I saw a post online about the "sexy lamp test", which is basically that if a female character could be replaced by a particularly sexy lamp that just sits around and is a sexy lamp with absolutely nothing about the story changing, the narrative fails. I think it so aptly describes Penny here.
Lol no offense to Felicia since she's awesome but uhh... It would be pretty funny if she was just a lava lamp in this movie. And then the lava lamp dies and the main character gets sad... and Scalded lol.
@@nathanlevesque7812 No, they are spot-on for the point. There's a spectrum between fully-developed main character and prop (i.e. "sexy lamp"). Penny, in this case, is very clearly neither (why would I care about a lamp 'dying'?), but many, many people fail to see that this spectrum exists, and assert that if a character is not a fully developed main character, they must be a prop. Not everyone can have all of the attention, and if it's evenly distributed, the narrative falls apart due to lack of clear direction. These are absolutely basic concepts of storytelling, and it's actually baffling to see so many people misunderstand it.
@@brzt4256 Characters should never be functionally equivalent to a prop unless the goal is bad writing. There's a difference between people in a story, and characters. E.g a random crowd is not a character or characters. If the writer gave them names but no writing that would be bad writing just the same, because a character should be...an actual character. It's just tautology really. Also, the example in question is actually about a main character who is functionally equivalent to a prop. But do keep prattling on about how many people misunderstand basic concepts of storytelling.
@O. M. Yeah. People often get all huffy when they hear the word "patriarchy", because they think it means men get all the candy, while their lives suck. It's really a system that pits men against one another, and some eventually claw their way to the top, *usually at the expense of others, regardless of gender*. But overall, women tend to get worse outcomes other things being equal. Sometimes they also have to weigh choices whose "benefits" are subjective, such as sacrificing agency to obtain financial security, so they might be impossible to judge without knowledge of her experience. This, of course, considers only her material needs at best while ignoring her emotional and intellectual ones, which perpetuates a system where those needs are ridiculed, belittled, and sometimes ignored entirely.
“The problem is that I’m not higher than the bully in the hierarchy that’s hurting me, not the hierarchy that’s hurting me” Or “the problem is that I’m not the bully, not the fact that bullying is bad regardless of who’s doing it”
"'The fact that there is a problematic hierarchy is not the issue. The fact that I am not where I want to be within that hierarchy is the issue.'" AWESOME!!! :)
This is what I think makes "Megamind" so special. Megamind is the incel villain who needs to fight an even more pathetic incel villain. This causes Megamind to actually grow as a person.
Was looking for this comment! Megamind is basically what Dr. Horrible either wishes it was or should have been. I mean, it even stars a melodramatic, music-obsessed geek! It’s an incredibly well written movie that, like Penny, deserves way better.
Megamind is an incel who tries to be a Chad, only to realize that the rules he always assumed he had to live by are BS, which let him become a hero. (Though he still clearly has villainous instincts he needs to work on, what with his reaction to cheering crowds.)
And a villain of his own making! GOD I love that movie we could build a 10,000 word essay just from the incel-chad dynamics of that movie but I'm sure a bunch of youtubers have already done it better
@@AmazingtristanMagic I thought it was kinda silly, but I didn't think it was anywhere near top-voted-comment funny. Also I made another comment after watching the whole video that I like more but still has single-digit votes, so this is a bit annoying as well as bewildering.
@@timothymclean Once you finish building your giant killer robot with death-ray eyes, THEN people will regret not top-voting your *actually* funnier comment! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA! :)
Timothy McLean Eh, wouldn’t worry about it. Most people only ever see a handful of comments, and which ones get seen depends a lot on timing. I wouldn’t read anything personal into it.
It's just like those "Revenge of the Nerds" kinds of movies. The tormented and underestimated geeks, rather then trying to subvert the narrative established by the jocks and escape that dynamic, instead put themselves to the jocks level so they can become the "alphas". Also, heaps of misogyny.
My dad was telling me about how funny he thought "Revenge of the Nerds" was when he was a kid. He convinced me to watch it with him, and I'll never forget him saying, "Holy fuck, how did I think this was funny?"
@@np8139 I'd say I had the same experience when, not too long ago, my dad decided to suggest we watch "Sixteen Candles" together, but, unfortunately, he was the only one in the room who who couldn't articulate or realize that the film we were watching was a despicable movie with overt racism and very sex crime-apologetic predilections. Which sucks, but this is like the most cognitively dissonant period of time ever, especially among people of his generation, so for at least me, I'm not incredibly surprised.
Two things. 1. The title had me thinking I was going to get a video about how the exchange of physical currency will forever doom us to suffer this pandemic. 2. The bit about "he can't just be sad and have it suck" is such a hard lesson to learn. I think there's a level of conditioning in our culture that tells us sadness and disappointment has to forge us, build us up, and create our origin story to being the person we want to be, and while it can, sometimes sadness is just a thing not working out and that sucks. We can just be sad.
I think that the fact that so few female characters never get to answer that question is the really big problem. Personally, I don't think that Penny answering that question would have made Doctor Horrible a better story (it would certainly have been more complete, but I'm not convinced that that would be better), but it is representative of the systemic problem of female characters being denied agency and personhood in so much of our media.
In your “lower polish” video, you still manage to: -Explain to me the plot of a show I’ve never heard of -Provide relevant cultural context to the points it’s making -Give a nuanced perspective on the good things and bad things about the way it addresses issues. Still far more “polished” than most of RUclips.
@@midnightsuspensetheater1356 I enjoyed it until the end. And then, the killing-of-penny spoiled all of what came before it, even in retrospect. As a matter of fact, it spoiled all the rest of Josh Whedon's work, for me, in retrospect.
I disagree only on the first point, I also haven’t seen it and the video in the description did a much better job setting it up for people who haven’t seen it. Not to say this tried to and failed, I’d rather say this video isn’t for his whole audience, it’s just for people who’ve seen this miniseries; since the video is so short it makes more sense to only talk about his points
The problem is the bully-victim and chad-incel dialectics don't map onto the hero-villian dynamic. A Bully isn't just someone with extra-ordinary ability, they are also looking for power. Similarly the incel isn't just some very unattractive person but someone who feels they deserve power. The Bully and the Incel are two sides of the same coin, both feel they deserve power, but one has the means to attain it. In this sense they are both Villians, Captain Hammer is a bully and Dr Horrible is an incel. Neither is a chad or a victim, neither is a hero.
@@itamarsalhov "a bully and an incel are both villains, in the sense that they're both shitstains that deserve no place in society" There you go sweaty I fixed it for you
Yeah, I don't think the dynamic maps 100% either. There's often other factors in, say, why a bully targets their victim too, usually for a trait they *also* don't have by choice. A trait, say, that the victim then starts to call a strength, or becomes a strength later on in life. So when given the oppritunity, they fall into that pattern of abuse, and become the bully themselves. Sorta why a lot of incel types were once the smart kid in school and all that, I think. To some extent, the dynamic still sorta maps though. Heroes have powers they didn't want, villains want *other* powers they don't *already* have. Bullies have strength they didn't necessarily want, their victims want strength instead of their (whatever else). And the incel path is denying that anything but that sort of macho dickbag strength matters, so you lust after that rather than expressing your (whatever else) and being a better person.
Yeah! A good mix would be amazing! I adore the faster videos for myself, but the polished ones are amazing to show to people. I've shown people who have almost fallen into an alt right pipeline the Alt Right Playbook. They didn't much like it, until three months later when they said that was a jumping off point. Both styles have their purpose, and I'm just glad to have Innuendo Studios content
I don't have anything against faster lower polished videos. But never underestimate the importance of the medium. Innuendo Studios polish isn't that hollywood moneyshot nonsense, but super precise, sharp, readable and elegant. These are all qualities that raise the power of the message. These are invisible qualities, but that's what makes them so strong.
Is it me, or would the obvious ending have been for Penny have been to break up with both of them? It serves basically the same plot purpose for Billy (he loses his love interest through his own actions) but does it in a way that is much clearer about what exactly the problem with his actions was. (Plus it actually subverts the angelic love interest trope, plus Penny deserved better.)
A - Joss Whedon wrote it, so there is no way he wasn't going to murder someone. It is just what he does. He pretty much always goes for some level of tragic ending, so in retrospect it was inevitable that this would even find its way into a silly musical about a supervillain with a blog. B - There is almost no way Joss meant to write this as a commentary on the man-o-sphere as we would see it in 2020. The joke was to do a cliche Nerds Vs Jocks story but as if it were a musical about superheroes. I think someone who was more consciously doing that would have called out Hammer/Horrible's actions a bit more directly C - Unfortunately, killing Penny makes the story more like what would happen in a comic book than if she rejected both guys.
The first time I watched it and every time I watch it again after forgetting the plot... I assume that's going to be the outcome. To have her choose one always felt so.... trite and playing into male power fantasy.
I appreciate that the creators did four one-shot comics that flesh out the personalities of the characters and briefly explain why they are who they are (namely, Billy, Hammer, Penny, and Moist). In the musical, I think Billy not knowing who Penny is inside is kinda the point: he's in love with the idea of Penny, not Penny herself. A lot of guys are attracted to the idea of having a girlfriend, not genuine interest in someone else's life and an earnest desire to see that person succeed. This is why the first big clash of ideals often leads to dramatic breakups and the shoulda-been-obvious realization that "they're not the person I thought they were". I used to share Dr. Horrible with my houseguests / new friends all the time as a sort of rite-of-passage (and to easily filter legitimately kind people from the Nice Guys). Billy is exactly that: a Nice Guy with a punishing lack of self-awareness. Kinda like the current situation with my neighbors to the south: someone self-absorbed and obsessed with what they think is important can neglect what would actually improve their lives, often causing irreparable damage that ripples into the lives of those they purport to care about...
"She dresses like a Becky but falls Stacy-like for the first Chad she meets" is most most 'internety' sentence I've heard in a while lol Stay sane and keep up the good work Ian!
@@cr4yv3n These are names Incels use for different types of people. Contrapoints has a very good video explaining the ideology of Incels. But to be honest, you might be better of not knowing about them. ^ ^'
Penny definitely deserved better than that, but the story also unambiguously intentionally shows that Dr. Horrible turning to scheming and violence fucked it all up. It is about how he became an actual literal villain. Although it's framed so that he is sympathetic, it also shows that he was wrong. I wouldn't say that the story is completely lacking about what she wants, though. She is someone who tries to change the world through peaceful means and kindness when both Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer attempt to impose the change they want in the world by force. There definitely could be more on her outlook, but they decided to go for the easy tragedy trope.
Yep. The comic also shows that she's really too nice for her own good, as hinted at with her "dreams are easy to achieve when hope is all I'm hoping to be". She thinks she's being charitable by not trusting her instincts with Captain Hammer, then becomes horrified with his narcissism during the statue unveiling, attempting to stealthily sneak out. Her final words to Billy unfortunately undo that character growth, sadly (though one could make the case that she's more concerned with reassuring Billy that everything's going to be alright than staying consistent with her recent epiphany).
Yyyeah, Doctor Horrible is the villain of the piece as far as the show is concerned, but the issue is that Penny's presentation doesn't actually provide a compelling counterpoint to how Billy views her. She's only important as a utility to examine Billy's internal life, which is unsettling when what we're asked to see about that life is how shallowly and myopically he views women, which is no different from how the show treats Penny.
I don't agree. I don't think the story is unambiguous in its blame. Billy shown as obsessive, yes, but it does not place the blame on him. His behavior and the consequences of his behavior are mostly blamed on external forces. And I think it's well-illustrated in the final big scene. Penny dies because Captain Hammer breaks the ray gun. She doesn't die because the gun malfunctions from Billy's ineptitude. She dies because Captain Hammer was being a dumb jock and broke the gun, causing it to explode. That's the problem for me. If the gun had malfunctioned because of something Billy had done, it would have been a clear signal to the audience that he had gone totally manic. But that's not what happens. And that's why it's incel logic. Incels know they're assholes. The issue is that they place the blame on other people for their attitude, not themselves.
@@Sandreline She dies at a point in the narrative where they are clearly both more concerned with fighting than with her safety or the safety of the crowd. Billy brought the damn gun, that is an action he took that directly contributed to her death. The idea that collateral damage can be ultimately more important than winning the fight is an idea you can get from that. Even if it's clear Billy does blame Hammer, it's not clear that his view is correct-- the audience isn't necessarily going to overlook that he came into an auditorium of people with weapon labeled 'death ray'. I sure don't. It seems to me there isn't only one reading of that scene, and one of those reading is indeed that neither the "hero" nor "villain" comes out clean of blame.
Penny is also literally the only hero in the story: she got the homeless that homeless shelter they needed. She protected those less fortunate than her.
"She dresses like a Becky, but falls Stacy-like for the first Chad she meets like a Gosling imprinting on a balloon with a drawing of a goose on it." Yup. Reached the event horizon. I'm only in my late 20s, and already have no idea what the youths are talking about. I know what a Chad is, I think I get what a Becky is. I don't know who Stacy is, but I hear her mom is pretty good looking...
oh god that last line showed your age more than anything in this comment. Ok, so, a Stacey is like a female chad. very attractive, very dumb. A gosling is a baby goose and imprinting is when a baby forms an emotional bond to the first thing it sees. Admittedly that last one is just biology, not slang.
Watching Dr. Horrible as a woman always made me feel... invisible. Penny is just a pawn in the story, not a real person. This is Felicia Day! I love her, and we don't get to know her AT ALL.
To be fair, Megamind is telling a slightly different story, but for my money, it's better in almost every way, especially the characters. The actress does her best with what she was working with, but Roxanne is soooooo much better written than Penny.
"she's not a character. she's barely a plot device." - folding ideas on the book of henry (2017) "penny isn't a character. she's a plot device." - innuendo studios on dr. horrible's sing-along blog (2020)
It's common to use female non-characters as a standardized good thing what must be preserved. That's why this video exists. It's so omnipresent in our culture that we rarely question it until it's pointed out (or if it's done really badly).
I wonder, because im watching season 3 right now, what they think about Dolores in westworld, since she starts that way, or even Ava in Ex Machina ( movie that totally does have the Incel/Bully relationship in the other two characters ), since they are being subverted.
@@MCArt25 Modern fascism draws at least as much from modern culture as from classic fascism. The ideas fascism grew from never went away; we just tried not to put them together that way again. Well, _most_ of us tried.
While the whole hero/villain/damsel mechanic is spot on, I think you undersell Penny as a character more than a little. She's the "fixer", the person who thinks that she can fix what is wrong for her friends, lover, or society as a whole, just if she gives that bit more of herself to do it. And if she succeeds, maybe that will fix her too. As such, she's not some vague amorphous blob of goodness, but a specific example of an unhealthy, but too common form of fruitless self-sacrifice that, in the end, is made literal.
only problem there is that too often the incel types tend to label women as "fixers" just because they got "friendzoned" and can't accept a woman's agency. Both women and men tend to be enabler/fixer types and will get into relationships that aren't good for them and stay in them far longer than they should so the idea that that character needed to be represented by a female character that represents no more than that who eventually gets fridged is absurd. He didn't undersell Penny at all.
Can we talk about society’s expectation for women to be fixers? Like, yes it’s a personality trait that anyone can have… but also a lot of people view girlfriends as free psychologists…
I've stood by you for a really long time, but this video goes too far. You've proven yourself to be an out of touch elite handing down edicts from your ivory tower. Shredded wheat is delicious. Seriously though I like this format and you nailed the series name. Looking forward to the next one!
Bit uncharitable, I'd say we can tell at least as much about Penny as we can about Hammer: she's someone who started adult life with pride and self-confidence that has been slowly worn down (she couldn't imagine being fired but then was several times); she has an earnest desire to make the world better but is deeply aware of how nearly futile it is (her handing out flyers but knowing there's no use in pursuing too hard as she gets passed by); and she's also very lonely (she latches on to Billy almost as much as she latches on to her when spoken to, just without the ulterior motive, and genuinely seems to have no other friends). She's a vulnerable young woman feeling incredibly powerless which is why she falls for Captain Hammer; she wants attention, validation and security in a world that has given her none - and I say that to be empathetic, not dismissive. Her relationship to Hammer's power is also a direct contrast to Billy's - she wants power certainly, but not for its own sake and when she has it vicariously through Hammer she puts it to Good use rather than trying to wield it against the world. And in the end, she is punished for it. Her not getting what she deserved is kind of the point - the world of Dr Horrible rewards egotism and has no room for someone whose ego was long since worn down ("NATION MOURNS WHAT'S-HER-NAME"). I honestly agree that Dr Horrible is about masculinity but saying Penny is a flat character of generic Goodness is overlooking her in exactly the same way as the men do.
This seems like one of those things where the problem isn't the example, it's the trend. I have no problem with a character who's more of a plot device than a character; stories just don't have the time to go into detail about every person regardless of relevance. Penny only seems like a problem because she's yet another example of a female love interest whose only purpose is to be fought over by the guys. There's nothing wrong with mac and cheese, but if it's the only thing you ever eat, you're gonna die. I don't think there's anything wrong with Penny's character, but if her role is the only one women ever get, there start to be misogynistic undertones.
While I think that's generally true, I think Penny's lack of character is a specific problem for this show because her lack of character undermines the overall message.
I don't think it undermine the message far from it, the whole show is seen from the perspective of Billy who sees her as nothing more than that, we are not seeing an unbiased view of the story here, we are following the story through Billy's eyes, imo drifting away from his point of view in the middle of the show just to give more substance to other characters would go against the purpose . (Sorry if this is hard to understand i'm no native english speaker)
@@reaganbartels9993 I don't get that. I don't need an epic Penny backstory to know Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer are assholes. If anything, other than changing the premise of the musical so Penny can't be considered a plot device, you would need to refocus the plot on her so that now the premise of the musical is about an activist who inexplicably has to superpowered assholes fighting over her
@@b.parker1740 to me it really came across as her unintentionally trying to manipulate Bruce's emotions to make him feel they were a good match, and it terribly backfired.
I think the best way to fix Penny as a character would be to have given her this really heartfelt, fantastic song going over her life, how she got here, her conflicted feelings, and what she hopes to do in the future, but it all goes down in the background while Billy talks about some bullshit by himself and ignores her. She's a fully formed person with her own life, but none of the men in her life can see it and are actively ignoring it to continue seeing her as an idealized, fictional version of herself. And since the whole show is framed through the lens of the Doctor Horrible blog and his own hyperfixation on himself, neither do we.
I actually think "Every Drop of Rain" was very sweet and served that purpose fine. No, we don't know the specifics of her trauma, but we know why she is driven to do good. And as I've stated in other comments, it's very frustrating Innuendo characterizes it as "generic good" when the movie actually has a lot of cynicism about the efficacy of homeless shelters.
@@DimT670 I was saying that it's persistently problematic, no excusing genocide nowhere (not in Xinjiang, Siberia or on Polish soil... or in "German" east African(no nazis necessary) )
I would question the logic asserted that bullies tend to use their physical size as part of their bullying. Given the highly social dynamics present in bullying I would suspect the common stereotype of the bully does not match well to reality
But the common stereotype of the bully matches well to what we think bullies are, _and_ surprisingly well to superheroes. Which is all that matters for this discussion.
Which isn't to say that @@theplaylister's points aren't important. Pointing out that emotional abuse is still abuse is important, since our culture doesn't seem to have quite absorbed that. It's just not important to this specific video about this specific superhero/villain dynamic. Though if you want a superhero narrative that _does_ include a (relatively brief) look at the more emotional side of bullying, I recommend Worm. The first chapter should make it clear why it's relevant.
Pop Culture Detective does a pretty good analysis of this in The Big Bang Theory, highlighting how a bunch of stereotypical nerds aren't in any way exempt from being bullies in their own right. It's worth the watch (the analyses, not the show itself).
From my experience, it is almost always someone who is equal or stronger than you in terms of strength. If not, they have the backing of multiple other kids. Either way, even if the relationship isn't directly physical, the threat of it is there and stops you from fighting back against the emotional and verbal abuse. Saw this even with girls.
I remember talking to some-one who was doing a study on the social dynamics in high schools, and one of their main conclusions was that in reality, it's not the most popular kids in school who are likely to be bullies, as they are already on top and don't need to gain any additional social clout by demeaning others. Their conclusion was that it was more often kids in the second tier of popularity who were the bullies as they were insecure in their social position and that resulted in the bullying behaviour. So, to bring this back to the video, it is quite often that bullies act out of their own insecurities, rather than those who are confident in their own power, and it's the media narrative that is wrong about that dynamic. If that conclusion is true, it's quite interesting that writers, who, let's face it, were more likely the ones who were bullied perceive that the it's the most popular kids who are the problem. I did ask the person in question to link to their study when it was done but they never did... I must see if I can find it again...
I agree. The people voted for school/class "president" are generally nice person who are liked but don't talk especially much. Bullies attract other bullies, those people feel the need to attack others and talk so much that they become obnoxious, all to get more attention than ones at the top.
I disagree, because I think it’s been proven that the popular idea, that bullies bully people to make up for some perceived deficiency in themselves, while it can be true in some cases, is actually a myth. And once you stop being kids this becomes more obvious. I think the truth is people become bullies when they encounter someone who they think deserves bullying. And you can be at any place of the social hierarchy to think this way of another person. That’s why most victims of bullying have been marginalized people, or people who are perceived as trespassing outside their expected social strata. Their status is seen as a slight and their ostracization is “fixing” it. That’s also why bullying itself is so hard to identify, because people are looking for an insecure abuser who is also acting outside the social strata and not a “normal person” with a “reason”. Also for some cases, the witnesses and other people involved also implicitly agree that the victim deserves “bullying”, to the point that they have trouble identifying what is happening as bullying. People being dicks to people in the service industry are bullies, usually because they think that the person they are bullying is not giving them the respect they deserve as a customer. People who dogpile people on Twitter are bullies, usually because they think the person who tweeted the bad tweet broke some kind of social code. You could be the most powerful and popular person in your country and still be a huge bully, and if you dig into the thought process of any bully who is also a leader, their thoughts are almost always “[They] stepped out of line. [They] deserve it.” And while having more social power than the victim of bullying makes it easier to be a bully, as we can see from how people behave online with dogpiling famous people, having less individual social power doesn’t exclude you from participating in bullying.
Ugh, I can't believe I'm about to defend Doctor Horrible here, but hear me out: The whole movie is supposed to be about the caricatured world that the "Nice Guy"(TM) lives in. And I believe that's actually extremely purposeful given how the movie is structured and written. The whole series is Billy's vlog. Everything - from the first shot of the movie to the cut from him in the red lab coat: "And I won't feel..." back to him in his basement, in his white lab coat: "...a thing." as the last line and last shot - is told explicitly from his point of view. Very, VERY explicitly, because there are constant cuts back to him talking to the camera and rambling on about tangents and whatnot. So Captain Hammer is the ultra-Chad because that's how immature, insecure Billy perceives him. We only vaguely know that Penny's gone through something (probably an abusive home-life or past relationship, as indicated about her "after years of stormy sailing have I finally found the bay?" line regarding her relationship with Captain Hammer) because Billy, for all that he's enamored by her, doesn't actually pay attention to what she's saying half the time. He doesn't actually KNOW what she's been through that draws her to Captain Hammer. Her relationship with Captain Hammer looks utterly baffling given how their personalities seem to us as the audience - but that's because BILLY is the one telling us about all of it. I'd argue that Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is absolutely about the manosphere, but I think it's more self-aware of that than you're giving it credit for, simply from a lens of film analysis. The entire framing device of the movie as a vlog means NOTHING if we aren't supposed to keep in mind that all of the information we know is being told to us BY Billy from HIS point of view: He is a classic unreliable narrator. Captain Hammer is almost assuredly not actually the enormous jackass Billy portrays him as within this world, but he's Billy's Hate Sink, so every flaw that Billy thinks Captain Hammer has is going to be exacerbated a hundred fold in any story he tells. Penny can do no wrong in Billy's eyes, but he really only views her as a pretty paragon of virtue, and so that's all she is when he talks about her. Their relationship makes no sense to us, because Billy's perception of it as a bad match results in him demonizing it to a point that EVERYONE involved is a caricature. So I don't think you're necessarily WRONG in the assessment that the way this dynamic is treated is screwed up. BUT I think it most certainly was done on purpose. To bring it back to the final shot of the movie: Why else would we be back with Billy, sad and alone in his basement, talking to the camera, if not to reassert to the viewer that HE was the one telling us this story? In the midst of the most emotionally charged moment, the surprisingly dour and tragic ending to what was otherwise a light-hearted and goofy comedy, as we've just seen Billy's actions kill Penny and how it's affecting him... "Oh. Right. Billy's telling the story." It's an intentional technique to call attention to the framing device and remind us that this is only HIS interpretation of events, and - as a self-proclaimed supervillain - his word is unreliable at best, and an outright lie at worst. I've watched it several times over my life, since it came out when I was like... 13? And I've always gotten from the film that Billy's main issue is PRECISELY that he's a self-pitying nerd with a victim complex. So in his story, he'll ALWAYS be the victim - at the hands of Captain Hammer, at the hands of the Evil League of Evil (who don't recognize his own evilness), at the hands of "fate"... and never realizing that the only one causing his problems is HIM. HE'S the one whose actions killed Penny. HE's the one who put her in danger that resulted in her meeting Captain Hammer. HE's the one who constantly ditched her for supervillainy when he had every possible opportunity to bond with Penny. Everything that led him to this point is HIS FAULT. It's obvious to the viewer that he's the reason Penny died. But coming back to him in the final shot of the film is supposed to show us the tragedy that, even after ALL of that he still doesn't get it, and he's twisted the narrative to suit his own needs and paint himself as a victim of circumstance and wallow in his own incel-y "Nice Guy" self-pity. I'm not gonna comment re: the treatment of women in Joss Whedon's other work, but at least for Dr. Horrible, I cannot reasonably see this as an unintentional choice. Joss Whedon may be many things, but he is a competent filmmaker, and choices like this aren't arbitrary. TL;DR - Billy's an unreliable "Nice Guy" narrator, which is why Penny has no personality - she's portrayed as an object for Billy to possess because he's the one telling the story and that's all she is to him.
The parallels weren't accidental! Your reading was the intended one! Horrible's photo of her when he sings Brand New Day is *taken from the bushes*. He lets slip how much he stalks her, both online and in real life, constantly. The twist-the-knife of her dying is also from the fact that it is Horrible's actions, so desperate to take his anger out on the jock bully, that has killed her. She mentions Hammer with her dying words *because he is the one who protects her from Horrible*. She likes Billy. She's scared of Horrible. Horrible is sympathetic at first because he's an awkward nerd. But he's not an anti-hero. He's an anti-villain that becomes a villain.
Also of course she'd say "Captain Hammer will save us" while she's dying because even if she's realizing he's a shitty boyfriend, he's still the superhero in this situation...
I don't know, I love love love LOVE this channel and a lot of what you say, but beginning at 3:55 saying that if he just waits it out since clearly she has feelings for him and she's going to get over the chad she's with in a month or so is the classic "I'm a nice guy, surely she'll see we really belong together and she'll let me out of the friend zone" logic-- and it's a basis of dismissing women's feelings that I see much more often than the outright violent misogyny it often morphs into. It surprises me to see it repeated here. I'm currently experiencing brain fog, so forgive me if I missed that this nice guy/friend zone idea is being put forth as something the narrative is saying and not an outside critique of that narrative.
Tend to agree. This isn't Simp and Sensibility; Penny is still no better than a McGuffin. The lesson Billy needs to learn isn't patience, it's that Penny isn't some sort of reward.
When I was in my junior year of high-school I forced myself to break out of my shell, and I did that by joining the theatre. The first friend I made there was a dude in my grade who would later invite me to a sleep over. We ended up watching Dr. Horrible, and while we watched he sang every part of the movie in its entirety, which was.. weird, but what really strikes me about the whole memory is remembering just how much he told me he identified with Dr. Horrible himself. This was immediately funny to me, because he was very tall and lanky, and I was built very much like Hammer (I also look quite a bit like Nathan Fillion in general). He was always a bit controlling, and seemed to bask in attention and complement baiting while he constantly "jokingly" insulted me, usually calling me either fat or stupid in a variety of slanted ways. Its very strange to remember but he was always challenging me to things like arm wrestles and slap fights. He pointed out over and over again that his ACT score was higher than mine. He seemed to relish any display of dominance he could have over me. I never really noticed this because he was quite literally the first friend that I had ever made in high school, but I do remember that moment of sudden realization of what I represented in his eyes coming to me while we talked about Dr. Horrible. I was his Captain Hammer.
Oh man, good luck with that. I’ve just recently come to terms with the fact that my long term best friend constantly puts herself above me to make herself feel better. I used to go along with it because I thought she was just insecure and it was kind of pitiful. It didn’t actually hurt me, but as time wore on it just kept getting worse. I’ve tried to talk to her about it and she says she’ll get better, but she doesn’t. Now I’ve got to decide if the last ten years is worth dealing with the next ten years. The Sunk Cost Fallacy is a powerful force even when you know it’s happening. For now, I’ve just gone “grey rock” outside of group activities. Good luck to you. Dealing with unhealthy friendships sucks.
Just like Sarah Z’s video, I love hearing people talk about Dr. Horrible. It was such an important thing in my life when I was younger that being forced to reckon with its themes as an adult feels so weird and challenging and makes me physically uncomfortable. Good video.
I've always hoped that the sequel would bring Penny back from the dead, and then in a Pygmalion sort of way she drops Billy and does her own shit for the duration. I will say, I think the original intended to make both Billy and Captain Hammer look like villains; I don't think the film is trying to suggest that Billy's "solution" actually solves anything. It's probably why Penny dies, to prove that his "solution" was dumb. But having seen more of Joss Whedon, it's likely this is just over-analysis.
It felt pretty clear to me back in 2007 that both Hammer and Dr. Horrible were shallow idiots who don't deserve Penny. It is just that their actions drive the story and Penny exists to be the thing they fight over, and really, no matter how much more characterization they gave her, she would be that thing
I mean, you can get a little bit of her depth from "My Eyes" just by her words and the juxtaposition. While Horrible is lamenting the supposed increasing numbness, blindness, and rot of society, she sees it as "finally growing wise" as in, has been blind, heartless, selfish, and rotten for quite a long time and interpreting what she sees as the first buds of empathic awakening and soon recovery. Disillusioned romantic vs optimistic cynic. Which then means she's not just with Hammer because he's some big strapping chad, or because she's blinded like Horrible claims, but because Hammer helps the community through his acts of "heroics" in much the same way she tries to help through petitions and volunteering, and she believes in that potential to grow beyond being a douchey jock. Once she realizes he purely does it for the acclaim and ego trip, there is no shred of altruism, you're right, she'll drop him like a lead balloon, and with her emotionally devastated, having lost the shred of hope she thought she'd finally found, Horrible will have his chance just by continuing to play along, and now giving her a shoulder to cry on. Heck, knowing Hammer's type, he probably won't take it well and get violent, and if Horrible saves her then, a non-powered shy wimp putting himself in life-threatening harm's way to protect her, that level of selfless altruism will absolutely wow her. That's the exact kind of good hearts she's trying desperately to cultivate in the world. Nay, since all she's seen out of him is meek self-absorption, she'd probably see it as proof positive she's making progress as an apostle of hope and compassion and be overjoyed. If an indestructible man yeeting her against a brick wall with only the faintest regard for her safety had her doe-eyed because at least somebody cared for once, Horrible would likely be kissed on the spot. The ironic tragedy is in that Horrible has completely misunderstood what impresses Penny, because when it comes to brass tacks he's been too busy putting her on a pedestal to actually get to know her, and his absorption of systemic misogyny prevents him from realizing that her actions are out of anything other than naivete. To him, she's not defiantly fighting the tide to try and make positive change despite the odds, she's just too adorably innocent to realize it's a losing battle. It's a very condescending attitude. But one that makes sense in a fettered viewpoint where the only avenue to change is strength through violence, and that juvenilizes and objectifies women as beautiful angels. Horrible isn't an Incel. He's a Simp. So in a way, I think her staying an object, in the views of both Hammer and Horrible, and by extension then the audience because it's told through their eyes, is part of the point. We're given juuuuust enough if we're paying attention to let us know some of why that's bullshit. But to go any further would defeat the exercise because then she wouldn't be written off anymore.
I'll admit, I was one of the people who initially liked Doctor Horrible's Sing Along Blog, and did for a long time. However, looking back and hearing some of these points explained, it makes a lot of sense and I'm both surprised and embarrassed I didn't see a lot of these issues before. Regardless, another good video as always, and I thoroughly look forward to what comes out next.
It's nothing to be embarrassed about, it's also ok if you still like it. There is no perfect work of fiction and the fact that we enjoy something with problematic themes / styles / messages does not make us bad people. There's a lot of good things in Dr Horrible's Sing Along, as well as other shows that in retrospect face _problematic_ themes. But it helps when we're aware of different trends so we're able to understand and critique them.
I tried to re-watch Hitch recently. I hugely enjoyed it when it came out. Now? I couldn't make it more than 10-15 mins in. It was AWFUL. Every thing that Hitch did was a violation of consent and agency. Boundary violations GALORE. And the whole thing of "I want this unattainable woman who dates awful men because I'm a NICE GUY and she'd love me if only I had the chance to show her!" *BARF* My gods. I feel so ashamed having liked that movie so much. And jesus fuck don't even get me started on You've Got Mail.
Huh, I always thought it wasn't a comedy (though there are plenty of funny moments) but a tragedy. For example My Eyes at the mid point, I remember identifying with his growing cynicism and then story ends with showing how his cynicism isolated him from, if not destroyed, everything he really loved.
I agree with you about the show being more than a comedy, but his point still stands. The tragedy of the woman dying is irrelevant in the eyes of the writers compared to the pain of the geek not getting what he wanted. The show is still great, but we can learn to do better to subvert these stereotypes, its quite interesting to think about
@@TheSoijohn I don't mean tragedy as in Penny's death but tragedy in a greek sense as the protagonist's flaws and his immaturity in dealing with them and the story being a cautionary lesson.
I love this video but I'm 99% sure the movie gets what it's saying more than you think. Like for one we're seeing the world through horrible's perspective. We never learn more about her because Horrible and Hammer never care to ask. We also gotta consider the runtime of this thing. I agree that her last line was a mistake but that's got more to do with the musical's sense of humor getting in the way of commentary than their thoughts on women.
@@ravenfrancis1476 I tend to agree with Mobius Strip; Billy never struck me as a character to emulate, more a warning that becoming the bully won't solve the world's problems. That said, Penny is still utterly vapid, the film is still male fantasy, and knowing Joss Whedon he probably never intended the "cautionary" interpretation to begin with.
Joe Francis it’s not after-the-fact, the show is literally called Dr Horrible’s Sing Along Blog. It’s him vlogging and telling the story. It’s explicitly from his perspective. We cant see Penny as anything more than an object of desire because he doesn’t see her as anything more. That’s the point.
As someone who was an adult when this first came out, this literally is making fun of both Dr Horrible and Captain Hammer. Penny was a huge deal at the time, if not revolutionary: her sleeping with someone (captain hammer) was not shown as regret nor as something that devalued her in any way. She regretted her continued association with captain hammer when he became undeniably too much of a shitty person to her face. This feels extremely much like the Seinfeld is not funny trope. Without the at time context so much of the show's achievement and brilliance is lost because they became the norm. It is misinterpreted too, because things that were obvious at the time no longer are, on top of the achievements now being invisible.
Joss Whedon is a 1990's feminist that never quite updated to present day feminism. He can still write good stories on occasion. While Dr. Horrible does what it sets out to do well, it is still hamstrung by it's very short run time, and it's complete dependence of preexisting Superhero tropes. Penny-as-an-object-of-desire did her job well, but the fundamental problem is that she is still a plot device and barely has any agency.
@@danieljohnkirby9412 it 100% is a satire. I was an adult when this came out, it was a big deal for multiple reasons including that it was so damn clever
@@Call-me-Al Suuuuuure it is. Pay no attention to the numerous obvious bits of evidence that proves otherwise, like the entire existence of Xander. And also Joss' casting couch. Lick dem boots.
If you watch the behind the scenes, the director asked Felicia Day to pull back because she kept trying to sing passionately (as if, y'know, she had a character and motivations)
"Don't get on my ass about distinctions. It doesn't make you interesting." This sums up 100% of my feels towards gatekeeping and related bullshittery so brilliantly. I might have yelled at my screen and had to rewind to listen to the line a couple times.
god it feels good to hear someone else say it I muttered it at the end and my parents gave em that look that said "I know I always tell you to say what you believe, but you've been doing that an awful lot lately."
Poor Penny. She's literally just a living MacGuffin; the only thing that would need to change if she was replaced by the Maltese Falcon or Baby Yoda or whatever is why Hammer and Horrible desire the MacGuffin and why Horrible cares so much about its destruction.
Yeah. And it's weird because, the show does imply there's something more there, but it's all one or two lines. It's never really expanded upon, we're never really told who she is beyond "nice". I tend to think there's something more there, (like, that maybe her last words referencing Hammer is, not only out-of-universe, but in-universe an attempt at twisting the knife, one last act of knowing deficance to this asshole), but i'd be lying if I said I thought it was intended.
@@billyweed835 Implying that Penny is more than a bland love interest is the best of both worlds. It makes her technically not just a bland love interest, since you've said she's more than that, but you don't need to spend any thought or screentime establishing pointless details like why one of the principal characters does what she does. Sure, not everyone will like the result; some might even call it lazy. But you have something to point to when you're accused of making a flat love interest to fridge, and isn't that what really matters?
@@billyweed835 To be fair, Billy makes no real attempt to actually get to know Penny. He's in love with the idea of Penny and not Penny herself. He could easily learn what interests her and support her passion. Instead, he stalks her, stands her up, and obsesses over what he thinks will impress her instead of actually spending time with her and finding out. I always thought this was the point since it's glaringly obvious. On another note: there are a bunch of prequel comics that briefly flesh out why the characters are who they are (Billy, Hammer, Penny, and Moist). Penny really is way too nice for her own good (which is, in part, why she second-guesses her initial assessment of Captain Hammer and decides to give him a chance). I don't like that they undo her character growth in the musical by having her try to reassure Billy that Captain Hammer will save them as she's bleeding out; it undoes her very-recent realization that Hammer is a narcissistic prick.
It occurs to me that Megamind is in many ways the opposite of this story, with Megamind getting to know Roxanne as a person and letting her go when she leaves him. It even has the eventual real villain, Tighten, be an actual incel who only uses his powers to get what he wants - including Roxanne, whether she wants to or not
I loved it from the beginning, in part because I thought that Billy not realizing how full of himself he is was kinda the point (the other part being the catchy music). He's a Nice Guy that stalks a woman he claims to be in love with, and makes no real attempt to actually get to know her & what interests her. Instead, he projects and assumes, which ultimately gets her killed. Criticism where it's due: I didn't appreciate Penny's backpedalling on her realization that she slept with a self-obsessed douchebag (when she attempts to sneak out of the statue unveiling) by reassuring Billy that Captain Hammer will save them. One could argue that it's a reflex from the shock of bleeding out, but it's undeniably a step backwards from the character growth she showed only moments before.
@@TDOMMX she didn't try to sneak out because she slept with him, she tried to sneak out because he was publically embarrassing her. That is a huge and super important difference.
@@Call-me-Al I disagree with that particular interpretation. Penny says flat-out earlier in the musical that her first impression of Hammer was that he's cheesy and vain, but that she thought she found a sweet and kind guy undernearh. At the unveiling, she realizes that her original assessment of his character was correct -- that Hammer is a self-confessed egotist -- and tries to get as far away from him as possible. We see from her earlier actions that she's not particularly worried about embarrassmemt (i.e.: her hunting for signatures for her petition).
@W Shiflet I can agree with that. Still, I think that's the point: neither Billy nor Hammer legitimately care about Penny and her goals. The two are directly competing with each other, and using Penny as the ball.
You have no idea how happy I am to see you making new videos. I don't, well, social internet much, but when I was headed towards one of my favorite (drumming) RUclips channels I saw innuendo studios......like new stuff! So awesome! Please keep up the great work, know you and your work are greatly appreciated!
better ending to this would been penny just got hurt and just drop both their asses when capatain to busy crying about him getting hurt and mad doctor to busy blaming other for getting hurt over visting her
Wow this is.... exactly the thing that bugged me about Dr. Horrible for so many years that I couldn't quite put into words. Thanks! *immediately pushes social commentary to back of mind and plays the soundtrack on repeat for hours*
This is kind of an interesting case where the reality's of our society have an important impact on the value of a piece of media- in theory a person serving the role of a plot point in a first person perspective while perhaps cliche is not necessarily a bad thing. Batman's parent might be a good example of this, they are a motivator for Batman and rarely get any real character development (with some notable exceptions of course, there is a lot of batman media) of their own according to my only slightly above average knowledge about Batman. A large part of why it is problematic in Dr. Horrible's (and it emphatically IS problematic) is because of our societal habit of treating women like objects in media, this story follows that harmful trope and can be rightly criticized for it. However, in a world where women were no longer habitually and systematically treated as objects, Penny being a plot device could simply be a narrative choice of the creator to be judged based on its effectiveness as a plot device rather than a continuation of harmful tropes. Arguably, it would almost make sense for Penny to be represented this way as the story is essentially the first person perspective of Dr. Horrible, and so her being a plot device in his life could be seen as criticism of seeing people as objects. This message, if it were intended however, would have been better realized by building upon her character and thanks to the societal context in which we are viewing this media, it is an especially egregious oversight
Some fun subversions of the whole "power is thrust upon me" trope is kid flash who just decided he wanted to try getting flashs powers and succeeded, and booster gold, who just stole a time travel suit and goes around trying and failing to be a hero because of his commitment issues.
I just now noticed that she dresses exactly like a Disney princess. Like, that one yellow-skirt-blue-shirt outfit, we're supposed to think 'Snow White' right?
Those are not the definitions of superhero, (super)villain, and a bully; the moral content of those terms is totally lacking in these definitions. Also, the kid who gets picked on is not simply a small kid, but is virtually always a "weird" kid, a different kid, like a kid or different race, or ethnicity, or displaying traits of someone who is gender nonconforming or neurodivergent or with disability, or a fat kid, or kid who is of lower class /poor and looks like it, or something similar. That's why bullying can't really be tackled without addressing the bigotries present in society, like racism, xenophobia, queerphobia, ableism, fatphobia, classism, etc..
Yeah, the video pretty much lost me at those attempts at defining bully and victim. The video certainly shows a perspective - a perspective lacking insight into the role privilege may have played in shaping its assumptions. Or hell, just a lack of awareness that bullying isn't primarily physical strength vs weakness, but a dynamic of social power. Physical abuse can be a component! But blecht. Most of this video left a bad taste in my mouth, and I really don't have the energy to pick apart all the many, many ways it did that.
You leftist are so weird. Firstly anyone can be picked on back in highschool i bullied a kid to near suicide who had none of the problems you mentioned. I actually bullied him because he didn't have any of those problems. Secondly the idea that you can stop bullying is just wrong. Bullying is an important part of socialization it happens to everyone to an extent. The only reason it happens to those people more often is because they need to be socializated more than the average person.
Even the unusual content is an absolute gem. Great video, Ian. Media review, cultural analysis and more in under ten minutes. Definitely worth my while.
I'm inclined to agree with most of your points, though I may be a little nostalgia blind with regards to Penny's role in the story. While I wholeheartedly agree that she is barely a character and is only two descriptors away from a MacGuffin, I think that her lack of agency in the story is illustrative of how this sort of power dynamic treats the opposite sex. Perhaps it could have worked better if there were scenes and dialogue characterizing Penny but still having DH and CH treat her the same way to show their lack of interest in who Penny actually is, or if it was better shown how CH only likes Penny because she's hot and if that was better contrasted against DH's affection, or if DH was way more obsessive over CH than Penny. Overall, great video, I think I'm just stubborn to admit one of the few instances of musical theater I can tolerate isn't perfect.
Llama Llama Everything beyond your words “perhaps it could have worked better” is exactly the message of this video, except taken a step further. Things kind of DON’T work without scenes characterizing Penny where CH and DH ignore her. You can’t illustrate how DH and CH see her as a ambiguous good with no personality by... making her one. It makes the writers no better than the characters they’re making comedy/tragedy with. She NEEDS agency and personhood, so that the point is made that these characters are POINTEDLY IGNORING someone as a person who they think is important, and everything wrong with that. Not that this means I think the story is totally shot or you’re wrong for tolerating/liking this story. Just that the point is their dynamic isn’t weakened, but actually somewhat broken, by this oversight.
Joss Whedon had already done the more in depth version of this story with Willow, Tara, and the evil nerds in Buffy. In that story the female characters weren't even romantically available and were the protagonists.
I've never been able to finish Dr. Horrible, it seemed like one of those super-nerd-in-drama-class bs productions that Seth MacFarlane would make. I'm glad you were able to extract something from it that helped me understand what it was. It helped close the book to a question I've been having for 12 years: Should I actually finish that thing? Should I make the effort? The answer is no. Thank you for that.
I think that was the best way to articulate the problem -- the writers are more invested in how Billy felt about Penny's death than how Penny felt about dying. I love this musical but the degree to which Penny is just whatever made her a good foil always bothered me. The same problem is present in almost every superhero movie where the hero has a love interest.
A lot of feminism (eg #girlboss feminism) also isn't about fixing inequalities and toxic imbalances, but ensuring that women are equally represented on the advantaged side.
I think this misses quite a few major, and intentional points by the writers. Every single scene of this movie is set from Billy’s perspective, and the lack of character development she receives is not because she’s not developing, but because Billy doesn’t notice it. What she’s thinking is clear at many points, and she’s a much more developed character than captain hammer, but it can’t be any less subtle, because billy would notice.
Being big or powerful doesn’t make you a bully: not caring that you hurt other people makes you a bully. Power just amplifies your ability to do things.
1. Penny was was the only one of the main characters who truly got what she wanted. She worked hard to get a homeless shelter in the city, and she got it. It in the end was thanks to her using her connection to a celeb, but it doesn't change the fact that she was the only one who got what they truly wanted. Then she died and none of the boys saw beyond their own noses, but her success is not erased by her death. 2. At the time, it was a huge deal that Penny got to have no strings attached sex and it not devaluing her somehow nor make her look bad. We're spoiled rotten with that sort of stuff now, but back then this was revolutionary. I cannot stress enough how much of a big deal this was.
I really love this movie still. I think as much as it is "incel logic," it does a great job of showing the emotional pit traps that nerdy guys face as being less than evil. He sees Captain Hammer winning and believes he needs to be more alpha. He sees Penny falling for him and believes she is lost. And him hating the world... like... ins't humanity kind of parasitic? WE ARE the 1% of life on Earth fucking over the other 99%. Or the fact that he's miserable and blames humanity, it seems fair when you take note of how incredibly anti-intellectual humanity has been for all of time. So he should just be more emotionally intelligent. It's easy for us to say "join a community project!" All to say I get Dr. Horrible. And if someone doesn't get him, I think within this small context they're fortunate in not having visited that particular corner of the human experience and I wouldn't recommend the trip. I dunno. Obviously it's fucked up that the movie is not at all about the tragic death of a very active social worker and is instead entirely about the tragic crushed soul of a nerdy guy... but that's what the movie is about. It's meant to create an emotional appeal on one single characters POV, and to really fit every tragedy in you'd have to make a movie focused on each character. All in all, I don't think this movie is a problem. I think there's just a distinct lack of counter-balancing movies which focus on a woman's emotional arc at the cost of objectifying a male character. This movie throws one more on the already imbalanced heap.
Good video my duderino. Football kinda instills this dynamic but its cool to hear this and learn how a real relationship goes. It sometimes feels as though because I did that sport that I must have a girl who likes me due to toughness, but it really falls apart when it gets to personality. Thanks for putting that dynamic in better words then I spent time thinking about.
I don't think a victim of a bully necessarily wants more power. The main thing is to see the bully getting less power, or at least, to stop abusing the power they have.
This story is almost entirely told from Billy's PoV, it's extremely colored by it. The general allusion to Penny having a past or some vagueness of what she's feeling is all that Billy registers. She is framed as such because Billy views her as such. The closest thing to a connection Billy and Penny have is at the laundromat, which is still a huge façade. Everything he hears from Penny is just used as a way to "win her over," not to get to know her. There are little moments in the story where Penny begins shows some depth, and the camera pans away, since Billy's attention fades as well. Penny is as much of a caricature as Captain Hammer, and, in some ways, Billy, or at least the final form of Billy. There is a degree of a human inside Billy, the one pining over Penny who just wants to find someone to be with, but it's twisted by his "Good Guy vs. Bad Guy" world view, or "Chad vs. Virgin" if you prefer. The text shows glimpses of her personality. The entire conversation with Billy over the signature showed quite a bit. Obviously, she care's about the homeless-*flips card*-ness problem in the city, which Billy blows off. She also showed some previous interest in Billy, since she both recognized him from the laundromat and kept talking to him after he signed. She recognized his lack of attention, but still kept trying to talk to him. Immediately after that, it leads into "A Man's Gotta Do." Penny's attraction to Captain Hammer stems from both her near death experience and, as said during "My Eyes," the good that Captain Hammer did, specifically getting the homeless shelter opened. She even alludes to the "things that I'm afraid to show," implying that her character has more beneath, and is the closest to her showing much of a character, all of which Billy sings over (while stalking her). He refuses to see what she's feeling, preferring the reality he's building up in his own head. The following laundromat conversation is basically Billy trying to convince her to leave Captain Hammer, talking over her, not connecting to her at all, and focusing on his own pain. Billy finally opens up about his own insecurities and has an honest conversation with Penny, which there's some degree of a spark. Her song gets more of those allusions to those things she's holding closely, but that's basically the last we hear from her, because she's yanked back to being a football to fight over. Captain Hammer steps in and Billy loses all focus on Penny until he literally kills her. All this to say, there are many moments we start to see past the idol of unambiguous good that Penny represents, but because everything is filtered through Billy's view, we never get to. To Billy, that's all she is, and in his pursuit to be the powerful person he thinks she wants, she is not only reduced to that object, but killed in the process. Captain Hammer treats her the same way. She is subjugated throughout act 3, and only has speaking lines on her deathbed. Treating women like an object to fight over silences and kills them in the process. TL;DR: It's intentional. PS: I love her song.
I was raised to see women as prizes with no self. It took a female friend that would not let me walk away to make me realize that they were just as much people as me. My relationships since then have been soooo much more, to the point that none of them have ended, just evolved.
i watched this video and i said "duh, of course he's using incel logic, that was the point of the entire show, that he was so selfish in his view of the world that he ruined everything he wanted" and then i watched the linked video and... until today it had never occurred to me that apparently there are people who thought billy was right? i'm still suspicious but wow
An interesting penny redemption would be a redo from her perspective that fleshes her out as a character. But not only that show things that are clear different then the original implying the original was Billy's perspective and not reality
@@swansonjoe7121 They're incel terms. Put simply, a Becky is a nerdy girl, and a Stacy is a cheerleader. Although the incel logic gets muddled and both stereotypes end up acting in the same way towards men when viewed through incel eyes. So women as a whole become a general target of hatred.
@@sithblaze Beat me to it. But, yeah: the point of this musical is that Billy is a Nice Guy, and that he's too busy stalking his crush and plotting world domination that meaningfully trying to improve his life or even get to know what he girl he claims to love is actually like. It's kind of a shock to me that a lot of people missed the point of the series since it struck me as blatantly obvious (then again, the news nowadays more often than not reads like a collection of Onion headlines, so I may be giving certain people way too much credit).
I feel your statement anout the relationship that heroes and villains have to their power is a good jumping off point into the discussion, but it's not a rule that is even marginally followed in the superhero world. I'd challenge you to find more villains that sought out their power than had it given to them. Almost all superpowered characters had that status given to them rather than achieved through their own means. Most villains never asked to be villains. They were struck with the same type of power giving juice as the hero in most cases and they used their newfound privilege *badly.* They usually end up thinking they're better than everyone else due to their power, and they act accordingly. Good heroes "check their privilege" so to speak and end up being stewards to the people of their universe after they realize that because of their powers, they now have a responsibility to help those that cannot help themselves.
Развлечения
I saw a post online about the "sexy lamp test", which is basically that if a female character could be replaced by a particularly sexy lamp that just sits around and is a sexy lamp with absolutely nothing about the story changing, the narrative fails. I think it so aptly describes Penny here.
It's a major award!
Lol no offense to Felicia since she's awesome but uhh... It would be pretty funny if she was just a lava lamp in this movie. And then the lava lamp dies and the main character gets sad... and Scalded lol.
@Scuttlefrog You're splitting hairs in order to miss the point. Good job.
@@nathanlevesque7812 No, they are spot-on for the point.
There's a spectrum between fully-developed main character and prop (i.e. "sexy lamp"). Penny, in this case, is very clearly neither (why would I care about a lamp 'dying'?), but many, many people fail to see that this spectrum exists, and assert that if a character is not a fully developed main character, they must be a prop.
Not everyone can have all of the attention, and if it's evenly distributed, the narrative falls apart due to lack of clear direction. These are absolutely basic concepts of storytelling, and it's actually baffling to see so many people misunderstand it.
@@brzt4256 Characters should never be functionally equivalent to a prop unless the goal is bad writing. There's a difference between people in a story, and characters. E.g a random crowd is not a character or characters. If the writer gave them names but no writing that would be bad writing just the same, because a character should be...an actual character. It's just tautology really.
Also, the example in question is actually about a main character who is functionally equivalent to a prop. But do keep prattling on about how many people misunderstand basic concepts of storytelling.
"In the game of patriarchy, women are not the opposing team. They are the ball." - Anita Sarkeesian
@JohnnyTheWolf They become the enemy when they decide to refuse to be the ball. : /
Oh. Anita sarkeesian....
@O. M. Yeah. People often get all huffy when they hear the word "patriarchy", because they think it means men get all the candy, while their lives suck. It's really a system that pits men against one another, and some eventually claw their way to the top, *usually at the expense of others, regardless of gender*. But overall, women tend to get worse outcomes other things being equal. Sometimes they also have to weigh choices whose "benefits" are subjective, such as sacrificing agency to obtain financial security, so they might be impossible to judge without knowledge of her experience. This, of course, considers only her material needs at best while ignoring her emotional and intellectual ones, which perpetuates a system where those needs are ridiculed, belittled, and sometimes ignored entirely.
I usually don't agree with some of the statements that Anita presents, but she completely nailed this one.
can one appreciate that anita sarkeesian is endlessly quotable, even her work was a thing in the past now?
it's like seeing john berger quotes
"The fact that there is a problematic hierarchy is not the issue. The fact that I am not where I want to be within that hierarchy is the issue."
I'm absolutely stealing this. Explains the fickle nature of a great many cis het white male feminists.
“The problem is that I’m not higher than the bully in the hierarchy that’s hurting me, not the hierarchy that’s hurting me”
Or “the problem is that I’m not the bully, not the fact that bullying is bad regardless of who’s doing it”
"'The fact that there is a problematic hierarchy is not the issue. The fact that I am not where I want to be within that hierarchy is the issue.'"
AWESOME!!! :)
The oppressed have less a problem with HOW they're oppressed and more of a problem that THEY're being oppressed.
Literally right wing ideology in a nutshell.
This is what I think makes "Megamind" so special. Megamind is the incel villain who needs to fight an even more pathetic incel villain. This causes Megamind to actually grow as a person.
Was looking for this comment! Megamind is basically what Dr. Horrible either wishes it was or should have been. I mean, it even stars a melodramatic, music-obsessed geek! It’s an incredibly well written movie that, like Penny, deserves way better.
Megamind is an incel who tries to be a Chad, only to realize that the rules he always assumed he had to live by are BS, which let him become a hero. (Though he still clearly has villainous instincts he needs to work on, what with his reaction to cheering crowds.)
I recall Linkara alluding to the Incel concept when he reviewed the movie.
And a villain of his own making! GOD I love that movie we could build a 10,000 word essay just from the incel-chad dynamics of that movie but I'm sure a bunch of youtubers have already done it better
God Megamind is such a great movie!
"All persons, living or dead, are entirely coincidental."
Yeah, screw predestination!
how is this comment so popular
@@timothymclean because you made something good and some people who were able to appreciate it saw it. It's purely coincidental.
@@AmazingtristanMagic I thought it was kinda silly, but I didn't think it was anywhere near top-voted-comment funny.
Also I made another comment after watching the whole video that I like more but still has single-digit votes, so this is a bit annoying as well as bewildering.
@@timothymclean Once you finish building your giant killer robot with death-ray eyes, THEN people will regret not top-voting your *actually* funnier comment! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA! :)
Timothy McLean Eh, wouldn’t worry about it. Most people only ever see a handful of comments, and which ones get seen depends a lot on timing. I wouldn’t read anything personal into it.
It's just like those "Revenge of the Nerds" kinds of movies. The tormented and underestimated geeks, rather then trying to subvert the narrative established by the jocks and escape that dynamic, instead put themselves to the jocks level so they can become the "alphas". Also, heaps of misogyny.
The nerds in “revenge of the nerds” actually committed some serious sex crimes.
My dad was telling me about how funny he thought "Revenge of the Nerds" was when he was a kid. He convinced me to watch it with him, and I'll never forget him saying, "Holy fuck, how did I think this was funny?"
@@AJSSPACEPLACE That one particular scene is a whole can of yikes.
@@np8139 I'd say I had the same experience when, not too long ago, my dad decided to suggest we watch "Sixteen Candles" together, but, unfortunately, he was the only one in the room who who couldn't articulate or realize that the film we were watching was a despicable movie with overt racism and very sex crime-apologetic predilections.
Which sucks, but this is like the most cognitively dissonant period of time ever, especially among people of his generation, so for at least me, I'm not incredibly surprised.
Rape too
Two things.
1. The title had me thinking I was going to get a video about how the exchange of physical currency will forever doom us to suffer this pandemic.
2. The bit about "he can't just be sad and have it suck" is such a hard lesson to learn. I think there's a level of conditioning in our culture that tells us sadness and disappointment has to forge us, build us up, and create our origin story to being the person we want to be, and while it can, sometimes sadness is just a thing not working out and that sucks. We can just be sad.
Why she is who she is, is a question I think a lot of female characters never get to answer... thanks for making this video, learned a lot.
I think that the fact that so few female characters never get to answer that question is the really big problem.
Personally, I don't think that Penny answering that question would have made Doctor Horrible a better story (it would certainly have been more complete, but I'm not convinced that that would be better), but it is representative of the systemic problem of female characters being denied agency and personhood in so much of our media.
2:42 what movie is this?
In your “lower polish” video, you still manage to:
-Explain to me the plot of a show I’ve never heard of
-Provide relevant cultural context to the points it’s making
-Give a nuanced perspective on the good things and bad things about the way it addresses issues.
Still far more “polished” than most of RUclips.
You should really watch Dr horrible's singalong blog
@@analytixna6610 nobody should watch josh whedon's assorted garbage
You should check it out. The whole thing is about half the length of a movie.
@@midnightsuspensetheater1356 I enjoyed it until the end. And then, the killing-of-penny spoiled all of what came before it, even in retrospect. As a matter of fact, it spoiled all the rest of Josh Whedon's work, for me, in retrospect.
I disagree only on the first point, I also haven’t seen it and the video in the description did a much better job setting it up for people who haven’t seen it.
Not to say this tried to and failed, I’d rather say this video isn’t for his whole audience, it’s just for people who’ve seen this miniseries; since the video is so short it makes more sense to only talk about his points
The problem is the bully-victim and chad-incel dialectics don't map onto the hero-villian dynamic. A Bully isn't just someone with extra-ordinary ability, they are also looking for power. Similarly the incel isn't just some very unattractive person but someone who feels they deserve power. The Bully and the Incel are two sides of the same coin, both feel they deserve power, but one has the means to attain it. In this sense they are both Villians, Captain Hammer is a bully and Dr Horrible is an incel. Neither is a chad or a victim, neither is a hero.
ya it definitely felt weird seeing captain hammer be described as being written as a hero
"a bully and an incel are both villains, in the sense that I dislike them both"
skizm in the universe of the story he is the Hero, textually.
@@itamarsalhov "a bully and an incel are both villains, in the sense that they're both shitstains that deserve no place in society"
There you go sweaty I fixed it for you
Yeah, I don't think the dynamic maps 100% either. There's often other factors in, say, why a bully targets their victim too, usually for a trait they *also* don't have by choice. A trait, say, that the victim then starts to call a strength, or becomes a strength later on in life. So when given the oppritunity, they fall into that pattern of abuse, and become the bully themselves. Sorta why a lot of incel types were once the smart kid in school and all that, I think.
To some extent, the dynamic still sorta maps though. Heroes have powers they didn't want, villains want *other* powers they don't *already* have.
Bullies have strength they didn't necessarily want, their victims want strength instead of their (whatever else).
And the incel path is denying that anything but that sort of macho dickbag strength matters, so you lust after that rather than expressing your (whatever else) and being a better person.
I’m glad to have faster, lower polish videos from you. Your ideas are what I come for, not the production value. 🌸
Yeah! A good mix would be amazing! I adore the faster videos for myself, but the polished ones are amazing to show to people. I've shown people who have almost fallen into an alt right pipeline the Alt Right Playbook. They didn't much like it, until three months later when they said that was a jumping off point.
Both styles have their purpose, and I'm just glad to have Innuendo Studios content
I don't have anything against faster lower polished videos. But never underestimate the importance of the medium. Innuendo Studios polish isn't that hollywood moneyshot nonsense, but super precise, sharp, readable and elegant. These are all qualities that raise the power of the message. These are invisible qualities, but that's what makes them so strong.
Ditto
2:42 what movie is this?
ABSO FUCKING LUTELY
Is it me, or would the obvious ending have been for Penny have been to break up with both of them?
It serves basically the same plot purpose for Billy (he loses his love interest through his own actions) but does it in a way that is much clearer about what exactly the problem with his actions was. (Plus it actually subverts the angelic love interest trope, plus Penny deserved better.)
A - Joss Whedon wrote it, so there is no way he wasn't going to murder someone. It is just what he does. He pretty much always goes for some level of tragic ending, so in retrospect it was inevitable that this would even find its way into a silly musical about a supervillain with a blog. B - There is almost no way Joss meant to write this as a commentary on the man-o-sphere as we would see it in 2020. The joke was to do a cliche Nerds Vs Jocks story but as if it were a musical about superheroes. I think someone who was more consciously doing that would have called out Hammer/Horrible's actions a bit more directly C - Unfortunately, killing Penny makes the story more like what would happen in a comic book than if she rejected both guys.
2:42 what movie is this?
The first time I watched it and every time I watch it again after forgetting the plot... I assume that's going to be the outcome. To have her choose one always felt so.... trite and playing into male power fantasy.
Kinda like how Peach refuses Bowser and Mario’s advances at the end of Super Mario Odyssey!
@@blubastud Not sure if you're still here, but its the Power Rangers reboot movie.
I appreciate that the creators did four one-shot comics that flesh out the personalities of the characters and briefly explain why they are who they are (namely, Billy, Hammer, Penny, and Moist). In the musical, I think Billy not knowing who Penny is inside is kinda the point: he's in love with the idea of Penny, not Penny herself. A lot of guys are attracted to the idea of having a girlfriend, not genuine interest in someone else's life and an earnest desire to see that person succeed. This is why the first big clash of ideals often leads to dramatic breakups and the shoulda-been-obvious realization that "they're not the person I thought they were".
I used to share Dr. Horrible with my houseguests / new friends all the time as a sort of rite-of-passage (and to easily filter legitimately kind people from the Nice Guys). Billy is exactly that: a Nice Guy with a punishing lack of self-awareness. Kinda like the current situation with my neighbors to the south: someone self-absorbed and obsessed with what they think is important can neglect what would actually improve their lives, often causing irreparable damage that ripples into the lives of those they purport to care about...
"She dresses like a Becky but falls Stacy-like for the first Chad she meets" is most most 'internety' sentence I've heard in a while lol
Stay sane and keep up the good work Ian!
I have no idea wtf all these names even are 🤪
@@cr4yv3n These are names Incels use for different types of people. Contrapoints has a very good video explaining the ideology of Incels. But to be honest, you might be better of not knowing about them. ^ ^'
Philipp Decker isn’t Becky the type of white woman that feels “unsafe” around the existence of black people
I grimaced intensely perusing that.
(Read a thesaurus kids. It's good for you.)
@@Rokfreakx too late. Research time!
Penny definitely deserved better than that, but the story also unambiguously intentionally shows that Dr. Horrible turning to scheming and violence fucked it all up. It is about how he became an actual literal villain. Although it's framed so that he is sympathetic, it also shows that he was wrong.
I wouldn't say that the story is completely lacking about what she wants, though. She is someone who tries to change the world through peaceful means and kindness when both Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer attempt to impose the change they want in the world by force. There definitely could be more on her outlook, but they decided to go for the easy tragedy trope.
Yep. The comic also shows that she's really too nice for her own good, as hinted at with her "dreams are easy to achieve when hope is all I'm hoping to be". She thinks she's being charitable by not trusting her instincts with Captain Hammer, then becomes horrified with his narcissism during the statue unveiling, attempting to stealthily sneak out. Her final words to Billy unfortunately undo that character growth, sadly (though one could make the case that she's more concerned with reassuring Billy that everything's going to be alright than staying consistent with her recent epiphany).
Yyyeah, Doctor Horrible is the villain of the piece as far as the show is concerned, but the issue is that Penny's presentation doesn't actually provide a compelling counterpoint to how Billy views her. She's only important as a utility to examine Billy's internal life, which is unsettling when what we're asked to see about that life is how shallowly and myopically he views women, which is no different from how the show treats Penny.
I don't agree. I don't think the story is unambiguous in its blame.
Billy shown as obsessive, yes, but it does not place the blame on him. His behavior and the consequences of his behavior are mostly blamed on external forces. And I think it's well-illustrated in the final big scene.
Penny dies because Captain Hammer breaks the ray gun. She doesn't die because the gun malfunctions from Billy's ineptitude. She dies because Captain Hammer was being a dumb jock and broke the gun, causing it to explode.
That's the problem for me. If the gun had malfunctioned because of something Billy had done, it would have been a clear signal to the audience that he had gone totally manic. But that's not what happens.
And that's why it's incel logic. Incels know they're assholes. The issue is that they place the blame on other people for their attitude, not themselves.
@@Sandreline She dies at a point in the narrative where they are clearly both more concerned with fighting than with her safety or the safety of the crowd. Billy brought the damn gun, that is an action he took that directly contributed to her death.
The idea that collateral damage can be ultimately more important than winning the fight is an idea you can get from that. Even if it's clear Billy does blame Hammer, it's not clear that his view is correct-- the audience isn't necessarily going to overlook that he came into an auditorium of people with weapon labeled 'death ray'. I sure don't.
It seems to me there isn't only one reading of that scene, and one of those reading is indeed that neither the "hero" nor "villain" comes out clean of blame.
Penny is also literally the only hero in the story: she got the homeless that homeless shelter they needed. She protected those less fortunate than her.
"She dresses like a Becky, but falls Stacy-like for the first Chad she meets like a Gosling imprinting on a balloon with a drawing of a goose on it."
Yup. Reached the event horizon. I'm only in my late 20s, and already have no idea what the youths are talking about. I know what a Chad is, I think I get what a Becky is. I don't know who Stacy is, but I hear her mom is pretty good looking...
If it makes you feel better, Innuendo is describing Penny in incel terminology. Except for the gosling thing.
oh god that last line showed your age more than anything in this comment. Ok, so, a Stacey is like a female chad. very attractive, very dumb. A gosling is a baby goose and imprinting is when a baby forms an emotional bond to the first thing it sees. Admittedly that last one is just biology, not slang.
@@anemoi6803 Oh, I thought it was like Ryan Gosling, lololol! Thanks, tho. Stacy is a female Chad, got it. Admittedly not up on my incel terminology.
you don't get to blame this on your age, I'm 36
Ah yes, the old 20 year olds... x3
Watching Dr. Horrible as a woman always made me feel... invisible. Penny is just a pawn in the story, not a real person. This is Felicia Day! I love her, and we don't get to know her AT ALL.
This makes me want to re-watch Megamind with a thoughtful eye....
To be fair, Megamind is telling a slightly different story, but for my money, it's better in almost every way, especially the characters. The actress does her best with what she was working with, but Roxanne is soooooo much better written than Penny.
"she's not a character. she's barely a plot device." - folding ideas on the book of henry (2017)
"penny isn't a character. she's a plot device." - innuendo studios on dr. horrible's sing-along blog (2020)
@JohnnyTheWolf "Goddammit Janice!"
It's common to use female non-characters as a standardized good thing what must be preserved. That's why this video exists. It's so omnipresent in our culture that we rarely question it until it's pointed out (or if it's done really badly).
I wonder, because im watching season 3 right now, what they think about Dolores in westworld, since she starts that way, or even Ava in Ex Machina ( movie that totally does have the Incel/Bully relationship in the other two characters ), since they are being subverted.
@@timothymclean It's literally one of the driving narratives behind modern neofascism.
@@MCArt25 Modern fascism draws at least as much from modern culture as from classic fascism. The ideas fascism grew from never went away; we just tried not to put them together that way again.
Well, _most_ of us tried.
While the whole hero/villain/damsel mechanic is spot on, I think you undersell Penny as a character more than a little. She's the "fixer", the person who thinks that she can fix what is wrong for her friends, lover, or society as a whole, just if she gives that bit more of herself to do it. And if she succeeds, maybe that will fix her too. As such, she's not some vague amorphous blob of goodness, but a specific example of an unhealthy, but too common form of fruitless self-sacrifice that, in the end, is made literal.
Enabler, martyr and burnout
only problem there is that too often the incel types tend to label women as "fixers" just because they got "friendzoned" and can't accept a woman's agency. Both women and men tend to be enabler/fixer types and will get into relationships that aren't good for them and stay in them far longer than they should so the idea that that character needed to be represented by a female character that represents no more than that who eventually gets fridged is absurd. He didn't undersell Penny at all.
Can we talk about society’s expectation for women to be fixers? Like, yes it’s a personality trait that anyone can have… but also a lot of people view girlfriends as free psychologists…
my brain: "any resemblance to a real person, living or dead, is purely coincidental"
my eyes: that ain't it, chief
I've stood by you for a really long time, but this video goes too far. You've proven yourself to be an out of touch elite handing down edicts from your ivory tower. Shredded wheat is delicious.
Seriously though I like this format and you nailed the series name. Looking forward to the next one!
Had us there in the first half not gonna lie
Weetabix all the way my dude...
Honestly I'm surprised "co-VIDs" haven't been popping up all over the place, I mean it's right there!
Bit uncharitable, I'd say we can tell at least as much about Penny as we can about Hammer: she's someone who started adult life with pride and self-confidence that has been slowly worn down (she couldn't imagine being fired but then was several times); she has an earnest desire to make the world better but is deeply aware of how nearly futile it is (her handing out flyers but knowing there's no use in pursuing too hard as she gets passed by); and she's also very lonely (she latches on to Billy almost as much as she latches on to her when spoken to, just without the ulterior motive, and genuinely seems to have no other friends). She's a vulnerable young woman feeling incredibly powerless which is why she falls for Captain Hammer; she wants attention, validation and security in a world that has given her none - and I say that to be empathetic, not dismissive. Her relationship to Hammer's power is also a direct contrast to Billy's - she wants power certainly, but not for its own sake and when she has it vicariously through Hammer she puts it to Good use rather than trying to wield it against the world. And in the end, she is punished for it. Her not getting what she deserved is kind of the point - the world of Dr Horrible rewards egotism and has no room for someone whose ego was long since worn down ("NATION MOURNS WHAT'S-HER-NAME").
I honestly agree that Dr Horrible is about masculinity but saying Penny is a flat character of generic Goodness is overlooking her in exactly the same way as the men do.
This seems like one of those things where the problem isn't the example, it's the trend. I have no problem with a character who's more of a plot device than a character; stories just don't have the time to go into detail about every person regardless of relevance. Penny only seems like a problem because she's yet another example of a female love interest whose only purpose is to be fought over by the guys.
There's nothing wrong with mac and cheese, but if it's the only thing you ever eat, you're gonna die. I don't think there's anything wrong with Penny's character, but if her role is the only one women ever get, there start to be misogynistic undertones.
While I think that's generally true, I think Penny's lack of character is a specific problem for this show because her lack of character undermines the overall message.
You clearly have not eaten my mac and cheese.
I don't think it undermine the message far from it, the whole show is seen from the perspective of Billy who sees her as nothing more than that, we are not seeing an unbiased view of the story here, we are following the story through Billy's eyes, imo drifting away from his point of view in the middle of the show just to give more substance to other characters would go against the purpose .
(Sorry if this is hard to understand i'm no native english speaker)
@@reaganbartels9993 I don't get that. I don't need an epic Penny backstory to know Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer are assholes. If anything, other than changing the premise of the musical so Penny can't be considered a plot device, you would need to refocus the plot on her so that now the premise of the musical is about an activist who inexplicably has to superpowered assholes fighting over her
You got iit
All of Joss Whedon’s works have a Penny problem.
Hey now, sometimes they have a River Tam problem
@@MCArt25 deep sighs this comment hit so hard
Which does Black Widow's infertility monster complex fall under? Besides the obvious "men-writing-women" column.
@@MCArt25 I haven't seen Firefly, What's the issue with River Tam
@@b.parker1740 to me it really came across as her unintentionally trying to manipulate Bruce's emotions to make him feel they were a good match, and it terribly backfired.
I think the best way to fix Penny as a character would be to have given her this really heartfelt, fantastic song going over her life, how she got here, her conflicted feelings, and what she hopes to do in the future, but it all goes down in the background while Billy talks about some bullshit by himself and ignores her. She's a fully formed person with her own life, but none of the men in her life can see it and are actively ignoring it to continue seeing her as an idealized, fictional version of herself. And since the whole show is framed through the lens of the Doctor Horrible blog and his own hyperfixation on himself, neither do we.
I actually think "Every Drop of Rain" was very sweet and served that purpose fine. No, we don't know the specifics of her trauma, but we know why she is driven to do good. And as I've stated in other comments, it's very frustrating Innuendo characterizes it as "generic good" when the movie actually has a lot of cynicism about the efficacy of homeless shelters.
Last time I was this early fascism was still a historical phenomenon.
I don't believe that I watched an Innuendo with zero visualizations!
The CCP is no less bad than the soviets were and there have been plenty of takeovers since the 33 one from history books
@@fionafiona1146 What the heck are you talkin about?
@@fionafiona1146 gotta excuse genocide to hate on the soviets, even In a context where no one mentioned the soviets huh?
@@DimT670
I was saying that it's persistently problematic, no excusing genocide nowhere (not in Xinjiang, Siberia or on Polish soil... or in "German" east African(no nazis necessary) )
I would question the logic asserted that bullies tend to use their physical size as part of their bullying. Given the highly social dynamics present in bullying I would suspect the common stereotype of the bully does not match well to reality
Agreed. Just look at teenage girls in junior high. Nothing to do with physical size but the bullying is probably even more toxic.
But the common stereotype of the bully matches well to what we think bullies are, _and_ surprisingly well to superheroes. Which is all that matters for this discussion.
Which isn't to say that @@theplaylister's points aren't important. Pointing out that emotional abuse is still abuse is important, since our culture doesn't seem to have quite absorbed that. It's just not important to this specific video about this specific superhero/villain dynamic.
Though if you want a superhero narrative that _does_ include a (relatively brief) look at the more emotional side of bullying, I recommend Worm. The first chapter should make it clear why it's relevant.
Pop Culture Detective does a pretty good analysis of this in The Big Bang Theory, highlighting how a bunch of stereotypical nerds aren't in any way exempt from being bullies in their own right. It's worth the watch (the analyses, not the show itself).
From my experience, it is almost always someone who is equal or stronger than you in terms of strength. If not, they have the backing of multiple other kids. Either way, even if the relationship isn't directly physical, the threat of it is there and stops you from fighting back against the emotional and verbal abuse. Saw this even with girls.
I remember talking to some-one who was doing a study on the social dynamics in high schools, and one of their main conclusions was that in reality, it's not the most popular kids in school who are likely to be bullies, as they are already on top and don't need to gain any additional social clout by demeaning others. Their conclusion was that it was more often kids in the second tier of popularity who were the bullies as they were insecure in their social position and that resulted in the bullying behaviour. So, to bring this back to the video, it is quite often that bullies act out of their own insecurities, rather than those who are confident in their own power, and it's the media narrative that is wrong about that dynamic. If that conclusion is true, it's quite interesting that writers, who, let's face it, were more likely the ones who were bullied perceive that the it's the most popular kids who are the problem.
I did ask the person in question to link to their study when it was done but they never did... I must see if I can find it again...
I agree. The people voted for school/class "president" are generally nice person who are liked but don't talk especially much. Bullies attract other bullies, those people feel the need to attack others and talk so much that they become obnoxious, all to get more attention than ones at the top.
I disagree, because I think it’s been proven that the popular idea, that bullies bully people to make up for some perceived deficiency in themselves, while it can be true in some cases, is actually a myth. And once you stop being kids this becomes more obvious.
I think the truth is people become bullies when they encounter someone who they think deserves bullying. And you can be at any place of the social hierarchy to think this way of another person.
That’s why most victims of bullying have been marginalized people, or people who are perceived as trespassing outside their expected social strata. Their status is seen as a slight and their ostracization is “fixing” it.
That’s also why bullying itself is so hard to identify, because people are looking for an insecure abuser who is also acting outside the social strata and not a “normal person” with a “reason”. Also for some cases, the witnesses and other people involved also implicitly agree that the victim deserves “bullying”, to the point that they have trouble identifying what is happening as bullying.
People being dicks to people in the service industry are bullies, usually because they think that the person they are bullying is not giving them the respect they deserve as a customer. People who dogpile people on Twitter are bullies, usually because they think the person who tweeted the bad tweet broke some kind of social code.
You could be the most powerful and popular person in your country and still be a huge bully, and if you dig into the thought process of any bully who is also a leader, their thoughts are almost always “[They] stepped out of line. [They] deserve it.”
And while having more social power than the victim of bullying makes it easier to be a bully, as we can see from how people behave online with dogpiling famous people, having less individual social power doesn’t exclude you from participating in bullying.
I thought this video was about covid-19, but I like this too 😂
Me too 😔
Ugh, I can't believe I'm about to defend Doctor Horrible here, but hear me out:
The whole movie is supposed to be about the caricatured world that the "Nice Guy"(TM) lives in. And I believe that's actually extremely purposeful given how the movie is structured and written.
The whole series is Billy's vlog. Everything - from the first shot of the movie to the cut from him in the red lab coat: "And I won't feel..." back to him in his basement, in his white lab coat: "...a thing." as the last line and last shot - is told explicitly from his point of view. Very, VERY explicitly, because there are constant cuts back to him talking to the camera and rambling on about tangents and whatnot.
So Captain Hammer is the ultra-Chad because that's how immature, insecure Billy perceives him. We only vaguely know that Penny's gone through something (probably an abusive home-life or past relationship, as indicated about her "after years of stormy sailing have I finally found the bay?" line regarding her relationship with Captain Hammer) because Billy, for all that he's enamored by her, doesn't actually pay attention to what she's saying half the time. He doesn't actually KNOW what she's been through that draws her to Captain Hammer. Her relationship with Captain Hammer looks utterly baffling given how their personalities seem to us as the audience - but that's because BILLY is the one telling us about all of it.
I'd argue that Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is absolutely about the manosphere, but I think it's more self-aware of that than you're giving it credit for, simply from a lens of film analysis.
The entire framing device of the movie as a vlog means NOTHING if we aren't supposed to keep in mind that all of the information we know is being told to us BY Billy from HIS point of view: He is a classic unreliable narrator.
Captain Hammer is almost assuredly not actually the enormous jackass Billy portrays him as within this world, but he's Billy's Hate Sink, so every flaw that Billy thinks Captain Hammer has is going to be exacerbated a hundred fold in any story he tells. Penny can do no wrong in Billy's eyes, but he really only views her as a pretty paragon of virtue, and so that's all she is when he talks about her. Their relationship makes no sense to us, because Billy's perception of it as a bad match results in him demonizing it to a point that EVERYONE involved is a caricature.
So I don't think you're necessarily WRONG in the assessment that the way this dynamic is treated is screwed up. BUT I think it most certainly was done on purpose.
To bring it back to the final shot of the movie: Why else would we be back with Billy, sad and alone in his basement, talking to the camera, if not to reassert to the viewer that HE was the one telling us this story? In the midst of the most emotionally charged moment, the surprisingly dour and tragic ending to what was otherwise a light-hearted and goofy comedy, as we've just seen Billy's actions kill Penny and how it's affecting him...
"Oh. Right. Billy's telling the story."
It's an intentional technique to call attention to the framing device and remind us that this is only HIS interpretation of events, and - as a self-proclaimed supervillain - his word is unreliable at best, and an outright lie at worst.
I've watched it several times over my life, since it came out when I was like... 13? And I've always gotten from the film that Billy's main issue is PRECISELY that he's a self-pitying nerd with a victim complex. So in his story, he'll ALWAYS be the victim - at the hands of Captain Hammer, at the hands of the Evil League of Evil (who don't recognize his own evilness), at the hands of "fate"... and never realizing that the only one causing his problems is HIM.
HE'S the one whose actions killed Penny. HE's the one who put her in danger that resulted in her meeting Captain Hammer. HE's the one who constantly ditched her for supervillainy when he had every possible opportunity to bond with Penny. Everything that led him to this point is HIS FAULT.
It's obvious to the viewer that he's the reason Penny died. But coming back to him in the final shot of the film is supposed to show us the tragedy that, even after ALL of that he still doesn't get it, and he's twisted the narrative to suit his own needs and paint himself as a victim of circumstance and wallow in his own incel-y "Nice Guy" self-pity.
I'm not gonna comment re: the treatment of women in Joss Whedon's other work, but at least for Dr. Horrible, I cannot reasonably see this as an unintentional choice. Joss Whedon may be many things, but he is a competent filmmaker, and choices like this aren't arbitrary.
TL;DR - Billy's an unreliable "Nice Guy" narrator, which is why Penny has no personality - she's portrayed as an object for Billy to possess because he's the one telling the story and that's all she is to him.
The parallels weren't accidental! Your reading was the intended one! Horrible's photo of her when he sings Brand New Day is *taken from the bushes*. He lets slip how much he stalks her, both online and in real life, constantly. The twist-the-knife of her dying is also from the fact that it is Horrible's actions, so desperate to take his anger out on the jock bully, that has killed her. She mentions Hammer with her dying words *because he is the one who protects her from Horrible*. She likes Billy. She's scared of Horrible.
Horrible is sympathetic at first because he's an awkward nerd. But he's not an anti-hero. He's an anti-villain that becomes a villain.
Also of course she'd say "Captain Hammer will save us" while she's dying because even if she's realizing he's a shitty boyfriend, he's still the superhero in this situation...
I don't know, I love love love LOVE this channel and a lot of what you say, but beginning at 3:55 saying that if he just waits it out since clearly she has feelings for him and she's going to get over the chad she's with in a month or so is the classic "I'm a nice guy, surely she'll see we really belong together and she'll let me out of the friend zone" logic-- and it's a basis of dismissing women's feelings that I see much more often than the outright violent misogyny it often morphs into. It surprises me to see it repeated here. I'm currently experiencing brain fog, so forgive me if I missed that this nice guy/friend zone idea is being put forth as something the narrative is saying and not an outside critique of that narrative.
Tend to agree. This isn't Simp and Sensibility; Penny is still no better than a McGuffin. The lesson Billy needs to learn isn't patience, it's that Penny isn't some sort of reward.
I believe he was only using it to highlight the fact that Billy didn't need to go to extreme measures in the first place.
When I was in my junior year of high-school I forced myself to break out of my shell, and I did that by joining the theatre. The first friend I made there was a dude in my grade who would later invite me to a sleep over. We ended up watching Dr. Horrible, and while we watched he sang every part of the movie in its entirety, which was.. weird, but what really strikes me about the whole memory is remembering just how much he told me he identified with Dr. Horrible himself. This was immediately funny to me, because he was very tall and lanky, and I was built very much like Hammer (I also look quite a bit like Nathan Fillion in general). He was always a bit controlling, and seemed to bask in attention and complement baiting while he constantly "jokingly" insulted me, usually calling me either fat or stupid in a variety of slanted ways. Its very strange to remember but he was always challenging me to things like arm wrestles and slap fights. He pointed out over and over again that his ACT score was higher than mine. He seemed to relish any display of dominance he could have over me. I never really noticed this because he was quite literally the first friend that I had ever made in high school, but I do remember that moment of sudden realization of what I represented in his eyes coming to me while we talked about Dr. Horrible.
I was his Captain Hammer.
Oh man, good luck with that. I’ve just recently come to terms with the fact that my long term best friend constantly puts herself above me to make herself feel better. I used to go along with it because I thought she was just insecure and it was kind of pitiful. It didn’t actually hurt me, but as time wore on it just kept getting worse.
I’ve tried to talk to her about it and she says she’ll get better, but she doesn’t. Now I’ve got to decide if the last ten years is worth dealing with the next ten years. The Sunk Cost Fallacy is a powerful force even when you know it’s happening.
For now, I’ve just gone “grey rock” outside of group activities.
Good luck to you. Dealing with unhealthy friendships sucks.
This would be awesome shipping material if it wasn't bittersweet
Just like Sarah Z’s video, I love hearing people talk about Dr. Horrible. It was such an important thing in my life when I was younger that being forced to reckon with its themes as an adult feels so weird and challenging and makes me physically uncomfortable. Good video.
never seen it. I got into fillion when he got much fatter lolz. I need to give this a go though. It looks... Absolutely ridonkulous lol.
I've always hoped that the sequel would bring Penny back from the dead, and then in a Pygmalion sort of way she drops Billy and does her own shit for the duration. I will say, I think the original intended to make both Billy and Captain Hammer look like villains; I don't think the film is trying to suggest that Billy's "solution" actually solves anything. It's probably why Penny dies, to prove that his "solution" was dumb. But having seen more of Joss Whedon, it's likely this is just over-analysis.
It felt pretty clear to me back in 2007 that both Hammer and Dr. Horrible were shallow idiots who don't deserve Penny. It is just that their actions drive the story and Penny exists to be the thing they fight over, and really, no matter how much more characterization they gave her, she would be that thing
“Don’t get up my ass about exceptions, it doesn’t make you interesting” is the quote of the decade
I mean, you can get a little bit of her depth from "My Eyes" just by her words and the juxtaposition. While Horrible is lamenting the supposed increasing numbness, blindness, and rot of society, she sees it as "finally growing wise" as in, has been blind, heartless, selfish, and rotten for quite a long time and interpreting what she sees as the first buds of empathic awakening and soon recovery. Disillusioned romantic vs optimistic cynic.
Which then means she's not just with Hammer because he's some big strapping chad, or because she's blinded like Horrible claims, but because Hammer helps the community through his acts of "heroics" in much the same way she tries to help through petitions and volunteering, and she believes in that potential to grow beyond being a douchey jock. Once she realizes he purely does it for the acclaim and ego trip, there is no shred of altruism, you're right, she'll drop him like a lead balloon, and with her emotionally devastated, having lost the shred of hope she thought she'd finally found, Horrible will have his chance just by continuing to play along, and now giving her a shoulder to cry on. Heck, knowing Hammer's type, he probably won't take it well and get violent, and if Horrible saves her then, a non-powered shy wimp putting himself in life-threatening harm's way to protect her, that level of selfless altruism will absolutely wow her. That's the exact kind of good hearts she's trying desperately to cultivate in the world. Nay, since all she's seen out of him is meek self-absorption, she'd probably see it as proof positive she's making progress as an apostle of hope and compassion and be overjoyed. If an indestructible man yeeting her against a brick wall with only the faintest regard for her safety had her doe-eyed because at least somebody cared for once, Horrible would likely be kissed on the spot.
The ironic tragedy is in that Horrible has completely misunderstood what impresses Penny, because when it comes to brass tacks he's been too busy putting her on a pedestal to actually get to know her, and his absorption of systemic misogyny prevents him from realizing that her actions are out of anything other than naivete. To him, she's not defiantly fighting the tide to try and make positive change despite the odds, she's just too adorably innocent to realize it's a losing battle. It's a very condescending attitude. But one that makes sense in a fettered viewpoint where the only avenue to change is strength through violence, and that juvenilizes and objectifies women as beautiful angels. Horrible isn't an Incel. He's a Simp.
So in a way, I think her staying an object, in the views of both Hammer and Horrible, and by extension then the audience because it's told through their eyes, is part of the point. We're given juuuuust enough if we're paying attention to let us know some of why that's bullshit. But to go any further would defeat the exercise because then she wouldn't be written off anymore.
I'll admit, I was one of the people who initially liked Doctor Horrible's Sing Along Blog, and did for a long time. However, looking back and hearing some of these points explained, it makes a lot of sense and I'm both surprised and embarrassed I didn't see a lot of these issues before. Regardless, another good video as always, and I thoroughly look forward to what comes out next.
It's nothing to be embarrassed about, it's also ok if you still like it. There is no perfect work of fiction and the fact that we enjoy something with problematic themes / styles / messages does not make us bad people. There's a lot of good things in Dr Horrible's Sing Along, as well as other shows that in retrospect face _problematic_ themes. But it helps when we're aware of different trends so we're able to understand and critique them.
I noticed most of these flaws and idc
Brand New Day and On The Rise are still some of my favourite songs
I tried to re-watch Hitch recently. I hugely enjoyed it when it came out. Now? I couldn't make it more than 10-15 mins in. It was AWFUL. Every thing that Hitch did was a violation of consent and agency. Boundary violations GALORE. And the whole thing of "I want this unattainable woman who dates awful men because I'm a NICE GUY and she'd love me if only I had the chance to show her!" *BARF* My gods. I feel so ashamed having liked that movie so much.
And jesus fuck don't even get me started on You've Got Mail.
Huh, I always thought it wasn't a comedy (though there are plenty of funny moments) but a tragedy. For example My Eyes at the mid point, I remember identifying with his growing cynicism and then story ends with showing how his cynicism isolated him from, if not destroyed, everything he really loved.
I agree with you about the show being more than a comedy, but his point still stands. The tragedy of the woman dying is irrelevant in the eyes of the writers compared to the pain of the geek not getting what he wanted. The show is still great, but we can learn to do better to subvert these stereotypes, its quite interesting to think about
@@TheSoijohn I don't mean tragedy as in Penny's death but tragedy in a greek sense as the protagonist's flaws and his immaturity in dealing with them and the story being a cautionary lesson.
@@TheSoijohn and I agree with the point about Penny. Just surprised that apparently people thought this was a comedy.
@@anarchsnark I think it's because the plot sounds too goofy to be a tragedy on a first look.
"lower-polish videos"
Shame, I prefer to watch videos with more Poland in them
I love this video but I'm 99% sure the movie gets what it's saying more than you think.
Like for one we're seeing the world through horrible's perspective. We never learn more about her because Horrible and Hammer never care to ask. We also gotta consider the runtime of this thing.
I agree that her last line was a mistake but that's got more to do with the musical's sense of humor getting in the way of commentary than their thoughts on women.
That all just sonds like after-the-fact justifications for relying on misogynistic writing tropes.
@@ravenfrancis1476 I tend to agree with Mobius Strip; Billy never struck me as a character to emulate, more a warning that becoming the bully won't solve the world's problems. That said, Penny is still utterly vapid, the film is still male fantasy, and knowing Joss Whedon he probably never intended the "cautionary" interpretation to begin with.
Joe Francis it’s not after-the-fact, the show is literally called Dr Horrible’s Sing Along Blog. It’s him vlogging and telling the story. It’s explicitly from his perspective. We cant see Penny as anything more than an object of desire because he doesn’t see her as anything more. That’s the point.
As someone who was an adult when this first came out, this literally is making fun of both Dr Horrible and Captain Hammer. Penny was a huge deal at the time, if not revolutionary: her sleeping with someone (captain hammer) was not shown as regret nor as something that devalued her in any way. She regretted her continued association with captain hammer when he became undeniably too much of a shitty person to her face.
This feels extremely much like the Seinfeld is not funny trope. Without the at time context so much of the show's achievement and brilliance is lost because they became the norm. It is misinterpreted too, because things that were obvious at the time no longer are, on top of the achievements now being invisible.
Sorry but it isn't a movie. It was a free webseries made doing the writers strike
And non of these lefties essays focus on the gosh darmn strike
Innuendo Studios: Cutting pedantry off at the head since 1969
I feel like Joss Whedon leaked all his manosphere incel side completely by accident
He actually did such a good job doing this by accident it's easy to mistake it for a satire of it.
Joss Whedon is a 1990's feminist that never quite updated to present day feminism.
He can still write good stories on occasion.
While Dr. Horrible does what it sets out to do well, it is still hamstrung by it's very short run time, and it's complete dependence of preexisting Superhero tropes. Penny-as-an-object-of-desire did her job well, but the fundamental problem is that she is still a plot device and barely has any agency.
@@danieljohnkirby9412 it 100% is a satire. I was an adult when this came out, it was a big deal for multiple reasons including that it was so damn clever
@@Call-me-Al Suuuuuure it is. Pay no attention to the numerous obvious bits of evidence that proves otherwise, like the entire existence of Xander. And also Joss' casting couch. Lick dem boots.
@@Call-me-Al ...Bruh, look up writing credits.
If you watch the behind the scenes, the director asked Felicia Day to pull back because she kept trying to sing passionately (as if, y'know, she had a character and motivations)
These are good. I like these. Please do these every so often.
I have never clicked a youtube notification so fast.
Just live your channel. Thanks again.
I support these videos. I didn't get any ads though, is that because RUclips recognized "CO-VIDS" as a reference to That Which Cannot Be Monetized?
From what I can recall, they don't demonitize covid videos anymore
I don't put ads on my videos anyway. I'm only monetized through Patreon.
"Don't get on my ass about distinctions. It doesn't make you interesting."
This sums up 100% of my feels towards gatekeeping and related bullshittery so brilliantly. I might have yelled at my screen and had to rewind to listen to the line a couple times.
god it feels good to hear someone else say it
I muttered it at the end and my parents gave em that look that said "I know I always tell you to say what you believe, but you've been doing that an awful lot lately."
Poor Penny. She's literally just a living MacGuffin; the only thing that would need to change if she was replaced by the Maltese Falcon or Baby Yoda or whatever is why Hammer and Horrible desire the MacGuffin and why Horrible cares so much about its destruction.
Real talk though, I would probably watch Mando: The Musical
Yeah. And it's weird because, the show does imply there's something more there, but it's all one or two lines. It's never really expanded upon, we're never really told who she is beyond "nice". I tend to think there's something more there, (like, that maybe her last words referencing Hammer is, not only out-of-universe, but in-universe an attempt at twisting the knife, one last act of knowing deficance to this asshole), but i'd be lying if I said I thought it was intended.
@@billyweed835 Implying that Penny is more than a bland love interest is the best of both worlds. It makes her technically not just a bland love interest, since you've said she's more than that, but you don't need to spend any thought or screentime establishing pointless details like why one of the principal characters does what she does. Sure, not everyone will like the result; some might even call it lazy. But you have something to point to when you're accused of making a flat love interest to fridge, and isn't that what really matters?
@@rekindle7602 This is the way. I have sung.
@@billyweed835 To be fair, Billy makes no real attempt to actually get to know Penny. He's in love with the idea of Penny and not Penny herself. He could easily learn what interests her and support her passion. Instead, he stalks her, stands her up, and obsesses over what he thinks will impress her instead of actually spending time with her and finding out. I always thought this was the point since it's glaringly obvious.
On another note: there are a bunch of prequel comics that briefly flesh out why the characters are who they are (Billy, Hammer, Penny, and Moist). Penny really is way too nice for her own good (which is, in part, why she second-guesses her initial assessment of Captain Hammer and decides to give him a chance). I don't like that they undo her character growth in the musical by having her try to reassure Billy that Captain Hammer will save them as she's bleeding out; it undoes her very-recent realization that Hammer is a narcissistic prick.
It occurs to me that Megamind is in many ways the opposite of this story, with Megamind getting to know Roxanne as a person and letting her go when she leaves him. It even has the eventual real villain, Tighten, be an actual incel who only uses his powers to get what he wants - including Roxanne, whether she wants to or not
This show rubbed me the wrong way back when I first saw it, and this feels like it hits on some of the core points of why.
Same.
Only I watched it with a group of people in a discord call and every one of them got irrationally angry that I thought it wasn't that good.
I loved it from the beginning, in part because I thought that Billy not realizing how full of himself he is was kinda the point (the other part being the catchy music). He's a Nice Guy that stalks a woman he claims to be in love with, and makes no real attempt to actually get to know her & what interests her. Instead, he projects and assumes, which ultimately gets her killed.
Criticism where it's due: I didn't appreciate Penny's backpedalling on her realization that she slept with a self-obsessed douchebag (when she attempts to sneak out of the statue unveiling) by reassuring Billy that Captain Hammer will save them. One could argue that it's a reflex from the shock of bleeding out, but it's undeniably a step backwards from the character growth she showed only moments before.
@@TDOMMX she didn't try to sneak out because she slept with him, she tried to sneak out because he was publically embarrassing her. That is a huge and super important difference.
@@Call-me-Al I disagree with that particular interpretation. Penny says flat-out earlier in the musical that her first impression of Hammer was that he's cheesy and vain, but that she thought she found a sweet and kind guy undernearh. At the unveiling, she realizes that her original assessment of his character was correct -- that Hammer is a self-confessed egotist -- and tries to get as far away from him as possible. We see from her earlier actions that she's not particularly worried about embarrassmemt (i.e.: her hunting for signatures for her petition).
@W Shiflet I can agree with that. Still, I think that's the point: neither Billy nor Hammer legitimately care about Penny and her goals. The two are directly competing with each other, and using Penny as the ball.
You have no idea how happy I am to see you making new videos. I don't, well, social internet much, but when I was headed towards one of my favorite (drumming) RUclips channels I saw innuendo studios......like new stuff! So awesome! Please keep up the great work, know you and your work are greatly appreciated!
better ending to this would been penny just got hurt and just drop both their asses when capatain to busy crying about him getting hurt and mad doctor to busy blaming other for getting hurt over visting her
the outro took me back in time; my family loves Waiting for Guffman and I grew up on his films!
Always appreciate your view on world events/politics in general! So happy to see a new video :)
I love that show and this perfectly articulates my complicated feelings toward it.
Love your work as always! Keep it up! I can't wait for the next video on the Alt Right Playbook!
Wow this is.... exactly the thing that bugged me about Dr. Horrible for so many years that I couldn't quite put into words. Thanks!
*immediately pushes social commentary to back of mind and plays the soundtrack on repeat for hours*
This is kind of an interesting case where the reality's of our society have an important impact on the value of a piece of media- in theory a person serving the role of a plot point in a first person perspective while perhaps cliche is not necessarily a bad thing. Batman's parent might be a good example of this, they are a motivator for Batman and rarely get any real character development (with some notable exceptions of course, there is a lot of batman media) of their own according to my only slightly above average knowledge about Batman. A large part of why it is problematic in Dr. Horrible's (and it emphatically IS problematic) is because of our societal habit of treating women like objects in media, this story follows that harmful trope and can be rightly criticized for it. However, in a world where women were no longer habitually and systematically treated as objects, Penny being a plot device could simply be a narrative choice of the creator to be judged based on its effectiveness as a plot device rather than a continuation of harmful tropes. Arguably, it would almost make sense for Penny to be represented this way as the story is essentially the first person perspective of Dr. Horrible, and so her being a plot device in his life could be seen as criticism of seeing people as objects. This message, if it were intended however, would have been better realized by building upon her character and thanks to the societal context in which we are viewing this media, it is an especially egregious oversight
Some fun subversions of the whole "power is thrust upon me" trope is kid flash who just decided he wanted to try getting flashs powers and succeeded, and booster gold, who just stole a time travel suit and goes around trying and failing to be a hero because of his commitment issues.
I just now noticed that she dresses exactly like a Disney princess. Like, that one yellow-skirt-blue-shirt outfit, we're supposed to think 'Snow White' right?
Those are not the definitions of superhero, (super)villain, and a bully; the moral content of those terms is totally lacking in these definitions.
Also, the kid who gets picked on is not simply a small kid, but is virtually always a "weird" kid, a different kid, like a kid or different race, or ethnicity, or displaying traits of someone who is gender nonconforming or neurodivergent or with disability, or a fat kid, or kid who is of lower class /poor and looks like it, or something similar. That's why bullying can't really be tackled without addressing the bigotries present in society, like racism, xenophobia, queerphobia, ableism, fatphobia, classism, etc..
Yeah, the video pretty much lost me at those attempts at defining bully and victim. The video certainly shows a perspective - a perspective lacking insight into the role privilege may have played in shaping its assumptions. Or hell, just a lack of awareness that bullying isn't primarily physical strength vs weakness, but a dynamic of social power. Physical abuse can be a component!
But blecht. Most of this video left a bad taste in my mouth, and I really don't have the energy to pick apart all the many, many ways it did that.
You leftist are so weird. Firstly anyone can be picked on back in highschool i bullied a kid to near suicide who had none of the problems you mentioned. I actually bullied him because he didn't have any of those problems. Secondly the idea that you can stop bullying is just wrong. Bullying is an important part of socialization it happens to everyone to an extent. The only reason it happens to those people more often is because they need to be socializated more than the average person.
Happy to have you during this unprecedented time of great boredom
I didnt expect a doctor Horrible video today, but I'm certainly not complaining
Even the unusual content is an absolute gem. Great video, Ian.
Media review, cultural analysis and more in under ten minutes. Definitely worth my while.
Wow, dude. You find truth in places I would never have thought to look. I am so thankful for your videos.
I thought this was gonna be about how the Penny is a useless piece of currency and should be abolished. I was surprised to say the least
I'm inclined to agree with most of your points, though I may be a little nostalgia blind with regards to Penny's role in the story. While I wholeheartedly agree that she is barely a character and is only two descriptors away from a MacGuffin, I think that her lack of agency in the story is illustrative of how this sort of power dynamic treats the opposite sex. Perhaps it could have worked better if there were scenes and dialogue characterizing Penny but still having DH and CH treat her the same way to show their lack of interest in who Penny actually is, or if it was better shown how CH only likes Penny because she's hot and if that was better contrasted against DH's affection, or if DH was way more obsessive over CH than Penny.
Overall, great video, I think I'm just stubborn to admit one of the few instances of musical theater I can tolerate isn't perfect.
Llama Llama Everything beyond your words “perhaps it could have worked better” is exactly the message of this video, except taken a step further. Things kind of DON’T work without scenes characterizing Penny where CH and DH ignore her. You can’t illustrate how DH and CH see her as a ambiguous good with no personality by... making her one. It makes the writers no better than the characters they’re making comedy/tragedy with. She NEEDS agency and personhood, so that the point is made that these characters are POINTEDLY IGNORING someone as a person who they think is important, and everything wrong with that.
Not that this means I think the story is totally shot or you’re wrong for tolerating/liking this story. Just that the point is their dynamic isn’t weakened, but actually somewhat broken, by this oversight.
Joss Whedon had already done the more in depth version of this story with Willow, Tara, and the evil nerds in Buffy. In that story the female characters weren't even romantically available and were the protagonists.
"So long as I can find a boundary in a story, I want to escape!"
I cannot wait for more of these 😭😭
Love your stuff man. This is awesome
I've never been able to finish Dr. Horrible, it seemed like one of those super-nerd-in-drama-class bs productions that Seth MacFarlane would make. I'm glad you were able to extract something from it that helped me understand what it was. It helped close the book to a question I've been having for 12 years: Should I actually finish that thing? Should I make the effort?
The answer is no. Thank you for that.
Thanks for introducing me to Sarah Z! I loved both videos.
I think that was the best way to articulate the problem -- the writers are more invested in how Billy felt about Penny's death than how Penny felt about dying. I love this musical but the degree to which Penny is just whatever made her a good foil always bothered me. The same problem is present in almost every superhero movie where the hero has a love interest.
A lot of feminism (eg #girlboss feminism) also isn't about fixing inequalities and toxic imbalances, but ensuring that women are equally represented on the advantaged side.
I think this misses quite a few major, and intentional points by the writers. Every single scene of this movie is set from Billy’s perspective, and the lack of character development she receives is not because she’s not developing, but because Billy doesn’t notice it. What she’s thinking is clear at many points, and she’s a much more developed character than captain hammer, but it can’t be any less subtle, because billy would notice.
Yeah it’s literally his blog, we can’t see anything he doesn’t see. It makes the point more salient because of that, not in spite of that.
A more explicit delve into this particular theme/dynamic would make a great sequel...
Being big or powerful doesn’t make you a bully: not caring that you hurt other people makes you a bully. Power just amplifies your ability to do things.
Now I'm expecting a comparison review between this and Megamind of all things.
1. Penny was was the only one of the main characters who truly got what she wanted. She worked hard to get a homeless shelter in the city, and she got it. It in the end was thanks to her using her connection to a celeb, but it doesn't change the fact that she was the only one who got what they truly wanted. Then she died and none of the boys saw beyond their own noses, but her success is not erased by her death.
2. At the time, it was a huge deal that Penny got to have no strings attached sex and it not devaluing her somehow nor make her look bad. We're spoiled rotten with that sort of stuff now, but back then this was revolutionary. I cannot stress enough how much of a big deal this was.
"But back then this was revolutionary."
That's a pretty good summary of Joss Whedon's career.
I really love this movie still. I think as much as it is "incel logic," it does a great job of showing the emotional pit traps that nerdy guys face as being less than evil. He sees Captain Hammer winning and believes he needs to be more alpha. He sees Penny falling for him and believes she is lost. And him hating the world... like... ins't humanity kind of parasitic? WE ARE the 1% of life on Earth fucking over the other 99%. Or the fact that he's miserable and blames humanity, it seems fair when you take note of how incredibly anti-intellectual humanity has been for all of time. So he should just be more emotionally intelligent. It's easy for us to say "join a community project!"
All to say I get Dr. Horrible. And if someone doesn't get him, I think within this small context they're fortunate in not having visited that particular corner of the human experience and I wouldn't recommend the trip.
I dunno. Obviously it's fucked up that the movie is not at all about the tragic death of a very active social worker and is instead entirely about the tragic crushed soul of a nerdy guy... but that's what the movie is about. It's meant to create an emotional appeal on one single characters POV, and to really fit every tragedy in you'd have to make a movie focused on each character.
All in all, I don't think this movie is a problem. I think there's just a distinct lack of counter-balancing movies which focus on a woman's emotional arc at the cost of objectifying a male character. This movie throws one more on the already imbalanced heap.
Good video my duderino. Football kinda instills this dynamic but its cool to hear this and learn how a real relationship goes. It sometimes feels as though because I did that sport that I must have a girl who likes me due to toughness, but it really falls apart when it gets to personality. Thanks for putting that dynamic in better words then I spent time thinking about.
I don't think a victim of a bully necessarily wants more power. The main thing is to see the bully getting less power, or at least, to stop abusing the power they have.
I like this short videos as ell, your insight is remarkable!
This story is almost entirely told from Billy's PoV, it's extremely colored by it. The general allusion to Penny having a past or some vagueness of what she's feeling is all that Billy registers. She is framed as such because Billy views her as such. The closest thing to a connection Billy and Penny have is at the laundromat, which is still a huge façade. Everything he hears from Penny is just used as a way to "win her over," not to get to know her. There are little moments in the story where Penny begins shows some depth, and the camera pans away, since Billy's attention fades as well. Penny is as much of a caricature as Captain Hammer, and, in some ways, Billy, or at least the final form of Billy. There is a degree of a human inside Billy, the one pining over Penny who just wants to find someone to be with, but it's twisted by his "Good Guy vs. Bad Guy" world view, or "Chad vs. Virgin" if you prefer.
The text shows glimpses of her personality. The entire conversation with Billy over the signature showed quite a bit. Obviously, she care's about the homeless-*flips card*-ness problem in the city, which Billy blows off. She also showed some previous interest in Billy, since she both recognized him from the laundromat and kept talking to him after he signed. She recognized his lack of attention, but still kept trying to talk to him. Immediately after that, it leads into "A Man's Gotta Do." Penny's attraction to Captain Hammer stems from both her near death experience and, as said during "My Eyes," the good that Captain Hammer did, specifically getting the homeless shelter opened. She even alludes to the "things that I'm afraid to show," implying that her character has more beneath, and is the closest to her showing much of a character, all of which Billy sings over (while stalking her). He refuses to see what she's feeling, preferring the reality he's building up in his own head. The following laundromat conversation is basically Billy trying to convince her to leave Captain Hammer, talking over her, not connecting to her at all, and focusing on his own pain. Billy finally opens up about his own insecurities and has an honest conversation with Penny, which there's some degree of a spark. Her song gets more of those allusions to those things she's holding closely, but that's basically the last we hear from her, because she's yanked back to being a football to fight over. Captain Hammer steps in and Billy loses all focus on Penny until he literally kills her.
All this to say, there are many moments we start to see past the idol of unambiguous good that Penny represents, but because everything is filtered through Billy's view, we never get to. To Billy, that's all she is, and in his pursuit to be the powerful person he thinks she wants, she is not only reduced to that object, but killed in the process. Captain Hammer treats her the same way. She is subjugated throughout act 3, and only has speaking lines on her deathbed. Treating women like an object to fight over silences and kills them in the process.
TL;DR: It's intentional.
PS: I love her song.
"Don't get up my ass about exceptions, it doesn't make you interesting"
I lol'd
"Don't get up my ass about exceptions" Awww, but I wanted to talk about Booster Gold...
I was raised to see women as prizes with no self. It took a female friend that would not let me walk away to make me realize that they were just as much people as me. My relationships since then have been soooo much more, to the point that none of them have ended, just evolved.
i watched this video and i said "duh, of course he's using incel logic, that was the point of the entire show, that he was so selfish in his view of the world that he ruined everything he wanted" and then i watched the linked video and... until today it had never occurred to me that apparently there are people who thought billy was right? i'm still suspicious but wow
An interesting penny redemption would be a redo from her perspective that fleshes her out as a character. But not only that show things that are clear different then the original implying the original was Billy's perspective and not reality
Impressive, enlightening and thoughtful.
"all persons, living or dead, are purely coinicdental"...okay I'm ready for this
That song at the end is from waiting for guffman and I absolutely respect that
Dresses like a becky?? Falls like a Stacy?? What does this mean??
McNuggets Jugger dont ask for your own peace
@@suides4810 Knowledge is my own peace
@@swansonjoe7121 They're incel terms. Put simply, a Becky is a nerdy girl, and a Stacy is a cheerleader. Although the incel logic gets muddled and both stereotypes end up acting in the same way towards men when viewed through incel eyes. So women as a whole become a general target of hatred.
@@sithblaze Beat me to it.
But, yeah: the point of this musical is that Billy is a Nice Guy, and that he's too busy stalking his crush and plotting world domination that meaningfully trying to improve his life or even get to know what he girl he claims to love is actually like. It's kind of a shock to me that a lot of people missed the point of the series since it struck me as blatantly obvious (then again, the news nowadays more often than not reads like a collection of Onion headlines, so I may be giving certain people way too much credit).
@@sithblaze Ah, thats why I don't know them lol. Ty tho!
I feel your statement anout the relationship that heroes and villains have to their power is a good jumping off point into the discussion, but it's not a rule that is even marginally followed in the superhero world. I'd challenge you to find more villains that sought out their power than had it given to them. Almost all superpowered characters had that status given to them rather than achieved through their own means.
Most villains never asked to be villains. They were struck with the same type of power giving juice as the hero in most cases and they used their newfound privilege *badly.* They usually end up thinking they're better than everyone else due to their power, and they act accordingly. Good heroes "check their privilege" so to speak and end up being stewards to the people of their universe after they realize that because of their powers, they now have a responsibility to help those that cannot help themselves.
This is absolutely not what I thought this video was gonna be about from the title and thumbnail, but Iiked it!
I was literally thinking this earlier today. How did you release my exact train of thought???