Monday, March 16, 2009

A Review of Dollhouse's "True Believer", Pt 2

This is part 2 of an extremely long post; part 1 is here.

I'm not going to beat around the bush; I had fully expected some sort of attack on religion, or at the very least on groupthink. But Minear was more clever than that, and it seems that Whedon is as well. Instead of simply doing a "cults equal badness and so does religion" thing, Minear explored how others would (and could) manipulate religion as they would manipulate anything else. As Minear said in an interview,
...I wanted the story turns to be rooted in the Dollhouse premise so I used the sci-fi angle to make a scientific miracle.
They could create a real woman who had really experienced a divine vision. And the fact that she was really blind proved that she wasn't lying. That's why she could recognize Sparrow through touch because the vision she experienced was no lie. Granted, Topher put it in her head, and we saw the 3-D model of Sparrow's head and understood how this was accomplished, but to Echo/Esther, all was true. So when Sparrow knocked the cameras loose and her vision was restored, this was also really a miracle... to her.

What was so amazing about the episode was that it wasn't a falsely religious man using religion to control the masses. It was the outside world, the - ostensibly - good guys who used religion to manipulate, to control. It was the ATF and the Dollhouse who created a situation where a cultish religious leader could come to depend on miracles, where such a man could be convinced that he had been featured in a vision and had been witness to a restoration of sight. These were true believers, even Jonas Sparrow. Unlike Scott Tobias of the A.V. Club, who said, "the fundamental problem for me is this: Sparrow knows he's not a prophet. He knows he's every bit the Mitchum-like charlatan. So when Esther talks of visions and recognizing his face from a dream, that should be proof enough that she's an imposter", it seems clear to me that Sparrow really does think he's doing the best for his community. He's not a Jim Jones type; this much is clear from the fact that his flock is both shocked at the fact there is a cache of guns underneath their feet and by the fact that he does believe Esther. He doesn't make his group take up arms. He isn't interested in pulling a Waco and holding a shoot out. He believes, truly and deeply, that there is another way and that God will deliver him and his people. That he is a true believer doesn't make him any less dangerous; he's still willing to condemn his people and himself to death. But it does offer a more nuanced layer to an episode that could have just been a retread of old ground. Whedon and Minear manage to make the cult seem like something other than an egotist's creation for his own validation.  

At the same time, even though it is not a condemnation of religion or even this religious expression, there is an exploration of this idea of purity; of being able to get back to the garden, or to recreate the garden. Such a sentiment has been around for eons, probably since the first tale of lost paradise entered the conscious lexicon. Even Joni Mitchell declares, "We've got to get ourselves back to the garden". Whedon has tackled, though only briefly, this subject before; in one of the coolest feminist moves, Whedon discarded the idea of our world beginning with a lost paradise on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and instead declared that it had been a hell - that the books were wrong. In Serenity, we saw the Operative working toward creating "a world without sin". But the only world without sin we are shown is a dead world. Here, the world without sin is the pinnacle of achievement in two places, the Children of the Temple's compound and Adelle DeWitt's Dollhouse. As DeWitt says at the end, "A place of safety, of untroubled certainty, of purity. This is the world we must maintain. It is imperative that nothing disturb the innocence of life here. Once any temptation is introduced, it will spread... like a cancer, and all will be infected." And yet, Victor's reaction to Sierra is, in its own way, pure and innocent. His attraction to her is a normal, natural part of life, and only when we consider human sexuality something that creates a less than pure being does Victor's "man reaction" cause concern.

What seems clear is that even scrubbed, even erased of any and everything that makes us what we are and what helps shape us, some bit of us remains. There cannot truly be a world without sin, and what's more, we probably should not even want it. The Actives in the Dollhouse come the closest to being without sin, and yet they aren't something I would aspire to be. The world is messy; but it is conflict that helps shape us, and there are things considered 'sinful' - mostly in connection to sexuality - that are a necessary component of life. To bind a sin to something necessary to the very proliferation of a species seems particularly sadistic.

Grade: A-/A

Note: There may be one more post coming; I still have thoughts, but it doesn't really fit with the religious flow of this installment.

3 comments:

John said...

It seems that I had a few more problems with this episode than you did. Here are some of them:

Why did Jonas Sparrow have the cache of weapons at all? It didn't seem to fit with the rest of his character. Also, his "flock" hadn't been trained to use them, so they'd be no good with them in a firefight (and might end up killing each other!)

Jonas's reaction to Esther reminded me of the movie "Leap of Faith," in which a charlatan 'faith healer' (played spectacularly by Steve Martin) actually witnesses/aids in miraculously healing a crippled boy's legs. His reaction isn't quite the same, but the idea is similar.

I felt that the whole episode flew wildly off the rails as soon as Esther regained her sight, though. Suddenly she's able to not just protect herself, but ninja block Jonas's slap? Someone who hasn't read by sight since the third grade can suddenly read a passage about Nebuchadnezzar, Shadrach, Mesach, and Abednego (hard words to spell and pronounce) without missing a beat?

Once the fire started, she basically reverted to Eleanor/Jenny/Jordan and began effectively and authoritatively organizing and mobilizing a large group of people. Also, the last time I heard Eliza Dushku use nearly that exact inflection on the line "move your ass!" was in Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, where she was playing a precursor to the Taffy character. I think that "composite" effect is already happening, whether the writers intended it to or not.

petpluto said...

"I felt that the whole episode flew wildly off the rails as soon as Esther regained her sight, though. Suddenly she's able to not just protect herself, but ninja block Jonas's slap?"

Yeah, that was pretty ridiculous. I definitely rolled my eyes at that.

"Someone who hasn't read by sight since the third grade can suddenly read a passage about Nebuchadnezzar, Shadrach, Mesach, and Abednego (hard words to spell and pronounce) without missing a beat? "

That didn't bother me, because I sort of assumed that blind Esther would have read/heard the Scripture enough times to recognize some of it. I mean, even I've heard of Nebuchadnezzar, and most of my religious education comes from musicals. Plus, some of this stuff is stuff I just accept as part of the story telling process. It would be more in line with reality if Esther-Echo stumbled through the biblical passage, but that would also be less than captivating.

"Why did Jonas Sparrow have the cache of weapons at all? It didn't seem to fit with the rest of his character. Also, his "flock" hadn't been trained to use them, so they'd be no good with them in a firefight (and might end up killing each other!)"

See, we don't know too much about his character. The only thing I was convinced about was that he wasn't a Jim Jones (or a David Koresh); but being a violent and not so great guy? That worked for me. How he got all those weapons is another story.

"Also, the last time I heard Eliza Dushku use nearly that exact inflection on the line "move your ass!" was in Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, where she was playing a precursor to the Taffy character. I think that "composite" effect is already happening, whether the writers intended it to or not."

Yeah, "move your ass" seemed entirely out of place in Esther's mouth. By the way, you're now on probation; no more use of Taffy in Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back (kidding)! Seriously, Eliza Dushku is more capable than I first thought when it comes to showing a range of emotions; her range of characters? Still very, very iffy.

John said...

RE: Reading - Obviously anyone who has seen The Matrix knows one way to pronounce Nebuchadnezzar, (and any Beastie Boys fan knows how to pronounce Shadrach, Mesach, and Abednego with a New York accent) but I felt that even one moment's hesitation or a single stumble on Esther's part would have made the scene believable. If I hadn't read braille since I was nine, I couldn't guarantee I'd be able to read a passage aloud in front of a crowd of people in a stressful situation without a little difficulty!

Also, don't blame me for the fact that Taffy and Sissy are essentially the same character. It makes sense given the show's pitch: Show how much range Eliza Dushku has as an actress by having her re-play all of her most impressive parts. I guess we even saw a little bit of True Lies's Dana Tasker in frightened victim Eleanor Penn, and Bring It On's Missy Pantone in Jordan. I just didn't like those movies as much as J&SBSB (though True Lies was pretty funny.)