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Joss Whedon's Dollhouse
Confounding Purpose, Confusing Identity
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Publisher:
2014
Summary
Although it lasted barely more than a season, Dollhouse continues to intrigue viewers as one of Joss Whedon’s most provocative forays into television. The program centered on men and women who have their memories and personalities repeatedly wiped and replaced with new ones by a shadowy corporation dedicated to “fulfilling the whims of the rich.” This chilling scenario was used to tell stories about big issues—power and resistance, freedom and servitude, class and gender—while always returning to its central themes of identity and individuality.
In Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse: Confounding Purpose, Confusing Identity, Sherry Ginn, Alyson R. Buckman, and Heather M. Porter bring together fourteen diverse essays that showcase the series’ complex vision of the future. Contributors probe deeply into the fictional universe of the show by considering the motives of the wealthy clients and asking what love means when personalities are continually remade. Other essays consider the show’s relations to politics, philosophy, and psychology and its representations of race and gender. Several essays explore the show’s complex relationship to transhumanism: considering the dark potential for dehumanization and abuse that lurks beneath the promise of turning bodies into temporary vessels for immortal, downloadable personalities.
Though a short-lived series, Dollhouse has been hailed as one of television’s most thoughtful explorations of classic science fiction themes. As the first serious treatment of this landmark show, this collection will interest science-fiction scholars and Whedon fans alike.
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Bibliographic data
Copyright year
2014
ISBN-Print
978-1-4422-3312-6
ISBN-Online
978-1-4422-3313-3
Publisher
Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language
English
Pages
225
Product type
Edited Book
Table of contents
ChapterPages
Contents No access
Acknowledgments No access
Fantasy Is His Business, but It Is Not His Purpose No access
1 “I’ve Watched You Build Yourself from Scratch” No access
2 “We Are Not Just Human Anymore” No access
3 Anamnesis, Hypomnesis, and the Failure of the Posthuman in Whedon’s Dollhouse No access
4 “What about the Laws?” No access
5 Somebody’s Asian on TV No access
6 “In My House and Therefore in My Care” No access
7 “I Possess the Means to Satisfy My Vagaries” No access
8 “Who Did They Make Me This Time?” No access
9 “I Love Him . . . Is That Real?” No access
10 The Theatre of the Self No access
11 “We’re Lost. We Are Not Gone” No access
12 Welcome to the Dollhouse No access
13 Ritual, Rebirth, and the Rising Tide No access
Dollhouse Episode List No access Pages 211 - 212
Index No access Pages 213 - 220
About the Contributors No access Pages 221 - 225
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