New Vid: "It Depends On What You Pay" (Dollhouse)

[giandujakiss]

Song: It Depends On What You Pay from The Fantasticks
Artist: Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones

Fandom: Dollhouse

Summary: You've come a long way, baby.

Spoilers: Through "Haunted"

Sizes: 30.8 MB (540 x 360 .avi), 13.3 MB (420 x 280 .wmv)
Length: 2:48

Download from Sendspace: The .avi file is here and the .wmv file is here.

Notes and Warnings:

I'm really not sure if a warning is necessary here, but I'd rather err on the side of caution and say that the song may be a bit ... triggery? Possibly.

It Depends On What You Pay is from the 1960 off-Broadway musical The Fantasticks. The original production of The Fantasticks ran continuously for 42 years, making it the world's longest running musical. By 1990, however, for reasons that will be obvious when you see the vid, It Depends On What You Pay had been largely excised from the show. Recent productions of The Fantasticks either include the song with a different set of lyrics, or delete it entirely and substitute a new song in its place.

The version used in the vid is from the original cast recording, and is performed by Jerry Orbach. It has been edited for length.

Watch on Vimeo

Password: omega


Thanks so much to cathexys, danegen, sol_se, and Thuvia Ptarth for their comments. Any flaws are entirely my own.

Comments would be appreciated. Cross-posted to LJ.

Comments

[cofax7]

Oh, brava.

Seriously. This is the vid that was needed.

[musesfool]

Yes. This.

[gchick]

Amazing. I'm completely torn between watching again and again, and scrubbing out my brain.

Exactly what the show calls for.

[wembley]

Now, I (as we both know), actually have come to like Dollhouse and even enjoy it (and that probably makes me a bad person), but that said: This is perfect. Perfectly gets at the heart of everything that's wrong about the show like a scalpel. Perfect song, perfect clips, perfect editing, perfect choices... You're a fucking genius.

[elynross]

I'm pretty much watching Dollhouse at this point to see what happens and where it goes -- not even so much within the show, but to see if these kinds of issues are ever overtly addressed. And I can continue to only by not thinking too much about what you capture so perfectly here. You bring it all right to the direct, brazen fore, and brava for doing so.

[innocentsmith]

Here via wembley, and...good lord. Yes, exactly. And I really do like Dollhouse and find it fascinating, because I think the show really does know that it's doing this - which, I know not everyone agrees about that - but there is still the question of whether that's justifiable. This vid takes the same sort of strong stomach to watch that the show does: I really enjoyed it but spent the whole thing jawdropped in horror and at the end I wanted to scrub my brain with bleach and steel wool. So - very appropriate to the source.

Amazing job. And, wow, the song is...wow.

[kass]

Oh My God. :-)

This is...fabulous and makes me go "ow" a lot. *g* Which I'm guessing is what you were going for.

The song is awful and therefore just perfect. I come away particularly struck by your use of clips which are less...obviously objectionable, I guess is the best I can come up with. I mean, Echo in the dominatrix outfit is a gimme, but there are more innocuous moments here (Echo walking through the dollhouse; the quiver of someone in the brainwashing chair; even Ballard kissing Mellie before he realizes that she's a doll) which become much more sinister in this context. Brava.

[stultiloquentia]

A few moments that struck me as especially brilliant: the prim instrumentals over Topher tapping on his buttons -- because he's a composer -- an artist!, the timing of archery guy zipping his fly, the olé at the end. All your clip choices are amazing, though. Thanks a lot for making this.

I hope somebody with a Whedonesque account lobs it over there....

[monanotlisa]

This was recommended to me; definitely need to see. Thank you!

[femmenerd.livejournal.com]

Wow. Yeah.

[eggcrack]

Magnificent.

[idlerat]

Outstanding - perfect song, and a light touch really brings it home.

[yourlibrarian.insanejournal.com]

My, I've heard of the Fantasticks but didn't know anything about it. It amazes me that it could have kept that song in there for 30 years, but then I don't know the context.

Very well put together vid (I was startled to see clips from Friday's ep already!) And speaking of which it certainly makes me wonder about Ballard's decision and "what you pay" might end up meaning for him.

I haven't even seen another Dollhouse vid around yet -- I wonder if no one's quite ready to tackle the subject matter yet.

[livrelibre]

This was excellent! I loved the dark humor of it and thought the critique was apt and the editing excellent, esp for maximum creepy effect. I am still conflicted over the aims of the show and how well it pulls them off but this was great additional food for thought.

[redbrickrose]

This is fantastic and chilling and just . . . yes.

[ktempest.livejournal.com]

Fantastic! :) I love puns

but seriously, yes to all this.

also, this song made me remember something I'd long forgotten -- my mother once took me to a play and the only thing i remember about it is that there was a weird thing where someone staged a kidnapping but kept calling it a rape. i was 8, and had to ask my mother to explain WTF to me, which she did. I also remember the girl in question saying that she always wanted a man to kiss her on her eyelids. is that this play?

Why invite regret?

[tablesaw]

The repurposing of that line is brilliant.

Brilliant

[da-zhuang.livejournal.com]

Very well done, great choice of song. Bravo!

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, well done. (I arrived here via the Angry Black Woman's blog.) I have been a huge Joss Whedon fan, and a great believer in him as a feminist, and yet I saw two episodes of Dollhouse and my confidence has been smashed. I am hopeful he will be equal to the task of dealing with the issues that he's created, but I don't have a ton of faith.

Great critique! (And snappy editing!)

[hammerxsword.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen Dollhouse so I can't comment on the very important issues clearly raised here, but wow, what a vid. Of the 'omg watching a rather brilliant executed car crash' kind of way, so well done for making me twitch and wince. Kudos for the execution.

[jesse_the_k]

Thank you for eloquently explaining why I just couldn't stomach the show. I kept hearing "just wait 'til #6" and like its earlier iterations I was watching through my fingers until I threw the remote across the room.

*shiver* that song! yay you!

[lady_ganesh]

This is amazing. And depressing. Thank you.

[mswyrr]

They're having a discussion of Dollhouse over on Hathor Legacy and I was about to cite your vid until I saw that somebody else had: it's just perfect. You've used your amazing skill to tenderly and ruthlessly dissect every vicious note hiding not so far beneath the surface of the show, and because it's visual, you can use the images the PTB themselves put together to make your point. Marvelously effective, and I'm so glad you took the time and effort to do it. Bravo!

Now, for the purposes of my own mental health, I'm gonna go watch your Mulder & Scully vid, because it makes me so happy.

[eisen]

I never managed to make it past episode 2 of DOLLHOUSE; thank you for explaining why in visual form, because I was a bit confused about why I wasn't giving it more of a chance myself, given how many people I knew who were, and given that I'd said I would try.

But, you know, this makes it perfectly clear! I have enough series I follow with dubious consent issues and faily bits, I don't need another one. Especially not one where the writing is bad (or untrustworthy), too. My initial reaction after watching this was, in fact, to rear back in horror and go AUGH! really loudly and console myself with the fact that I'll never, ever actually have to watch DOLLHOUSE again. (This vid, if anything, reminds me most strongly of "Handlebars" for DOCTOR WHO (new series) and "Women's Work" for SPN as vids that so utterly rearranged the way I looked at the canon that I was glad when I realized I no longer had the time or interest in watching the series they were made about because the vids had squicked me out so effectively I'd never be able to shake the nausea in my gut while watching the shows ever again.)

Also, dear God, I've never actually seen THE FANTASTICKS, but that song, aaaah. Is the rest of the play that mercilessly vicious?

[acari]

It's finally a new month so I can watch this vid without blowing my download cap.

I watched the last two episodes after I had reached a breaking point early on with a scene your vid only featured briefly. The one where "Echo" is a thief and pretends to have been assaulted to gain access to security. That scene pissed me off so much. Shows which have built a relationship of trust with me can do that, Dollhouse had no right to expect me to swallow that without wanting to break things. It seems like Dollhouse recovered from the 'omg so boring' issues I had with it, but I still find it hugely problematic how it wants to have its cake and eat it too.

I find it funny that of all the Dollhouse staff, the one I find most icky both on the show and in your vid is Topher. The clips of him you chose were perfect. I want the little artiste to die in a fire.

Dollhouse deserves all the critique it gets and this vid works very well to illustrate its skeeviness. The cheery song makes the lyrics and visuals extra creepy.