JimK:  Before I begin, I want to make it clear, this is not about the politics of feminism.  This is about feminism (or the lack of it) as a literary device.  This is not an opportunity to attack or sing the praises of feminism in any way, shape or form.  It’s about the story, so please keep your comments specific to Dr. Horrible.

I’ve seen plenty of things on TV, in movies and on the world wide webernets.  Things that can easily - and rightly - be called misogynist.  Things that are offensive to men much less women.  Things that would be offensive to a tree if it had the ability to look at a webpage.

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is not one of those things.

I read this feminist takedown of Dr. Horrible recently.  I should say, despite my hyperbole above, the post in question in no way attack Dr. Horrible as misogynistic.  It comes from the angle that Joss Whedon, known for his feminist leanings and strong, independent female characters, let women down by making Penny essentially an object that Captain Hammer and Dr. Horrible fought over like two dogs fighting over a bone.  Joss under-wrote her character and gave all the good bits (and the depth) to Hammer and Horrible.

SPOILER WARNING!  To continue this discussion, I will have to spoil certain plot elements of Dr. Horrible, so…you know…spoilers.  SPOILER WARNING!

First of all, we meet Dr. Horrible as he is in the middle of delivering what seems to be an ongoing series of videoblog entries.  He reads his email and responds.  One of those emails is from a guy that wants to be his nemesis, who waited to fight Horrible in a park.  Dr. Horrible makes it clear that he has a heart by chastising the guy for choosing a park where kids play.  Later, even though his goal in life is to get into the Evil League of Evil, he struggles with the idea of killing someone just to gain admission.

When we meet Hammer, he’s talking endlessly about himself.  He takes credit for saving Penny from a runaway van, but it was Horrible that actually stopped it.  We find out that Hammer is disgusted by the homeless that Penny helps.  He’s only after sex.  He’s only a hero because it brings him fame and adoration.

Eventually Hammer pushes Horrible too far, using the fact that he is (or will be later that night) sleeping with Penny.  Again, she is a tennis ball bouncing between these two.  So am I making the feminist argument?

No.

What they fail to see is the secondary layer, or as the artsy-fartsy writer types put it, the subtext.  No, it’s not the stupid notion that Hammer and Horrible are gay for each other.  It’s that they both suck as human beings.  Hammer does the right thing, but does that really make him a hero?  He does it just so you will worship him and feed his ego.  Horrible, meanwhile, has a heart of gold under all the evil master-of-the-universe stuff.  He has the capacity to care, to be kind, to love, but he suppresses it in favor of his ambition to become part of a group and impose his will on the world.

THE ONLY GOOD PERSON IN THE STORY IS PENNY.  She helps others out of a sense of altruism.  Yes, she’s thinly-written in that she’s a goody-goody pretty much as the sum of her character, but she has one small layer of complication in that she comes to realize that her attraction to the “hero” isn’t right, and Billy (Horrible) is the one to whom she is drawn.

That is not any more or less thinly-written than Horrible or Hammer.  They get the big laugh lines, sure, but it’s at their expense, because they are both buffoons.  Male, typical, stereotypical buffoons, but no one seems to be complaining about that, mind you.  Why is no one upset that the two males in the story were Tim Taylor Tool Time tools?  Isn’t that just as tragic?  Why is it OK to use stereotypes of men as plot device shorthand, but it’s wrong to do anything remotely similar with a female character?  The men in this story have exactly two layers: the idiocy you see and the conflicting personality trait that they hide.  They aren’t any more (or less) deep or complicated than Penny.  Should her character be loud and stupid as well, just so as to be seen as equal?  That’s the only real difference in how these characters were presented: She was quiet and strong and selfless, they were brash and loud and stupid.  Loud does not equal…well, equal.

Captain Hammer pretends to be a hero, and Dr, Horrible pretends to be an evil villain.  Neither of them are superheroes or supervillians.  The only superhero in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is Penny.  Discounting her heroism - the everyday kind that Hammer was singing about - is cheapening the very concept of social activism as a literary device.  It discounts the use of kindness as a defining characteristic.  It is nothing short of lazy critical thinking.  On the surface, Penny seemed like an ineffectual object to the two idiots fighting over her, but does that excuse the audience not looking past what the two dumbest characters in the piece see?  Are we all supposed to be as shallow as Hammer now?  Of course not.  We’re the observers and we are expected to think as such.  When Penny exclaims, with her dying breath that “Captain Hammer will save us,” it’s because she’s trying to make Horrible feel better about the situation.  She’s not a clueless Helpless Female waiting for the big hero to save her.  She’s dying and she knows it.  She just found out Hammer’s not much of a hero.  It would be stupid of her, and lazy of the viewer, to think her last line meant only what it said.  In reality it was her last act of kindness, her last act of selflessness, her last act of heroism.  In her confusion - due to a little fact like she was dying - she didn’t realize that her words would have the opposite effect intended on Billy.  And that is a tragedy no matter how you slice it.  If Penny was meaningless, there is no tragedy.  If you didn’t see tragedy in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, then you have no heart and you should stop watching, reading or participating in anything creative.

Looking for a reason to be angry at the world is easy.  You can pick anything apart until it collapses.  Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is not anti-woman, or anti-feminist.  It’s not pro-woman or pro-feminist.  It’s just a story that happens to feature a female character as the best, kindest individual in the story.  If it’s anything, it’s anti-moron.  Being anti-moron is a good thing.