Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

Written by Amanda Rodriguez.

As a dedicated fan of much of writer/director Joss Whedon‘s work (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Cabin in the Woods, and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog to name a few), I looked forward to watching Whedon’s latest film: Vimeo’s video on demand indie flick In Your Eyes. The film is a supernatural love story, featuring a man (Dylan) and woman (Becky) who live on opposite sides of the country and discover they’ve been psychically linked since adolescence when Becky had a sledding accident.

Sledding — Young Becky steels herself to face a fearful, snowy descent on her sled

In Your Eyes is beautifully shot with rich colors that starkly contrast Dylan’s arid New Mexico home with Becky’s snowy New Hampshire location. Not only that, but I enjoyed the hip, indie soundtrack, featuring songs from Iron & Wine, Santigold, and The Lumineers (among others). The concept of having a couple telepathically fall in love when separated by great distances poses unique challenges to filming, and those were all handled surprisingly well: mainly the conceit of the characters seeming to carry on conversations with and by themselves while evincing chemistry and a growing affection. This is the equivalent of green screen acting where the performers can’t feed the scene with one another’s delivery or energy. Unlike, say, the new Star Wars trilogy where all the acting was wooden (in part) because of the green screen challenge, In Your Eyes managed to convey a warmth and liveliness to Becky and Dylan’s interactions that are missing from the flatness of their real-life encounters with others in their day-to-day lives.

Through Dylan's eyes, Becky watches a breathtaking New Mexico sunset. — Through Dylan’s eyes, Becky watches a breathtaking New Mexico sunset.

Interestingly, the vibrancy of Becky and Dylan’s love brings these two oft misunderstood loners together but further isolates them from the outside world. Though both characters evolve as a result of this new intimacy, we find them even further withdrawing from the potential for interdependency in aspects of their “real” lives like work, marriage, and social interactions. Neither of them are happy with their lives, but using a secret, long-distance romance and fantasies of escape as lifelines are not particularly healthy or sustainable solutions. As a writer, I also find this to be lazy storytelling. So many scenes are of our lead characters alone in rooms talking to themselves. Not only that, but the more interesting story is what life looks like once Becky and Dylan don’t have the obstacles of distance and unhappy lives between them. Do they integrate better into the world as a unit? Do they continue to feel compelled to speak to each other telepathically all day, every day if they see each other daily? Is this connection all it really takes to heal each other them? We’ll never know.

Dylan sabotages a date as he telepathically communicates with Becky — Dylan sabotages a date because he’s busy telepathically communicating with Becky

Speaking of lazy storytelling, the psychic premise of In Your Eyes is never fully explored. Why are these two linked? Does this make them soulmates? Do they have other yet undiscovered abilities? Are there others like them in the world? Even the boundaries of their telepathic link are haphazardly explained. For example, we learn that they can hear, smell, and feel things in each other’s environments (as evinced in an awkward mutual masturbation session), but can they physically control things in each other’s environments, too? Does distance matter, i.e. does their communication get stronger when they’re closer and fainter when they’re further apart? Not only that, but Dylan and Becky are simply not that curious for answers. If I discovered a psychic link between myself and a stranger across the country, you can bet your ass I’d be obsessed with understanding the why and how of it.

Becky's piss-poor friend thinks her isolation is due to an affair — Becky’s piss-poor friend thinks her isolation is due to an affair

My final and greatest critique of In Your Eyes is how damned trite the story is at its core. When you take away the gimmick of the unexplained and unexplored psychic connection, we have a pretty tame hetero, long-distance love story about two white people who conform to traditional gender roles. Dylan actually hops a plane and ends up in a standard car chase with the cops because he’s white knight’ing it up, on a mission to rescue Becky, the imprisoned/institutionalized damsel in distress. Frankly, that’s boring and uninspired. Simply reversing the gender roles, making Becky the ex-con and Dylan the kept trophy spouse, would have made this story more compelling. I’ve come to expect a lot more from Joss Whedon. At the very least, I expect him to have a more racially diverse cast, amazing dialogue that delights, plotlines that subvert expectations, and, most importantly, empowered female characters.

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.

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.

The cast of Dollhouse — The cast of *Dollhouse*

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.

Tag: Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

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