[fandom] Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

[escritoireazul]

Joss /= God. Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog /= The Best Thing Ever.



I've seen a lot of people saying that no one should be surprised by what happened in Dr. Horrible. For me, that's missing the point. The point isn't that it's a surprise and I'm so shocked by it and therefore upset. The point is that it's not a surprise, it's completely stereotypical of the genre and I expected more, I expected Joss to break the paradigms, subvert the genre, subvert the goddamn cliché - except it's his cliché, and he doesn't subvert that at all. He doesn't examine his own clichés, or if he does, it brings about no change.

The story does not have to end like that. Penny did not have to be characterized like that.

It's not that I didn't expect a Women in Refrigerators scenario. It's that I hoped, for once, I would be surprised. I wasn't, all I got was the same old story, the same old woman, the same old stalkery and/or asshole men.

There are parts I loved. NPH is adorablely dorky and the music was catchy. I love the phrase "thoroughbred of sin" even though I thought it was completely obvious that Bad Horse was going to be a real horse. There were ways the story could have gone which were not cliché, which did not characterize a woman as existing only to be the catalyst for Dr. Horrible, the tangible object through which the men focus their competition, as something to be won or lost to death. This could have been fantastic.

It wasn't.

Discussions, with spoilers:

The comments to kphoebe's post here.
The comments to trollprincess's post here.

I know I have more saved somewhere, but my computer is acting up, so I am going to restart it now.

Edited to Add: Also, minim_calibre's post and comments here.

Edited Again to Add:

takumashii's post here.
highandrandom's post here.

Comments

[invisionary.livejournal.com]

You know, it wasn't even really Penny's death that bothered me, it's that, as others have pointed out, the only purpose to her character while she was alive was to be something for the men to fight over (and you made this point as well). I know the story was only 40 minutes long, but that's no excuse - Joss managed to make both Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer into distinctive characters in that amount of time.

But Penny was basically Olive Oyl. And I'd like to think we've made some progress since the 1930s.

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

Exactly. The only alternative explanation that I've seen (other than OMG Joss, why did you choose the boring and obvious ending?) is likeadeuce writing that all three characters were trapped in their roles. I don't like that, but I understand it. I do think, though, that Joss was going for much more, and then just didn't bother.

It's not that I didn't expect a Women in Refrigerators scenario. It's that I hoped, for once, I would be surprised.

Me too.

ETA: And if he's going about mocking cliches (the hammer is my penis, FTW), he'd better have something other than a great big cliche to end the story!

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

I'm not at all arguing that the 'all three trapped in their roles' message was accomplished very well, but that's what I saw him going for.

I never thought the thing was very interesting in the first place, so I'm having trouble participating in the outrage.

[cabell.livejournal.com]

There were people who were surprised by the horse? o.O

I was arguing these points in comments on someone else's post today: http://laura47.livejournal.com/883344.html

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

There seemed to be a lot of people surprised by that. I never really got that; all the suggestions that Bad Horse might be anything other than a real horse rang false to me from the beginning.

[attaining.livejournal.com]

I feel the same way. Penny seemed like filler for the conflict between the men. She was 'disposable.' I haven't seen the third act again, but weren't there newspaper with headlines along the lines of "what's her name" regarding her death? She was "Captain Hammer's girlfriend." She was "something something to a man."

I hoped for more from Joss.