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Elizabeth Kate Switaj
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Elizabeth Kate Switaj
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Read my latest story, "The All-Nighter", at 52|250.
Sleeping Beauty, Briar Rose, is an obvious analogy for the situation of the dollhouse‘s inmates, but this episode made good use of it. Little Susan’s efforts to edit the fairytale so that Sleeping Beauty saves herself represent not only the way victims may blame themselves for not escaping but also the desires of the audience: we want Caroline to wake up and kick ass. (The uncomfortable corollary to this is that we may be said to blame her character, just as much as the writers who created her, if she does not. What we may be getting here is a heroine closer to Anne Sexton‘s Briar Rose than to Buffy.) At the same time, little Susan’s suggestion that the Prince has simply come at the end of the curse to take the credit and Susan-Echo’s statement that Sleeping Beauty made the Prince and made him fight for her alert the audience that saviors may not be as virtuous or independent in action as the traditional tale would have us believe. All along, Paul Ballard has been guided by messages sent through Mellie and Echo; once Caroline was able to tell him that she was underground. In the last episode, we saw him as a rapist; in this one, Agent Loomis has to remind him that the actives are victims, not dolls. He has, without even entering it, taken on the attitudes and language promulgated by the dollhouse. This is not because of his personal weakness per se but because of how the organization behind the dollhouse manipulates pre-existing attitudes, particularly those of rape culture. Perhaps more significant is Ballard’s partnering with Alpha. He doesn’t know who he has sought help from: the point, however, is that it shows the parallels between them. Both are obsessed with Caroline. That Ballard’s obsession leads him to try to rescue her has more to do with his structural position than with something in his own character. That is to say, his having been an FBI agent gave him the concept of himself as a savior/enforcer of law/right, but we can see in his smile on opening her pod that his efforts have more to do with an interest in her personally than with principle (for otherwise he would be equally glad to save anyone). Boyd Langton is right on point in telling him he doesn’t get the girl (then again, so is Paul when he asks Boyd if he is her pimp; Boyd similarly believes he is acting in the best interest of Echo). Alpha, too, at least in the persona we see, believes he is acting according to the way things must be—a future of closed systems and human interchangeability.
Not one of the men who fight over/for Caroline-Echo asks her what she wants. In part, this is because it is impossible (for Ballard, at least) to reach the real Caroline. Alpha, however, implants her a persona who at least lusts for him (and who doesn’t seem to resemble the original Caroline). A desire to act similarly lurks behind Ballard’s efforts to rescue her. How this turns out remains to be seen. Briar Rose has set up the potential for a dramatic season finale. Ironically, it seems we may see Caroline kick ass after waking up in the chair—just not in a way that involves saving herself. ETA: BuddyTV has a petition going to save Dollhouse from cancellation. Related articles by Zemanta
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Posted on 15:55, May 5th, 2009 by 
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I think you raise an interesting question in terms of what kind of Caroline we want to see. The particular patriarchy of the Dollhouse makes it difficult, I think, to produce a Buffy– that girl would be viewed as another Alpha: an insane, dangerous liability.
But what we’re rooting for is for Caroline to wake up and return to… what exactly? A prison sentence for mysterious crimes committed?
One of the things I think Dollhouse is great at is making it clear that the dolls in this scenario have no real hope of fighting back. To be angry, to be violently angry is also a crime and a breach of (in this case literal) contract.
The happy ending of this story, like that of Sleeping Beauty leaves some actual happiness to be desired.
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Caroline’s crime, insofar as we know, was really one of trying to fight the system of which the Dollhouse is part – breaking into the lab where they were doing animal and (as she now knows) human testing.
What you said about her being viewed as another Alpha were she to become a Buffy-like heroine makes me wonder if Whedon has been reading Deleuze and Guattari’s Capitalism and Schizophrenia.
The others who could rebel, the employees, seem to have been programmed as effectively as the actives have to continue to work within the system: Topher by his love for developing technology, Dr. Saunders and most of the handlers by their need to feel that they are protecting people.
With ex-agent Ballard you have to wonder if anyone actually is outside the Dollhouse system too.
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