Many things have been running through my head in the past week or so that I haven’t been able to articulate in my brain. I’m warning in advance for what feels like a haphazard 900+ word entry. Also, I’ve added links to the sidebar of blogs and sites I read if you want to venture out into the unknown. In this post: Dr. Horrible (spoilers for all three acts).
I am a Joss Whedon fan. I respect his ability to tell a story and turn tropes on their heads. His latest Whedon & Co. (not a real name) venture, Dr. Horrible’s Singalong Blog, was a spectacular three days of free, professionally-produced content for the Internet. It was the coming-of-age story about a B-rate villain who sings and vlogs about his progress into villainy treacherous evildoings and trying to keep his gut safe from Captain Hammer. I enjoyed 95% of Dr. Horrible. It was deliciously ridiculous and hilarious, and overall, I loved seeing the villain’s origin story told with a twist. In a way, Dr. Horrible reminded me of Masque De Masque from the Nintendo game, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.
The remaining 5% is significant for Penny. I won’t even talk about how yet another production has an all-white main cast, because, well, I’m tired. Penny, Penny, Penny. Oh, Penny. For the most part, I agree with what has been said at Capitalism Bad; Tree Pretty, a blog I’ve started following a few days ago. I loved Penny. I thought she was interesting and I wished she had more screen time. I’ve read in some reviews (generally speaking, not a specific one) that people were expecting Penny to become an ass-kicker. Instead she was killed, like nearly every other sweet girl on television. Now, initially I thought that this was absolute bull and I expected her to be developed more, considering it was a Whedon production. Then I thought, since it’s a show from the standpoint of Billy Horrible, a dude with Nice GuyTM syndrome, it’s no wonder she was sidelined.
He doesn’t actually care about her. It’s about him getting what he wants, with no regard for Penny’s agency, which she does have. Just as with Captain Hammer objectifying Penny, Dr. Horrible thought her a pretty face. It doesn’t matter how much she turns him to goo, she still didn’t mean anything substantial to him. Sure, she had a life outside of her laundry – she was a dedicated anti-poverty/homelessness activist. When she asked Billy for his signature, he made it about himself and how he thought the world should be fixed. She was doing something, but he brushed it off because it got in the way of what he wanted and how he saw the world. In fact, the end montage plants Penny’s face on a newspaper with “WHAT’S-HER-FACE” across the front. Was it enough, though? And, even in this understanding, she’s left underdeveloped to further Dr. Horrible’s characterization as self-centered.
That 5% I was talking about – no, I didn’t like it. I didn’t like that it happened. I don’t know if I was supposed to like that Penny’s character development was pushed aside. We didn’t even get to see her grow throughout the acts because Horrible was too focused on himself and thwarting Hammer. It was never about Penny; it was a game of whose schlong was more powerful and/or evil. I don’t think the writers made this obvious enough that I’m suspicious of my own analysis. Even though it’s what I think, I also think I’m completely wrong at the same time. Maybe they really didn’t think her through and had unconsciously left her undeveloped and ignored. Perhaps it’s just not effective trope subverting because it isn’t obvious to the audience (and the audience is not stupid). Women on television, by and far, are ignored and left underdeveloped with no storyline for their own, and there is no excuse of supervillain point-of-view to explain it away.
It was when I read this post on The Hathor Legacy about Dr. Horrible that I started wondering if I’m completely wrong in my analysis. This one miniseries has been read in so many ways that I’m worried that I’m subconsciously trying to not criticize the man who brought me Zoe, Kaylee, River, and Inara on Firefly.
Joss (yes, we’re apparently on first name basis), is known for writing ’strong female characters’ and, apart from the fact that ’strong’ usually means ass-kicker and not well-characterized, this has always bothered me. There was a time in my life where I was absolutely sick of hearing Buffy and Joss Whedon and Firefly brought up into every conversation about women in television and feminism and television blah blah blah blah, but now I understand why I was annoyed. He’s the most immediate reference many fans have for developed women characters in science fiction/fantasy (and people tend to take him as infallible – it’s annoying), and it’s really quite sad. Can’t we think of anyone else who can write remotely rounded feminist-oriented characters on television, or do we just default to Joss?
There is more I wanted to say, particularly about industry (i.e. the desire to stick to a straight-white-able-male perspective makes it harder to diversify who the successful television writers/producers/directors are) but I think I’ve spent too much time thinking about Dr. Horrible. To be quite honest, I was planning to write about four things (and a lizard) today, but I rediscovered my love for my keyboard.
Links that aren’t entirely related but a good read:
Why film schools teach screenwriters not to pass the Bechdel test
Deadbrowalking, a journal discussing the media representation of people of colour, on LiveJournal
James Bond Should Really Ought To Be A Brown Pashto-Speaking Woman
Great post – I think what bothered me most about Penny was that she does fit into that total stereotype of the sweet girl and yet at the end of the day she turns into something completely different. The final act, in particular, has her boiled down to “Helps the Homeless, Doesn’t Eat Meat” by the groupies, hideously embarrassed by Captain Hammer during his big speech, murdered by the Horrible/Hammer altercation, then called “What’s-her-name” in the local papers.
I didn’t necessarily need her to be ass-kicking for her to come full circle as a character, but rather I needed her to do something at all. I found she was really great in Act II (I found her earnestness a bit off in the first part, to be honest), as there was a chance for her to break out from her naive shell (Created by the series’ central conflict between Horrible/Hammer happening under her nose without her knwoledge) and at least become an active agent in the action. Instead, unlike past Whedon heroines (as loathe as you may be to canonize them), she’s there simply to be an object of affection and a piece of the puzzle to be battled over.
What I wanted from Act III was not a tragic death, rendering her important to the plot without making her into much of anything, but some sign that she had that agency, that she wasn’t just being toyed around with. Speaking not so much from a feminist perspective (Of which I am but an occasional student and not a practitioner) but from a storyline one, I felt like there was room for growth that was never accomplished. While the small budget and the cobbled up nature of the event’s creation likely dictated some of its lack of scale, Whedon still created a universe where I felt this character could have done much better things; part of me wants the inevitable “sequel” of sorts to retcon a new narrative that reveals Penny’s side of this story in a whole new light, but something tells me it won’t happen that way.
Anyways, great observations!
For what it’s worth, I agree completely with the “she wasn’t characterized deeply because her character fundamentally doesn’t matter to the story being told” viewpoint.
That said, I do find that I disagreed with the ending of the story. I don’t really care that Penny died, but I don’t like that it was purely accidental. It would have been far more powerful if, say, Dr. Horrible had actually killed Captain Hammer, and then Penny had rejected him.
Joss is far too addicted to killing the innocents, even when it’s not the optimal move for the story being told.
Hi, I arrived via Hathor Legacy!
“Women on television, by and far, are ignored and left underdeveloped with no storyline for their own, and there is no excuse of supervillain point-of-view to explain it away.”
This needs to be engraved on plaques and used to beat every writer who writes parody/satire over the head…er…I mean, given to every writer who writes parody/satire so they can hang it on the wall facing where they do their writing, so they will always see it when putting pen to paper.
David,
I like that idea. Even better, Captain Hammer’s death could inspire Penny to herself become a superhero and archnemesis to Dr. Horrible with, of course, her helping the homeless on the side. Mind you, I do think it’s more important for female characters to be dynamic/interesting/3D than neccessarily be ass-kickers, but I think it would be fitting in this instance.
Thx for nice article.
Thanks for your comments, everyone! I’m always surprised when people actually read what I say.
Myles: I agree that, as a character, she didn’t grow much throughout the miniseries. In fact, she seemed to be whittled down, as you said, to “Helps the Homeless, Doesn’t Eat Meat” to the point where even the audience cares about her as much as Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer. Joss responded briefly to the criticisms around Penny, and it seems the writers slapped on a cause for her so that she wouldn’t be just a pretty face. At the end, I was waiting for her to do something. Anything. She didn’t have to beat anyone up.
David: I like that ending much better. In my head, I’m pretending she rejected both of them. I think if she had done anything at all in Act III, it would have made it more obvious that her characterization throughout the acts was meant to parallel Hammer and Horrible’s own viewpoint of her.
S. A. Bonasi: If only we could actually remind every satire/parody writer before they start writing instead of having to analyze and reanalyze after everything is said and done! I definitely agree with you that women characters need to be more dynamic rather than being ass-kickers across the board. We tend to forget that ’strong women characters’ actually means what you’ve said!
I agree that the story in many ways revolves around Penny as an object rather than a person. However, I think it could have saved the film if Whedon had been explicit in that objectification. If Penny was portrayed as really “just a pretty face”, I think it would have been a tad better because we wouldn’t have the expectation that she was consequential to the story as anything other than just an abstract idea. If she had just been the girl that Billy passed on his way to the laundromat, instead of someone he actually conversed with, then that leaves Penny’s background completely wide open and not pigeon-holed into being so one-dimensional.
However, I think the real insult was not to women but to men. In many ways, the interaction between Billy and Penny is a sort of gilding of the typical geeky-guy obsession over a cute girl. Since the story is not explicitly about Penny, one would expect that she would necessarily be underdeveloped. However, as a story written buy a man *about* a man, it does a diservice to men by perpetrating patterns of behaviour about them that are both immature and self destructive. Because of Billy’s social immaturity, he finds the prospect of initiating contact with Penny almost terrifying. When he is finally forced to talk to her, he then becomes fully enveloped in a platonic relationship with her, never setting a tone of any sort of romantic interest. As was said in the “Capitalism Bad; Tree Pretty” link, sometimes people don’t love you back, and this story only seems to serve as a message of “keep up the hope” for the guy-geek crippled by obsession.
Not to mention, Billy goes on to stalk Penny, and that is just completely glossed over.
That is very interesting, Sean. I agree, I was sitting there wondering if I was supposed to root for Billy getting the girl, but he just came across as very creepy to me. As the protagonist, I think we’re supposed to empathize with him that the girl he wanted died because of his descent into evil, but by the end, I think I was a little afraid of Dr. Horrible’s true character. He had characteristics of entitlement to Penny that I think are prevalent enough in these types of stories of the ‘geeky-guy-who-mumbles-around-pretty-girl’ to be problematic.
[...] changed my mind about it, I’ve just been thinking and thinking and thinking about it and reading other people’s reactions and, mostly, wondering what the hell [...]