Topics of dinner discussion

[sabotabby]

While making/eating dinner, zingerella and I discussed several perplexing problems. We felt that the internets might be able to help us answer them.

1. Would Dollhouse have been better (or, more to the point, able to grapple with the questions Whedon wanted to ask) if all of the characters except Adele were genderswapped?

2. What would happen if Angel had a calling to the priesthood?

And the most troublesome, and thus important, of all:

3. Can a cyborg perform baptisms or last rites in an emergency?

Help us, internets. You're our only hope.

ETA: zingerella adds, "Okay, but what about a replicant?"

Comments

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

3 is a yes. Can a priest with prosthetic limbs perform one? Yes!

[kadath.livejournal.com]

Non-believers can administer baptism in an emergency and it counts, so I don't see why a cyborg couldn't. I think it all hinges on whether the Church considers cyborgs able to have intention.

EDIT: I HAVE ICONS FOR THIS

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

I don't know enough about Angel to know about what might have affected his ordination.

The last rites as such may only be performed by a priest; I don't know whether there's any reason a cyborg couldn't be a priest, though. Any baptised person can validly (but not necessarily licitly) administer baptism, but perhaps baptism is not the best idea if you have electronics in your head.

edit: you know, kadath is right, you don't have to be baptised to administer baptism and I am talking nonsense there. Sorry.

[kadath.livejournal.com]

You can be a murderer-sodomite-pagan and as long as 1) you genuinely intend for the baptism to do what baptisms are supposed to do and 2) the recipient's life is in danger, the baptism is legit, if conditional and requiring confirmation should the person survive. As far as Catholics are concerned, baptism is a big one, 'cause it gets you out of Original Sin.

I was always fascinated by this shit in CCD 'cause it's so Hermetic.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

Indeed so. I don't quite follow why you're telling me this, though (unless you didn't see my edit). Even if I was absolutely convinced that only the baptised could baptise, I can't imagine that there are no murderer-sodomite-pagans out there who have received baptism.

By legit, do you mean (the same thing as) licit? (I know what "legit" means, but in my head it could encompass both "valid" and "licit".)

[kadath.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was writing when you edited, sorry. That happens to me a lot.

My point is that as long as they go through the proper motions with the proper intent, in the eyes of the Church the baptismal/moral/whatever state of the person administering the emergency baptism is irrelevant.

I meant both senses, but I was using the word pretty casually.

[corwin77.livejournal.com]

Cyborg is a definite go 'cause check this out.

If Angel felt a calling to the priesthood it would be a problem, handling all those holy artifacts. It's been shown that even when he has a soul crosses hurt him. There are several things he could do. 1.) Start his own religion/offshoot. There are several variations of Christianity out there and they don't all use the same cross, so why should Angel be different. Also there has been at least one time where Angel became human, it wouldn't be impossible to remake the conditions that led to this happening.

As for the Dollhouse thing...I am not sure. I liked the characters/actors in DH, and there were both male and female Dolls so the only things really changing would be the gender of Echo, the main Doll. Or would your gender swap also apply to Topher and the other staff?

[zingerella.livejournal.com]

We meant everyone. Except for Adele.

Yes, there were male dolls too. But we didn't see many of them being used in the same way that we saw Echo and Sierra being used. I think that if Echo had been male, we'd have seen very different assignments for him, and that would have changed the types of story. If Echo's handler had been female, that would change the power dynamic and the gender paradigms.

Also, the rapey horribleness wouldn't have been quite as overt.

[90pointmetaphor.livejournal.com]

Would Enver Gjokaj be Echo in the gender-swapped Dollhouse? That alone would expand their story options, gender stuff aside.

[sabotabby]

Enver would play every character, like that bit in Being John Malkovich. "Gjokaj." "Gjokaj." Gjokaj?" "Gjokaj!"

[cdaae.livejournal.com]

I strongly approve of this notion.

[lokilokust.livejournal.com]

well, clothing is technically a cybernetic enhancement... and i don't often hear about naked priests officiating.... so, yes.
.
also, this answers your first question- http://inception.davepedu.com/

[sabotabby]

Although notice with Inception, there was an element of consent (albeit not for Cillian Murphy's character, but for everyone else), and while it had to do with identity, everyone still had their personalities more or less intact and some degree of agency over their fate.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

3. Can a cyborg perform baptisms or last rites in an emergency?

As long as the brain is human. Otherwise its a divide by zero error.

[curgoth]

Dollhouse would have been better if everyone except Adele and Topher were swapped with Enver Gjokaj.

I'm very tired and so have no sense of humour

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

Dollhouse would have been better if fucking Whedon had known whether he was writing a superhero adventure story, transgressive porn or serious science fiction, whether or not gender-swapping had occured.

Re: I'm very tired and so have no sense of humour

[zingerella.livejournal.com]

Well, yes.

We were most particularly interested in whether Whedon would have been better able to address questions of power, agency, and the nature of self if all the gender roles had been swapped, except for Adele and maybe Topher but maybe not Topher. Of course, that would have changed the sorts of stories he could tell, but that might not have been a bad thing.

Note, we also meant better, which does not mean good.

Re: I'm very tired and so have no sense of humour

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

I guess I should admit that I did actually enjoy Dollhouse, enough so that I came this close to re-watching it — but not quite.

What I was bitchily trying to get across was that I thought that while Whedon mentioned and alluded to questions like power, agency and the nature of self, I didn't find that he actually dealt with them.

So I don't think gender switching would have added much to the series.

[theonlytwin.livejournal.com]

1. Yes. Especially if male Echo was portrayed as often as a sex object as female echo was. Topher's gender seems inconsequential to me but a female Boyd, Dominic and Ballard could have been fascinating. Whiskey/Saunders might actually be more upsetting as a dude (I'm just picturing a short haired Fred). Although: consider the board of directors. Imagine they are all severe women in power heels. Is this more or less useful to the discussion? My immediate impression is that it's really fucking unlikely, which is plenty sad enough in itself.

2. Cannot imagine a discernible impact that would have on canon. Oh wait, a proper priest? Celibacy and all? Hmmmm.

3. Totally. Technological intermediaries have a historical precedence for being spiritual intermediaries. In Florence during the plague, monks designed a machine like a big paddle wheel that distributed communion without bringing the monks into contact with the probably diseased citizens. Robo-eucharist. In notre damme today, vending machines dispense prayer books, holy cards and votive candles. Prayer wheels turning in the wind for hundreds of years, rude mechanicals praying so you don't have to. I met a Pakistani man who had gotten into an argument with his dad about the electronic amplification of the call to prayer. His dad said it was a dilution, a representation. Iqbal said it was one of god's many channels of communication. I think cyborgs and replicants are as valid as any other thing that can be taught an action.

(Speaking as an educated aetheist. I threw up in the holy water when I was being baptized. It all went downhill from there, really, but I've been to many churches, and mosques and temples and trees wrapped in cloth and rocks covered in hand prints and sundry other religious sites. I am attracted to religion, perhaps because I cannot comprehend it.)

[sabotabby]

In Florence during the plague, monks designed a machine like a big paddle wheel that distributed communion without bringing the monks into contact with the probably diseased citizens.

I did not know about this and love it like a big lovey thing.

I threw up in the holy water when I was being baptized.

Oh man. Hahahaha.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

Hey, not all orders of priests require celibacy.

[theonlytwin.livejournal.com]

"proper" is innapropriate. "like the priests I remember from my childhood" is more accurate.

[ironed_orchid]

Could be a bit hard for Angel if he needed to handle crosses. Suspect if he had such a calling, he would just mope about it then go out and kill something.

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

Would Dollhouse have been better (or, more to the point, able to grapple with the questions Whedon wanted to ask) if all of the characters except Adele were genderswapped?

I think it would have been interesting if the characters were genderswapped and knew that they were genderswapped. I mean, you got this Personality R/W device... how long until casual genderswapping became an element of this world?

[queerasmoi.livejournal.com]

Tangent - but my favourite TV moments of casual gender-swapping are contained in the Futurama episode "The Prisoner Of Benda" :)

[(Anonymous)]

What questions did Whedon want to ask in Dollhouse? I think I missed them, although I was very stoned.
No to cyborgs. Horrible things.
Angel did have a calling to the priesthood.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh sorry I posted that without being logged in! Tis Pofflewomp here, hello!