Distorting a Trope

1. Distorting a Trope When one speaks of a hero, one normally imagines a likable, strong, capable protagonist with an altruistically humanitarian attitude; a villain, therefore, would evoke images of an unlikable foil to these character traits. However, this is not quite the case in Joss Whedon’s short, internet-based musical Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, in which the super villain-aspiring titular character announces his evil ambitions via weblogs, interacts with his love interest, Penny, and deals with his arrogant superhero archenemy, Captain Hammer. Through musical numbers composed by Whedon and Jed Whedon, the true nature and intentions of the main characters are revealed: the audience begins to see that the evil-motivated Dr. Horrible is actually a sympathetic underdog—a “bad guy” operating as the story’s protagonist —, that the seemingly heroic Captain Hammer is an overly confident bully,—not morally, socially, or politically responsible and compassionate like conventional heroes that one would expect—and that Penny is overwhelmingly good-natured and practically oblivious to the real objectives of both men. Select songs such as A Man’s Gotta Do, So They Say, and Slipping—each song representative of each of the three acts—best capture the depth of these characters while also revealing a distorted version of the classic, archetypal characterizations of good and evil, thus supplying a new twist on the images of the “hero” and the “villain.”

2. One of the opening act’s compositions, Jed Whedon’sA Man’s Gotta Do, illustrates the differences, romantic rivalry, and hero/villain struggle between Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer. During this scene, Dr. Horrible is remotely-controlling a van which is carrying a precious chemical compound required for a weapon-in-progress. However, the remote malfunctions, inadvertently putting Penny’s—who is on the streets petitioning for a building to be saved for conversion into a homeless shelter—life in danger and thus allows Captain Hammer to intervene: “Stand back everyone, nothing here to see/ Just imminent danger, in the middle of it, me,” he sings. Beginning here, although Horrible’s true determination toward his evil aspirations is evident through his act of attaining potential harmful weapon materials, so is his care for Penny as well as Captain Hammer’s arrogance and feigned heroism. For further instance, Horrible declares, “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do/ Don’t plan the plan if you can’t follow through/ all that matters: taking matters into your own hands.” This statement clearly provides that Dr. Horrible will conscientiously do what he has “gotta do” in order to execute his goals of evil; perhaps, it is reasonable to assume this even applies to his efforts of wooing Penny. Adversely, while Captain Hammer concurs that a man has to what he must, he follows it by stating, “Seems destiny ends with me saving [Penny]/ When you’re the best, you can’t rest, what’s the use:” this undoubtedly suggests Hammer’s own acknowledgment of his “good guy” status and persistent self-aggrandizement. Captain Hammer continues inflating his reputation by concluding that the situation at hand “needs [his] saving expertise.” Penny validates this claim, ignorantly, singing, “Thank you Hammer man, I don’t think I can/ Explain how important it was that you stopped the van/…Thank you sir for saving me.” She is unaware of Dr. Horrible’s intervention, that he actually stopped the van with the remote control, and is therefore presumably swayed by Captain Hammer’s heroic image, though he is anything but. Dr. Horrible, understandably annoyed, remarks at his situation, “Are you kidding?/…Did you notice that he threw you in the garbage?/ I stopped the van, the remote control was in my hand.” Furthermore, this song displays how Dr. Horrible, though motivated toward the label of “evil,” prevails as the more genuine and sympathetic character instead of the egotistic Captain Hammer. However, Penny still succumbs to the long-standing and stereotypical façade of Hammer’s heroism, for he is the reputed “good guy.”

3. Moreover, the second act’s song So They Say, composed by Joss Whedon, offers similar insight to the characters’ roles and even comments on the media’s perception them, as the titular phrase inherently suggests. For instance, a moving man—a blue-collar profession that mostly likely was decided upon as to represent an average citizen—states, “So they say/ Captain Hammer’s become a crusader/ Political – He’s cleaning up the streets.” However, the real political effort belongs to Penny, who asked Captain Hammer to sign her petition for the homeless shelter, though the lyrics indicate the media—due to implicit expectations that the supposed hero is morally good and socio-politically compassionate—unconsciously support Hammer’s heroic image. Similarly, it appears that Captain Hammer’s motives for attempting to assist Penny were for spiteful and sensual reasons: Captain Hammer obviously wanted to humiliate his enemy, Dr. Horrible, as well as seduce Penny for his own interest and conquests. He arrogantly and disrespectfully croons, “This is so nice/ Just might sleep with the same girl twice.” This behavior and attitude certainly does not coincide with the typical moral virtues of a hero. Even when Penny thanks him for helping with the homeless shelter—a project aided and promoted by his celebrity status has no doubt—he replies assuredly, “Thanks to me.” Meanwhile, the pragmatic and pitiable Dr. Horrible is aware of Captain Hammer and Penny’s new courtship, and thus insists, “There’s no happy ending/ So they say/ Not for me anyway/ Stop pretending/ Take the chance to build a brand new day.” Since he is pursuing a “brand new day,” one can infer that this active resistance to being defeated is an honorable quality, one that a hero or “good guy“ may possess. Persistently in the second act, it is obvious that Captain Hammer is not a noble, selfless hero and Dr. Horrible is not as unlikable as a categorical villain.

4. During the final act, the lyrical content of the penultimate song Slipping, penned by Joss Whedon, offers yet another glimpse of the theme of good versus evil, but more particularly how it has been corrupted from its conventional rendition: after he attempts to assassinate Captain Hammer at a banquet for Penny’s homeless shelter, Dr. Horrible sings to his enemy and some stunned bystanders, “Why can’t they see what I see? Why can’t they hear the lies?/ Maybe the fee’s too pricey for them to realize /Your disguise is slipping.” Here, Dr. Horrible is addressing a now visibly vulnerable and weak Captain Hammer and begging the audience to realize Captain Hammer’s entire career was simply as a phony, disguised “hero.” Although Dr. Horrible seems to be quite malicious in this instance, he makes an important comment about the commercialization of the heroic image that people like the fraudulent and defeated Captain Hammer embody: “Heroes are over with/ Look at him – not a word/ Hammer, meet nail/ Then I win – then I get/ Everything I ever/ All the cash – all the fame/ And social change.” The last three lines of this excerpt, specifically, echo the circumstances of how Captain Hammer was able to offer assistance and leverage to Penny’s program for the homeless: Hammer was capable through his celebrity and his supposed superhero stature to persuade the city to save the building for Penny while simultaneously boosting his own ego—hence, Horrible’s remark: “all the fame/ and social change.” Still, as Dr. Horrible’s song reflects his rage and concludes that there is “no time for mercy,” he inevitably considers the well-being of his beloved Penny, pleased initially that he cannot find her: “No sign of Penny – good. / I would give anything not to have her see…” Therefore, although villainy is apparent here, Dr. Horrible exposes for the final time Captain Hammer’s heroic ineffectiveness and his true concern for Penny, and thus complements the theme of an inverted perception of good and evil.

5. Clearly, the representation of the opposition good and evil is a prevalent theme in many works of literature, yet in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, this trope is transposed so that Dr. Horrible, contrary to an unpleasant name, acts as an authentic and sympathetic protagonist, while the Captain Hammer character—the suspected superhero—portrays an obnoxious antagonist, one that is truly a menacing contrast to what is morally good about Dr. Horrible; their mutual love interest, Penny, is virtually unaware of Captain Hammer’s ego-centrism and Dr. Horrible’s sincere interest and concern for her. Thus, the aforementioned featured songs help substantiate these assumed roles: the lyrical content of each mark the progression of the plot and the characters and effectively illuminates this unique example of good versus evil by revealing character internalizations and motives.

6. Works Cited • Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Dir. Joss Whedon. Perf. Neil Patrick Harris, Felicia Day, and Nathan Fillion. Hulu. 2009. • Sing-Along Blog (Soundtrack from the Motion Picture). 1 October 2009. http://drhorrible.com/linernotes.html