfold and evolve into greater beings–with greater stories.

While all of this should be common practice in today’s fiction, the truth is that it very much isn’t. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that, as a male TV writer, Whedon is praised by feminists despite there undoubtedly being room for improvement.

The cast of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog — The cast of *Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog*

In spite of all of the female-positive representation in his work, certain aspects remain controversial. There is, for example, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, which has two male protagonists fighting over the affection of their desired female. Penny, seeming innocent and pure, is clearly idealized and functions more like an instrument to the story of Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer. It wouldn’t be Whedon, however, if he didn’t subvert this cliché framework using nuanced details of clever subtlety.

While the Watcher–considered by some to be the personification of the Male Gaze–in itself is an integral part of the concoction of male authority that is the tradition of the Slayer, and while it is repeatedly undermined by Buffy’s stubborn and autonomous spirit, it remains Whedon who created him. Whedon may place the responsibility on those evil, ancient patriarchs called the Shadow Men, and call it a metaphor for real life patriarchy, yet he allows for a solution only in the very finale of the TV series.

Furthermore, there is a considerate amount of mansplaining in the Whedonverse. Besides Whedon himself, who took the liberty of explaining the word “feminist” to the world, there are such delightful characters, for instance bookwormish Giles or cocky whiz kid Topher–the latter of whom so smugly refers to himself at one point, saying “I don’t want to use the word genius, but I’d be okay if you wanted to.”

Nonetheless, Whedon does offer female counterparts to the likes of them. Bennet Halverson appears as somewhat of a female version of Topher and, unlike Amy Acker’s character, she proves not to be an “Active” imprinted to replace a male scientist.

Jenny Calendar and Willow Rosenberg, on the other hand, function in a very meta way as a modern extension to the intellectual bibliophile Giles. The antiquated order of the man explaining things can’t keep up with the modern world, just as Giles hands over control when it comes to computer-related things.

Innocence

Buffy is certainly no “Final Girl.” While Whedon does play with this trope in Cabin in the Woods, virginal purity is no requirement for the Slayer to survive. What is more, instead of escaping death, Buffy seeks our danger and demons with an aggressive, empowered stance.

Similarly, the sex worker Inara is portrayed in a way that acknowledges her self-determination and poise. Unlike the “metaphorical whores” in Dollhouse, she can take charge of her own work life.

Generally, Whedon’s work resonates with a limited amount of “othering.” This is especially notable in Inaras character, pertaining to her line of work. Whedon incorporates one of the most marginalized professions in an ostensibly non-pejorative manner. While the character of Inara is pro-sex per se, form and content do at times cast her in a “gazed upon” role.

The male fantasy is further exploited, as she is seen in a sex scene with a female client. Though the visual representation of same-sex intercourse merits acclaim, in this case it implies the concept of the girl-on-girl porn fantasy, as Inara is hardly shown this explicitly in her interactions with male clients.

It seems that, not least by making the role of Willow a pioneer of lesbian representation on TV, Whedon has become so idolized that he is now held to much higher standards of feminist sensibility than other TV writers. At the same time, he can get away with a great deal when it comes to questionable representations of gender, sexuality, and relationships. Therefore it is refreshing to see that Whedon’s recent rant has sparked an active discourse among fans. This demonstrates that, while broadly adored, Whedon’s feminism does not remain unchallenged.

Here’s hoping that this will lead to many more positive representations in his cinematic and TV work, including issues inclusive of sexuality as a broad spectrum, as well as non-cis individuals.

See also at Bitch Flicks: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Theme Week Roundup

Artemis Linhart is a freelance writer and film curator with a weakness for escapism.

Is Marvel’s ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D’ Promising?

Two out of the three female characters are women of color: Melinda May played by Ming-Na Wen and Skye played by Chloe Bennet. They’re both of Asian descent, which leaves me wishing there were also prominent Black and Latino characters, but maybe more will be introduced over time. I’ve got to say that the Asian hacker and the Asian martial arts expert are pretty stereotyped roles, but I’m living on faith in Joss that he’ll flesh those characters out in a way that takes them beyond their trite origins into fully rounded characters to whom we’re heartbreakingly attached.

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D Poster

Written by Amanda Rodriguez

Wow, the title of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D is a mouthful. It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. That said, I’m a huge fan of Joss Whedon. I should clarify, though. I loved Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, Serenity, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Cabin in the Woods. I did not love Dollhouse OR The Avengers. My critique of Dollhouse was that it really underplayed the slavery and prostitution implications of the “dolls” who must do whatever they are commanded to do, never truly acknowledging that the Dollhouse was, in reality, a very high-priced brothel of sorts. As far as The Avengers go, frankly, I was just disappointed. It was better than, say, Thor, but that’s setting the bar a whole lot lower than I tend to expect from the smart, feminist, socially conscious Whedon. However, I’m always game and will always watch with an open mind a TV show with Whedon at the helm.

We’ve now got two episodes of the new Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D under our belts, so we have a bit of a base to gauge whether or not this show will be everything old-school Joss Whedon fans are looking for or if it’ll be superhero comic book fans’ hearts’ desires, or both (as the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive). As far as gender and diversity go, we’ve got three women and three men on the team (that’s right, Coulson is back), so there’s more of a balance than Whedon struck on his first go around in The Avengers with its lone female superhero, Black Widow.

His resurrection bears untold secrets that will doubtless unfold over time.

Melinda May is a veteran operative with a past to be reckoned with. Her asskickery is fluid and natural.

Melinda May getting it done.

Skye is a brilliant and gifted hacker who values information, truth, and humanity above all else. She’s also quick-witted and sharp-tongued.


Coulson and Agent Ward discover Skye broadcasting from her seemingly secret mobile base…the van out of which she lives.

Episode one was a little lackluster. With too much going on, too many characters being introduced, too many techno gadgets, too much CGI, and too many awkwardly placed Joss Whedon signature jokes, I was left feeling the show was trying too hard, and I was longing for the character depth and subject matter substance that Joss tends towards. The episode’s final speech is delivered by Gunn, I mean J. August Richards playing, Mike, the artificially enhanced unemployed ex-factory worker, and it refocused the show into what is important:

“You said if we worked hard, if we did right, we’d have a place. You said it was enough to be a man, but there’s better than man—there’s gods. And the rest of us? What are we? They’re giants. We’re what they step on.”


Mike performing a rescue using superpowers borrowed from alien technology that will most likely kill him.

This isn’t just a speech about superpowers. This is a speech about our society, about the lie of the American dream. It’s saying that it’s no longer enough to work hard and be a good person. It’s a critique of the disparity of wealth and power, of our healthcare system, and our employment system (as Mike was fired for a workman’s comp back injury, which led him to undergo such drastic experimentation). This is a speech about the 99%. Having a Black man deliver it makes it all the more potent, referencing the deeply embedded racism in our country that insists upon assimilation but offers little reward or acceptance. Bravo, Joss.

Pilot episodes are notorious for trying to cram too much into an hour, and the trajectory of shows often change after that pilot, once they get their bearings. So how did Episode two, “0-8-4”, fare? It’s still a bit too flashy and gimmicky with too many explosions and frenetic fight sequences, but I enjoyed the use of the fancy-pants, newly commissioned S.H.I.E.L.D plane that seems as if it may serve as home base for the group…not unlike a certain ship helmed by the indomitable Malcolm Reynolds.

S.H.I.E.L.D’s apolitical mission with its interest in artifacts amongst a guerrilla war-torn Peru create a nice tension between its objectives and Skye’s very political, underdog/rebel sympathizing tendencies. I hope she will continue to put these missions in perspective, not allowing the group to forget the geopolitical ramifications of their actions as well as the history and context of the places in which they practice resource extraction.


Coulson and his former colleague/lover Camilla Reyes make a deadly team fighting off rebels in Peru.

Episode “0-8-4” is really about one thing, though: teamwork, a specialty of Joss Whedon’s. Kelly West of Television Blend even dubbed the episode “Smells Like Team Spirit”. Right you are, Ms. West. I easily grow bored of overwrought gun fights with CGI that just won’t quit. Don’t get me wrong, I love the action genre with kickass fight choreography and heart-pounding do-or-die situations where characters must make impossible choices, but it’s got to have a soul. The team-building aspect of this episode, while a bit cheesy, gave the characters time to bond and to reveal snip-its about themselves, which had a generally humanizing effect and gave the audience an opportunity to warm to them.

Am I sold on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D? Not yet. Do I think it has promise? Quite possibly. Will I keep watching? You bet your keister.

Bitch Flicks writer and editor Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. She writes all about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Week: Equality Now: Joss Whedon’s Acceptance Speech

This post previously appeared at Bitch Flicks on December 12, 2010.

In 2007, the Warner Brothers production president, Jeff Robinov, announced that Warner Brothers would no longer make films with female leads.

A year before that announcement, Joss Whedon, the creator of such women-centric television shows as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, and Dollhouse, accepted an award from Equality Now at the event, “On the Road to Equality: Honoring Men on the Front Lines.”

Watch as he answers the question, “Why do you always write such strong women characters?”

Equality Now: Joss Whedon’s Acceptance Speech

In 2007, the Warner Brothers production president, Jeff Robinov, announced that Warner Brothers would no longer make films with female leads.

Watch as he answers the question, “Why do you always write such strong women characters?”

Releasing on DVD, Tuesday 7/28/09

Dollhouse, Season 1

Starring Eliza Dushku, Olivia Williams, Fran Kranz, Harry Lennix, Tahmoh Penikett, Enver Gjokah and Dichen Lachman. Created by Joss Whedon.

Much controversy occurred with the airing of Joss Whedon’s latest show, Dollhouse. Definitely take a look at Sady’s full analysis of the feminist elements of the show over at Tigerbeatdown. Here’s an excerpt containing the basic plot summary:

“Dollhouse is, pretty much specifically and entirely, a show about consent. It’s built around an organization—the titular Dollhouse—which erases volunteers’ personalities and memories and renders them childlike and passive, in order to implant them with new, built-to-order personalities custom made for wealthy clients who wish to order the ‘perfect’ person for a specific job. The purpose for which these mind-wiped folks (called ‘dolls,’ and I do not think that we are for a second supposed to miss how creepy that term is) are rented out is, primarily, sex. Also, they have no knowledge of or ability to consent to the ‘engagements’ for which they are rented out. Also, they seem, in large part, to not really be volunteers at all—most of the ones we know about, including the central character, Echo, have become dolls in order to get out of jail time or worse, and one woman in particular was literally sold into the organization. Also, several Dolls have been used for sex by Dollhouse employees, sometimes with the illusion of consent in place and sometimes not.”

Trailer

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Battlestar Galactica, The Complete Series

Starring Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, Jamie Bamber, James Callis, Tricia Helfer, Grace Park, and Katee Sackhoff.

The release of the Battlestar box-set might just be the ass-kicking I need to finally watch this show. Everyone I know who’s seen it claims it’s the best sci-fi show to ever exist, and many people love it specifically for its feminist elements. However, Juliet Lapidos wrote an article for Slate called, “Chauvinist Pigs in Space: Why Battlestar Galactica is not so frakking feminist afterall,” which challenges the show’s supposed feminism. But before all you feminist Battlestar fanatics freak out, definitely read Annalee Newitz’s rebuttal to the Lapidos article, “The Men Who Make Battlestar Galactica Feminist.” Be aware of spoilers.

You can watch a fan-made trailer here.