So I have a new lady friend. Recently, we were considering what TV show or movie to watch together, an issue because of my blindness; I can only see details of a video if it’s on my iPhone three inches away from my face (a condition not suitable to a shared experience), while something on a conventional TV screen is both too bright for me to look at comfortably and also lacks all detail for me. So something dialogue heavy seemed called for.
I suggested Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog, but she shot that down. Though she is a Joss Whedon fan, she finds the sexual politics of that particular entry in his oeuvre more than a little problematic. Penny, she says, is a completely flat character who exists only for the furtherance of Billy’s plot arc and has no agency of her own; moreover, she is irked by what she sees as the entitled nature of Billy’s obsession with Penny, which she finds vastly unsympathetic.
None of these elements bother me. Horrible is a super villain origin story, so naturally the villain is the viewpoint character. True, Billy is a creep — but I think he supposed to be a creep, so assigning him creepy behaviors is in fact required. I don’t feel that the viewer is being asked to sympathize with an Incel— not least because I feel very little sympathy for Billy. Maybe for half of one second, when Captain Hammer is about to murder him, and not much even then.
But that’s just me. What about the rest of you? More than a decade after its release, does Dr. Horrible hold up to a critical view?
One thing before anyone responds. As alluded to above, I’m legally blind. I created this post using voice-to-text software, which is not always entirely reliable and is quite apt to mix up homophones, not to mention introducing syllables I never uttered and deleting ones I did. It is incredibly tedious to go character by character in search of VTT-created typos. Even sighted people make typos, so while I have tried to prove-listen for errors in transcription that change the semantic meaning of my message, I’m not going to go further than that.
I never thought about it before, but it does seem valid that Penny is a prop and not a character. So pretty much what actresses were in 1000s of movies. This would rule out watching more than half of all movies ever made I think.
As to dialogue heavy films, how about an early Kevin Smith movies like Clerks or Dogma?
I think that is one of the main points of the story. After all, it’s a musical/parody/tragedy and it accurately reflects the classic superhero genre. She might as well single out movies that have strong women in the role of the villain(s) as “always portraying women as evil.” At heart, it’s a fairy-tale.
That both guys are complete jerks who see Penny as nothing but an object of desire isn’t so much a plot point as a plot… surface? They just happen to be jerks in different ways, but either one should be beaten up with the other one’s torn-off legs :p.
It’s a satire of the superhero genre, but also of romantic comedies, most of which wouldn’t last two minutes if the people in them weren’t either jerks, unable to speak, unable to listen or all of the above.
Yeah, about the only virtue you can claim for Dr. Horrible is that he’s not Hammer. Beyond that, it shouldn’t be any surprise that he’s horrible to women, because he’s horrible in general. It’s right there in the name.
That said, though, we could have had a story about two horrible people being horrible, with the female lead also being a more three-dimensional, interesting character.
We settled on the Gilmore girls reunion miniseries, as I had never listened to it but I always loved the series. She was also new to it, so we were able to enjoy it together.
As the spouse of a totally blind woman, I often find myself tasked with finding dialogue-heavy movies that she can enjoy with me. Three that have left her delighted (and me entertained) were “Sibling Rivalry” (Kirstie Alley), “When Harry Met Sally”, and “Leaving Normal” (Christine Layton, Meg Tilly).
Yeah, they’re all kinda old, but the two of you might enjoy them.
When Harry Met Sally is an old friend, but I’ve never partaken of the other two. Mike try them sometime. I was just talking to my stepdaughter who was planning what she wants to do on Christmas Eve. An 80s movie marathon for some reason,. She was wondering if I thought princess bride would still work for me.
In the way of contemporary video entertainment, it’s probably easier to find TV series than movies that are dialogue-heavy. Superstore’s become a favorite of mine, but I’m sure there are plenty of others.
Once I emotionally accepted that I was never again going to be able to enjoy the likes of comic book adaptations properly, I stopped missing movies. I only bother with them now for social reasons. Being unable to read in the traditional manner is a far greater handicap. I have many audiobooks (including, no one will be surprised, everything of Tolkien I could find), but I don’t like having to have somebody else mediate The experience for me. And there are a few books, most notably Heinlein’s “The Moon IsAa Harsh Mistress”, that I have never been able to find with a narrator I could tolerate.
And yes, before anybody suggests it, I realize iPad and Kendall will read mini electronic books to me. I really hate those. The robot voices are not euphonious.
I just retired, and I thought I’d be catching up on my big stack of unread books, and be going to lots of movies, and binging TV shows…
Nope. Audiobooks.
I’ve spent almost every day listening to books. My best day is mostly spent at a local coffee joint with earbuds in, engrossed in a mystery. People think I’m in a small town in the 21st century, but they don’t realize I’m wandering through a Scottish village in 1850, following a suspicious cloaked figure with a limp.
And it’s how I bribe myself to work out or take a walk or clean the house: “Ok, if I get off the Dope and DO something, I’ll finish that chapter and maybe figure out whodunnit!”
Hmmm, might be time for an Awesome Audiobooks thread…
Penny’s role includes being used as a prop in an argument between two guys, true. But Penny herself has character and agency. In fact, besides working to get a soup kitchen built, she acts in the viewers place, judging both tagonists and visibly noting their shortcomings. She is our proxy. You can see her trying to like both of them and being disappointed by both.
This is a short, cartoon-y piece. Nobody gets much character depth, really, they only get good lines. Penny doesn’t get whacky lines because she’s the normal person. She doesn’t join in the posturing.
Penny’s role is somewhat problematic, but your lady friend may also be responding to the scandal that Whedon was involved in a few years back when his ex-wife accused him of being a hypocrite on feminism and a philanderer
Sure, that could happen, but it would completely change the focus of the story. Whoever is most developed is the focus. But the movie here is about Dr. Horrible and Hammer, so Penny can’t be more developed than either of them.
Anyways, I agree with the others, but I also see where the girlfriend is coming from. The narrative is very similar to the one incels tell about themselves. They fall for someone and then impugn all these horrible traits on the other person, as a way to justify their bitterness.
And, well, we are supposed to feel some sympathy for Dr. Horrible. That’s part of how tragedies work. They want you to get inside the head of someone who would have that fatal flaw and thus understand why they would make the decision they do in the climax that leads to their downfall.
Heck, in classic Greek tragedies, the protagonist is heroic other than their tragic flaw. And you do see some of Horrible’s actions being portrayed as heroic–in the “see, he’s not so bad” way.
So, while I agree that the work isn’t actually agreeing with Dr. Horrible, as his infatuation and objectifaction of Penny is clearly portrayed as his tragic flaw, I do understand why someone who has bad experiences with the incel movement might not enjoy watching the miniseries.
He said “a more developed character,” not the more developed character. Lots of room to grow Penny’s character without taking away the focus from the lead.
I watch it and enjoy it because it’s funny and the singing is enjoyable. I despise the incel ‘movement’, and luckily this movie is made to poke fun of it, not encourage it.
All three episodes put together adds up to 42 minutes, the average length of one “hour-long” show. And all the characters were pretty cartoonish, intentionally so. Penny is mostly just a girlfriend character but there’s no pretence otherwise. She does change from hopeful to disillusioned, though, so it’s not like there’s no development at all.