More On Dr. Horrible: Links, Quote from Joss, Rape Joke In The Comic Book (ugh!)
| July 23rd, 2008Two more good posts critiquing Dr. Horrible from a feminist P.O.V.: one at The Hathor Legacy, and one at Rebecca Allen’s place. There’s a lot of good discussion going on in their comments, as well.
* * *
Here’s a relevant quote, from an interview with Joss:
Q: 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: [...] 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.
Joss is right that Penny needed more jokes. Dr. Horrible’s mocks the cliches of supervillains, and the cliches of superheros — but there are practically no jokes about the cliches of the Polly Pureheart girlfriend. It ends up feeling as if the video sees that the supervillain/superhero roles need to be questioned critically (by which I mean, “pointed at and mocked”), but takes the Polly Pureheart cliche seriously.
In a story that’s all about the funny, Penny never gets to be funny. I don’t think the feminist audience necessarily wanted to see Penny kick ass, or to live happily ever after, or not to make stupid choices about men (like sleeping with Captain Hammer). I myself would have been happy if her character was as funny as the other two leads. (And the normal-human, straight man role can be made funny; think of how hilarious Jane Curtin was on Third Rock From The Sun).
Joss is right, of course, that all characters are there just to serve the story. And given this story, it would have been hard to make Penny as rich1 a character as Dr. Horrible or Captain Hammer. So yeah, to avoid making Penny a sort of boring would have required a bit of above-average writing. But there’s nothing wrong with the audience expecting and wanting above-average writing.
(By the way, Felicia Day is completely capable of being funny — check out the internet sitcom The Guild, which Day writes and stars in, if you haven’t already).
* * *
Finally, the official online comic book, which was written by Joss’ brother Zack, and beautifully drawn by Eric Canete. It’s got a “funny” prison rape joke — Captain Hammer warns readers not to be criminals, or else you’ll “go to prison… with this guy” (illustration shows freakishly huge, muscular prisoner, telling his much smaller cellmate “you have good bone structure.”).
A few points:
1) People might be tempted to defend the rape joke on the grounds that it’s told by Captain Hammer, and that’s just the sort of boorish humor we expect from CH. That’s true, but in the video the humor in all of CH’s comments is that CH is a total ass and saying utterly appalling, awful things. In the comic book, it comes across as the comic book telling a generic prison rape joke, rather than making fun of the person telling the joke.
(Compare this to the prison rape joke Faith makes early in the Buffy episode “Who Are You?,” in which the joke is played as unfunny and appalling.)
If the intent was to make fun of how boorish Captain Hammer is, then the script failed to get the point across.
2) As Liss says, “the jokes normalize and effectively minimize the severity of rape and thusly perpetuate the rape culture.” Why would anyone want to contribute to that? Similarly, from the SAFER blog:
You know why we can’t make fun of rape? Because doing so trivializes the pain inflicted by rape, and that contributes to a general cultural attitude of not taking rape seriously or holding perpetrators accountable. That type of culture makes rape more common.
3) Even if you don’t give a shit about all that, why would any writer who’s not a hack tell a prison rape joke? I can’t imagine a duller, more played-out cliche.
- Note that rich doesn’t mean “realistic” or “deep,” which none of these characters were! (back)
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:15 am
Don’t disagree with any of what you said. But am I the only person who does not think Dr. Horrible was very good aside from it feminist issues (which are not new). As Joss admitted none of the characters had any reality. The plot was - flimsy. Occasional good line “My penis is the hammer” and occasional good plot point (Bad Horse being an actual horse.) . It is like all the worst flaws Operas sometimes have only without gorgeous music to make up for it.
And no being a spoof does not make up for it. Neither does “deconstructing” motifs - especially since origin stories for villains is nothing new. Neither are idealistic motives or sympathetic back stories.
The flaws you mention make it worse. But are you honestly saying if the script had been deeply and unflawedly feminist, but otherwise the same that you would have enjoyed this. I dunno, maybe I’m getting old but this just seemed like a pretty worthless script overall.
This comment was written by Gar Lipow.Report this comment to the moderators
July 23rd, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Penny never gets to be funny?
“If we got this new building, we’d be able to provide 250 new beds, get people off the streets and into job training, so… [realizes Billy's not listening] …they can buy rocketpacks, and go to the moon, and become florists…”
“This petition is about the BUILDING.”
“The Thoroughbred of Sin??”
[When Billy says he can't imagine anybody firing her] “Neither could I! But now… I can visualize it really well.”
Plus her reactions during Capt. Hammer’s song. A big part of the fun was watching her squirm at his clueless arrogance.
Felicia Day was great. She made Penny a real person in the middle of all that craziness, and she had great chemistry with NPH. If Penny was just a prop, nobody would care what happened to her.
Anyhow. I didn’t think the comic was here nor there, but if that rape joke offended you, you might have really hated it when Bad Horse threatened to make Dr. Horrible his mare!
This comment was written by Jim Treacher.Report this comment to the moderators
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:09 pm
“if that rape joke offended you, you might have really hated it when Bad Horse threatened to make Dr. Horrible his mare!”
If you don’t like it when it’s considered funny that someone might rape someone else, then you must really not like it when it’s considered funny that someone might rape someone else.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
July 24th, 2008 at 8:28 am
“If you don’t like it when it’s considered funny that someone might rape someone else, then you must really not like it when it’s considered funny that someone might rape someone else.”
…in the actual show we’re talking about that millions of people have seen, not the ancillary comic book. It just seemed like a glaring omission, that’s all.
This comment was written by Jim Treacher.Report this comment to the moderators
July 24th, 2008 at 9:06 am
To tell you the truth, I don’t remember that line, which makes it hard for me to comment on it one way or the other. If I ever watch Dr Horrible again, though, I’ll watch for it.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
July 24th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Hey, can anyone explain something to me? Why is no one up in arms against jokes that find humor in criminal violence, plain old murder, gruesome accidents, dead children, people losing all and any (self)respect, etc?
I am sorry, but I have a lot more sympathy for the young passenger whom I saw killed in a car crash less than two hours ago, than for any of the people who are probably getting raped at the end of the same street (Chino Hills Parkway leads to the California Institution for Men) So, I hardly think that a rape joke is worse that a joke about a flattened car.
Many, if not all jokes involve misfortune. Making a joke of that kind runs the risk of offending someone who has had a personal experience with that particular kind of misfortune. People have the right to label themselves as assholes by telling such jokes… I just do not understand those who single out rape jokes.
This comment was written by Petar.Report this comment to the moderators
July 24th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Petar, the fact that no one seems to be making a huge point about other such problems does not invalidate concern about jokes about rape. However, there’s a classic commentary of the difference between comedy and tragedy that tells us not to expect this to change - comedy is something bad that happens to you; tragedy is something bad that happens to me. Is it bad that people make jokes about rape? Sure. But there’s lots of things that are quite bad that people find humor in. Rape is nothing unique or special in this regard.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
July 24th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
You say that joking about rape makes us think it’s normal or not a big deal, but nobody would ever think that. Everybody knows that rape exists and that it’s a horrible thing (or, if they don’t, they’re screwed up beyond anything one joke could do). And horrible things are exactly the things we need to joke about. It’s why doctors and cops make jokes about some of the death they deal with in their job. It’s why Mel Brooks makes fun of the Holocaust, the Spanish Inquisition, and every other case of Jews being killed en masse. It’s why current comedians make fun of terrorists. By laughing at it you take away its power and you’re not afraid of it anymore.
If you can’t laugh at something, then you’re living in fear of it and it controls you. The point of comedy is to make light of the world, even the terrible parts of it, to comfort you and let you live on without fear or sadness.
This comment was written by Durandal.Report this comment to the moderators
July 24th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
RonF, your thinking of Mel Brooks from The 2000 Year Old Man, “To me, tragedy is when I cut my finger . . . to me, comedy is when you fall into an open manhole and die, what do I care.”
Or there’s Charlie Chaplin: “Tragedy is close up, comedy is a long shot” or something like that.
The difference though between rape and other forms of violence is the way that rape is minimized by society. Prison rape jokes are bad because it reinforces the belief that people in jail deserve to be raped. Other rape jokes help reinforce the belief that sluts deserve to be raped. If somebody has gotten into a fist fight no one will say that it’s okay to beat him with a bat or murder him. Yet if a woman is raped, she’ll have to be interrogated on her entire sexual history.
This comment was written by Raznor.Report this comment to the moderators
July 24th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Mel Brooks: Hitler is an idiot. Haha.
Funny.
No one I can think of with a comedy career: Jews died! Haha!
Unfunny.
Potential comedian: Rapists are idiots. Haha.
Potentially funny.
Actual asshole comedians: People are raped! Haha!
Actually asholish and non-funny.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
July 24th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
If somebody has gotten into a fist fight no one will say that it’s okay to beat him with a bat or murder him.
Actually, I’d dispute that. Hell, people justify somone getting mugged because “That’s what you get for going into the bad part of town.” I don’t agree, but there’s a significant number of people who voice that kind of thing.
Then there’s the kid I had in my Troop who just whipped up on a kid who had shoved him. When I questioned him on his grossly-out-of-proportion response, he said that his Dad said that if anyone ever did anything bad to him I should do something a lot worse to them to make sure they didn’t do it again. Lovely. But it’s the same attitude that twists the concept of “respect” into “fear” on the streets; you ARE justified in an out-of-proportion response. And if you are justified, why not someone else?
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
July 24th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
I thought the same as Jim: Penny gets jokes. They’re just probably not quite as obviously funny compared to “The hammer is my penis.”
This comment was written by Jennifer.Report this comment to the moderators
July 24th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Mandolin: George Carlin wasn’t funny?
This comment was written by Jim Treacher.Report this comment to the moderators
July 25th, 2008 at 6:15 am
Link to specific routine, and back up your assertion that he’s doing one of the things I outlined with a specific textual analysis.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
July 25th, 2008 at 7:59 am
Google “Rape Can Be Funny.” (Note that he says can be.)
This comment was written by Jim Treacher.Report this comment to the moderators
July 25th, 2008 at 8:48 am
Note that I asked for a textual analysis.
If you can’t be bothered to provide one, I can’t be bothered to take you seriously.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
July 25th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
No, YOU jump through MY hoops!
Carlin provides the analysis. Did you watch it?
This comment was written by Jim Treacher.Report this comment to the moderators
July 25th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
Jim,
Carlin is funny in that routine to the extent that he matches Mandolin’s description of how to be funny joking about rape. In fact, Carlin explains that he is funny to the extent that he meets Mandolin’s criteria. If you don’t understand that Carlin and Mandolin are basically in agreement here then your basic comprehension skills of one or the other need some brushing up.
This is why you need to provide an analysis of Carlin’s piece to be worth talking to, because only if you can explain how Carlin’s piece disagrees with Mandolin’s claim and make sense in doing so can you demonstrate that you aren’t the idiot that you appear to be by claiming without any argument that Carlin’s piece obviously refutes Mandolin’s claim.
Also, don’t tell a mod that they have to jump through your hoops, unless you want to find your waste-of-time ass banned from the site.
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
July 25th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
Treacher,
You are making a claim. You need to provide evidence for that claim, including an analysis of the text that supports your argument. Otherwise there’s nothing for me to argue against, because without specific points in your analysis to refute (WHY do you think that routine supports your point?), you’re not actually arguing anything coherent.
Also: see Charles’s post.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
July 26th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Cat and Girl
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
August 3rd, 2008 at 7:27 am
First of all you were talking about a joke and saying “you have nice bone structure”… that was in a College Humor video (bloody halloween)… So when you say “CH” do you mean captain hammer or college humour?
I agree…she did have a cause but she could have been more interesting. But not as bad as Johanna in sweeney todd - all we really know about her is that she is pale with light hair. I thought it was stupid that he fell in love with her without even knowing what she was like.
Thus i get off topic and have to say “freeze ray“
This comment was written by chiya.Report this comment to the moderators
August 3rd, 2008 at 8:46 am
She and Anthony are spoofs, though. They’re the people that the play would normally be about, if handled by a different author — the beautiful leads who survive. The focus is deliberately moved away from them, leaving both undeveloped within their archetypical roles in the melodrama, and refocused on those characters who would ordinarily have been the poorly developed villains. (Also, there’s a certain amount of both character development and comedy done in the way that Joanna’s lyrics are written, but nevertheless, the point holds.)
Having seen Dr. Horrible now, I’d say that while Penny’s role is weakest, this felt symptomatic of Wheedon needing another draft, or an editing hand, or a bit more experience with musicals. He didn’t really seem to have control of the material in a number of places, and I think that impacted all three characters.
I would add, though, that the actress playing Penny seemed to be holding back. Was she directed that way? Hard to say, but either way, I think a different interpretation might have made her lyrics funny in the way that Joanna’s lyrics are funny (”even not knowing who you were”) or Hope from Urinetown (”follow your heart”) is funny. I’m not sure whether or not Wheedon’s intent was to work within the model of the spoofed ingenue, but it would have worked better for me if the musical had been nudged in that direction.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators