Joss Whedon

Joss Whedon’s television series Dollhouse was an innovative and problematic example of what can be achieved on network television when no one seems to be watching. Dollhouse received mixed critical reviews and a fairly low number of viewers, but it is reasonable to argue that there has never been anything quite comparable to it before. Dollhouse combined elements of dystopian science fiction, fast paced action, and dreamy fairy tales while telling stories that were ostensibly about the sex trade industry or at least the buying and selling of bodies. This thesis is not going to debate the relative merits of Dollhouse, but rather examine the relationship the series has with language. Dollhouse is set in an alternate or speculative future and as a result has an alternate language, resembling our own but for a few key differences. Dollhouse aired for two seasons, from 2009-2010. The majority of the paper deals with textual analysis of the dialogue of those two seasons. My analysis of Dollhouse is based on linguistic theory and secondary sources pulled from a variety of modern work on linguistics. The earliest work I will be referencing is Sapir’s essay “The Status of Linguistics as a Science” written in 1929. My selection of secondary works is limited, as it would be impossible to account for all strains of linguistic theory in one paper. I have selected works for their relevance to an analysis using speculative linguistics to deconstruct language in science fiction.

Working from Myra Barnes’ definition of “speculative linguistics” I will use linguistic analysis to examine the created language in Dollhouse (11). A speculative fiction set in an alternate and potentially future world fits Samuel Delaney’s categorization of science fiction narrative as a predictive story that depicts “events that have not happened yet” (Delaney 11). “Linguist-writers” of science fiction invent new words and entirely new languages to aid in the creation of new worlds (Barnes 10). As a subset of science fiction, dystopias tend to feature language designed to exert control over a population. Dystopian tales such as 1984 and Brave New World predict undesirable speculative futures, in which language is used as a tool that allows a small group of people to manipulate and suppress the masses. Usually closely related to the author’s present, dystopias tend to use language that is similarly reflects the author’s present. The dystopian subjugation of the masses through language can be resisted by gaining language awareness and language ability. Dollhouse can be categorized as a dystopian fiction, flashing forward in the final episodes of each season to reveal a nightmarish future world in which language ability has been stripped from the masses. The descent into dystopia is characterized by rigid controlling language paired with uncontrolled technological advancement that, together, allows a small group of Rossum Corporation and Dollhouse employees to gain power by manipulating the people.

In my linguistic analysis of Dollhouse I will begin by examining four words: Attic, Echo, Active, and Doll, selected for their frequent usage in the series and for their exemplification of the way in which new meanings are associated with words that already have preexisting meanings. Using Hayakawa’s definitions of the two categories of word meaning, denotative and connotative, I will deconstruct the preexisting meanings of the selected words and address their relationship to new denotations and connotations associated through context. Literal denotative meanings and associative connotative meanings serve different purposes and Dollhouse uses both categories of meaning to build the speculative world of the series. The invented technology and other speculative ideas of Dollhouse create a context that then associates new ideas and new meanings with preexisting words. In some cases preexisting connotations are used as a device to set up expectations that control the perceptions of the viewer. Words with the same denotation and different connotations give different lenses through which to analyze the same events and characters, and a group of words with the same denotative meaning and different connotations can be ordered by the positivity or negativity of their connotations in a ladder of connotation. As reality is reordered by language, the use of words with negative connotations has the power to shape perceptions of characters and viewers and to some degree shape the reality of Dollhouse.

My second route of inquiry is an analysis of one of the linguistic devices used frequently in Dollhouse; repetition of key phrases. Two structures of repeated phrases, call-and-response sequences and “Doll phrases,” become opposing forces in the subjugation of the Dollhouse Actives. Call-and-response phrases “Did I fall asleep?” and “Do you trust me?” represent a frequently repeated form of controlling language, which manipulates the minds of the Actives. Through conflation with technology, the call-and-response language becomes performative, taking on the role of technology by actively producing changes in the Actives mental state, compelling trust and limiting intelligence. Initially used in collaboration with aspects of the state and the public, the controlling language created by the Dollhouse evolves into a private weapon used to gain power and suppress enemies by the Rossum. The control that issues from the call-and-response language renders the Actives vulnerable and puts them in a position from which they may be abused.

A further examination of the call-and-response sequences reveals how they are also used to program the viewer, using hegemonic social constructions rather than technology. As with denotation and connotation, expectations are set for the viewer based on preexisting information, in this case culturally accepted assumptions, which are then frustrated, rather than fulfilled, in order to provoke a response in the viewer. The repetition of these sequences serves to reinforce social ideals and then deconstruct them, revealing how much the viewer has been programmed by his or her cultural environment.

A counter measure to the controlling language of the call-and-response phrases are what I term Doll phrases, language imprinted in the Doll-state that gives the Actives a structure in which to express individual beliefs and opinions. An examination of Doll phrases and when and how they are used reveals that the Actives maintain a modicum of autonomy in their language that implies a capacity for individual thought. Deviations in the form and content of these short phrases maintain a recognizable shared structure of the phrase but demonstrate individuation among the Actives. I propose that these deviations in the structure of the Doll phrases stem from some essential aspect of the Active using the phrase; an “identity” that exists underlying an Active’s original, imprinted, and Doll-state personas and that cannot be wiped away by the imprinting process.

The third line of inquiry I will pursue is an examination of identity language and how it is affected as Dollhouse descends into dystopia. Identity language encompasses all language that serves to indicate identity, including pronouns, gender indicators, and “identity phrases.” In addition to the call-and-response and Doll phrases, identity phrases represent another form of repeated language used to identify imprints. In the face of the Dollhouse’s imprinting technology, identity language begins to break down. Pronouns are no longer able to adequately describe the identities of the Actives, and the line between humans and technology blurs as personalities are stored in computer hard drives. The imprinting technology effectively divorces gender from sex, and gender becomes located solely in the mental imprint. An imprint can only be distinguished through language, as it has no stable physical body. Identity phrases, gender indicators, and gendered language that indicate identity through dialogue are relied upon to determine who an imprint is. Without the physical body and with the constant imprinting and removal of imprints the notion of a set identity becomes unstable and unsupportable. Attempts to counter unstable identity are made by claiming the physical body through language, striving to tie it to a mental imprint. The destabilization of identity is directly related to the destabilization of identity language. When identity language can no longer accurately describe an identity, identity itself begins to fall apart.

These elements of language manipulation lead towards I have termed the “word-pocalypse” an apocalyptic event through which the language capacity of the world’s population is widely destroyed, leaving a dystopian world behind. The massive language loss seen in the “word-pocalypse” represents a fear of linguists like Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf, who theorize that thought is produced by language (Sapir 209), or David Harrison, who believes that when languages die, some untranslatable form of information dies as well (206). Dollhouse also features dystopian monsters, dumb shows and butchers, as extreme versions of the suppression enacted on the Actives through the call-and-response language. Unstable identity language leads to imprints being forced upon civilians. Like the changing of word meanings in section two everything familiar has been made strange through a language centric event. The characters of Dollhouse combat their dystopian world and protect themselves through the mastery of language, which enables them to maintain their identities and resist controlling language.

Dollhouse is a contemporary example of dystopian science fiction, set in an alternate world where characters are subjugated through technology and controlling language, leading to an apocalyptic event. As the series progresses the story leads towards a dystopian future glimpsed in both the final episode of season one and the final episode of season two. This dystopia is brought on by rapidly advancing technology controlled by the executives of the Rossum Corporation who use the unchecked power this technology grants them to manipulate the world to their liking. As Dollhouse descends into dystopia the language of the series becomes dystopic as well becoming more unstable and manipulative. Dystopian language is both a result and cause of Dollhouse’s dystopian future, representing the relationship between language and the creation or distortion of reality in science fiction.

Speculative Linguistics in Science Fiction and Dystopia

“Aren’t you big brother?” - (Vows 2.10)

Using speculative linguistics as a lens through which to examine and understand science fiction texts, this essay will analyze the language of Dollhouse. Samuel Delaney’s essay “About 5,750 Words” will be used to distinguish the language of science fiction and dystopia from other forms of fiction. Discussion of linguist-writers demonstrates how science fictions create speculative languages in conjunction with speculative futures. Science fiction proves optimal for study with linguistics because of the freedom in science fiction to create new words and new languages, a freedom that remains based on the writers’ conscious and unconscious internalization of linguistic rules. The dystopian sub-genre of science fiction uses the linguistic creation of science fiction as a method of control. Dystopian language can be used to control and manipulate the masses, but language also remains one of the few ways individuals can combat a dystopic power. Because language is valued so highly in a dystopia mastery over language can create and maintain a dystopic world or be the only way to fight dystopian control.

Myra Barnes’ book Language and Linguistics in Science Fiction-Fantasy marks the beginning of a new kind of linguistic inquiry. Barnes calls her field of study “speculative linguistics” or “theoretical linguistics” (Barnes 13). She applies linguistic principles in the analysis of language in science fiction in order to determine what level of linguistic theory is enacted by authors both consciously and unconsciously to their fictions. The invented worlds, peoples, and technology of the genre of science fiction lead to the production of new languages some based on the projected future of English and others “alien” in origin, based outside of English or based outside of Earth entirely.

Barnes provides the linguistic framework I will be using, but Samuel Delaney provides an additional set of distinctions that separate science fiction and dystopian fiction from all of literature. Delaney, the author of a number of science fiction novels and short stories, distinguishes the genres of naturalistic fiction, fantasy fiction, and science fiction, He describes naturalistic fiction narratives as events that “could have happened” fantasy fiction as events that “could not have happened” and science fiction as events that “have not happened” (Delaney 10-11). Linguistically in order to maintain the credibility of a fiction that “could have happened” the writer must utilize the credible language for the time and place in which the novel is set. In naturalistic fiction words and meanings must stay consistent with the usages of the time period in which the story is set, with no little for invention in language. Fantasy fiction covers events that “could not have happened” require no rigidity of language at all. A fantastic world has no relation to the past or present of our reality and thus its language is unburdened by the linguistic development of our historical context. Science fiction is categorized as events that “have not happened,” the fiction of worlds that could exist. Science fiction stories take place in speculative futures or alternate worlds in which much of the language used is based on our own linguistic development, but some is based on invention of new words or repurposing of existing language.

Language is by no means the main focus of the entire body of science fiction literature, but it plays an important role in creating speculative worlds. Some writers choose to ignore the issue of language, while others make language central to their texts; Barnes terms this second group “linguist-writers”

While many writers ignore the issue of language altogether, a linguist-writer may choose to create an entire language system and build the society around it, just as a biologist-writer would give more attention to alien physiology. For this reason, the imaginary languages found in science fiction are more thoroughly explained and are superior because they are created by linguists who are fully aware of the linguistic principles involved, who choose this medium to explore theoretical possibilities. (10)

Linguist-writers of science fiction create speculative languages designed to describe a speculative future, sometimes popularizing invented words for new concepts that disseminate into the spoken and written language of the present. There are many cases in which words changed or created by science fiction writers for their own purposes have entered the popular lexicon. William Gibson famously popularized the term “cyberspace” with his novel Neuromancer which became the preferred term in 1980s for the world of networked computers. Before Gibson, Karel Čapek created the word “robot” for his play, “Rossum’s Universal Robots,” out of a Russian word for “worker” and applied it to the artificial life forms manufactured to perform manual labor. From its origin as an invented word in Čapek’s play, robot has come to be a common present-day term for mechanical and artificial creations. In other cases authors have invented new words or repurposed existing words to describe speculative ideas that have not yet been achieved by science. Gene Roddenbury’s television series Star Trek (1973) popularized the word “beam” as shorthand for teleportation and invented words like “phaser” to describe the invented guns used by the characters. Roddenbury’s invented words continue to shape and influence the imagining of speculative concepts which are not yet reality. Star Trek is also known for creating alien languages including Vulcan and Klingon, which are speakable languages with logical grammar structures invented by linguist-writers working for the series.

Whereas science fiction is uniquely optimal for the invention and creation of language, the subcategory of science fiction, dystopian fiction, is dominated by narratives where created language is used by characters or organizations to seek power through the manipulation of language. Dystopias (sometimes called “Anti-utopias”) are the opposing response to the idealized future worlds presented in the utopian sub-genre of science fiction in which humanity has naturally evolved a more perfect society and a more perfect language. Both Utopias and dystopias are considered “technological and sociological predictive tales,” (Delaney 11), but dystopias are often more closely related to the reality of their writer. In “Claiming Mastery Over the Word,” David Sisk writes that, “Dystopian fiction is fundamentally concerned with the writer’s present society, and builds much of its horrific power on extrapolating current trends to what the writer considers their logical conclusions,” (20). Returning to Delaney’s definition of science (or speculative) fiction, “events that have not happened” contains all fiction that speculates about future worlds including utopias and dystopias. Dystopian fiction narrows Delaney’s definition of science fiction to, “events that have not happened yet,” the “yet” carrying an implied tone of warning that is the basis for cautionary dystopias (Delaney11).

Dystopias usually represent a utopian idea gone cataclysmically wrong, usually when a new world order is constructed by man rather than by natural evolution;

Anti-utopias are the result of social manipulation by intelligent but designing men who occupy the highest social or political status... and who can remain in power only through rigid control of the lower social strata that they have created. These leaders do not rule by physical force, but by social psychology; and their tool is language. (Barnes 149)

Languages created for dystopian purposes are almost always a form of English, easily understood by the reader but subject to sometimes dramatic reordering and revaluing to represent the shape of that dystopian society (Barnes 149-150). In many ways dystopian fiction has become a structure in which writers can directly address their fears regarding language. In George Orwell’s 1984, the protagonist works for the Ministry of Truth working on “Newspeak,” a government sanctioned, condensed form of the English language designed to limit expression and control the population. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World takes a different route, limiting the populations’ capacity to understand and use language by regulating intelligence through eugenics. The acquisition of knowledge and individual thought are suppressed by burning of books in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. The regulation and destruction of language in a dystopia becomes the inversion of the free creation of language seen in the larger category of science fiction narratives.

Dystopian fiction seems to be preoccupied with language and linguistics and the authors of dystopian fiction use the loss, death, manipulation, or over regulation of language as both a symptom and cause of a world gone cataclysmically wrong. In his discussion of dystopian fiction David Sisk writes,

It behooves dystopian writers to base their hellish societies upon concepts that will make most readers simultaneously feel personally threatened and personally empowered to resist. Few concepts meet this dual need better than the idea of language, its presumed ability to control thought, and its presumed susceptibility to manipulation. ( 36)

Dystopian narratives are built upon the power of language to control thought, but they also present language as a way for individuals to fight against manipulation. Characters within dystopias cling to language as a way to gain agency and identity, their own ability to use language protecting them from the power language may have to influence them. For characters in a dystopia losing language ability means losing any individual influence over their lives. Their fear of losing language is a fear of the authors as well, for those who make their living from language must dread its degradation and manipulation.

Dollhouse is a linguistic science fiction with its own system of language that supports the speculative nature of its setting and technology. While the series does not invent new words, it expands the definitions of established words in new ways, manipulating word meaning in order to construct and challenge the viewer’s perceptions. Over the course of its two seasons Dollhouse shows a world much like our contemporary reality descend into dystopia. In the last episode of season one and the final episode of the series the story-world of the series jumps forward in time to show the projected future for its characters and story lines. Complete with wide ranging destruction of property, a breakdown of industry, massive control exerted over the general population through language, and a small group of rebels, these episodes depict a bleak and undesirable future that reflect the established tropes of a fictional dystopia as represented by writers like Orwell, Huxley, and Bradbury. The technology of Dollhouse wielded by the shadowy Rossum Corporation, whose name cites another dystopian work, Čapek’s “Rossum’s Universal Robots,” suppresses and programs a select group of people referred to as “Actives. One of the Actives, Echo, becomes our protagonist taking on the role fulfilled by Bernard in Brave New World and Winston in 1984 by beginning to question the system that she is a part of. The Rossum Corporation and the Dollhouse fulfill the role of the intelligent designers of a system that has given them a privileged political and social status, marked by wealth, influence in the economy, and political influence. The Dollhouse exercises rigid control over the Actives predominantly through technology and language, rather than force. Eventually the technology that has created a system of control that benefits the Dollhouse and suppresses the Actives expands to manipulate the world population.

The evolution of the story-world into a dystopia is linked to a use of language which features the word invention and manipulation of science fiction and the increasing use of language as a way to gain and maintain control over a population featured in the dystopian subset. A conflict arises between the Rossum Corporation and Dollhouse that use language to suppress the Actives, and the Actives and their allies whose struggle to resist the manipulations of the Dollhouse involves gaining control over language.

Constructing Context Through Denotation and Connotation

Prove you’re not just an echo - (“The Target” 1.02)

In order to more fully understand the importance of word meaning to the construction of the speculative world of Dollhouse, I will address “Attic,” “Echo,” “Doll,” and “Active,” as examples of words selected for the information communicated by their preexisting meanings. These words will be evaluated in terms of their preexisting denotative and connotative meanings as well as through the new associations they gain as they are repeated in new contexts. Words with preexisting denotations and connotations are essential to building a speculative world like Dollhouse because they bring an existing set of associations from which to determine a context. In turn words used in conjunction with one another in a specific context may be influenced by that context, gaining additional new denotations or connotations. Dollhouse uses preexisting denotations and connotations of a word to encourage the viewer to form preconceptions about a new idea. In cases in which multiple words share the same denotation but different connotative associations, the different words provide different “lenses” through which the thing they describe can be viewed. A figurative “ladder of connotation” may be used to organize the words sharing a denotative meaning, ordering them by the positivity or negativity of their connotations. The frequent choice of dehumanizing language to denote the Actives creates a context in which they are rendered sub-human. The selection of words for their preexisting meanings and manipulation of word meaning influences the viewer’s interpretation of the context and characters of the series.

Starting with the most basic way language conveys information I will examine the two categories of meaning associated with individual words: denotative meaning and connotative meaning. Denotative meaning is the literal or primary meaning of a word, “thought not to vary across contexts” (Johnstone 29). Denotative meanings are relatively fixed as entries in the shared mental dictionaries of the population, and as in a dictionary, it is possible for one word to have multiple “entries” or meanings. Denotative meaning is also the extensional meaning of a word, or, “something that cannot be expressed in words because it is that which the word stands for.” (Hayakawa 36). Context does affect which denotative meaning is intended when a word has multiple denotations or is being used to describe something new.

In addition to denotative meaning each word has multiple connotative meanings. The connotative meaning of a word exists in a constant state of revision that correlates with the context of each usage. Connotative meaning is the idea or feeling a word evokes or, “that which is suggested (connoted) inside one’s head.” (Hayakawa 37). Connotations do not refer to the extensional world, but instead exist as mental associations between words, ideas, and feelings. What connotative meanings a word conveys is dependent on the context of the sentence, the context of the word within the sentence, the speaker, and the listener. Connotative meaning is dependent on many variables; one word may have many connotations and a word can even have connotations the speaker did not intend.

The only way to completely control both denotative and connotative meanings is to invent a new word. Science fiction affords the opportunity to create completely new words without impunity, giving a writer complete control over what a word denotes and what connotative meanings are associated, an opportunity taken advantage of in works like Brave New World, 1984, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and “Rossum’s Universal Robots.” Dollhouse forgoes this opportunity to denote new ideas and technology with invented words, in favor of using established words deliberately selected for their existing denotations and connotations. Complete control over meaning cannot be exerted over existing words, but the choice to describe speculative science fiction creations with words that have preexisting meanings is a way to manipulate the expectations of the viewer. Barnes notes that dystopian language is frequently built with familiar words, “Most prevalent and most significant is vocabulary, not in the creation of new words, but in the altered meaning which a familiar word takes on within the society; euphemisms abound, and the specialized vocabulary occurs in the area most emphasized in the society.” (150). Familiar words give the viewer a framework for how to understand the unfamiliar aspects of a created alternate world. Using existing words relates the story-world of the series more closely to reality. Simultaneously, by using existing words to describe the unfamiliar, the writers make familiar words strange, undermining any comfort or stability they provide. The same words used to create the context of the series are affected by the context they create, adding new connotations with each usage and discarding those that no longer have any relevance. Production of word meaning becomes a circular process where, “some new thing necessitates a social adaptation, and the language is adjusted to express the new concepts, which causes a new pattern of thought, which necessitates adding new dimensions to the grammar, and so on, ad infinitum.” (146). When existing meanings inform a context, that context produces new associations, and those associations go on to produce the context of the next usage.

An example of this circular process within Dollhouse is the word “Attic.” “Attic” starts with an original primary denotation of the space, or room, just below the ceiling of a building, and has connotative associations with “storage” “dark” and “disuse.” When Dominic threatens to, “send [Echo] to the Attic,” for the first time in “The Target” (1.02) a new denotation is created for “Attic” as a place within the world of Dollhouse. Since the viewer has not been given any information as to what the "Attic” actually is – though we must assume it is not an “attic” according to the word’s primary denotation based the context and the new denotation of the word “Dollhouse” – we are encouraged to imagine Dollhouse’s “Attic” in terms of the preexisting connotative associations of “attic.” This usage of “Attic” contrasts what is familiar about the word with new information gathered from the way it is used. By applying “Attic” in the context of a threat in “The Target,” it becomes associated with danger, and carries those connotations of “threat” and “danger” forward into subsequent usages, and as “Attic” continues to be applied to new contexts, it gains additional connotative meanings. Described as “signing a death warrant” and a “mental suck,” (“A Spy in the House of Love 1.09) “Attic" is associated with new connotations of physical harm and mental deficiency.

Connotative meanings can give real information, but they can also be deceitful. The connotations of “Attic” that associate the place with the feeling of being threatened and frightened create a framework for how the viewer should respond to the world of the characters. However the connotations that manipulate expectations of how the “Attic” appears visually and what function it serves are deliberately misleading, designed to trick the viewer into forming an idea of the “Attic” that is not based on any physical evidence. When the “Attic” is finally revealed (“The Attic” 2.10) its unclear spatial relationship to the rest of the Dollhouse and the nightmarish technology it houses attach meanings to the word dramatically different from the pre-existing denotations and connotations of “attic.” Using purposefully misleading information Dollhouse creates an opportunity to control the viewer through their expectations in order to create more surprising and suspenseful revelations by defying those expectations.

During the process of attributing new connotative associations through new contexts other existing connotations become irrelevant and disassociated from a word. The process of disassociating connotations becomes significant in the case of the word “Echo.” Each Active is given a designated signifier chosen from the NATO phonetic alphabet and “Echo” is chosen to designate the protagonist of the series, an Active played by Eliza Dushku. In its original context the word “echo” denotes aural reflection, a repetition of sound that rebounds and fades. The Dollhouse uses “Echo” to denote the body of an Active, while the series Dollhouse uses “Echo” to denote both the body of an Active and the emerging consciousness attached to that body. The existing connotative meanings for “echo” - memory, vestige, remnant, ghost, and mimic - inform the initial characterization of “Echo” as an Active that seems to have remnants of the body’s original personality, Caroline. Using the word “Echo” to signify the protagonist is a deliberate choice to contrast the character’s development against the preexisting connotations of her designation. In the second episode of the series Echo is told to, “Prove [you’re] not just an echo” (1.02 “The Target”), setting up Echo’s development as a personality and identity separate from those of Caroline. Echo sets about proving her individuality, first with small hints of consciousness evidenced by her desire to finish an engagement in “Man on the Street” (1.06) and her request to be imprinted in “A Spy in the House of Love” (1.09), then with blatant statements and control over her imprints in “Belle Chose” (2.03) and “Meet Jane Doe” (2.07)). When she verbally claims “Echo” as an identity in “The Attic” (2.10) declaring, “My real name is Echo” she revises “Echo” from a signifier to a name, locating an original identity in a word with old connotations and denotations that are in direct opposition to its new associations with originality. The conflict between the new denotation of Echo as a name and old associations makes “Echo” ironic, with preexisting meanings rendered inaccurate as the gradual revelation of Echo’s individuality breaks with expectations they had created. As “Echo” evolves as a consciousness independent of Caroline, the word “Echo” is made into a name revising associations that indicate Echo is a reflection of something else in order to create her identity as an individual. Those connotations no longer relevant to creating or understanding the context of “Echo” as a name and an identity are disassociated. By making “Echo” a name Dollhouse destroys the preexisting meaning of the word “Echo” leaving it completely open to new associations.

Words with different preexisting denotations and connotations are assigned the same new denotative meaning to give different “lenses” through which to understand the context of Dollhouse. The two primary words used to denote to the people who reside in the Dollhouse and have been altered by the imprint technology are “Doll” and “Active.” While both words are given the same new denotation their preexisting denotations and connotations are comparatively different, which affects the way they shape the context of their usage. The preexisting denotation of “Doll” is a model of the human figure, often a child’s toy, while “Active” has an existing denotation as an adjective is used to describe someone or something engaged in a physically energetic pursuit. Both “Doll” and “Active” were selected because of their previously existing denotative and connotative meanings which create points of contrast, and using both words links the disparate ideas together giving the viewer two connected sets of information through which to interpret the “Actives.”

Applied as a noun in the context of Dollhouse, “Active” denotes a resident of the Dollhouse. That denotation is combined with the word’s previous denotation as an adjective; “Active” simultaneously identifies and describes the Dollhouse residents. When the “Actives” are “engaged” they are programmed as a specific imprint and to engage in a specific activity. “Active” is a word associated with ideas like motion, restlessness, physical engagement, mental awareness, purpose, and even health and wellness. It is a more sanitized word, void of the patronizing insulting tone of “Doll.” Even when it is used to denote humans “Active” evokes positive feelings of health and well being, reflected by the general health, physical prowess, and attractiveness of the “Actives” themselves. “Active” seems to be the corporate word, predominately used by the Dollhouse’s parent company, Rossum, through their representative of face of the company in the Dollhouse, Adelle DeWitt, in meetings with clients (“Ghost” 1.01). Though being an “Active” is not a desirable situation, the connotations of the word “Active” and the level of regard it connotes remains preferable to alternative terms like “Doll” which have less positive connotations. In addition to its denotation as a child’s toy, “Doll” evokes words like triviality, play, plastic, constructed, disposable, and manipulation. “Doll” connotes something synthetic and constructed, reflecting the nature of the imprinted “Dolls,” whose personalities are constructed by technology. Through the imprinting process “Dolls,” like the figurine “dolls,” can be posed, manipulated, and played with, a prospect that becomes disquieting when applied to human beings. The connotations of manipulation applied to “Doll” temper the positive corporate spin the connotations of “Active,” painting a bleaker picture of the level of autonomy and free will the “Actives” possess. The word “Doll” also influences our understanding of the administrators of the Dollhouse and their corporate “Actives” by connecting them to children playing with toys, implying that despite their authority, they are no more responsible towards the “Actives” than children are towards the objects they possess.

“Doll” and “Active” also provide a way of understanding the Dollhouse residents and the way they are treated in terms of gendered language. Both words have differently gendered connotations, but both are consistently applied to “Actives” as a whole regardless of their sex or current gender identity. “Doll” has historically been used as a slang term for an attractive woman, something referenced in an exchange between Daniel Perrin and Echo in “The Public Eye” (2.05). In many ways all the “Dolls” in the Dollhouse, both male and female, are “feminized” because they are gazed upon as objects of desire. In accordance with Laura Mulvey’s discussion of modes of looking the “Dolls” are systematically objectified by the gaze (typically gendered male), and often dressed as fetishistic fantasies with no real existence outside of being desired. As “Dolls” the “Actives” are objects to be fetishized and objectified; part of their journey as characters is to rebel against that kind of objectification becoming subjects rather than objects. Femininity is also connoted through the association of the Dollhouse and the “Dolls” with toy dolls and dollhouses. Primarily designed for and marketed to young girls, toy dolls are associated with femininity and are stigmatized as inappropriate for boys. The male appropriate counterpart, the “action figure,” can be associated with “Active” which has more masculine connotations. “Active” is a word put in place to create an air of respectability around the Dollhouse by the predominantly masculine hierarchy of the Rossum Corporation (in which Adelle is the only woman who appears to have any agency) and so it becomes associated with patriarchal power. When it is used to denote Dollhouse residents out on engagements “Active” shares associations with the word “agent,” creating a parallel between the Dollhouse and its “Actives” and the predominantly male hierarchy of government and it’s “agents.” This parallel between Active and agent implies agency for the “Actives” both male and female, something that is completely denied to them in the word “Doll.” The connotative associations of “Active” with power and agency are more positive than the connotations of “Doll” which give no agency, only objectification and manipulation. The male gendered word seems more desirable that the female gendered word, but the desirability of “Active” over “Doll” is illusionary because both words and both sets of associations are linked through their application to the same object.

Because of its connotative connections with ideas of the “synthetic” and “constructed,” use of the word “Doll” immediately makes the viewer question how “real” the residents of the Dollhouse are, if they are being manipulated, and who is “posing” them. As “Doll” is used by the handlers to refer to the “Actives,” it emphasizes the idea of manipulation and the power the Dollhouse has to control its residents. Though Echo and a few other Actives are increasingly able to resist manipulation by Dollhouse technology they are still controlled by the context Dollhouse has created for them. The word “Active” becomes ironic as the series progresses, its preexisting connotations of activity, movement, and purpose coming into conflict with the passive malleable identities of the “Actives” in the Doll-state. Though in the “Doll-state” they engage in physical activity for the purpose of fitness, “Actives” have no ability to design or enact self-motivated actions beyond deciding whether to swim laps or do arts and crafts. It becomes apparent that the agency connoted by “Active” is non-existent, and the only actions the “Actives” are able to carry out are tasks assigned by outside forces.

“Doll” and “Active” are just the most commonly applied terms in a larger collection of words used to denote the “Actives,” all of which have widely different connotations. Concepts that are denoted by multiple words form, what I have termed, a ladder of connotation that contains words with connotations that range from negative, to neutral, to positive. The ladder of connotation for words that describe the residents of the Dollhouse includes the words “Doll” and “Active,” but also “Whore” (1.09), “Victim” (1.10), “Pets” (1.08), “Sleepies” (1.10), “Zombie slaves” (1.12) and “Special needs” (1.02), all used at some point to refer to the residents. The ladder orders these words by the positivity or negativity of their connotations. If I reduce our ladder to the words that appear more than once out of the above group, the ladder looks like this:

negative. _____Whore_____ Doll_____Victim_____Active_____positive

with “Active” at the most positive position and “Whore” at the most negative. “Whore,” which evokes the sex industry, coarse physicality, and is commonly used as an insult has the most overtly negative preexisting connotations. Neither “Doll” nor “Victim” can be considered “positive” but a hierarchy of the words is created in the episode “Haunted,” when Paul is reminded by his friend in the FBI that the actives are “Victims” when he calls one a “Doll” (1.10), making the “Victim” more sympathetic and positive than the “Doll.” The most important distinction is that “Victim” connotes a person who suffers misfortune, while “Doll” connotes a manufactured thing, not a person at all. The Dollhouse uses word choice to reveal aspects of the characters that populate the series. Adelle DeWitt primarily says “Active,” in part to keep to the company line, maintaining a veneer of positivity around the organization, and in part out of genuine desire to see the Dollhouse as a positive place. Claire Saunders also rarely strays from corporate language when she speaks about “Actives” and “engagements” which could be a measure of respect for the “actives,” or may in fact be a result of literal programming, as she is revealed to be a former “Active” herself. Topher’s role within the Dollhouse as programmer makes him the manipulator of the minds of the “Actives,” he frequently says “Doll” (“Did I just lose an argument to a Doll?” [1.09]) emphasizing his role as the child playing with his toys. Lawrence Dominic most noticeably says “Doll” when he is under pressure in “Spy in the House of Love” (1.09) forgoing any sort of formality and revealing his underlying dislike for the “Actives.” Dominic uses the word “Doll” to illustrate how distasteful and synthetic he finds them, reacting with horror that he is a “Doll” himself when he is imprinted into Victor’s body (“Briar Rose” 1.11). Coming from outside of the Dollhouse in season one Paul Ballard would not know the Dollhouse organization’s term “Active,” instead he uses “Victim” and “Doll” words with connotations of suffering and control that support his opinion that the Dollhouse must be taken down and the residents freed. Despite being a part of the Dollhouse organization Boyd Langdon strays from using the word “Active” into using “Doll,” and has gone the farthest down the ladder of connotation by implying the word “Whore” when he describing himself and the other staff as “Pimps” in “Spy in the House of Love” (1.09). This can be interpreted as lack of regard for his job or for Echo, or as foreshadowing his eventual unmasking as the villain of the piece who, as the head of the Rossum Corporation, is essentially a “Pimp” interested in the buying and selling of bodies.

“Handler,” “Babysitter,” and “Pimp” run a similar ladder of connotation for describing the caretakers of the “actives.” When Boyd describes the people who work at the Dollhouse as “pimps and killers” (1.09) he is not inaccurate in describing his role in of some of the work the Dollhouse engages in. He allows the negative connotations of those words to express his feelings about his job and the company, as does Paul when he is employed by the house. Paul uses the word “Pimp” as well to describe his role (also implying the “Actives” are “Whores”) but the context of his statement, “I don’t like being your pimp” (“A Love Supreme” 1.08), makes it less harsh and tones down the negative meaning. Boyd’s statement has no context of remorse or unhappiness with his position as “Pimp,” while Paul’s is directed to Echo and evokes his unhappiness with this characterization.

One of the consistent features of the words used to describe the “Actives” is that they are all dehumanizing along the lines suggested by Coker in “One of Dollhouse.”

The use of language is important in the dehumanization of a person. In our society, women are dehumanized with words like “bitch,” “cow,” “cunt,” “babe” or “baby,” etc. The terms consistently emphasize sexual and mental reduction. In Dollhouse, the codification for Dolls is similar. (231)

“Actives” are very rarely referred to as people, and if they are it is often in reference to their original personalities rather than their current state. In “Needs” Lawrence Dominic tells the handlers to, “Think of them as pets,” (1.7). The handlers and management are instructed to view the Actives as inhuman, “They are not friends, coworkers, or colleagues, not even human: they are pets,” ( 231). The words used to describe the people living in the Dollhouse frequently reduce them to faceless bodies (“Actives”) and manufactured technological products (“Dolls”). The repetition of these words serves to strip the actives of their humanity and reduce them to objects. In his essay “About 5,750 Words.” Delaney writes that in Science Fiction, “The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.” (Delaney). The language used by the handlers and the administrators of Dollhouse manipulates the reality of the “Actives,” by influencing how the handlers and the viewers understand the Actives and how the Actives view themselves, actually dehumanizing them through language.

Repeated Phrases in Programming and Resistance

Did I fall asleep? - (“Ghost” 1.1)

Repetition of phrases features heavily in the dialogue of Dollhouse, and is used to affect and control the mental landscape of the Actives. In both of the frequently repeated call-and-response sequences, designated by the call questions “Did I fall asleep?” and “Do you trust me?” repetition of sequences in conjunction with technology conflates technology and language. The product of this conflation is language that performs the function of technology. The call-and-response sequences have the ability control the thoughts, actions, and perceptions of the Actives through technological “programming,” and are used to suppress and manipulate the Actives both inside and outside of the Dollhouse. Repetition of the call-and-response phrases in Dollhouse also “programs” the viewer by appealing to the hegemonic expectations and values of the viewer’s society. The controlling language of the call-and-response sequences are contrasted with the moments of individual expression the Actives find through “Doll phrases.” The Actives use “Doll phrases” to assert individuality in the face of Dollhouse suppression. By making slight modifications to the structure and content of imprinted “Doll phrases” the Actives set themselves apart from one another and reveal that even within the Doll-state some underlying aspects of identity cannot be wiped away

“Call-and-response” refers to a form of linguistic interaction between a speaker and one or more listeners in which every utterance of the speaker elicits a verbal or non verbal response from the listener or listeners. Call-and-response sequences are composed of two parts, the “call” phrase that initiates the sequence, and the “response” phrase that completes it. There may be multiple call phrases, each with its own response phrase or action, in a call-and-response sequence. In order to be successful, call- and-response phrases require interaction between at least two participants, someone to initiate the call and someone to complete the response. Dollhouse adapts call-and-response language to the programming of its Actives using the frequent repetition of call-and-response sequences as a method of control, suppression, and manipulation. The call-and-response phrases used in Dollhouse are performative, actually causing a change in the mental state of the Actives when they are initiated. The language is also extremely repetitive using the same phrases to elicit the same responses without variation. The two sequences which I will refer to as “Did I fall asleep?” and “Do you trust me?” both trigger different programmed responses in the Actives each time they are used.

Appearing multiple times in the pilot episode and in every subsequent episode of the series, “Did I fall asleep?” is the initial phrase in a series programmed to be repeated by an Active when he or she has been wiped of an imprint. To initiate the sequence the active asks the call phrase, “Did I fall asleep?” and a programmer or handler answers with the response phrase, “For a little while.” In some instances the sequence continues with the Active asking “Shall I go now?” to which the handler responds, “If you like,” but as the series continues the latter part of the sequence is often left out or cut away. This call-and-response immediately follows every wipe and is primarily used as a diagnostic tool to check whether an imprint has been successfully removed. It also signals the return an active to the Doll-state.

Since, for the majority of the series, personalities can only be wiped through the use of a specialized chair and computer system, the sequence is predominantly used (with a few notable exceptions) when the active is in direct contact with the technology. In effect “Did I fall asleep?” becomes a part of the technological process of removing personalities; an Active’s imprint has not been wiped away until the call phrase is voiced. Repetition of the call-and-response phrases when the active is in direct contact with the imprint technology begins to conflate the two, becoming most evident when the chair is not present (ex. remote wipes in “The Grey Hour” (1.04) and “The Public Eye” (2.05)) the call phrase, “Did I fall asleep?” is the lone signifier that a wipe has taken place. Language, in effect, becomes technology, though its association with technological processes. Each time the call-and-response is spoken the sequence becomes the process through which the imprints are wiped, changing the mental state of the Actives returning them to the Doll-state. As the resting state between engagements, the Doll-state is a standardized imprint that suppresses intelligence, emotion, and language ability leaving the Actives helpless and pliable in the face of the manipulations of the Dollhouse. “Did I fall asleep?” comes to represent the technology that removes both the original identities and imprints from an Actives body, leaving them in the Doll-state, vulnerable without full control over their minds, their bodies, or their language.

In relation to the individual recruitment of the Actives, a trajectory emerges that shows the Dollhouse slowly privatizing controlling language. “Did I fall asleep?” and the suppression through programmed language is initially used in collaboration with the state. Of the known Actives the one recruited earliest in the continuity of Dollhouse, is Alpha. As an incarcerated criminal, Alpha is given the chance to become an Active for the dual purpose of serving his prison sentence and suppressing his violent tenancies with the technological language of the Dollhouse (“Omega” 1.12). Alpha’s recruitment and term as an Active demonstrates a collaboration between the United States prison system, a representative of state government, and the Dollhouse. By serving his prison sentence as an Active, Alpha is an example of how the controlling language of the Dollhouse is initially used in the mutually beneficial service of the Dollhouse and the state, fulfilling the needs of the government by contracting out prisoner care and incarceration and the needs of the Dollhouse by providing bodies to make into Actives. From working with institutions the Dollhouse integrates its form of controlling language with the public sector volunteering the Doll-state as a service available to members of the public. Both November and Victor are citizens without any direct ties to the Dollhouse or orders from the state, who volunteer to become Actives because they are seeking a form of suppression for their memories and emotions. November uses the Doll-state to suppress her debilitating grief at the death of her child (“Needs” 1.07) and Victor hopes the mental rest provided by the Doll-state will cure his post-traumatic stress disorder (“Stop-Loss” 2.09). November and Victor are both engage with the language of Dollhouse as consenting participants, using the suppression brought on by “Did I fall asleep?” to serve their own needs.

As the series continues the Dollhouse evolves from exerting control through language with consent and for mutually beneficial purposes, to using it privately for the sole benefit of the Dollhouse itself and its parent corporation, Rossum. From working in cooperation with the public, the Dollhouse turns its language of suppression towards private gain, forcing its enemies to consent to be Actives and creating Actives without any consent at all. When Echo’s original personality, Caroline, begins to cause problems for the Rossum Corporation she is coerced into giving her consent under a threat of imprisonment or death. To become an Active is the only way for Echo to stay alive and out of prison, and it allows Rossum to literally silence her objections by limiting her language ability and gain use of her body as well (“Ghost” 1.01). While Echo was at least given the illusion of a choice during her recruitment, in “Belonging” it is revealed Sierra was made into an Active against her will and without her consent to fulfill the desires of a Rossum executive whose advances she had rejected (2.04). Finally in the case of Daniel Perrin the Dollhouse makes a man into an Active without his consent or knowledge in order to forward Rossum’s political agenda (“The Public Eye” 2.05). Every repetition of “Did I fall asleep?” relates an increasingly privatized form of language-based control which services the agenda of the Dollhouse.

Whereas “Did I fall asleep?” uses call-and-response language to suppress the actives intelligence and emotions, the call-and-response “Do you trust me?” uses language to directly manipulate the actions of the actives. Appearing in the second episode of the series “Do you trust me?” is introduced as a way of creating a bond between active and handler, but quickly reveals itself to be a method of control. The following sequence,

Boyd: Everything is going to be alright. Echo: Now that you’re here. Boyd: Do you trust me? Echo: With my life. (“The Target” 1.02)

is initiated by a handler to gain control over an active’s behavior. Upon completing the call-and-response, regardless of the personality they have been imprinted with, the active must comply with whatever commands their handler issues without question. Unlike “Did I fall asleep?” after the trust imprint’s initial programming “Do you trust me?” is used entirely independent of technology, and remains responsible for eliciting a change in the behavior of the Actives without support from the imprinting technology. This call-and-response sequence becomes a force of subjugation and manipulation, and another example of how language has become technology. This series of call-and-response phrases is able to infinitely reproduce a standardized mental state in the Actives that renders them completely malleable. The control exerted through those phrases allows the handlers manipulate the bodies and actions of the Actives.

When Topher explains the call-and-response sequence to Boyd he says, “This isn’t about friendship, man. It’s about trust. From this point on Echo will always trust you, without question or hesitation. No matter what the circumstance,” (1.02 “The Target”). He uses the term “trust” but what the sequence is actually used for is to compel obedience. Feelings of trust are manufactured in the Actives, not only to bond an Active to their handler, but as a method of control. When a handler initiates the sequence they are not really asking, “Do you trust me?” they are engaging in controlling language designed to produce mindless submission. The submission produced by the call-and-response highlights the difference between statements like “I feel like I can trust you” (“The Target” 1.02) and the call-and-response sequence “Do you trust me?” The first is an observation put forth unprompted by Echo while she is imprinted. She is expressing the “feeling” of trust, different from the mindless abdication of autonomy coupled with the response “With my life.” “Do you trust me?” may evoke an emotional response that is similar to trust, but it also functions to eliminate any form of free will, which Echo’s unprompted expression of trust does not.

The manufactured feeling of “trust” that is associated with the call-and-response language of “Do you trust me?” make the sequence more dangerous than “Did I fall asleep?” because, like the Doll-state produced by “asleep” this “trust” removes agency, but unlike the Doll-state it additionally compels the Actives to follow instruction. Sierra’s interactions with her handler Joe Hearn demonstrate how harmful “Do you trust me?” can be to the Actives. In “Man on the Street” the call-and-response is used by Hearn to take advantage of Sierra, forcing her through the sequence to have sexual relations with him (“Man on the Street 1.06). Because she has been imprinted to trust Hearn she is unable to resist Hearn’s advances. All control over her physical actions is relinquished to Hearn with her repetition of, “With my life,” and Hearn uses that undeserved level of “trust” to take advantage of her body. Sierra’s experience as the victim of call-and-response language in “Man on the Street” (1.06) depicts the way in which language is used in Dollhouse to manipulate and abuse the Actives.

To briefly summarize, the purpose of call-and-response sequences in Dollhouse is to suppress autonomous individual thought and manipulate actions and behavior in the Actives. Over the course of the series this purpose is realized through a trajectory that moves from state to private, as the Dollhouse increasingly uses manipulation through call-and-response sequences to support its private agenda. In the instance of “Did I fall asleep?” suppression of the Actives is achieved by producing the Doll-state, a state of consciousness that limits emotional response, intelligence, and memory, to eradicate individual responses. After “Did I fall asleep” is uttered Actives lose any agency afforded them by their imprint, their re-entry into the Doll-state ensures they are unable to voice dissent, eliminating any resistance to the manipulations of the Dollhouse. “Do you trust me?” achieves total control over the actions of the Actives by producing a manufactured feeling of “trust” which compels Actives to obey their handler without question. “Do you trust me?” indicates a direct seizure of an Actives’ agency by their handler. Both “Did I fall asleep?” and “Do you trust me?” represent language that has been conflated with technology, taking on technological processes that give them the power to reprogram the Active’s minds. Each repetition of the sequences eliminates individuality and autonomy, leaving the Dollhouse as the sole controller and ultimately sole beneficiary of the continued suppression and manipulation of the Actives.

Whereas the call-and-response phrases literally control the Actives, programming them through language that acts the role of technology, “Did I fall asleep?” and “Do you trust me?” also “program” the viewer. Because the viewer operates outside of the logic of the Dollhouse and would theoretically be unsusceptible to the programming that goes on within the Dollhouse. Though the call-and-response language does not work as a form of technology on the viewer, but it has the ability to tap into a more social form of “programming,” using hegemonic assumptions, based on the viewer’s experience with television, to influence the viewer’s perceptions of the characters in Dollhouse. In a sense the television viewer is already programmed, conditioned by the familiar formulas constructed for television to have certain expectations of television fictions. Dollhouse makes use of those formulas and expectations to create a framework in which the viewer may be manipulated and mislead.

Dollhouse begins its manipulation of the viewer by positioning the subject of controlling language, the Active Echo, as the protagonist of the series in direct conflict with the viewer’s assumption that the series will have a dynamic protagonist who is the motivating force in the story. The repetition of “Did I fall asleep?” makes the Actives inaccessible as dynamic protagonists because it limits their agency, their motivation, and calls into question if they are even “awake.” When Actives ask “Did I fall asleep?” they are interpreting their previous state as sleep, implying that the transition signaled by the call question has moved them from “sleep” to “waking.” As a part of the controlling language of the Dollhouse the effect of “Did I fall asleep?” is the opposite, acting to suppress the mental wakefulness of the Actives. Boyd and Topher refer to the Actives living a “dream” (“Ghost” 1.01) and Sierra’s designates the Actives in the Doll-state as “Sleepies” (“Haunted” 1.08), confirming associations between the Doll-state and sleep. In her essay “A Painful Bleeding Sleep,” Renee St. Louis questions what kind of conclusions the viewer is supposed to draw from the connotations of “Did I fall asleep?”

the Actives are conditioned to ask about their state of consciousness, and they are supplied with an answer that is both a truth and a lie—they have in fact entered a kind of sleep, but coming out of the chair doesn’t end it. This sleep is not over and, at least in most cases, did not last just “for a little while,” which points to the reality that this walking dream state is one in which the ability of the Dolls to perceive reality is deeply compromised. (10)

Unlike the Actives, the viewer remembers both before and after a wipe takes place, and recognizing that the Actives are not literally asleep before or after the call-and-response, the viewer must interpret “Did I fall asleep?” as evidence of physical wakefulness and of mental “sleep.” The Actives unawareness of the time they have spent imprinted and their interpretation of engagements as time spent asleep shows how “Did I fall asleep?” halts any dynamic development within the imprinted personality, frustrating the expectation that the Active protagonists be the source of progression in the series. Each repetition of “Did I fall asleep?” asks the viewer to “start over” from the blank undeveloped Doll-state.

Related to the assumption the protagonist must be dynamic in order to fulfill lead a series is the expectation that individuality and autonomy are sacrosanct. The second part of the “Did I fall asleep?” exchange in which the Active asks “Can I go now?” and the handler responds, “If you like” ostensibly gives the Actives a certain degree of autonomous choice and movement. Though the Actives ask if they may leave, the handler’s response does not instruct them with a course of action but instead requires the Actives to make their own decision as to whether they should stay or leave. Yet the continuation of the call-and-response sequence to include “Can I go now” and “If you like” only ever occurs inside the Dollhouse which the Actives, once they are in the Doll-state, cannot leave. The handler’s response, “If you like,” especially gives the illusion that the Actives are not only awake but autonomous, though they are guided everywhere by handlers and caretakers. Though they are able to move around the house like, “free range chicken” (“Getting Closer” 2.11), the Actives cannot leave, they have only an illusion of choice built into their programming. Any autonomy granted to the Actives in this exchange is in name only with the actual purpose of the language working against what the phrase means. As participants in the technological language of the call-and-response the handlers are responsible for the eradication of autonomy and individuality in the Actives. By violating the sacrosanctity of individuality and autonomy, the handlers are coded in the perceptions of the viewer as untrustworthy.

By frustrating the viewer’s desire for autonomous and dynamic protagonists, Dollhouse programs the viewer with a sense of paranoia regarding the development of Echo and the Actives. As Echo begins to evolve a personality and identity outside of the programming of the Dollhouse, each repetition of “Did I fall asleep?” comes to represent a threat to that identity. As a piece of language that has become performative, the call-and-response is a part of the process through which imprints are wiped away, which makes every repetition of the sequence an opportunity for Echo’s development to be removed, along with the imprint, as she reverts to the Doll-state. Her continuing repetition of the phrase demonstrates that no matter how far she has progressed mentally beyond the rest of the Actives, Echo is not free from the manipulation of the Dollhouse. She still initiates the call-and-response that exists to suppress her and her fellow Actives, even as she is trying to free herself from that suppression. The Doll-state, signified by the call-and-response, remains one of the few places where Echo is vulnerable through the majority of the series. Even when it becomes apparent that she has gained a degree of control over the imprinting process the lingering fear remains that she could be put back into the “walking dream state.” Viewers who have invested in Echo must fear that each new repetition of “Did I fall asleep?” might erase her fragile progress, returning the character to the complete blank slate the Doll-state is intended to be, and rendering their investment in her development worthless.

Rather than creating a sense of paranoia and unease in the viewer, “Do you trust me?” is used to lull the viewer into believing that the unprogrammed interactions between Echo and Boyd have more value than the programmed trust manufactured by their call-and-response interaction. Through its repetitions the viewer learns that “Do you trust me?” is a programmed call-and-response sequence that compels a form of trust that manifests as obedience. They also learn that the trust produced by the call-and-response is not voluntary or earned, and that it can be abusive (“Man on the Street” 1.06). After setting up a framework for how “Do you trust me?” functions, Dollhouse then deviates from that framework in an attempt to create an unprogrammed bond of trust between Echo and Boyd. Echo does what should be impossible in “The Target” (1.02), failing to give the correct response to Boyd’s use of the call phrase, and then asking Boyd “Do you trust me?” reversing their positions in the call-and-response. She presumably breaks the control of the Dollhouse by failing to continue the sequence with the appropriate response and never enters into the compelled obedience directed by the call-and-response. By “freeing” herself of Dollhouse manipulation Echo makes the subsequent interaction between herself and Boyd a basis on which to earn unprogrammed trust. Boyd responds to Echo’s use of the call phrase by continuing the call-and-response in the position of the responder, “earning” Echo’s unprogrammed trust by choosing to abdicate the position of power in the call-and-response sequence, and taking on the submissive role of the Active. Ramifications of this interaction and unprogrammed trust are seen when Echo is assigned a new handler. During the trust imprint procedure with her new handler, Echo keeps her eyes trained on Boyd (recalling Topher’s expository lecture in “The Target” when he says, “The handler active imprint requires a direct line of sight” [1.02]), “choosing” to continue to trust Boyd over this new handler. These two instances represent the moments where Echo and Boyd appear as equals and “choose” to trust one another.

Apparently unprogrammed and free of Dollhouse manipulation, the relationship between Echo and Boyd falls within the parameters of hegemonic societal conventions of trust, allowing the viewer to designate it as “real.” In a later episode Adelle confirms that Boyd’s devotion to Echo resembles the obedience produced by “Do you trust me?” when she says, “You know Mr. Langdon sometimes I think you are the one bonded to Echo, not the other way around” (“Stop-Loss” 2.09). Her words again put Boyd in the position of the Active, making Echo and Boyd equal in their relationship to one another. Because he trusts Echo without being programmed to and she has demonstrated she can break from the obedience of the call-and-response their trust appears mutual and freely chosen.

Unprogrammed “organic” trust and programmed trust start to blend together as the call-and-response is repeated both in contexts where it obviously performs its function, as well as in contexts in which unwilling obedience is not produced. The viewer is able to ignore the fact that Echo’s trust in Boyd was ever programmed, and that as a handler working for the Dollhouse Boyd may in fact be morally compromised. Repetition of the phrase in contexts that feature both organic and inorganic trust, conditions the viewer to associate all repetitions of the phrase with organic trust, and to trust Boyd as well. As a handler Boyd uses the controlling language of the call-and-response to manipulate his Active and becomes the subject of programmed trust, but he also evolves an “organic” trust-based relationship with Echo. Aiding the viewer in the belief that he is worthy of organic trust, Boyd is performs a variety of culturally valued roles and traits that provide balance to his somewhat dubious role as an employee of the Dollhouse. He is constructed as a father figure to Echo, protecting her both inside and outside of the Dollhouse. Though his expression of trust in “The Target” (1.02) he treats Echo like an equal, and as she evolves he becomes her confidant, helping her hide her newfound language ability and later to escape the Dollhouse altogether. He protects other Actives in the house as well, saving Sierra from her rapist Joe Hearn. Boyd is trusted and respected by the other members of the Dollhouse staff (Adelle, Dominic, Topher, Dr. Saunders) and gains the respect of outsider Paul Ballard. As a result of the overwhelming unprogrammed trust and the positive societal roles he fulfills, the viewer becomes conditioned to trust Boyd as well.

The revelation of Boyd Langdon as the head of the Rossum Corporation and villain of the series is effective because it is a betrayal of the programmed trust produced by “Do you trust me?” as well as the organic unprogrammed trust that has come to be associated with the sequence. Echo and Boyd’s mutual trust is undermined as soon as it becomes apparent that he is culpable for making Echo an Active in the first place, and therefore directly responsible for all of the manipulation and control aimed at suppressing her. Their relationship is no longer mutual because, as the head of Rossum, Boyd has information and resources that give the upper hand. When “The Hollow Men” (2.12) flashes back to Caroline’s initial meeting with Boyd before she becomes Echo it becomes apparent that Boyd has been manipulating circumstances to gain Echo’s trust since before the series began. Caroline incredulous asks, “And I’m just going to trust you?” Boyd tells her “With your life” invoking the call-and-response for the last time in the series and revising all of the instances that demonstrate trustworthiness on his part as calculated acts of manipulation. Boyd has programmed Echo and his fellow Dollhouse workers to trust him based on both technological and social programming. The social aspect has worked on the viewer as well, programming the perception of Boyd as one of the “good guys” according to social conventions. This abuse of trust, both programmed and unprogrammed, shows Boyd to be just as controlling towards Echo as Hearn was toward Sierra. By frustrating the viewer’s expectations that Boyd would be a hero of the series, Dollhouse shows how thoroughly those expectations have already been programmed by the cultural hegemony.

From call-and-response phrases used to manipulate the Actives and the viewers, we move to “Doll phrases,” the language the Actives use to fight that control. Since the majority of the Actives’ language while in the Doll-state is constructed out of the limited range of imprinted phrases, it is within the constraints of these phrases that the Actives first manifest individual expression. Instances where the Actives modify repeated phrases in order to express opinions and concerns are the initial, crucial, indicators of individuation that distinguish Actives from one another in the Doll-state. Moments when the Actives express individuality in repeated language relate to Johnstone’s discussion of parallel language as something that, through repetition, “provides a frame in which the item or items that differ from line to line are highlighted and semantically juxtaposed,” (33). Dollhouse uses the parallel structure of repetition to contrast small variations in repeated language in different contexts. Through these variations in repeated phrases the Actives assert their individual identities revealing that even in the Doll-state Actives are never completely uniform.

Two call-and-response phrases are introduced in the first two episodes of Dollhouse, while the third and fourth episodes institute “Doll phrases,” phrases imprinted into the Doll-state that do not have any active purpose. Unlike the call-and-response phrases, Doll phrases do not trigger any changes in the mental state of the Actives or compel specific actions. Instead Doll phrases exist as the verbalization of a code of behavior for the Actives. “Stage Fright” introduces the phrase, “friends help each other out” (1.03) and “The Gray Hour” introduces, “I try to be my best” (1.04). “Friends help each other out” only gets repeated a few times during the series, but “I try to be my best” becomes a commonly used phrase by both the Actives and their handlers. Actives operating between imprints in the Doll-state are programmed with the notion of being one’s “best,” presumably as a way to motivate them to exercise; the phrase is introduced as a part of a discussion between Actives about physical activity. While the Doll phrases can be considered a further method of control over their bodies and minds of the Actives, the Actives also internalize the phrases repeating slightly altered interpretations of their structure and content throughout the series. These interpretations vary according to which Active is speaking and in what context, demonstrating that though the Doll phrases are repeated structure they represent individual responses.

All of the actives are equipped with the same Doll phrases, but instead of producing conformity “I try to be my best” is a point of division among the Actives. “I try to be my best” is an open-ended statement that the Actives use unprompted by any call phrase, which leaves the Actives the freedom to choose when and how to use it. Each usage represents an Active responding individually to the specific context they are in, which evidences their own marginal awareness of their context and their ability to respond to it. “I try to be my best” also has ideological implications that require the Actives to apply their own ideological structures to understand what is “best” in order to know when to use the phrase. As a uniform phrase imprinted into every Active, “I try to be my best” seems to create conformity, but actually insist upon individuation. The phrase requires individual interpretation to be used.

The context in which “I try to be my best” may be used is left open to the Actives’ discretion, and the phrase itself is subject to small deviations. Words are added, removed, and rearranged within the phrase changing as it is used as a statement, question, and observation, but the same basic structure remains and keeps the utterances recognizably parallel. In “The Grey Hour” Echo, Sierra, and Victor discuss being “best” in a conversation that emphasizes the slight variations in their interpretations of the phrase:

Sierra: I try to be my best Echo: Are you? Sierra: Excuse me? Echo: Are you your best? Sierra: I’m not sure how to know that. Echo: I think if you always try that’s best, right? Victor: Every day is a chance to be better. (1.04 “The Grey Hour”)

This exchange between the Actives demonstrates how Actives do not simply repeat the Doll phrases as they do the call-and-response language; they evolve it into a conversation by trading different variations of the phrase. Their individual interpretations of “I try to be my best” reflect the differences between each of the Actives in the Doll-state. Victor’s response demonstrates a belief in gradual improvement, a daily process of becoming one’s best that evokes a militaristic ideology ties to his original personality, a member of the United State military. Sierra states the phrase and then admits to being unsure as to what it means, illustrating the way in which both Sierra and Priya resist definition. Echo is immediately set apart because she questions the phrase itself, already questioning the information she is imprinted with in the same way rebellious Caroline would be. The Actives’ use of “I try to be my best” reveals some aspect of their identity that could not be removed through the imprinting process, an aspect that is, perhaps, essential to their identity and which underlies their original personalities, Doll-state personas, and imprints.

Actives are given such limited language that any sort of self expression emerges through established imprinted language first. Individual connotations surrounding the notion of “best” predominantly manifests through revisions of the phrase itself in the Actives’ dialogue. When Victor is damaged in “Omega” he expresses his understanding that, in the Dollhouse, being one’s “best” is associated with physical looks and the appearance of wholeness when he asks, “How can I be my best now?” (1.12 “Omega”) in reference to his injured face. When Alpha tells Echo, “You are the best.” (1.12 “Omega”) he changes the phrase to express his own affection and estimation by associating “best” and Echo. Echo expresses her own negative feelings towards the Dollhouse when she tells Dr. Saunders, “No one is their best in here,” and Saunders own use of “I’m trying to be my best” (2.01 “Vows”) in confrontation with Topher represents the search for purpose that exists as each Active tries to fulfill their imprinted parameters. However, since they are given no parameters as to what being “best” is the Actives must create their own definition, using the Doll phrase to express their beliefs and opinions through their adaptation of the phrase to their needs.

Echo’s question, “Are you [your best]?” does not seem to question why the phrase was programmed as much as it questions the ideology behind the programming. Being “best” carries connotations of being whole, but the Dollhouse reduces and fragments the Actives, preventing them from achieving wholeness. Best remains something undefined and barely understood by the Actives themselves, they are not asked to be best at something they are asked to be their best, the Actives are to evaluate themselves and strive for individual goals while the Dollhouse uses other forms of imprinted language to manipulate them into mindless conformity. When Echo’s individuation comes to light she is threatened with the Attic, making the imprinted urge for self improvement and individual assessment seem counterproductive to the Dollhouse’s control over its Actives. The point of the phrase could be a way to draw out and monitor individuality so that Actives who are not effectively controlled can be identified and contained, or it could be a flaw in the Actives programming. Either way, “I try to be my best” is a source of contradiction and contention that is never resolved, never clearly representing a form of freedom or another method of control.

Doll phrases infiltrate the spoken language of the handlers, programmers, and even the original personalities of the Actives, demonstrating how the constant repetition of the phrase has in a sense programmed them. “I try to be my best,” is frequently co-opted by the Dollhouse employees when they are speaking to Actives. As a way of apologizing to Echo in “Vows” (2.01) Paul tells her, “I guess I wasn’t really my best,” creating a parallel structure between his language and Echo’s to form identification between them. Paul’s use of the phrase also demonstrations how Paul’s own modes of expression have been compromised by the Dollhouse. Paul uses a Doll phrase to express himself in a way Echo would understand in her Doll-state, but by using the phrase he is participating in the programming of Echo reinforcing that phrase. Through his language choice Paul momentarily becomes a part of the system of control both he and Echo are fighting against.

Identity Language

I’ve been many people. I can hear them, sometimes suddenly. I’m all of them, but none of them is me. - (“Vows” 2.01)

Identity is a major theme in Whedon’s work, and in a television series in which personalities can be changed as easily as clothing, Dollhouse uses language as the way identity is expressed. As indicated by the Doll phrases, Actives retain a level of individuation in the Doll-state but their individual identities must contend with the imprints manufactured by the Dollhouse. To create a distinction between the terms identity and imprint in this paper, imprint will be used to refer to the mental constructions the Dollhouse inserts into the Actives, while identity will refer to the combination of the mental imprint, the physical body, and whatever essential elements are not removed when a wipe occurs. Dollhouse distinguishes between physical bodies and imprints that are purely mental constructions, leading us to question exactly where identity is located. Identity language, language that indicates identity, includes pronouns, gendered language, and “identity phrases”. Dollhouse assigns some of its imprints “identity phrases,” phrases that have no purpose but to indicate a specific imprint. Other identity indicators such as pronouns weaken in the face of imprinting technology through which multiple imprints can occupy the same identity. The distinction between humans and technology breaks down as well, creating questions as to whether imprints stored on hard drives should be considered human. Gender and sex are operating independently of one another as imprints move from body to body and gender becomes a function of language. As identity language becomes unstable identity itself is destabilized. Because the language can no longer accurately describe the identities on screen it can no longer maintain constructions of identity, leaving bodies vulnerable to imprints.

A clear indication of the link between identity and language is the way imprints are programmed with “identity phrases,” phrases that have no other purpose but to indicate a specific imprint. In “The Grey Hour” Echo is imprinted with a personality named “Taffy,” an imprint that uses the phrase, “blue skies,” to express ease and certainty. Neither Echo nor any of her other imprints use “blue skies” in this manner. When Sierra is given the same imprint her version of “Taffy” says “blue skies” as well, using it for the same purpose as Echo’s “Taffy.” Since the phrase has so far been unique to the “Taffy” imprinted in Echo, when it is used by Sierra the viewer infers that her imprint is the same “Taffy” and that imprints remain the same regardless of the body they occupy. Other identity phrases, “Goodness gracious,” (“Belle Chose” 2.03) and “You can’t fight a ghost,” (“Ghost” 1.01) work in the same way, indicating a specific imprint as Active bodies and circumstances change. As Echo evolves, becoming a body that contain multiple imprints simultaneously, identity phrases evoke previously introduced personalities informing the viewer who Echo is “accessing” at what moment. Because “blue skies” has been so strongly associated with “Taffy,” when Echo uses the phrase while escaping a prison in “Meet Jane Doe” (2.07) it allows the viewer to identify the imprint she has accessed as the “Taffy” imprint without any additional explanation.

Identity phrases are an aspect of a broader category of identity language, forms of language that are used to create and indicate identity. Pronouns and gendered language are forms of identity language, and they are used over the course of the series to distinguish and relate identities and imprints. Dollhouse sees the destabilization of the structures of identity language as the series progresses. Computer constructed personalities mean that the language used to indicate people, simple pronouns like I, me, you, and we, are no longer precise enough to convey clearly who is being referred to. In “The Grey Hour” (1.4) both Echo and Sierra become “Taffy” showing that multiple Actives can perform the same imprint. “I” becomes something that is transferable from one physical form to another as the same imprint is inserted into different bodies. A singular personality may also exist in multiple locations and multiple bodies at the same time. In “The Left Hand” (2.8) there are two Tophers in two different bodies simultaneously and “Stop-Loss” (2.09) features Victor being inducted into a hive mind where multiple bodies share the same conscious mind synchronously. In these instances “I” becomes plural, and the boundaries between “you” and “I” break down as both terms are applied simultaneously. The inverse is also true; the Actives may house multiple complete imprints in one body at the same time. Alpha and Echo are both “many personalities” taking on plural imprints and Alpha uses “we,” a singular term, to refer to one body that holds multiple minds. Echo may be the guiding identity associated with her body but even she contributes to the complication of pronouns telling Paul, “We are lost but we are not gone,” (“Vows” 2.01) referring to herself and all of the personalities her mind contains. Additionally there is a distinction between the imprints Echo and the other Actives carry and their own identities. Echo says “I’m all of them, but none of them is me” (“Vows” 2.01) indicating that Actives have a governing identity that contains and distinguishes between all of their imprints. There is no adequate pronoun to describe two bodies sharing the same mind. “We” is insufficient because it is not specific enough to differentiate between a single body with multiple imprints, multiple bodies with the same imprint, and a group of bodies each with individual imprints. The same problem holds true for “I,” which is similarly ill-equipped to indicate “many personalities” and multiple bodies. The imprinting technology serves to break down the notions of singular and plural (primarily through pronouns) until they no longer have any stable degree of accuracy.

As the clear distinctions guaranteed by pronouns begin to disintegrate so does the distinction between human beings and technology. Imprints stored on computer hard drives (wedges) add another level of confusion to identity language by leading the viewer to question whether the data they store, or the tech itself, should be considered a person. After shooting the imprint chair in “Needs,” Echo asks “Did I just kill someone?” a valid question considering the destruction of a hard drive and loss of data can eliminate an entire personality and be considered a form death (1.07). When Paul catches a wedge in “Omega” (1.12) Echo tells him, “You saved her,” giving a gendered identity to a piece of hardware. Digital copies of mind and imprints stored in hard drives have no status in language. Echo treats these pieces of hardware as if they are full human identities and members of the Rossum Corporation place an even greater importance on digitally recorded imprints than identities performed through human bodies. They are cavalier about the death of the bodies in which they imprint themselves, because they view their digital back up as their true reproducible identity. Whiskey, imprinted as Clyde, claims that there are hundreds of bodies at his disposal waiting for his imprint (2.12 “The Hollow Men”). His personality has been digitized and it is the digital copy rather than the one occupying the living body that has value. Rossum executives like Clyde and Clive Ambrose treat the bodies they inhabit as disposable, disassociating identity from the physical body as recorded data takes its place as the locale of “self.”

Notions of gender and gendered language are also complicated by the imprinting process, destabilizing “he” and “she” in the same way as “I” and “we”. Assumptions as to a person’s gender are most often based on his or her physical body, but within the world of Dollhouse gender is part of each imprint and is completely severed from sex of the body of the Active. A female sexed Active may perform a male identified imprint and vice versa, and at times the gendered imprints switch quickly enough that the gender of the imprint must be determined by the content and signifiers of language alone. Illustrating Zimman and Hall’s concept of embodiment through language, the Actives of Dollhouse, “do not derive their meanings from a pre-linguistic natural order, but are imbued with meaning through discourse.” (166). Actives are imbued with gender as the imprints are performed through dialogue. Dollhouse relies on gender specific pronouns and indicators like boy and girl as the primary identifiers of an imprint’s gender. They are supported by secondary identifiers in the tone, content, and context of the imprint’s communication. When Victor and Echo’s imprints switch in “Belle Chose” (2.4) there is no alteration of costume or exposition to signal the change, instead Echo reveals she is no longer “Kiki” when the client calls her a beautiful woman and she responds with violence followed by the question, “What did you call me?” The line is a reflection of her new imprint, “Terry Kerrens,” recently taunted about his feminine name when he occupied Victor’s body, now reacting with rage to being associated with a female gendered word. Later when Echo enters Kerrens’ storage space one of the women he has abducted exclaims, “We thought you were him!” Echo’s immediate response is “I am him” taking possession of a male gendered identity through language since Kerrens no longer embodies a male-sexed identity physically. Victor, who has taken on the Kiki imprint, performs a female gender in his actions, dancing at a club, and his language, asking, “how about buying a girl a drink?” That Victor’s imprint is gendered female (rather than flamboyant male) is reinforced with his subsequent exclamation, “You suck! Trying to hit a girl!”

Gender is also indicated in the Actives by the content and style of their language. In her study of communication through technology Stephanie Baron notes that in both spoken and written communication language is gendered;

“Women tend to use conversation predominantly to facilitate social interaction, while males are more prone to converse in order to convey information.... Women are more likely to use affective markers, diminutives, hedge words, politeness markers, and tag questions than men. By contrast, men more commonly use referential language and profanity, and employ fewer first person pronouns than women.” (Baron 50)

Dollhouse makes use of these gendered differences in style and content of speech to distinguish between differently gendered imprints that occupy the same body. The Dr. Saunders imprint is gendered female, and in her dialogue she questions more, uses politeness markers, and places more emphasis on feelings and emotion in her language than her male counterparts. When the same Active is imprinted with male gendered Clyde Randolph, she expressly states, “I’m not big on sentimentality,” then proceeds to speak in harsher, more clipped sentences dominated by informational rather than emotional content. Through Randolph’s mode of speech Adelle immediately recognizes the imprint as male and even correctly identifies the personality Whisky has been imprinted with. Addressing the imprint as, “Mr. Randolph,” using a male signifier “Mr.” rather than just a name, Adelle embodies the attitude Dollhouse has towards gender, as something unrelated to the body it inhabits.

Just as an aside, if Adelle represents the viewpoint of Dollhouse then the Clyde Randolph imprint presents an interesting problem. The imprint of Clyde Randolph is gendered male, and he even refers to himself as a “boy” despite the fact that he is imprinted in the female sexed body of Whisky. If gender exists completely in the mind of an Active as a part of the imprint, and the imprint of Clyde is gendered male, he would remain male in a female-sexed body. This situation calls into question the limits of societal expectations for gendered behavior. When Clyde says, “You know this is the first time I can hit a girl without feeling bad about it” (2.12 The Hollow Men), he is not performing a female gendered imprint, but he believes that the societal limitations on male behavior no longer apply because of the sex of his body. By hitting Echo he is transgressing the established societal norms for acceptable male gendered behavior which dictate that men are should not hit women. If he were adhering to societal expectations for male behavior he would be expected not to hit Echo at all, or at least to “feel bad” about his transgression. Clyde uses his new body as a loophole to justify aggressive violent action that would otherwise be considered unacceptable behavior for a male.

Clyde represents the divide between the physical body and the mental imprint in Dollhouse. He is referred to by masculine pronouns though he occupies a female body and the content and style of his dialogue fits closely with Baron’s description of a male gendered communications. However, through his transgression of the societal norms of male behavior in “The Hollow Men” (2.12) Clyde also demonstrates how tenuous that divide can be. Clyde Randolph, as he exists imprinted in Whiskey, incorporates Whiskey’s body along with his personality, into an identity that gives him an excuse to break from societal rule and regulations. By claiming Whiskey’s body as his own, Clyde forms an identity that gives him the freedom to transgress boundaries he might have adhered to in a male body. Terry Kerrens is another example of an imprint that incorporates an Active body into a new identity. Though Kerrens reacts violently when he is first called a woman after being imprinted in Echo in “Belle Chose,” he quickly accepts his new body and lays claim to it, looking in a mirror and saying “I am an incredible woman” (2.03). Kerrens verbally takes possession of the female sexed body demonstrating a new gendered identity, both male and female, that has evolved from the influence of his new body. These instances are examples of the bait and switch of the series, which initially insists that the mind is separate and more valuable than the body and then concludes by valuing the body over the mind, clearest in the character of Echo. Initially the viewer is conditioned to believe that Echo is exceptional because of the content of her mind. She can retrieve memories and access imprints even when they are supposed to be wiped. However in “The Hollow Men” Boyd explains that the Rossum Corporation was only ever interested in the unique properties of her physical body (2.12).

There is a movement to claim the body through language, demonstrated by Clyde and Kerrens. In order to “live” and function an imprint needs a physical body. A wedge may represent a “person” by holding an imprint, but it cannot form an identity because without a body it cannot express itself through language. Though Clyde and other Dollhouse executives treat Active bodies as disposable, the Claire Saunders imprint confesses to Topher that she does not want to give up her body to its original personality because she is “afraid to die” (“Vows” 2.01). To lie dormant in a wedge is a form of death for an imprint because it no longer functions or communicates. In “Epitaph One” people tattoo themselves with “birthmarks” engraving their full names into their skin in hopes of preserving their identities in case they are unable to defend their minds (1.13). Attempts to claim individual physical bodies as a part of individual identities may in fact, be a reaction to the growing instability of identity language. As language gains the capacity to reprogram the mental aspects of identity the characters respond by putting more emphasis on the physical aspect of identity.

The destabilization of simple pronouns is one of the first steps towards a greater breakdown of identity language, and in turn destabilization of identity itself. In his essay “Identity” Joseph writes that, “Researchers have been analyzing how people’s choice of languages, and ways of speaking do not simply reflect who they are, but make them who they are – or more precisely, allow them to make themselves.” (9). As pronouns lose their ability to accurately describe the character in Dollhouse they reflect the new and unstable modes of identity the Actives must perform. Because identity language is not sufficient to describe these new modes of identity, people cannot use it to define or “make” concrete identities.

The destabilization of identity language leads to a destabilization of identity, leaving bodies vulnerable to the imposition of outside imprints. In “Epitaph One” Lawrence Dominic remarks that he saw a grown man acting as though he was a young girl and he could not determine if the man had been imprinted with a different personality or had seen an opportunity to embody whatever identify he wanted (1.13). For this man the destabilization of gendered language and the larger weakening of identity language have created an environment where societal conventions of sex and gender have been undermined, that allows him greater freedom to perform his identity. However, the threat in undermining identity language is that it becomes more difficult to distinguish and preserve individual identities. While this man could be freely acting out his chosen identity, it could also be that this man’s identity has become so weak and ill-defined that it is subject to influence from roving digital imprints and that his true identity has been forcibly suppressed.

The Word-Pocalypse

“I’m the one who brought about the thought-pocalypse” - ("The Hollow Men" 2.12)

As Dollhouse approaches the dystopic future of “Epitaph One” (1.13) and “Epitaph Two: The Return” (2.13) the elements of language discussed in the previous sections contribute to the formation of a dystopic language, a language that is both a symptom and a contributing producer of a dystopian world. The dystopia of “Epitaph One” and “Epitaph Two” is characterized by a massive loss of language in the form of a “word-pocalypse,” which represents the relationship language has to creating the world as discussed in the previous section on word meaning. The massive language loss of the “word-pocalypse” is paired with a massive loss of independent thought. Loss of language also correlates to loss of information bringing in David Harrison’s study about how language holds information. The dumbshows and butchers that populate Dollhouse’s dystopia are victims of language, people who have been manipulated by the same kind of programming represented in the repetition section taken to further extremes of suppression and manipulation. Manipulation of the actives through language contributes to the “word-pocalypse” by making them passive so they cannot object to the further advances in technology or the use of their own bodies. Without objecting voices the technology runs rampant creating a dystopia. As language is used to manipulate the Actives and is manipulated itself, it becomes less stable, and so does the world it is creating. In order to survive the dystopia the characters of Dollhouse must gain control over their identities by mastering language. Ultimately the importance of language is undercut by “Epitaph Two” (2.13), which moves the importance placed on language development back onto technology, subverting expectations for language-based resistance to the dystopia.

“Epitaph One” (1.13) and “Epitaph Two: The Return” (2.13), set roughly ten years beyond the present depicted in the other Dollhouse episodes, present the end result of the Dollhouse’s imprinting technology. “Epitaph One” begins in the ruins of Los Angeles where a small group of “Actuals” (humans that have not yet been affected by Dollhouse technology) travels through a world where disembodied imprints hijack bodies through broadcast signals. The Actuals share their world with placid mindless bodies without personalities referred to as “dumbshows,” and equally mindless but aggressively violent and destructive “butchers.” Topher calls the event that throws the series world into dystopia the “thought-pocalypse,” an apocalyptic abuse of imprinting technology based on Topher’s own idea for wireless wipes, but I feel that the term “word-pocalypse” would be more accurate to describe a world-ending event characterized by a mass destruction of language capability.

The apocalypse depicted in “Epitaph One” embodies the fear of massive loss of language, a fear which has particular significance to those who make their living from controlling language, including writers and linguists. A number of linguistic theorists have proposed that all mental processes are predicated on language, and a loss of language ability would therefore damage the ability to think. Linguistic determinism, “the idea that the language people speak controls how they think,” (Pinker 124) is a recurring theme in linguistic study. Edward Sapir and his student Benjamin Lee Whorf explored linguistic determinism in the form of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, which posited that thoughts and behavior are determined (or at least influenced) by language. In his essay “The Status of Linguistics as Science” Whorf theorizes that our “social reality” can only be conveyed by the, “particular language that has become the medium of expression” (209) in local society. In simple terms, “the Whorfian Thesis is that a people’s ’view of the world’ is shaped by the language that they speak; language determines reality, or what is regarded as reality among its speakers” (Barnes 144). As language describes the world, categorizing and organizing it, we manufacture a reality, “unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group” (Sapir 209). The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis was a staple of language courses from its invention in 1929 until the early 1970s; “by which time it had penetrated the popular consciousness as well.” (Pinker 124). While this hypothesis has been dismissed by well regarded linguists like Noam Chomsky and Ray Jackendoff (whose theory of conceptual semantics is in direct opposition to linguistic determinism) a recent revival called “neo-Whorfianism” (124) is evidence of the theory’s undeniable influence on popular thought. The process described by Sapir-Whorf is circular: by describing reality through language we create reality, and that reality is then described by language creating a new reality, and so on. In her study of speculative linguistics Myra Barnes remarks that, “all dystopian languages technically belong to Whorf” (Barnes 150). The relationship between the manipulation of language and the dystopian future in Dollhouse shows a similar circular pattern as Whorf’s hypothesis; as language is manipulated, destabilized, and restricted by technology the reality of the characters is manipulated, destabilized, and controlled, leading to a further destabilization of language. While the “word-pocalypse” is the result of technological attacks, it is the controlling language used to silence opposing voices that allows the technology to evolve unchecked. The language of Dollhouse is a participant in the creation of the dystopian reality.

While not Whorfian in its conclusions, David Harrison’s research on dying languages carries some similar implications about the relationship between language and thought. As a field linguist Harrison researches and records languages that have extremely limited numbers of remaining speakers. He theorizes that when a language “dies,” or stops being spoken, information specific to that language is irretrievably lost. In his book When Languages Die, Harrison writes, “As languages rapidly vanish into the vortex of cultural assimilation, linguists justifiably fear they will never see the full range of complexity and structures human minds can produce.” (206). Information stored in spoken language, from grammatical structures to untranslatable concepts and descriptors, does not survive its speakers unless it is recorded. When there are no longer any speakers of a language that language dies and whatever information it carried is lost. If Harrison’s theories are applied to a dystopian event like the “word-pocalypse” the amount of information lost to the general public would be staggering. There is no way of knowing if in the world created for “Epitaph One” and “Epitaph Two” any languages have been completely destroyed but the number of humans still able to speak English has been so severely decreased that other more local languages are likely to have been wiped out entirely. Like Dollhouse’s Echo, Harrison seeks the acquisition and preservation of language. Though he preserves languages faced with destabilization in the wake of globalization, the rapid spread of “big” languages (English, Russian, Mandarin) can be compared to the blanket signals that create the dumbshows and butchers. Both reprogram the way in which people think, though in the case of Dollhouse the reprogramming is literal.

The origins of “dumbshows” and “butchers” can be found early in the first season of Dollhouse. The severely limited language of the Actives when they are in their doll-state is taken to the extreme in the form of the dumbshows, who are literally incapable of speech and equally incapable of independent thought. Dumbshows are victims of limited language capacity, similar to the Actives in the Doll-state. When Sierra is assaulted in the Doll-state by her handler her limited language gives her no way to address her rape (“Man on the Street” 1.06). The phrases that the Actives are equipped with, the call-and-response and repeated phrases as well as the extremely basic forms of interactive dialogue, do not give Sierra the ability to adequately protest her assault or even give voice to her pain. Sierra’s situation foreshadows the dumbshows as extreme versions of the Doll-state whose capacity for language is so limited as to be nonexistent. The vulnerability of the dumbshows is parallel to Sierra’s vulnerability because they too have no voice and no agency in their situation, though they are presumably unaware of it. On the opposite end of the spectrum are the aggressively violent butchers, people programmed only to kill and destroy. First targeting those who are not also butchers and then turning on one another, butchers cannot stop until there is nothing left to destroy. November’s wordless attack on Heron in “Man on the Street” (1.06) is the first incarnation of the rage-filled attackers in the Epitaphs. When she is triggered and November’s “sleeper” persona is activated she stops speaking and becomes a mindless killing machine until she is released, and her return to humanity is demonstrated by her reacquisition of language. As extreme forms of Sierra, November, and the other Actives, the dumbshows and butchers can be recognized as logical extensions of the products of the Dollhouse. Dumbshows resemble Actives in the Doll-state, but their level of suppression is much greater. They are left without any ability to speak, and are therefore denied even the most basic form of expression granted the Actives. Referencing Sapir-Whorf theory, Dollhouse implies that in addition to their loss of language dumbshows have also lost any ability to think, linking the ability to produce language and the ability to produce thought. Butchers are similarly speechless and potentially devoid of thought, but have also been programmed to pursue unthinking violence and destruction. The unquestioning nature of this state also bears commonalities with the manipulation of trust in the Dollhouse, as both butchers and Actives give up individual thought in order to follow directives and dumbshows are helpless without outside manipulation.

Repression of the Actives ability to use language to voice individual thoughts and feelings or assert themselves in any way deprives them of what Huxley terms in Brave New World, “the right to be unhappy” (240). By limiting their language the Actives are less able to dissent, to express unhappiness about how they have been manipulated by the actions of the Dollhouse. Manipulation of their language faculties makes the Actives passive characters, and it is their passivity that allows for the Rossum Corporation to create even more extreme forms of controlling technology and to reduce language capacity even further. The end result of the technology, the creation of the dumbshows and butchers, happens because no one has the right to be unhappy and to protest their creation in the early stages. Those who do oppose the Dollhouse are suppressed; made into Actives like Echo or handlers like Paul. By the time the technology is introduced into the general population it is too late to curb the coming dystopia.

Because dystopian societies are so dependent on the suppression of language for their existence it is only appropriate that they may also be combated through language. In Brave New World “Huxley’s society fears the printed word as perhaps the only force that can subvert years of wordless conditioning, even prenatal conditioning” (Sisk 52). Any threats to the establishment are dealt with by “appropriating words, stripping them of genuine meaning, and using them to further extend State conditioning of its citizens,” (52). Despite deadly government retaliation in Fahrenheit 451 people continue to conceal books in their homes, knowing that the mastery of language they represent becomes more important when language is restricted. Language is a threat to both sides; it is a weapon through which dystopian oppressors may seize and maintain power, but at the same time “language also serves as the primary tool by which the oppressed characters in these fictions resist and rebel” (57). The gradual increase of language awareness and subsequent language ability is the key factor in the development of the Actives’ identities and the best hope of combating the vision of the future shown in the first “Epitaph”.

Echo’s quest to master language, first shown in her use of the Doll phrases, is a quest that is designed to prepare her to survive the “word-pocalypse.” Echo develops a use of language based on the foundation of the simple repetitious call-and-response and Doll phrases she is equipped with, and as her control over language expands she begins to gain power over her circumstances. Instances, like in “A Spy in the House of Love” when Echo asks to be imprinted, are moments where she changes her reality through language. By employing language to request an imprint Echo makes the imprinting process a matter of her choice and takes control of her interaction with the technology. As she enters the second season Echo has learned to manipulate words, lying to Boyd, reading books, and even writing out her memories on the ceiling of her sleeping pod (2.04 “Belonging”). By “Meet Jane Doe” (2.07) Echo has completely mastered the ability to use language and as a result has emerged a fully realized identity. What the viewer roots for in the character of Echo is her anamnesis, literally her “loss of forgetfulness,” achieved by regaining the language ability she possessed as Caroline and lost when she became Echo. As she reacquires language and masters the ability to manipulate it, Echo gains the agency to affect her reality denied to her as an Active. Echo represents hope in the dystopia by demonstrating how mastering language may be used to fight manipulation by dystopian control in order to retain freedom and identity.

In a sense the ending is in keeping with the way in which the rest of the series sets up expectations through language that are continually undermined and frustrated. Dollhouse is subverting any expectations created through its own dystopian fixation with language by resolving the dystopian world of the Epitaphs through technology rather than mastery of language. In the interest of tying up loose ends “Epitaph Two” concludes with a mass restoration of language and identity that is, presumably, the first step back from the chaotic dystopia. As Topher’s blanket signal sweeps the globe dumbshows and butchers are eradicated and people begin to regain consciousness from their “sleep.” The act seems to fulfill Echo’s desire to “wake” those who have been imprinted, but it does not feel wholly appropriate as the final act of the series. While the ending reads as an attempt to provide the viewer with utopian hope, Baccolini qualifies such hope in the context of science fiction endings:

Utopian hope does not necessarily mean a happy ending. Rather, awareness and responsibility are the conditions of the critical dystopias citizens. A sense of sadness accompanies the awareness and knowledge that the protagonist has attained. Instead of providing some compensatory and comforting conclusion, the critical dystopias open ending leaves its characters to deal with their choices and responsibilities. (521)

What remains problematic about the end of “Epitaph Two” is that much of the world population has no awareness of what has taken place and no ability to learn from it. Unlike Echo, the majority of the survivors were susceptible to programming because they never mastered language to the extent that she did. Echo serves as an example of how individuals can fight “programming” through awareness and control over language, but rather than structure an ending that values her and her companions for their accomplishment of resisting linguistic manipulation, the end of Dollhouse places value on technology to restore identity. The global population has their voices stolen by technology and then restored by that same technology, and both are examples outside forces manipulating a vulnerable population. Rather than being an act of liberation, it reduces the world population to the position the Actives held earlier in the series, and transforms the protagonists, including Echo, the manipulators of language assuming the role of the Dollhouse. One shadowy organization is replaced by another and the apex of Echo’s quest to acquire language and maintain her identity puts her in the position of control she originally fought against, which compromises her integrity.

Conclusion

In conclusion I will briefly restate how the elements of language discussed above form a dystopian language that both responds and contributes to the formation of Dollhouse’s dystopia. As the world of Dollhouse moves towards dystopia the language of the series reflects that trajectory. Words like“Attic,” “Active,” and “Doll” become a part of a dystopian language as familiar words that are made unfamiliar and threatening through the attribution of new denotative and connotative associations. As they continue to be used, these words produce a context that is altered by the

information contained in their recently added meanings. Since “Attic” “Active” and “Doll” have been associated with Dollhouse control, the context they then produce through each usage reinforces and builds upon that control. The call-and-response sequences of Dollhouse represent the dystopian intent on the part of the Dollhouse to manipulate a group of people. Designed to suppress and manipulate Actives, call-and-response uses language as the medium through which the Dollhouse exerts its control. The Dollhouse creates an imbalance of power by using its mastery over language to limit the language ability of the Actives, thus limiting their ability to resist manipulation. The breakdown of identity language in the series foreshadows the impending dystopian collapse of society. Language that defines identity is no longer able to provide structure for the rapidly changing notions of identity manufactured by Dollhouse technology, and as a result identity is destabilized. The collapse of identity language is the beginning of the wider destabilization of language in the world of Dollhouse which leaves the Rossum Corporation; and the Dollhouse as the only remaining entities with any control over language.

In the dystopia of the “Epitaphs” (1.13, 2.13) another word has taken on new meanings that reflect the most important threat to the remaining Actuals. “Tech” or “technology” in “Epitaph One” refers to any form of electronics that might be able to carry a broadcast signal. It is through “tech” that Actuals are imprinted against their will to be dumbshows and butchers, and all things considered to be “tech” are destroyed by the Actuals. While the word “tech” is broadly applied to all forms of electronic technology, the technology from which the threat to the Actuals stems is communication or broadcasting technology. Anything designed to transmit language can be corrupted to transmit dystopian language that destroys identity, suppresses intelligence, and manipulates bodies into violence. While “tech” is violently destroyed by the Actuals it does not eliminate omnipresent danger of being imprinted. What the Actuals must ultimately fear is what Dollhouse uses to create the dystopia over the course of the series: dystopian language.

Some additional concluding thoughts... After Topher restores the world with his sacrifice there will presumably be a process of reordering and recovering language that will create a structure for how the world will recover. Interestingly, it is a process from which the Actives are removed. We are told that the Actives will stay underground for as much as three years before rejoining the world, and therefore will be unable to participate in the initial restructuring. With their unstable identity language and their programmed call-and-response phrases, perhaps the Actives cannot be a part of the linguistic structuring of the world without starting the process towards dystopia again. It would be worth further analyzing what meaning can be taken from the continued segregation of the Actives and whether they can ever hold a place in a non-dystopian society.

Also, while I discussed how Echo and the Actives engage in a process of language acquisition and express individual identities through language, I did not address what motivates that acquisition or expression. The motivation for language ability is not something imprinted into the Actives, so it must stem from what I earlier termed “essential aspects” of the Actives that cannot be removed by a wipe. Within the series the idea of an “essential aspect” is acknowledged and related to the idea of a “soul.” Though the series contains very little overt religion many of the characters express a belief in the soul. Characters questions whether a person’s soul can be wiped away, if the soul is a component that can be stored on a wedge, or if the soul remains attached to the body. A distinction between original personalities and imprints seems to be that original personalities are in some way connected to a soul while imprints are not. In order to be the seed of the desire for language acquisition the soul would have to be an element that remains attached to the physical body at all times and that cannot be influenced by technology. However, while the Actives’ bodies seem to retain some essential aspect of their individual identity that cannot be removed during a wipe, the dumbshows and butchers show no evidence that they retain anything of themselves after their imprint. I am unsure as to whether any clear conclusion can be drawn from Dollhouse’s references to the soul. The issue invites further analysis.

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