Clean Slates, Marked Bodies: Dollhouse, the [Re-]Programming of the Mind, and the Gendered Labor of a Cyborg

The idea of mind-upload, which equates a human being to consciousness and treats the body as a separate—and separable—appendage, has long been critiqued by feminist scholars. Joss Whedon's short-lived TV series Dollhouse (2009-2010) remains a rare representation of a science fiction text that focuses on the laboring bodies left behind instead of the uploaded minds. This essay uses a Marxist-feminist approach to media studies and science and technology studies to analyze how Dollhouse represents cyborgs as gendered and racialized workers in a techno-capitalist, neoliberal system, expected to perform primarily immaterial and reproductive labor. By closely examining the show's protagonists, the essay considers how the markers of difference, such as race, gender, and ability, affect the expectations put on the working bodies under neoliberal capitalism. Moreover, it considers Dollhouse's representation of a cyborg within the broader cultural context, comparing it to such influential science fiction works as Rossum's Universal Robots and The Stepford Wives, as well as within the Marxist and feminist scholarship on science and technology, such as Donna Haraway's cyborg and Mark Fisher's post-Fordist labor. The essay argues that Dollhouse allows for a feminist reading due to its overarching narrative in which feminized, disenfranchised laborers fight for control over their bodies and minds and for collective liberation.