From Victim to Hero:
Joss Whedon’s characters
Scott Allie (editor in chief, Dark Horse Comics), Rhiannon
Louve, Kara Helgren, Anna Snyder, Todd McCaffrey
·
Q: How do you feel about Joss’s portrayal of
River, in terms of her presentation as a victim?
o
AS: These are things that are done to her, from
an outside presence. She doesn’t have a choice. She had no participation in her
victimization. By the end of the series, her programming is something that is
not externally triggered, but she embraces and uses.
o
RL: There is being the victim of a crime vs. a
victim mentality. Joss’s characters are victims of crime who do not embrace a
victim mentality, but instead rise up and fight.
o
K: Ophelia (Hamlet) was used as a pawn by
everybody, and essentially had no control over that. Shakespeare implied that
she saw drowning as a way out. By comparison, River saw another way out.
·
Q: Joss took a lot of heat for Dollhouse.
Characters were so victimized: treated as pawns and prostitutes and were
traumatized.
o
AS: Echo had some free agency. She signed on the
dotted line so they could do those things to her. It complicates the notion of
victimized. Women who are in abusive relationships, there is a transitional
periods, on their way out, they sometimes go back. They are choosing to go back
into a victim. They need to own their situation.
·
Q: Was Joss glorifying victimization by making a
whole cast of victims?
o
RL: I didn’t feel that way. I felt empowered by
the show. He explored philosophical sexual ideas that were ahead of their time.
§
AS: Joss has been exploring prostitution
throughout his shows.
§
K: Showing people freely talking about sexual
themes: people are not always comfortable with this. Sex is a part of life, a
basic need of human beings. Some people just felt this was an exploitation. It
was calling attention to the victimization that does happen. We don’t see these
things, we try not to think about them, but they are happening all the time.
And that’s hard for people to swallow.
·
Q: Inarra
o
AS: They are in control of their client base,
their money, they have political power. It’s clearly not victimization.
o
TM:
o
RL: It’s hard to have a character that is
traditionally feminine and still powerful. And that’s what Inarra is.
o
K: She is in control. She’s a sex worker, but
she’s not a victim. River is the victim – because she has things done to her
that she doesn’t want. The companion guilt is very wealthy and powerful. She
knows how to fight. She’s able and capable. Whereas River is victimized to such
an extent that she doesn’t even know how to control herself.
·
Q: Regarding Dollhouse: even if it could be
done, could it be done ethically? Is there anything that can be done without
victimization if people are desperate to sign that control?
o
RL: This is what makes Adele such an interesting
character. First you think she’s the villain, and then you don’t. Adele is at
the center of how the LA dollhouse was run.
o
K: Adele will get shit done, if it needs to be
done, but she has a caring nature to the dolls.
o
Audience: The dolls in the LA dollhouse were still
treated as human beings, while the Washington dollhouse treated them only as
tools.
·
Q: Where does Echo become a hero?
o
RL: She starts out as either a hero or a
terrorist. She’s back into a corner, and she’s coerced. Her personality starts
to carry over from personality to personality.
§
SA: Is this what makes her a hero?
o
K: When she’s in her terrorist days, she’s
Caroline, not Echo. As Echo, she starts picking up pieces of other
personalities she’s had programmed into her.
·
SA: Dollhouse explores identity, without
answering anything. We can all make different conclusions.
·
SA: We see female characters put in a victim
role. They are put through some kind of horrible sexual ringer, to rise up from
the ashes. Is it exploitive? Is it emotionally honest? (talking about Tomb Raider
game)
o
TM: It’s a default state for a male writer to
say that if I am going to put a female character through the ringer, it’s going
to be through rape. But there are other tools. There are things that can make
you lose your will to live faster.
o
K: Originally the backstory was that she lost
her father. Now this is being retconed. It’s a shorthand for something more
complicated. And it trivialized the event.
o
RL: Bringing it back to River, there’s nothing
about sexual victimization. It’s not about sex. It’s a female character, and
she’s rising up from her oppressors, and it’s nothing about sex.
§
Even if you don’t go to a story about rape, it’s
about being married against their will.
§
Even things that are written now, for children,
have that trope.
o
K: Using either rape or forcing to marry: you’re
taking free agency away from a woman.
o
RL: forcing to marry is something that is still
happening in the world today.
·
Talk of playing to strength. There’s
victimization, but then how do you deal with that.
·
Women are victimized by taking away their free
agency (e.g. control over their body, their mind, their relationships), and
that almost never happens to men.
o
It’s the shorthand for a female character.
o
A male protagonist is usually more complex.
·
SA: Choice being taken away from the protagonist
is a common trope. But that's not always
true: Ripley in Alien. Linda Hamilton in Terminator. On the other hand, you
have Catniss in Hunger Games, where everyone is essentially a slave.
o
Gender is not an issue in the story of Catniss.
It’s not about a young women rising above, it’s about a person rising above.
o
SA: All
genre fiction is about taking support structure away from the protagonist.
o
AS: But female and male characters are treated
different. You don’t see nearly as many kidnapped male characters (unless they
are children). You don’t see men sexually victimized. The method of removing
choice and agency is different. A wider range for male characters vs. female
characters.
o
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