Joss Whedon’s latest project, developed during the writers’ strike, was an internet-based musical starring Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion and Felicia Day, aired in three acts over the past week. Spoilers for all three acts follow, if you haven’t seen it.
Since it’s Joss Whedon, it’s practically guaranteed to come with high expectations attached, both for quality creative work and, in many circles, for feminist content. On the former, Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog definitely lives up to the hype. On the latter, unfortunately, I have to say that it failed miserably. Of the three characters, Penny is by far the least developed. She’s a sweet, somewhat naive, save-the-world local activist with big, romantic dreams for her life. While the two male characters are also stereotypes in a way, they’re both larger than life, hilarious caricatures, whereas Penny just seems to lack personality. The fact that Dr. Horrible initially falls for her as he encounters her twice weekly in the incredibly mundane setting of the laundromat is fitting, here.
And naturally, in a story with three characters, two male and one female, there is a love triangle at work, and as is often the case, the woman in that story becomes more of a prop at play in the interaction between the two men. The real relationship struggle, the real competition is between Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer. The reason Penny has lasting appeal to Captain Hammer is because it’s one more front on which he can assert his superiority over Dr. Horrible – while the scene where Captain Hammer assures Dr. Horrible that he will be having sex with Dr. Horrible’s crush was admittedly hilarious, due mainly to Nathan Fillion’s delivery, it depended entirely upon playing out their battle with one another using a woman’s body as a way of scoring points. Worst of all, Penny dies at the end, in exactly the kind of death scene we’ve complained about several times on this site – one that serves almost exclusively to progress the character development of the men in her life. She dies as a result of the competition between the two men, accidentally, by getting in the way. Despite the fact that immediately before Dr. Horrible arrived on the scene, she seemed to be recognizing her boyfriend’s incredible arrogance and selfishness, with her dying breath, she sings “Captain Hammer will save us”. Not only does this show her as the woman to be rescued (if unsuccessfully), the main point of having her say it was to take away that last thing that made Dr. Horrible want to be…not horrible, and cement his commitment to proving himself as the most evil person alive.
I think there were some aspects of the two male characters that redeem the feminist side of this equation a little – Captain Hammer in particular satirizes stereotypical masculinity and strength, falls apart at the slightest hint of pain, and very explicitly acts as a hero not because he’s a good person, but because it gets him attention and affirmation – but overall, the gender roles were disappointingly cliché. I do recognize that this wasn’t an extremely large project, but everything Joss Whedon does gets a pretty significant amount of attention, particularly over the internet. These criticisms don’t even depend on holding Whedon to a higher standard than other authors because of his public stance on feminism – these are exactly the kinds of characters and relationships that have me banging my head against the wall when I see them in nearly every mainstream television show or movie, and thinking for more than thirty seconds about making the woman in your storyline in any way interesting in her own right should not be too much to ask.
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S.A. Bonsai, I’m not bellatrys, but that’s Crime and Punishment.
sbg(Quote) (Reply)
‘Tis! Crime & Punishment is one of those Legendary Doorstops that Seriously Rocks!!1!, along with Les Miserables (the Waterloo section will give you nightmares – no, that wasn’t in the musical) and others of the Era of Cliffhanger Prose Series like Our Mutual Friend , tho’ of course Mileage Varies as ever.
But I was honestly surprised at how addictive I found C&P when I first read it in HS (and several times since, I save it up as a treat for myself b/c it’s pretty involving even as a reread), since it was one of those Very Important (Good For You!) books, but it turned out to be full of seriously screwed up characters and wangsty-emo-Objectivist antihero and you start out knowing the whodunnit and seeing how it’s all going to fall out and having no idea what’s going to have a bearing on the plot – and you can’t tell me that the Raskolnikov/Razumikhin situation isn’t highly slashable, either! but seriously, a great big doorstop of a novel with a whiny-emo-Objectivist antihero who is completely kickable, and yet you want to keep reading instead of shouting SOMEBODY KILL THIS JERK PLEASE!!! – ? Not something you come across every day.
Dostoyevsky does a really good job of writing flawed, complex, messy-but-interesting characters (male *and* female) whom you can want to shake and STILL care about what happens to them, and frankly, the setting doesn’t feel all that horribly dated – being broke and struggling and trying to achieve something in spite of The System and not being able to ever get a leg up, just kind of translates through the ages…
Actually, I should reread it and write something about how Sonia’s plotline both uses and subverts some of the Good Girl tropes that still exist, both the Hooker with a Heart of Gold and the Always Loving & Giving – iirc there’s a strange Virtue Of Selfishness thing underlying her final Moral Sacrifice despite the overt Christianity that I don’t recall seeing critics address before (some of them might have addressed the Ho!Yay, given Serious Literary tropes, I don’t remember – but certianly not in the exuberant manner of fandom anyways) and also the Dunia plotline, with the nasty preppie (the successful version of Rodion?) and the passive-aggressive stalker-possibly-wife-murdering creep *both* getting the heave-ho…in favor of a guy who’s not merely Nice, but actually *good*…
But hey, we’re so much more advanced in our visions of society in 21st century America!
bellatrys(Quote) (Reply)
I guess I jut didn’t see this as being a story about Penny. It’s about Dr. Horrible and his pathetic (but entertaining) attempts at human connection/world domination.
Both of which failed pretty miserably, I might add. Well, at least until the very end, perhaps…
Anyway, the “But Penny was just a rope for the males to tug on” thing rings hollow with me. It’s a parody (as we all agree), but also the story just isn’t about her. She’s underdeveloped because she could be anyone- she’s incidental. Dr. Horrible doesn’t care or even know who she is and his crush on her is entirely superficial. That’s entirely his failing, and for obvious reasons since she is so likable.
To call that “un-feminist” is to miss the point of the parody.
Leni(Quote) (Reply)
Purteksaid:
Well you can’t. All stories need some characters (male AND female) who are just there to move the plot forward. If every character in every film/novel/television show was detailed, important and interesting it would make for terrible storytelling. The problem has been that men get more of those relevant, human, complex and interesting parts and women get less. The problem is NOT that weak parts for women exist.
La Snare(Quote) (Reply)
OKAY PEOPLE LISTEN UP. IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE “ABOUT PENNY” TO BE FEMINIST.
Please stop beating that straw man already. No one ever said we wanted the story to be about her.
And no, you do not need underdeveloped characters to serve as plot devices. Ever. I was a screenwriter for a decade; how long have y’all been doing it? It is never necessary because it’s so damn easy to give even your least important characters at least a touch of agency, a touch of promise that had the story been about them you’d have found it very interesting.
This is a total red herring, of an argument and I’m not letting through any more comments about it until the thread gets back on topic. Thanks for understanding.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
BC – which is why, incidentally, the “Redshirt” trope is so annoying a cliche in adventure fic, with or without the addition of “Retirony” , it’s lazy-bad storytelling for no good reason.
–It’s also interesting in that women are *rarely* Redshirts, in the sense of nameless mooks who just get hit by the SFnal equivalent of a stray bullet in a firefight: the presence of a uterus is more important and trumps everything, if there is a female character she must be The Chick instead, and her death will relate to that aspect rather than to just Wrong Place, Wrong Time, or Hubris (“what could possibly go wrong?”) or Excessive Zeal (“Hah, I can take this bug-monster!” or Misplaced Curiosity (“Wonder what happens if we push this lever?”) or any of the sundry non-sex-linked fates that befall male extras who play the Cautionary Role in genre fic. Female characterization and plot arcs follow Gravesian/Campbellian Rules, always.
I’m damn sick of having to identify with the Sacred Vessel and the Smiling Muse, for always and always and always, personally…
bellatrys(Quote) (Reply)
bellatrys:
Absolutely. Disposable male characters get non-gendered deaths, but disposable female characters almost always get gendered deaths in some manner. Especially in the “gorn” genre of so-called horror films. (Compare the two Hostel films.)
(Incidentaly, this is why I will continue to argue that Metalocalypse is not misogynistic as some people have claimed. The gruseome deaths and injuries that women suffer in that show are pretty much identical to the gruesome deaths and injuries that men suffer. It is only misogynistic in the sense that it is very, very misanthropic.)
Patrick(Quote) (Reply)
La Snare,
While stories certainly need bit characters – such as the person serving the drinks at the bar that Our Heroes stop into for information – Penny is not a bit character. She’s a main character, a named character, a singing character. She may not be the lead character (that’s Dr. Horrible, obviously), but that doesn’t make her the same as Captain Hammer’s nameless fans, either. She was important enough to deserve better than she got.
S. A. Bonasi(Quote) (Reply)
@BetaCandy
Parody is satire. It mocks human foibles as expressed in the various arts. One word happens to encompass the other. In this context, one can use them interchangeably.
Trying to get us to conform to the word “parody” is like saying “It’s not a joke, it’s a knock-knock joke.”
The Chemist(Quote) (Reply)
Chemist, re-read the definitions I provided.
Satire makes fun of human foibles. Parody makes fun of storytelling styles. They can co-exist, but they are not interchangeable. Therefore, as I said once already, if you say this is satire, you are arguing that Whedon thinks women are stupid and is making fun of them via his presentation of Penny. If instead you mean to argue that he thinks the Women in Refrigerators trope is stupid, then you should argue that he is parodying that trope.
It makes a huge difference in this context.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
I just wanted to elaborate on my reply to Lucian Smith above. While I suggested Captain Hammer’s death prompting Penny to become a super-hero, that’s not the only acceptable alternative. I suggested it because it inverts the WiR trope, but a female character doesn’t have to be an arse-kicker to be dynamic and interesting. It would have been just as well for Penny to never became a super-hero, to continue helping the homeless, but to hate Dr. Horrible for what he had done. Heck, there are even ways in which Penny could have died without it being WiR, if her death was more active. There’s no question that the story only works if Dr. Horrible loses Penny in the end, but there are many ways in which a person can be “lost”, and there was no reason for the writers to make Penny be so darn passive about it.
S. A. Bonasi(Quote) (Reply)
just wanted to put in my vote for the not-dissapointed-by-the-ending camp.
From the 2nd time i watched it, all i can see at the end is a woman who is almost incoherant from pain/shock/dying etc, but still wants to make sure her friend is ok. (2nd last line – Billy, is that you, are you alright?)
i dont see her looking Horrible in the eye and still praising Hammer, i see someone in their last moments falling back on a long-held belief (about Hammer being the hero who’ll save them all)
(crawls back under rock)
Jacq(Quote) (Reply)
The fact that this show is supposed to be a parody and have the stereotypical characters makes this arguement pointless because Penny was purposely made a victim.
In my perspective Penny had more character than Captain Hammer. Captain Hammer was the egotistical rival that ended up killing her wheras she was the love interest, victim, friend, and Horrible’s only chance for redemption. She was only a trophy in Act 2 because Act 3 wasnt even about who gets the girl it was about Dr. Horrible achieving his true goal and that was joining the Evil League of Evil by Killing Captain Hammer. It is true that Captain Hammer being with Penny is the reason that Dr. Horrible pushed past his principels on killing people but it wasnt because Penny was a trophy that he wanted all to himself it was because killing Captain Hammer would be easy to him because he hates him. Lastly Penny because the fuel to Dr. Horrible’s Fire because her dieing means that he has nothing left in his life other than that which hes strived for most and that is becoming a full blown supervillian so now Dr. Horrible lives and Billy the Laundry Buddy is dead but the world keeps spinning.
Its actually very much like real life, heh.
SPM(Quote) (Reply)
I want to point out that I meant to say that this show is both a satire and parody, sorry and that I completely agree with Jacq above me.
SPM(Quote) (Reply)
” Is she less real than Hammer? (Is ANYTHING?) ”
See, but, that’s what bugs me about her. She is more real than Hammer and she really shouldn’t be. Or, more specfically, she’s so realistic – more real even that the lead character – that she can only directly affect the plot, while the way in which Hammer and Horriblle are unreal directly connects them to the themes as well.
It’s not that she needed to be made more real, but that her character needed to be better developed in terms of reflecting the themes of the story. Hammer was a bad guy that was popular and seemed good, Horrible was a wanna-be bad guy that did bad things for good and bad reasons, why not make Penny someone who seemed bad or was unpopular, but did good things?
She kind of was, and I can see where they were going for this, seeing as how she was one of those annoying signature collectors, and some of the stuff other people have mentioned. However, none of this was played up enough for that to really come through well. Too much focus on making her the sweet girl next door cuz guys all fall in love with the sweet girl next door, yes?
Making her less real would have in turm made her death make a clear statement about popularity/society/good and evil/etc. No need for major plot changes or fanwanking to make her death about more than how others reacted to it, since making her one of the “paths” that the audience/Horrible could choose would actually have made it easier for the audience to identify with her thematic charicature than we do with her realistic (but necessarily flat) character.
Her death would still be problematic, but more in the way of “while I don’t expect everything to pass the Bechdel test, it’s hard not be annoyed at pretty much any movie that fails it simply because so few of them pass it” and less in the way of “can the token character be less of a token, please?”
(And, yes, I agree BetaCandy, he handles criticism well. Which is why, despite not being the second coming, he still tends to kick ass. One has to be able to listen to constructive criticism in order to be able to grow.)
Mickle(Quote) (Reply)
This isn’t a response to anybody’s comment but a continuation of the comment I made earlier about how Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog plays the Nice Guy-Jerk Guy false dichotomy straight rather than parodying it.
karjack writes:
Over at pajiba.com, Dustin Rowles writes:
Bolding is mine, but I recommend reading both karjack and Rowles’ posts in full.
S. A. Bonasi(Quote) (Reply)
“having to deal every day with the fact that no, she really DOESN”T like ‘the real you’ at all now that she’s seen your bloodymindedness wouldn’t be an even more painful and object lesson…”
On the other hand, I’m not sure I’d believe that the lesson would actually sink in that way, at least not in the short time-frame we’re shown. The way Billy/Horrible’s character is drawn, I could easily see him treating that for a long time as only a temporary setback: “I haven’t *really* lost her, she’ll come around soon enough after I give her time and show her more what I’m really like.” That’s what I’d expect from a stalker type. Death, on the other hand, is pretty hard to wave aside.
On a third, prosthetic hand, it might be interesting to imagine a full Broadway-length musical, where the entire show we saw comprises just the first act. Suppose that in the second act, set years later, Dr. Horrible gets the idea to revive or recreate Penny somehow? (Hey, he *is* a mad scientist supervillain, after all.) He thinks she will be the girlfriend he always wanted, and will now be properly grateful and affectionate to *him* for ‘rescuing’ her from the dead. And suppose the neo-Penny has other ideas? Could make for an interesting and entertaining second act (and one where we see more agency from her character), if the idea is well fleshed out.
John Mark Ockerbloom(Quote) (Reply)
given that Joss Whedon’s body of work includes very strong and well developed female characters already, I would think that it’s a bit unfair to be expecting him to veer in this direction in every project he does.
The what, in the where, now?
I think it’s PERFECTLY fair to expect strong and well-developed female characters in EVERY SINGLE ARTISTIC PROJECT !*
*Except for movies/musicals/plays/TV shows/novels taking place in explicitly all-male settings like a prison or a monastery. I was fine with the lack of strong female characters in Das Boot, frex.
There’s no reason why every female main character in every project done by everyone shouldn’t be strong and well-developed. Because otherwise, they’re not particularly realistic, are they?
JupiterPluvius(Quote) (Reply)
I noticed my previous comment, appealing for Betacandy to reconsider deleting comments with other points of view to which he/she does not agree – for the benefit of having a credible discussion on this topic – has subsequently been deleted.
If the purpose of this blog is to create change and progress the feminist movement, dismissing other people will only result in alienation and the continued propagation of a negative stereotype currently being unfairly projected on all feminists.
I stumbled across this site and it opened my eyes to this issue. However, I am disappointed by such uncompromising behavior and will not be visiting this blog any longer. Best wishes and goodluck to your cause.
Mike(Quote) (Reply)
Huh. And yet there are varying POVs all throughout this thread. BetaCandy, you’re not being diligent in wiping out all those who don’t conform!
Get on that.
Please note sarcasm.
sbg(Quote) (Reply)
No, Mike, it wasn’t deleted. It never made it through moderation. I guess one of the other editors let this one through, so we could point out the error of your ways.
I’m asking people to use words correctly so there’s less confusion. Because I’ve read some people around the web who seem to be arguing “Yes, he’s making fun of women, but that’s okay.” If anyone here thinks that, then we need to have a whole other discussion than what we’re having here.
You’re creating a straw man by saying my insistence people be clear on what they’re saying so we know what we’re debating is equal to saying “no disagreements!” That’s completely disingenuous because, as SBG pointed out, this comment thread is swimming with points of view: people who agree with Purtek, people who had different issues than hers, people who thought it was great.
And then you follow up with the usual anti-feminist silencing tactic of warning me that you’ll continue thinking of feminists as bitter man-haters unless I let you have your way.
Go right ahead – I’m sure you were going to anyway, given how everything you’ve said so far was, frankly, bullshit.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
Yes, this. When male characters are given layer after complex layer of development, too often a female character is built on shallow, stereotypes. Her role too often boils down to that of Precious Object (sometimes this even happens when she’s a central, strong figure) in some way or another.
sbg(Quote) (Reply)
That last annoys me especially, since he had spent the previous year and a half going on about the Dead/Evil Lesbian Cliche, how he was “hyper-aware of the issues involved” (direct quote), and how he intended Tara/Willow to be different.
Yes it would (something else I’ve often said about Tara and Willow).
No, there’s not. I was about to make mention of the size of a character’s role in the story being relevant, and then I caught your use of the word “main”
. Which means I just plain agree with you.
SunlessNick(Quote) (Reply)
I still can’t help thinking this would have been a much more interesting parody had Whedon made Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer female characters, and Penny male.
sbg(Quote) (Reply)
sbg – Interesting thought.
I admit, when I read a reconsideration of Harry Potter that changed the genders around, suddenly Snape became a lot more interesting to me.
I wonder how the stalker-vibe would have come off. *ponders*
Anna(Quote) (Reply)
I wonder how people would have reacted to it, regardless of how it came off. After all, nerdy loser-types who follow women around like puppies are endearing, but women who do the same tend to be written off as scary and needy. Sarcastically speaking.
sbg(Quote) (Reply)
I never had a problem with Penny, actually, because my reading of the text was that Penny was meant to be taken as the “normal” person. She is a foil to Hammer’s ego and Horrible’s zealotry – she is simple, naive, and optimistic, and ultimately she accomplishes more in the name of good than both the well-intentioned Villain/Hero and the mindless Hero/Villain.
I don’t think she was perfect and I think she could have been improved, but I can understand why she was the way she was.
I also don’t think her death was meant to propel anyone forward. Her death was just the tragically ironic ending.
Renee(Quote) (Reply)
Personally, I think focusing on Penny at all is missing the point: This story is centered around Dr. Horrible, and ALL other characters are rather 1-dimensional.
I think the issue Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog is driving at is about masculinity in American society today. I think the point that is being made is that in order to be a man, you must be a super villain.
Here are some very disorganized thoughts about what I think the real meaning of the story is:
Note the following:
- Billy is at first reluctant to kill or do serious violence – it’s against his nature, and we can see that all his previous super-villain activities have been lackluster, and he seems unenthusiastic about the entire thing. The first thing he does, in fact, is to defend his supervillianness to people emailing him about his blog. – As though he is defending his manliness, trying to assert himself while at the same time being very reluctant to hurt anyone (as is shown later).
- Captain Hammer is the ideal of manliness – a strong (and chauvinistic) hero. However, he has super powers, and that is why he can be a hero – An ordinary person, like Billy, can’t be Captain Hammer – and thus cannot be a hero.
- The ELE is what defines what it means to be a supervillain. Being a villain is killing. ~ Being a man is being violent, in our society. This goes against Billy’s nature at first.
- Before Captain Hammer shows up, Billy has not been truly misogynistic towards Penny. He wants to talk to her but he is afraid, because he doesn’t see himself as worthy of her. (When does he think he will be confident enough? When he becomes a man/supervillain.) It is, in fact, his pursuit of masculinity that dooms his chance at a relationship with Penny however: This is shown over and over again, first when his theft of the Wonderflonium interferes with his first conversation with her, and then when she begins dating Captain Hammer. Since Captain Hammer is obviously representing the ideal of manliness, it is pursuing our society’s concept of masculinity that causes Billy to be unable to get what he wants – Which, yes, is represented stereotypically and simply through a woman who is purely virtuous (Note that Penny has no character flaws).
However, in the end, Billy finds that by becoming a supervillain – Becoming a man – He has killed Penny.
To get to the point:
Billy finds at the end that he has become a violent misogynist (Penny’s death IS about misogyny, I agree, but in the context of a larger story that is sympathetic to men who are not violent (“manly”) by nature. ) and he is haunted by it.
Still, he sings not what he is shown to be feeling through all the subtext – He sings that he “won’t feel a thing” which is another whole aspect of masculinity in our society – That men are expected not to feel, or be vulnerable.
In the end, don’t we find out that Captain Hammer – the “real man” – has never felt pain before? So I think Joss is suggesting that the traditional concept of masculinity is ridiculous and impossible – An impossibly strong, powerful, invulnerable superhero.
And men – real men who are just flawed people – become villains by trying to compete with that impossible ideal.
If Billy rejected the ELE and decided not to be a supervillain, he would have had a real conversation with Penny- who is a one-dimensional symbol for acceptance/love/what-Billy-wants, and she showed at a few times that she liked Billy – The Billy who is not Dr. Horrible.
I think the message here is that men should reject society’s traditional concept of manhood. That’s why Penny is a flat character – The story is about manhood. The only “real” character – the only one with flaws – is Billy.
Our society, sadly, is one where men who reject traditional manhood are punished socially by other men. That, I think, is what the story is about, and in that context, I think the story should be very feminist-friendly: The traditional concept of manhood is misogynist, not to mention ridiculous. There’s a ridiculous violent crime rate, and women are often victims. – Which in fact, may be a large part of what Penny’s death is about. Her death, is in fact vital to the story because it shows that Billy, by becoming Dr. Horrible, has become a misogynist. Billy becomes Dr. Horrible- He becomes horrible; He becomes a “man.” Men are horrible. This interpretation seems so obvious to me that I have to think it’s got to be what the show intended to say.
Thus, I think, a feminist seeing Dr. Horrible DOES have something to take from it – That in order to get rid of misogyny, women as well as men have to get rid of the traditional concept of masculinity. If men were allowed to be gentle and shy and still be men, then perhaps they wouldn’t feel like they must be villains before they can be accepted/loved/respected.
hv(Quote) (Reply)
I think I’d agree with your reasoning if it weren’t for the fact that we don’t see Billy display any respect for women within the blog itself. We see him as non-violent, yes, but we never see any instances where he regards Penny as a person, not just an object to be longed for. In order to agree with your statement that “Doctor Horrible” is trying to show that “adhering to traditional ideas of masculinity lead to violence and misogyny”, we would have needed to have been shown, first, that “not adhering to traditional ideas of masculinity leads to non-violence and respect for women.” Where I can see how Billy, initially, is equated with non-violence, and Captain Hammer equated with violence, (and he can certainly be equated with misogyny), we are never shown, at any point, that non-violent Billy can be equated with respect for women.
Mana G(Quote) (Reply)
re: Mana G.
I think that’s an excellent point. However, I do still think that the argument that Doctor Horrible shows “adhering to traditional ideas of masculinity lead to violence and misogyny” without Billy being respectful towards women at any point: In my view, Billy doesn’t represent the opposite of Dr. Horrible or Captain Hammer: He represents the not-yet-socialized boy. (Note that “Billy” is a child’s nickname.)
I think the fact that Billy never at any point is shown as having healthy attitudes towards women is part of the point – in our society, we don’t have an socially-accepted concept of masculinity that is respectful to women. Still, this is kind of subtle and stretching things, so it may not have been intended to the writers.
That the show is an attack on traditional concepts of masculinity, however, I am very certain of: Captain Hammer’s last scene, crying because he had never felt pain before, sends a very clear message that traditional masculinity is ridiculous. Also, given the fact that Billy has his self-confidence all staked in becoming a super villain and that it was an external force – The ELE – that defined what being a supervillain was – Primarily as violence, but perhaps also as misogyny – makes that interpretation seem accurate to me.
I think the fact that we’re missing any sort of message of “here’s the way to behave that leads to respect for women” is if not a deliberate attempt to say that our society lacks positive / non-violent non-misogynist male role models, is certainly indicative of that.
While I do agree that Billy/Dr Horrible had no respect for Penny as a person / objectified her, I think that it’s a definite stretch to say that the writers of the show were being misogynists by their treatment of Penny’s character. The show was told from Dr. Horrible’s point of view and he’s the only completely fleshed out character. Moreover, the focal theme is masculinity- The ending of the show is quite effective and thought-provoking, given that: Dr. Horrible is welcomed into the ELE and he sings that he has “everything he ever wanted” and finished by saying he “won’t feel -” And then suddenly he is Billy again ” – a thing”
I think the point made here is that Billy had embraced masculinity and then found that it was harmful and violent, and that he caused Penny’s death, and he’s haunted by it.
The most objectionable thing, as far as the writers go, is Penny’s last words of “Captain Hammer will save us” which I think actually might be making a point that women have shared responsibility in the belief in Captain Hammer / traditional masculinity. Or, it’s just meant to show that she’s delirious, or it’s because for the ending to be what it was, Dr. Horrible has to think that she never saw through Captain Hammer (she did, but he never saw that) – Ending with Dr. Horrible not really understanding that she knew Captain Hammer was a bad person – which also is another possibly bit of social commentary as to how men don’t understand that they could abandon traditional masculinity and still be loved/accepted/confident/etc.
The fact that her last words are thought-provoking / capable of being analyzed if you ‘get’ the story so many different ways I think at the least shows that the writers didn’t just blindly do away with her.
I think maybe Joss Whedon is just being held to a higher standard because of Buffy, and any story that he does that is not specifically about female power / liberation seems like a betrayal to some.
hv(Quote) (Reply)
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