At the Washington Post, there’s a transcript of the Joss Whedon interview:
Langley Air Force Base, Va.: I’ve been reading some criticism (insert audible gasp here!) of “Dr. Horrible” about the lack of a strong, empowered female lead. They claim that Penny is merely a prop for Dr Horrible and Captain Hammer to fight over.
What are your thoughts on that?
Joss Whedon: Hi! Here goes Typomania! If I don’t get to a question, forgive. There are many, and I’m dodging the tough ones.
But, yeah, Penny is not the feminist icon of our age. And yes, she does exist in the narrative as part of Doc’s fate — but everyone in the story is there to move the story. Is she less real than Hammer? (Is ANYTHING?) We gave her a cause so she wouldn’t JUST be the Pretty Girl but the fact is, neither Doc nor Hammer gives her the attention she deserves — Doc’s crush comes before he has the slightest idea what she cares about. Which is not uncommon. It reminds me of “Sweeney Todd,” the Judge and Sweeney singing “Pretty Women” — a beautiful duet with no insight whatsoever. Just images.
But we shoulda gave her more jokes.
I think this means I guessed accurately about what the show was trying to say about Penny, but I had to think really hard about it. I’m still not convinced the end was necessary.
Oh, by the way, Joss? She wasn’t missing jokes. She was missing growth. The more I think about this, the more I think he decided to dismiss any constructive criticism made.
She doesn’t have to be a feminist icon to be as interesting as the male leads. I mean, I did think that both Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion did a good job, and for parts one and two, I did enjoy watching their characters even while it became more and more obvious that Penny existed solely as a prop. But I don’t see why Penny couldn’t have received as much attention – we never ever see her perspective, just her existence in relation to Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer.
It doesn’t help that Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer also filled the positions of “Nice Guy” and “Jerk” respectively.
You’ve probably already covered all this ground, though.
I enjoyed watching it as well. I thought NPH and Fillion did a great job at playing the hyped up comic book characters. Joss’ remark convinced me that he only has a superficial understanding of how women are represented on television. Not every woman has to be a ‘feminist’ icon, whatever that could be.
Penny was so underdeveloped, it leaves a sick taste in my mouth when I think about it. After a lot of analyzing, I get what the writers were trying to do, to show that she did not really mean anything to either Hammer or Horrible, who were supposed to be caricatures of the Nice Guy and Jerk, but not many people are going to look deeply into that. I think the writers failed impressively with Penny.
Felicia Day is an amazing actress, and it was only until I watched The Guild that I realized Joss’ miniseries could have benefited from giving her more to work with.
Interesting, I know this comment comes quite late, but I feel like I have to raise a different viewpoint?
I wonder if it warrants such scything deductions from one specific work when the man has made at least two series’ with very strong, sensitive, and over-all, empowered women in them?
Critique of Dr. Horrible is certainly warranted, especially for its popularity, but “he only has a superficial understanding of how women are represented on television” doesn’t seem to be an accurate statement at all to generalize all his works, considering their scope?
He didn’t invent the strong televised woman, but he certainly symbolized it in Buffy for the seven years of its duration (so strongly, in fact, that when I was a young kid and it was airing on television, boys ‘weren’t supposed to watch it’, which I think is a really wonderful thing. A show about vampire-slaying, monster-killing, strong female characters with emotion and power and humour that for some reason young boys were almost taboo’d from viewing?
Honestly, how cool is that?
Anybody who has seen even two seasons of Buffy can’t for a moment think that Sarah Michelle Gellar did anything but play a fully developed, complex character.
Anyways, just my mildly dissenting opinion, for the next person who finds this article :)