My thoughts on Dr. Horrible.
Jul. 22nd, 2008 03:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficMore and more, I’m starting to think of Joss Whedon as the Michael Bay of dialogue. He writes really good dialogue that lets you go on a really fun ride, but the destination is always the same. His twist endings are always “unexpectedly, tragedy strikes!” Basically, he’s that old cliché of darkness and edginess somehow being more artistically valid than a happy ending, with all the smug pretension such a position demands. I mean, “I give my audience what they need, not what they want”? How did fandom let him off the hook for that and the one-way, almost dictatorial street of creator-fan interaction it implies?
Take Penny, for instance. She’s not a character. She’s barely even an object. Even objects can have two dimensions. She’s such a sweetness and light creation (down to her signature character trait being caring for the homeless. Yeesh) that if this were the 18th century, her eventual tragic demise would doubtlessly be from consumption.
The plot of Dr. Horrible hinges on Billy loving her, yet… why does he love her? What’s the focal point of his attraction? He doesn’t even know her (beyond the fact that she’s hot) and neither does the audience. The naked mechanics of the script come out in Captain Hammer’s attraction to her. He literally only wants her because Dr. Horrible does (Captain Hammer’s odious sociopathy never really gets an explanation either. Why does he hate Dr. Horrible so much? Because he’s the imagined high school nemesis of the geek set, acting out because… he’s just mean, that’s why!).
As for Penny herself, she has no inner character. You’d wonder what Dr. Horrible sees in someone who’s so easily taken in by Captain Hammer (and given that her function in the series is to be Dr. Horrible’s potential redemption, that’s a very pointed question indeed). For a second in Act III, it looks as if she’s getting wise to Captain Hammer’s Zapp Braniganiness, but that’s obliterated so that her last line can be “Don’t worry, Captain Hammer will save me.” Because it makes the tragedy more potent, you see.
Now, any Smallville viewer who’s had to suffer from the endless dance of Clark and Lana will tell you the dangers of a creator shipping their own creations, but I think it provides a necessary function that’s missing from Whedon’s works. He sees characters cynically, as puppets that are moved around to create Good Drama. We’re not supposed to root for couples or feel sorry when they split up. We’re supposed to applaud the Good Drama, the labyrinthine workings of this colossal machine built from secrets and characterization and continuity. It whirls and winds and grinds and eventually arrives at a Tragic Conclusion, while we applaud politely and observe that yes, truly, Joss Whedon is our master.
When TPTB have a canon ship, it at least provides a sort of loyal opposition for fans who ship something else. There’s a plan they can oppose, instead of this irrelevant miasma of pairings that are all just as meaningless as the other. It kind of makes you suspicious of all the time spent on relationships in BtVS when by the end of the show, pretty much everyone was either single or widowed (except for the eleventh-hour lesbian relationship, because killing off Tara was politically incorrect). It’s like going into a romantic comedy and being told beforehand that the star couple won’t get together. Joss Whedon always ends his pairings with a tragedy, so what does it matter?
Worse yet, this attitude has spread through the television world much like herpes at a convention in Vegas. Somehow, no relationship, platonic or otherwise, can be complete unless there’s a tragic ending. It makes things… ‘profound.’ Which is why every series of Doctor Who has to end with some tragedy befalling the Companion du jour, despite the chest-thumping proclamation of DW as a humanistic, positive show. Personally, I think the nadir of this kind of thinking was the Enterprise finale, where they leapt ahead several years just to show that nothing had come of the flirtation between the only two likeable characters with chemistry, indeed, killing off one of them to lend the series finale some unearned ‘oomph.’
Of course, this is because the conventional wisdom says that Moonlighting started to suck when David and Maddie got together.
That was over twenty years ago.
Think about this. Imagine you’re writing a story, and someone comes up to you and says you shouldn’t go in X direction with the plot because another story did something similar twenty years ago and people didn’t like it. What would you say? “Well, maybe they didn’t do it right, but I’m going to do better!” “But here it fits the characters, and lets me tell all kinds of new story!”
Apparently, a lot of people say “Righty-o, more of the same old, same old then!”
They didn’t want Clark Kent and Lois Lane to be married. They don’t want Peter Parker and Mary-Jane to be married. They just want this eternal circle-jerk of sexual tension, as if this is the grand poombah of storytelling greatness. Sexual tension. Unresolved sexual tension.
For some reason, romantic love is always a mirage on the horizon, never something tangible, consummated, treated maturely. Which is pretty dang weird. We don’t have this problem with platonic love. Dean and Sam go through most episodes with their brotherly love never in doubt, sometimes going out of their way to affirming it, sometimes having it threatened by fighting, but it’s always in evidence. It’s the backbone of the whole goddamn show. Imagine how silly it would be if every episode ended with them WANTING to play two-player on their X-Box or catch a midnight showing of Star Wars, but getting tongue-tied at the last minute. Or if the sweep week episode of Stargate Atlantis had Rodney and Shepherd giving each other high-fives, then never talking about it again and getting sheepish every time it was brought up.
Yet, the idea of treating romantic love with the same kind of consistent dignity is never broached. For some reason, heterosexual monogamy is a taboo. It’s not just outrageous, it’s NUTRAGEOUS.
This subversion of the cliché has become so common that it’s as cliché as the cliché it’s supposed to replace. And, at the very least, the cliched happy ending is satisfying when earned. For some reason, God only knows what, writers everywhere have become convinced that while deus ex machina to give the good guys a happy ending is unforgivable, similarly contriving circumstances to give them an unhappy ending is worthy of praise and adoration. It’s profound! Artistic!
Only it isn’t. When you think about it, Dr. Horrible is the story of a man who wants something “ignoble” (in this case fame and fortune, which is unoriginal on its own merits), gets it, but realizes what he really wants is the love of a good woman, which previously wouldn’t have contented him earlier (but now he sees that love is all you need). So, basically, it’s the first two-thirds of EVERY STORY EVER IN THE HISTORY OF EVER. All that’s missing is the third act where he realizes that joining the Evil League of Evil isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and runs to stop Penny from getting on a plane to An Unloved And Unfulfilling Life (while Captain Hammer and/or Bad Horse try to stop him before receiving Ironic Comeuppances).
THIS. IS. NOT. GOOD. STORYTELLING. And don’t fool yourselves that it is just because Joss Whedon gives you a fan-boner.
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no subject
Date: 2008-07-22 09:03 pm (UTC)Moonlighting - God, I'd forgotten all about that show. I only ever saw one ep. but it was pivotal to the single event that has effected myself and family most in the last 20 years. it's a long long story. Jezz, blast from the past
*sits in thoughtful silence*
I'm going to rec the hell out of this essay, everywhere I possibly can.
Date: 2008-07-22 09:08 pm (UTC)Just so you know. :)
Re: I'm going to rec the hell out of this essay, everywhere I possibly can.
Date: 2008-07-24 12:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-22 09:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-24 12:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-22 10:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-24 12:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-22 10:10 pm (UTC)The real difference is that in a "real" comic book world, the superhero isn't a narcisstic douchebag. Well, not usually.
I'm not a big Whedon fan. I mean, I liked the first couple of seasons of Buffy, and I more or less enjoyed Firefly when I watched it (and immediately forgot about it when I wasn't watching it).
I like Dr. Horrible as a villain, 'cause I dig the mad scientist nerd archetype, and he has just enough humanity to hang my sympathy hat on. The short film/musical itself is fun and I enjoyed the songs a lot. I'll probably get the DVD when it comes out. But it's not high drama.
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Date: 2008-07-23 11:15 pm (UTC)Anyway, I loved Billy because he was so *honestly* the loser geek-set-out-counquer-the-world-by-villainy that it was laughable even while totally, humanly plausible. In a world where geeks play-act online super-battles of rights and wrongs why isn't it imaginable that if superheroes were real, some of those same guys would go out and try to get in on some of the "real" super-action, themeselves?
Plus, yeah, I love musicals, and I won't claim the songs are anything but spoofy, smarmy and/or totally -word of the day- *cheesy*, but I liked them for what they were. Nice, catchy, romantic in that naively tragic way (remember Shakespeare? dude left one hell of an example of those as a legacy) and done well. The makers get point for me for not trying to spoof the musical genre at the same time.
(more posted below in a new comment, as it's aimed at the OP)
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Date: 2008-07-24 12:42 am (UTC)That was a definite ambiguous moment. You could say that it was just the monologuing/singing required by both genres (as it's not uncommon to take a Zack Morris break from reality to sing your heart out; in fact, I think that's what happens during the commercial breaks on 24). But they played his hesitation like he was either the cute and fuzzy goofball who really couldn't kill Captain Hammer or he could be a supervillain already (and not just turned into one by Penny's death, though that seems less likely).
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Date: 2008-07-22 10:12 pm (UTC)but like usual, Whedon tricked me- in believing he may finally succeed with telling a pleasing complete story. I was thinking this was small and contained with a set ending and beginning- meaning he isn't panicking at the end going uuuh and then a dragon appears fade to black?
Re: I respectfully disagree, sir or madam!
Date: 2008-07-24 12:46 am (UTC)Rocks Fall Everybody Dies... that was season five wasn't it?
Date: 2008-07-24 01:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-22 10:34 pm (UTC)Specifically, that UST 4ever thing only (or mostly) applies only to couples who weren't together at the beginning of the story. There are any number of television shows--dramas as well as comedies--in which the first episode shows us a happily married couple. And they remain married throughout the run of the show, despite whatever conflicts and issues they endure.
I think that's because the writers don't see relationship friction as the be-all and end-all of the stories. Their relationship is a given. Oh, they may endure jealousy and suspicion and betrayals and anger and angst--but eventually they overcome those things and the relationship endures.* But when the show is about UST, or at least UST is a big sub-plot, the writers seem to think that allowing the characters to resolve that tension is the kiss of death. And, unless they're willing and able to write about something else once the characters get together...they're right.
And that's the point. Mostly they're NOT willing or NOT able. So they've just flushed the only thing that gave the series any impetus.
*There are exceptions, of course.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-23 04:57 am (UTC)And those happily married couples usually get broken up (see Peter/MJ, Scott/Barda, and Scott/Jean) for pathos. Even Wash and Zoe were supposed to have marital difficulties if the series had continued, not that they got off easy with the Big Damn Movie.
I respectfully disagree, sir or madam!
Date: 2008-07-23 12:43 am (UTC)Re: I respectfully disagree, sir or madam!
Date: 2008-07-23 08:52 pm (UTC)(don't take that the wrong way, I just had to use that macro. I mean, LOOK AT IT!)
The ending is, I think, pretty clear meant to be taken seriously, as a supervillain origin and not as a parody of WiR. We're not meant to laugh at Dr. Horrible when he says "and I won't feel... a thing."
Although a short asking what effect it has on the villain to commit their first unforgivable act (killing Gwen Stacy, paralyzing Barbara Gordon, to "jump the line," as it were, from antagonist to nemesis) would be pretty interesting from a storytelling standpoint.
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Date: 2008-07-23 11:20 pm (UTC)Re: I respectfully disagree, sir or madam!
Date: 2008-07-24 12:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-23 03:38 am (UTC)I loved Buffy, but Angel lost me pretty quick, and despite having a cast of actors that I adore, Firefly just made me go, "Huh?" So I can't blame Josslove.
I thought for what it was it was cute and funny.
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Date: 2008-07-23 04:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-23 04:16 pm (UTC)But yeah, I really liked your point about the Dialos Ex Machina ending thing. It really helped highlight for me the difference between subverting a trope and defying it.
The unexpected happy ending of the SITL/FOTD two-parter of Doctor Who, for example. Steven Moffat sets up the trope of "Tragic ending: person sacrifices herself for the greater good." But then subverts it by going "Well actually, these characters are supposed to be intelligent, and there are better ways out of the situation than that, and they're smart enough to find them, so any actual examination of this trope shows it falls apart. Therefore, I will make it happen how it should happen rather than blindly following the trope. Sometimes, everybody lives." That takes you from sadness as you think you know where the trope's headed then it asks you "Does this sequence I've set up hold under scrutiny" finds the answer is "no" and then changes things accordingly. That takes you on an intellectual journey.
Joss on the other hand set up the trope of "Romantic comedy: two guys vie for a girl's affection" and instead of examining whether it held up under scruitiny, just outright defied it for the sake of inserting tragedy, because what he did wasn't subverting it at all, because it completely failed to address the fact that he had set up this narrative device in the first place.
One's *actually* artistic and profound, whereas the other is just lazy storytelling. And yeah, your post really explains that well.
You seem like a pretty awesome/intelligent person interested in similar fandoms and meta-analysis of said fandoms like I am. Would you mind at all if I added you as a friend?
no subject
Date: 2008-07-23 06:30 pm (UTC)Not at all. I'm always interested in the difference between subverting expectations and disappointing them, where you can do something like "the bad guy wins" and it's a satisfying ending, as opposed to just... wankery.
(one more disagree-er; geez, is that even a word?) [and now, with addes *sense-making*]
Date: 2008-07-23 11:18 pm (UTC)Basically, what I'm trying to say is that, while looking for examples of "togetherness" that work without the added tragedy, I personally think you picked awfully wrong examples in the above-mentioned two pairs of characters. Sam and Dean were brought back together by their father's going missing/dying, and one and the other of them dying, while Rodney and John had to lose a whole lot of folks around them before canon finally showed us that their friendship was more than just fanon.
On the subject of tragedy being an overdone cliche and that every relationship can be sold only as long as it has tension in it - well, like the saying goes, there's only one story in the world, and it's being re-told again and again. Anthony and Cleopatra, Gilgamesh and... (whathisname, the furry bloke *g*), God and the Devil, or Adam and Eve. After all is said and written, it's the enticipation of the unknown that keeps an interest in a story, be it a new turn of plot or phrase, or a new style of writing/filming/composing, or a new format of media. We already have 'Dexter's Laboratory' for the story of a up-and-coming-yet-going-nowhere wannabe!supervillain; giving that story some songs, a laughable superhero and a love interest angle that ends with the somewhat naive villain!hero learning the hard way the price of life and love, well. Everyone loved Buz's "Romeo & Juliette" even though everyone and their cat knew the chick buys it in the end. I don't see this as a case of using tragedy to yet another out-cliched extent.
The ending was just that, a fast ending for a short series that managed to give us character development with radical changes, a plot twist that could pass as novel, and something we can watch and say, yeah, OK, the whole thing was less than a quarter of an hour long but at least it had an ending. And, having read "the master plan", I doubt that the makers could have even attempted more with the budget at hand. If the ending was not exactly funny, well, the story of the underdog seen through said underdog's eyes usually isn't, super statuses added or not.
(Please forgive the length and ramblinesss of this; words got away from me.)
Re: (one more disagree-er; geez, is that even a word?) [and now, with addes *sense-making*]
Date: 2008-07-24 12:51 am (UTC)That's why I don't get why Whedon's 'big twist' is always the same. It's like his crowning moment of awesome was sending Angel to hell and he never stopped trying to top that. Why not have Penny turn out to be a spy for Bad Horse or realize that both men are dinks and go off to get more signatures from nice guys or have Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer realize that the reason they hate each other so much is because of repressed homosexual lust? Why "The Night Penny Not-Important-Enough-For-A-Last-Name Died, Take 55"?
no subject
Date: 2008-07-24 12:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-24 12:45 am (UTC)And implying that the audience needs tragic ending after tragic ending takes us to a really weird, didactic place. Assuming that Whedon was going for a "Dr. Horrible is a 'nice guy', but he's still an asshole for doing what he does" message that many fans are reading out of it, wasn't there a way to ping that moral while giving Penny some agency or even... having a happy ending?
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Date: 2008-07-24 12:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-24 12:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-24 12:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-24 01:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-24 01:02 am (UTC)Above, I was asking you to give the context of Joss's 'what they need, not what they want' quote, because I have never seen the original context, i have only heard it quoted, many times, by fans who disliked it. Therefore, it seems incorrect to say fandom gives him a free pass.
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Date: 2008-07-24 01:14 am (UTC)Well, yeah, but what else makes a story element invalid but the audience not liking it? Peter David once put a scene in The Incredible Hulk where Betsy Ross got off a train to be reunited with Bruce Banner; she had no logical reason to do so, but the audience liked it, so it was valid. You can get away with anything so long as the audience buys it, that's what suspension of disbelief is all about.
Actually, I googled that and it came up in an Onion A.V. Club interview. Perhaps less strident than taken out of context, but not at all "'give the fans what they need, not what they want' is the kind of thing I would never ever say."
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Date: 2008-07-24 01:19 am (UTC)The "what they need" phrasing may be a little strong, but I've heard the basic sentiment expressed by every writing teacher I've ever had, which is basically, you create conflict by not taking the easy way out.
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Date: 2008-07-24 01:23 am (UTC)If I said that Keanu Reeves should learn to act, would that invalidate the segment of the audience that likes blank-eyed monotone?
The "what they need" phrasing may be a little strong, but I've heard the basic sentiment expressed by every writing teacher I've ever had, which is basically, you create conflict by not taking the easy way out.
It's more than creating conflicts, it's always revisiting the same tragic ending. I'm not saying he should always do happy endings or beige endings or end everything with a Mexican stand-off, but it would be nice to have some variety, as if someone's Tragic Death(tm) weren't the be-all and end-all of storytelling.
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Date: 2008-07-24 01:28 am (UTC)What you are saying is that you do not like the kind of stories that Whedon is telling. I have no issue with that. What you also seem to be saying is that telling -- or liking -- those stories is wrong because you do not like them yourself. I do take issue with that.
It's pretty clear where we both stand so I don't know that there's any more to be said.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-24 01:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-24 01:03 am (UTC)Heh, heh -
Date: 2008-07-26 02:52 pm (UTC)My only correction to your generally-admirable rant is, I think you mean 19th century: if she were an 18th century heroine, we'd find out that she was secretly Mad Moll, the bold and saucy Lady Highwayman, Terror of the Coach Road, by night; or else that she was actually The Princess Incognita, with all this wealth and power at her fingertips, going out in humble guise to test the virtues of those with more ostensible power before making her decision as to who to favour - either way, there'd be a stunning Unmasking sequence in which all the guys end up redfaced and mumbling and staring at their hands, and Penny (whether Penny the Predator or Princess Penny) goes off with lackey Moist, who has unexpectedly shown his virtue in some way or another, not least of all by being humble and un-arrogant throughout...
Yes, I read too much Restoration Comedy and listened to wayyy too many ballads, I admit!
Re: Heh, heh -
Date: 2008-07-27 05:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-31 11:22 am (UTC)- It was established early that Dr. Horrible's inventions never work exactly the way he wants them to -- there's always *some* malfunction/something not thought through.
- It was established early that Dr. Horrible shies away from killing. "Besides, there's kids in that park, so..." (The "murder is neither original nor creative" ist just an excuse, I think.) And even here, he can't make himself pull the trigger on Captain Hammer. The fact that he doesn't means that he is not irredeemably evil.
- Penny *had to* die. I'm not into the "death of innocence" interpretation. Rather, for me, it's that he obtained what he believed he wanted, at the price of that he really wanted. Also...
- It was clear in Act II that Penny was getting through to him. If Penny had lived, he would have been redeemed. With Penny gone, it's not innocence that is lost (it's not, he still hasn't crossed the final line, he still hasn't killed). It's hope. With Penny, hope died. Even if Penny had married Captain Hammer (as an extreme -- I know she wouldn't have), Doctor Horrible would still have had the hope that they would have gotten together.
(As I said, marrying Captain Hammer is an extreme example. It was clear that she had finally seen through Hammer's facade and noticed the jerk he really is.)
I ran several possible alternate endings through my head, but nothing I can come up with would have worked as well as this.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-06 05:51 pm (UTC)Yes yes yes. So much yes. I had Dr. Horrible recommended to me, and I started watching it, and I realized that... I wasn't allowing myself to sympathize with any of the characters because I knew, I knew, this was a Whedon production. If I loved them, they were going to end horribly. If they loved each other, they were going to end doubly horribly. So I couldn't sympathize, I detached, and I couldn't get involved -- and it turns out I was right to do so, because I was totally accurate in seeing it coming. And you know what? That's not my fault. It's not my fault that his endings are so predictable that I can see them coming, and it's not my fault that seeing them coming destroys my ability to enjoy getting there.
Always Ends In Tragedy is no better than Always Has A Happy Ending, and sometimes it's worse, because it has the air of artistic superiority to it.