Orange is the New Black

[lunabee34]

I fear this will be more of a disjointed ramble than a coherent and well-structured meta essay, so bear with me and my numbered list. :)

1. Prison is not as I imagined it to be (if this is an accurate portrayal). I didn't expect them all to be in one big room with half walls dividing their bunk areas. I didn't expect the relative freedom of movement shown on the show or that inmates could wear makeup or clothes other than the prison uniforms.

2. I am pleased that the show portrays most of the inmates sympathetically. In fact, with the exception of Tiffany, all of them are shown to be either the victims of circumstances outside their control or paying for poor decisions they made. Right before we watched the episode that gives us Tiffany's backstory, Josh said that it felt unrealistic to him that so far none of the women we'd learned more about were just bad apples. While I do think that Tiffany has mitigating factors in her life that deserve sympathy (she's clearly poor and living in an impoverished community, uneducated, and an addict), her crime, the context surrounding her crime, and the way she manipulates what she did afterward set her apart from the other women the show has featured.

3. In fact, I'm really pleased that the show is largely portraying the inmates as the victims of either their environments or poor choices influenced by their environments. Taystee breaks my heart. I had a suspicion when she left that we'd be seeing her again soon. From what we've seen so far on the show, she's witty and funny and loyal to friends, generally a genial person, and very smart (just listen to the banter between her and her friends). She puts in her time, is a model inmate, and then because she lacks a support system on the outside, she voluntarily returns to prison where she understands the rules and can at least sleep in a bed and know that she'll be spending time with someone who loves her. I feel like this show is addressing some of the larger issues about our incarceration system in much the same way The Wire did for the war on drugs. What is the point of prison? Purely to punish? It can't be rehabilitation. The recidivism rate for prisoners is not so high because the urge to behave criminally is so strong, IMHO, but because people when they are released are released back into poverty or settings where drugs are prominent or into a lack of resources and support.

4. I think it would be simplistic to say that the show is taking pot-shots at religion in Tiffany's character. I don't believe Tiffany is truly religious. She's not religious before she shoots the rude nurse at the abortion clinic; she becomes so only because a fundamentalist lawyer gloms onto her case as a way to advance his organization's mission. That scene in the courtroom where her face just lights up when she realizes how much attention she's receiving and the popularity of the narrative her lawyer has created for her--that has nothing to do with Jesus. I'd argue that Tiffany finds power in the spiritual framework she adopts, power that I'd extrapolate has been missing from her life. We also have her counterpoint in the nun, a person of faith who is shown embodying that faith with kindness and generosity in contrast to Tiffany's exclusionary beliefs.

5. I am unwilling to buy the narrative the show keeps trying to sell me about Piper. While she is very privileged--she's white, she's born into wealth, she's educated--and she can clearly be rude and condescending (making the grocery bagger bag your groceries multiple times is beyond the pale), I also don't see on the screen the horrible horrible Piper all the characters are constantly telling me about. Since she has been in prison, she has made inadvertent mistakes and hurt people's feelings or been oblivious about the implications of what she was doing/saying, but for the most part, I've seen her be kind and respectful of those around her. She outright takes responsibility for her incarceration during that conversation with her mother; she says that she's not unlike the other women in prison with her. She made a mistake and she's paying for it just like they are. When she's given what she believes will be a position of power, she immediately begins lobbying for reforms that will be of greater benefit to other inmates than herself (she's already been to college; she doesn't need GED training). She takes a great risk in telling the truth about the way they gaslighted Tiffany. I don't see a monster here.

6. In terms of her relationship with Alex, also not buying Alex's version of things at all. I hate the, "You knew what you were getting into," argument with the passion of a million burning suns. By that logic, no one should ever break up with anyone ever. I don't think it's unreasonable of Piper to have assumed that she could handle Alex being a drug dealer only to find out that she can't cope with that, particularly since she explicitly tells Alex that she doesn't want to be involved in the business and Alex steadily pushes her into ever-increasing involvement. I can't imagine how hurt Alex must have been to handle her mother's death alone, and perhaps she should blame Piper for that hurt. But Alex is a drug dealer who is doing incredibly dangerous things with the potential for violence and incarceration and all manner of negative consequences. If she'd been beating Piper up, no one would suggest Piper should have stayed around for a few more weeks while Alex dealt with her mother's funeral. I see the situations as analogous. I think Piper was afraid for her safety, and just because they're back in the States, it doesn't mean Alex isn't suddenly a high-powered drug dealer. Also, Alex gave her up; she deliberately named her in the trial and explicitly admits that she did so partly to punish Piper for leaving her. I think Alex has no legs to stand on in this argument.

7. In terms of Larry, I think Piper was wrong to cheat on him although I can understand why she did so if not condone it. I think Larry had his world turned upside down, and I don't blame him for wanting to break up with Piper. I can sympathize there. However, I think the newspaper article and the radio show were really douchey of him and I found him capitalizing on Piper's situation while simultaneously making her story all about him pretty icky.

8. I really want someone to write the fic where Sarah Silverman does not get Janeway back to the future and she ends up in prison as Red. LOL She is probably the best thing about this show. Wow. I hate that she couldn't just leave well enough alone once the kitchen was turned over to Gloria. I think her identity is so tied into that kitchen that she couldn't fathom who she might be without that position, and so she ended up hurting the people she loves most in a failed bid to keep it.

9. I know this is based on a book, and I understood it to be a memoir, so how how closely is the show following the book? And is the book fictionalized or does it purport to be a faithful account? What's being made up for the show and what really happened? If this really is a generally faithful account, how did her fellow inmates feel about it? Does she keep in touch with any of them? Did any of the administrators or guards at the jail get in the trouble they so richly deserve? Has anyone read the book? Do she and Alex end up together? I suspect that she ends up alone and has to make a new life, but IDK.


What did y'all think?

Comments

[lunabee34]

If anything, I think the negativity toward Piper is there as an element in the complexity of telling this story from a privileged white-woman's point of view. . .it's a super complicated thing to pull off.

That was basically what I suspected but it's an artifact of the show rather than of the book. Thanks!