» Moral Issues in Dollhouse: So, Who Do We Brainwipe Today? Options

[Charlemagne19]

So, how evil is the Dollhouse? What is justifiable and what's not?

Theoretically, these people are volunteers and they are compensated for it. How evil is it really to engage in this sort of behavior and how much could/should they be allowed to get away with it.

Personally, there's some very bizarre moral conundrums that this technology raises.

[While A Coyote]

Except logic says the Dollhouse is lying to these people. So whatever consent they got at the beginning would probably be based on false promises.

While on one level it seems like the DollKeepers are very protective of the Dolls, on another they are clearly very ruthless.

Consider this.

A Doll would never know when (or if) their five years are up. The only people who might know (outside of the people who run the Dollhouse) are the run of the mill employees--who could be rotated out every few years. Or the Dolls themselves could be moved to other Houses, letting the employees of the one think they're being let go. Or the Dolls could be "disappeared" into a nice quiet grave.

But lets assume more than greed, the ability to keep their assets indefinitely without any kind of payout, is motivating the DollKeepers. Even still, letting the Dolls go seems incredibly unlikely. How would you explain the five year absences? The answer is, you couldn't, and that's a danger any organization of this power wouldn't see as acceptable. Ergo, they are almost certainly lying about the Endgame for these people.

[Charlemagne19]

Maybe.

OTOH, we're also dealing with an organization that can manipulate memories. It's possible that they're left with no memory of the Dollhouse "deal" and only a bank account with the money or so on. They could also have fake memories too.

But yes, there's no reason why the Dollhouse SHOULD pay these people and let them go.

[While A Coyote]

Maybe.

OTOH, we're also dealing with an organization that can manipulate memories. It's possible that they're left with no memory of the Dollhouse "deal" and only a bank account with the money or so on. They could also have fake memories too.

But yes, there's no reason why the Dollhouse SHOULD pay these people and let them go.

Plopping someone down with a memory of, lets say, having lived in Africa for the past five years, isn't a perfect solution. And it would be even worse if they tried to give them memories including people from that fake five years who they might want to check back with.

But it's not THEIR memories or lack thereof of the five years that's the primary danger. It's the rest of the world's.

No man or woman is an island. Even if we accept some premise that only orphans are used (and that's a stretch), there are still friends, former neighbors, public records, the possibility that some criminal investigation might look into their pasts, etc. There are just too many ways for it to go wrong, and all it takes is one time and the wrong person checking into things. Because no matter what your moral decision on the Dollhouse is, there's zero doubt that it's massively illegal, and so won't want to risk anything they don't have to.

[Charlemagne19]

True,

I suppose "Coma Victim" is about the only thing you could do and that might get noticeable after awhile.

[Homo_Sapien]

I surprised that most reviewers have chosen to ignore the fact that 'Dollhouse' is pretty much analogous to Whorehouse. The 'clients' pay for the 'dolls' to be whoever and do ~whatever~ they want -- money being the deciding factor.

In the book Neuromancer, there was a female character who made money by 'turning off her brain' and letting clients use her body with a different character 'memory chip' installed. She knew she was prostituting herself, but did not have to deal with the memories of the ick-factor. Her clients were not always interested in perverse sexual 'engagements' -- but yeah, they mostly were...

"A house full of hot chicks" who are basically programmable meat puppets? I'm not seeing how Echo can the hero in this scenario. And a very strange premise by Joss (girl-power) Whedon...

This post has been edited by Homo_Sapien: Feb 14, 2009 @ 11:14 am.

[Charlemagne19]

"A house full of hot chicks" who are basically programmable meat puppets? I'm not seeing how Echo can the hero in this scenario. And a very strange premise for Joss (girl-power) Whedon...

I think that it's interesting to note Variety was the one who questioned why Joss Whedon had the Pretender-like premise when they stated that this seems pretty much tailored to being something that would work best as a sex industry.

And, true to form, the first assignment is "A rich man gets his dream girl."

[stillshimpy]

In thinking it over the part that truly bothers me is that Echo and the others are nearly blank in between downloads. In some ways that suggests that their true personalities have been put into cold storage for the entire time they are Dolls. I could live with the original premise that people signed up for this willingly, without being coerced, that it was done as a willing choice for financial gain. I didn't realize the premise had been altered so that people in desperate circumstances would choose this as some sort of alternative to punishment. That makes the Dollhouse itself the stand-in for the punishment, it makes their time there the punishment.

I was a lot more at peace with this concept when it was something willingly undertaken for financial gain at the end of a time period. I guess that the reaction was that people couldn't understand why anyone would do that, but it has had the result of coating the entire endeavor in a lot of slime.

A desperate young woman who seemingly committed some crime in the process of trying to make the world a better place, signs off on a contract while visibly harried and distressed just makes the entire thing currently too sinister for me.

[Fat Elvis 007]

"A house full of hot chicks" who are basically programmable meat puppets? I'm not seeing how Echo can the hero in this scenario. And a very strange premise by Joss (girl-power) Whedon...

What is stopping Echo from being the hero? She is not the one making the rules of the Dollhouse, she is just a victim of it right now. She may have signed up for it, but I have no doubt it isn't quite what she bargained for. I think it's clear that throughout the show she is going to grow more aware of what is wrong with this situation and probably rebel against it. I hope they take this slow, though, because once she is actively fighting the Dollhouse I don't see how the premise can survive. But seeing her break out of this repressive system and maybe taking some revenge and saving others from it seems very heroic and feminists to me.

[Silvers]

I'm reposting my reply from the episode thread about the mind-wipe factor since it seemed to go along more with the conversation here:

It is not Echo consenting to any particular act, but consenting to the concept of a particular act long before the act takes place. Echo has no power to revoke consent, to deem any situation unacceptable, to practice an active choice.

This. The only parallel with prostitution I can see is if prostitutes were given a date-rape drug every time they saw a john and had no memory of the event. I know women (and men) can be forced and trapped into prostitution, but the mind-wiping goes beyond that. I refer again to similarities with La Femme Nikita, where the operatives were coerced into joining Section One because of previous crimes. In that show, they might have only obeyed orders because of a fear of being killed, but at least they were cognizant of their actions.

I think Echo/Caroline was desperate to get out her trouble and didn't see any other alternative. People don't think rationally when they're scared. I have no problem believing she didn't know what she was getting herself into doing.

Also I agree with stillshimpy that the fact the actives are basically zombies in between is disturbing. Even looking at the issue pragmatically, isn't it a lot of trouble for the Dollhouse employees to constantly make up excuses why people don't remember anything. It doesn't seem to make any sense.

[Aunty Mib]

Part of the fairytale set up that bothers me is that it seems as if the Tahmoh Pennicut character is going to be the White Knight coming to her rescue. I had hoped that he would be one of the other dolls.

[While A Coyote]

In thinking it over the part that truly bothers me is that Echo and the others are nearly blank in between downloads. In some ways that suggests that their true personalities have been put into cold storage for the entire time they are Dolls. I could live with the original premise that people signed up for this willingly, without being coerced, that it was done as a willing choice for financial gain. I didn't realize the premise had been altered so that people in desperate circumstances would choose this as some sort of alternative to punishment. That makes the Dollhouse itself the stand-in for the punishment, it makes their time there the punishment.

I was a lot more at peace with this concept when it was something willingly undertaken for financial gain at the end of a time period. I guess that the reaction was that people couldn't understand why anyone would do that, but it has had the result of coating the entire endeavor in a lot of slime.

A desperate young woman who seemingly committed some crime in the process of trying to make the world a better place, signs off on a contract while visibly harried and distressed just makes the entire thing currently too sinister for me.

But we SAW Caroline voluntarily sign up. Coerced by circumstances, no doubt horribly lied to about what would happen afterwords (as discussed elsewhere I'm SURE the Dolls never actually get "out") but yes it was voluntary.

And I have to ask what you mean by "live with" when you discuss the concept. Do you mean "live with" in terms of accepting that someone would choose to write a story about it? Or do you mean "live with" as if you are also holding Joss Whedon responsible for disreputable things people do IN his stories?

I ask because the choice here obviously seems to be to show the Dollhouse owners and handlers as bad guys. So I don't think we are supposed to be able to "live with" it. We are supposed to be outraged. At the Dollhouse. Whether or not you carry that outrage over to Whedon for deciding to write about it is an entirely different issue.

[bluefish]

All this talk on rape and prostitution, well you're not going to like what Whedon said in Salon.

http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2009/02/11/joss_whedon/

I believe that prostitution is not, in concept, repulsive. I believe that people are gonna want to have sex for a long time. Eventually, I think that computers and TVs will become so awesome that they'll stop wanting to ...

Besides the fact I don't like that statement where it's okay for prostitutes/women to give up their body/health, their pride and their dignity for money as if that's an aspiration for women. I don't think he really explore the whys of a Doll/prostitution that would have been grey, that for some it's not just having "something else", it's "something" it's a level of basic intimacy (companionship) that some people turn to that they can't seem to find with people around them. And I don't think Echo signed up for supposedly five years of her life for her body to be used in that way. That's suppose to make a difference? And does this show actually explain what will happen if five years later, Echo accidentally meets up with clients who remember her but she has no idea who or what she did with them or that skeevy knowing looks that will have the empowering and dehumanizing edge over her. This is basically slavery and I don't find anything awesome about that. She's stripped of her humanity (walking around like a drunk zombie) and identity at their whims and isn't even allowed to react. How can anyone character develop from that? She'll be the constant victim that needs to be "helped." She'll need another five years of showers for that.


It's a weird that when Echo/Caroline faced a down period in her life her first decision is to sign over life to some unknown organization. What does that say about women?

I don't know how Echo is suppose to be the hero character or overcome this when every time she might get defiant or questioning they just blank her out and the only flashback memories are the ones in the Dollhouse, not even the memory of her own childhood.

This post has been edited by bluefish: Feb 14, 2009 @ 1:18 pm.

[EPThompson]

At this point, the Dollhouse looks like a pretty monstrously amoral organization. They have the power of identity, determing the beliefs, thoughts and actions of people. Given their paranoia and ruthlessness I heavily doubt they get out at the end, and there does not seem to have been full awareness of what they were getting into initially.

It's even worse than that, though. Everytime a girl goes on a mission they have a new personality, new memories, new sense of self. Regardless of whether those memories came from people that are dead and gone, and the body didn't have them naturally, at that point they are a certain type of person. And, at the end of each mission, they're mind-wiped without their knowledge or consent, and effectively killed. Every mission is then involves the murder of the person, to any real capacity.

The whole thing is like the 'Perky Pat' dolls and drugs from Philip K. Dick's The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, except far less consensual and much more disturbing.

Besides the fact I don't like that statement where it's okay for prostitutes/women to give up their body/health, their pride and their dignity for money as if that's an aspiration for women. I don't think he really explore the whys of a Doll/prostitution that would have been grey, that for some it's not just having "something else", it's "something" it's a level of basic intimacy (companionship) that some people turn to that they can't seem to find with people around them. And I don't think Echo signed up for supposedly five years of her life for her body to be used in that way. That's suppose to make a difference? And does this show actually explain what will happen if five years later, Echo accidentally meets up with clients who remember her but she has no idea who or what she did with them or that skeevy knowing looks that will have the empowering and dehumanizing edge over her. This is basically slavery and I don't find anything awesome about that.

Honestly, in an ideal situation where it's not coercive, prostitution would be money earned for time/energy/skills applied. Provided it's done with empowerment and relative choice, there's nothing inherently immoral about prostituing. It's part of the function of a competitive capitalist economy. Is it inherently worse to provide sex for money than to work eleven hour shifts in dangerous, unsanitary factory conditions for minimal pay? Is it worse than being squeezed by limited employment fields into the National Guard and being shipped overseas to risk killing/dying?

Of course in most real-world scenarios there are a huge line of abuses, from physical battering, coercion, rape, socio-economic pressure, fear, disease, death. A lot of that comes from the field being beyond the law in most countries, hence activities that occur will be regulated by criminal forces rather than legal ones. There are major problems in this field and in the overwhelming set of circumstances prostitution is degrading, dissempowering, coercive and destructive. But inherently? No.

I'll also note that in his commentary Whedon wasn't saying that the high-tech slavery was awesome, he was applying it to independent technological processes that would make sex obsolete. The tone of the interview is to characterize the Dollhouse as a very sketchy, Wolfram and Hart esque, murky, illegal venture; I don't think the moral questions are lost in this show.

[Fabrisse]

At this point, the Dollhouse looks like a pretty monstrously amoral organization. They have the power of identity, determing the beliefs, thoughts and actions of people.

I'm going to take issue with your wording. EPThompson. Amoral means neither moral nor immoral. I think the Dollhouse is immoral. It is actively removing free will from the dolls, and we still have no idea how it gets the personalities it uses as basis for its imprints. The technology is amoral because it's human users who make the choices, but the organization itself is firmly immoral and, I think, counterproductive socially.

On the social side, this is definitely a case of the rich sticking it to the poor or at least the "poorer than they are." It's highly unlikely that a rich kid, even one in trouble with the law, would choose or even be approached about Doll status.

But I may have to kiss you for this:

And, at the end of each mission, they're mind-wiped without their knowledge or consent, and effectively killed. Every mission is then involves the murder of the person, to any real capacity.

because I hadn't grasped that implication yet. Since they've established that the imprints are amalgamations of other personalities, the person being erased with each wipe is a unique entity which makes it murder indeed.