Joss Whedon’s science fiction television series Dollhouse (2009-2010) presents many conflicting philosophical arguments relating to the question of the relationship between body, mind and soul, which are essentially reducible to the question of ‘what makes someone a person?’
This paper explores the character of ‘Echo’ within the series, placing her as ‘becoming-other’ as viewed through the medium of the Post-Structuralist philosophical theory of Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995). Classical ontology treats the ‘self’ as a stable, bounded entity, but from the Deleuzian perspective the subject only has meaning dependent upon its relationship with other assemblages, which result in transformations and the potential for the development of new formations. This theoretical approach is hence ideally suited to the analysis of Dollhouse, where the very concept of ‘self’ is malleable and dependent upon external forces. Using the Deleuzian concept of ’Becoming’, the paper ultimately examines how Dollhouse confronts issues of subject, self and identity