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Mar. 25th, 2009 01:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labellementeuse1. SPECIAL DOUBLE AGENT MICHELLE LEE, IS THAT YOU? I was so sad they killed you on NCIS, but now I realise that you weren't dead - it was all part of your masterplan. [Note: I guess she is the obvious choice for Woman on the Inside - it could also be Claire or even de Witt - but I rly want it to be - um, I don't know what her character's name is so I'm going to keep calling her Michelle. I particularly want this because, OK, I get the gimmick where the audience is clearly observing through his interactions with her how Topher is a sexist asshole and how women often end up doing much of the caring work in a workplace - the teagirl assumptions - but I think this gimmick would be even MORE awesome if she was SEKRITLY SMARTER THAN HIM THE WHOLE TIME.]
2. I have to admit: I did not trust Joss with this episode. I was watching and they said "Kill Mellie" and I was like, goddammit, SURELY Joss won't go there. Surely, SURELY he won't fridge Mellie, SURELY he knows how bad that would look. And then I went and checked IMDB to see if Miracle Laurie was credited for the next ep, even though she hasn't been in every episode, and then I closed my eyes and hit spacebar. OH JOSS, why do you have to play these stupid trust-fall TV watching games with us? It's going to take awhile for me to trust you to catch me. OTOH, more episodes like this and episode 4 and, who knows, you may get there sooner than I think.
3. OK, seriously: Mellie and Tahmoh? SO HOT SO HOT SO HOT OMG.
4. I think they're making some interesting distinctions of consent with the Dolls. Clearly the documentary-style clips, with their starry-eyed fans talking about "you don't have to study, you can hang out with rich guys all the time" are meant to lead the audience inexorably to the thought that, actually, there's no you there - if I became a Doll, the signifier "I" as it relates to "Tui" would dissolve. I wouldn't be doing any of these things. Someone else would be.
And this seems to lead us, inexorably, to a distinction really felt in this episode: we do seem to feel a clear distinction between what happened to Sierra and what happened to Echo/Rebecca. Certainly DeWitt feels this (I thought she was fascinating, and superbly played, in this ep, for the record - I really disliked her in the first few episodes but I'm increasingly keen on her, and her accent - do me do me do me.) And the origin of this idea is that Rebecca is, somehow, consenting. This feeling comes from our notion of the someone else from the above paragraph - and that someone is clearly having some fun.
Now, the true issues of consent in this show don't actually involve Caroline - they involve Echo and the erasing of her personality on a regular basis. Caroline was competent to consent to what happened to her (although I think the consent obtained was dubious); Echo is not. However, the people who run the Dollhouse don't have a problem with disregarding Echo's ability to consent to this, but they do have a problem with Sierra's inability to consent to sex (actually, I thought it was interesting that Sierra - with all the tools available to her, at least - actively did NOT consent.) What kind of distinction are they making? Are they making a distinction between Echo and the personalities - so if the personalities consent while they're using Echo's body, that's OK? Does this mean that rape fantasies are a no-no? Because I bet they have rape fantasies. Do they not have a problem with personality rape? If not, why not? What's the distinction?
What I think would be fascinating is if, in rape fantasy cases, they picked a personality with a matching rape fantasy and play consensual rape "scenes". I don't know if that's too edgy for them. But I will draw your attention to the fact that all the attempted rapes we've seen (IIRC) have been outside the purview of the engagement.
Note: the next couple of paragraphs are kind of tl;dr about medical ethics, badly explained, so skip them if you find that dull.
The other thing I wanted to say about this was that one of the ways I've been thinking about this was in the context of some ethics discussion about continuity of identity in medical ethics. Sometimes people will give advanced consent - DNR orders, for example, pain medication, this is also an important issue in cases like Alzheimers or people with chronic pain. A person with chronic pain might have, two years ago, written a form which insisted that they wanted every step taken to save their life. However, two years later in severe unremitting chronic pain that affects their life extremely badly, pain medication offering no relief, etc, they might request something like physician-assisted suicide. However, due to the pain they're experiencing, the doctor is concerned about his capacity to consent. How should a doctor respond? She might argue that two years ago, when the patient was fully capable of consent, he wanted everything possible done for him. Now, though, he might not be competent, but he has a much better understanding of what living with chronic pain is like. Whose judgement is acceptable?
This is easier to think about in its relation to Dollhouse w/the Alzheimers example. Two years ago a patient with Alzheimers requested PAS at a certain stage. The patient reaches that stage and withdraws consent - but they're not necessarily capable of consent. But how come the patient two years ago got to make that decision? Are these patients even really the same person? - especially since the patient doesn't remember making this decision. This is where continuity of identity comes into it. What makes us sure of our identity? IMO most of it is continuity of memory, such as it is - Dolls don't have that. If the personalities really do completely consent, what's wrong with sending them out? They're consenting! Echo doesn't have to do anything she doesn't want to do when she's Echo, and when she's not Echo, why should Echo get a vote in the consent stakes, so to speak?
OK, tl;dr over.
5. I had some things to say about violence and sexual violence but I think I'll leave them for a day or so - feel free to enquire in comments if you're interested (haha).
6. I know that it's good that Mellie is an active because otherwise there's something pathetic about her relationship w/Paul. On the other hand, though, I was disappointed because I thought the episode had done a fairly good job of setting up a relationship that *wasn't* going to be inherently creepy and unequal, particularly on the Paul side, so. :-/ Oh well, I can enjoy it while it lasts, what with the HOT HOT MAKEOUTS.
7. Black FBI lady - I love her. Her remark about Paul's TOTALLY INAPPROPRIATE violence was the best thing EVER.
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Wheeeeeeeeeeee
Date: 2009-03-31 04:29 pm (UTC)I should sleep now, you're a bad influence...a couple of hours ago I was all like "I'll just watch one episode, that'll be a nice reward for me having been working in the lab till 11..." but that was ep 4, and then, well, I was only 2 away from being allowed to see what you had said, and so I'm totally blaming you for keeping me up all night :P
Also, woo you must be coming down here soon! We shall have to catch up and do fun things if you have time in amongst graduating. Though I may not be quite so keen for a reprise of, say, the hanmer trip group of funness...you, Graham and Amanda, sure, but I'm not yet sure how I can/will react around Matt. In case noone else told you, he kinda broke up with me, oh, nigh on a fortnight ago now, but I haven't seem him since. Could be special times at choir tomorrow. Oh well. I am going rather heavy with the punctuation shaker in this comment, aren't I!
I do have actual serious though comments on the episode too, i just fail at articulating them at *checks time* oh waaaaay too late in the early morning. This is almost turning into a letter rather than a comment. Hah, watch me spam your lj. Though, really it would be better spamming if I were making each of these sentences a separate comment.
Ooooh, it's easter soon, and that means the next dr who special should be out soon (iirc it screens in the uk at easter). Yay!
Hope your honoursing is going well, and better than mine. Not that mine's going specifically *badly*, but I'm not having the focus that I expect from myself, so it's just going to take a bit more work to try to pull myself back into things. I do have a mighty cool office though, you should come and see it when you're down if you're ever on campus. It has pretty posters, and a microwave, and it often has a Lucy only she's more focussed on her work than I...she makes good schedule things for her days.
Oooh the other thing we shall have to discuss when you are down here was BSG final! I was a couple of days behind everyone (where "everyone" = my friend Becky, the one I stayed with in Wellington last time I was up), so I haven't had a chance to debrief from it. That was another late night of tv viewing, iirc. But soooo much more devastating than Dollhouse has been. well, thus far. I don't trust joss to not cut my heart out at some point- I still haven't forgiven him for Tara :'(
Ok, that's enough of liz's random almost stream-of-consciousness comment that I'm sure must be getting almost as long as your actual post! Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Re: Wheeeeeeeeeeee
Date: 2009-03-31 09:07 pm (UTC):-/ Hon, I am super-sorry to hear about Matt. I won't pry, but let me know if you need me to give him an asskicking for you, OK? I am coming down on Sunday and I will have tonnes of time to spend doing non-grad stuff, since I'm there from Sunday to Friday :) I do have to spend much of that packing my shit up, but I definitely want to hang out with y'all. In fact, I'm free all sunday since L has to work, are you free then? (I'm sad I won't get to come to choir though since it'll be Easter break, won't it? Lame.) Good luck with that tonight.
Yay, DW! I'd forgotten about that although I'm so annoyed about the end of the last season that... well, dunno.
Honours is going... well, my classes are going great, my research not so good. On the plus side I have a topic for my essay that's due next friday, which yesterday I didn't! I am going to write about interior decorating in late C19th adolescent literature. It'll be, um... weird.
I'm jealous of you for having an office! I don't even know where the Vic english honours space is - presumably they have one but I don't know where/can't be bothered finding it. I did hear you were sharing an office with Lucy - don't worry, she's always been like that (i.e. crazily focused), I love her to pieces but she's, um, *confronting* in the work ethic stakes.
I can't talk about the BSG final! Meg (my bff) and I were supposed to watch it together along with the rest of 4.5 (of which she hasn't seen any) and then she had to go away for a family emergency, so I feel I really can't watch it without her. So, you know: no spoilerssss! I have heard it's pretty damn devastating.
<3! I love getting long email-style comments! it's good to hear from you!