Orange is the New Black - Season 1
Jul. 6th, 2014 10:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatFinished watching Season 1 of Orange is the New Black. Season 2 isn't available for DVD rental, only streaming. So can't access. Dang it. Since S1 ended on a cliff-hanger of sorts.
From what I googled, apparently the critics preferred S1 to S2, and found S2 more cartoonish and less realistic. More emphasis on the women, and less on the prison guards. Depicting the women's relationships with each other. While S1 focused on Piper acclimating to prison life. I wouldn't know, haven't seen S2. I do know it's hard for television writers and filmmakers to provide a realistic depiction of prison life without falling back on tropes and cliche. Mainly because most of them have never been inside a prison or seen one. What they know, they've either read or watched on tv.
Having actually been inside a prison - to counsel various prisoners, to attend a parole hearing, and to teach a class, I have some idea of what it is like. Albeit - only a male prison. The Kansas Defender Project's clients were male prisoners inside Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary.
What I learned from my experiences - is television and filmmakers have a tendency to exaggerate the conditions. ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK - to give them credit - actually gets the environmental conditions more or less right. The institutional bureaucracy, and the feel of an actual prison. The room where we counseled the prisoners - looked like an airport lounge. No bars, no phones. You just sat on a chair directly across from them. With maybe a coffee table or table between you, that's it. And there were vending machines. Reminded me of an airport terminal waiting area, except no planes.
And the prison itself had amenities such as movie night, a cafeteria, and a stage. They also had various activities, jobs, etc. It was a self-contained city. The problem in prison - wasn't so much the walls, as one of my clients informed me, but the people you were stuck behind those walls with. ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK S1 - got that across very well and from my limited perspective seemed more realistic than 85% of the television and film prison stories that I've seen to date. (I admittedly have not watched OZ nor plan to. Too many tv shows, too little time.)
Piper from beginning to end bugged me, although I thought the character was realistically portrayed, and I'm not completely certain we're supposed to like her. She seemed to be a bit of an anti-hero. Alex Voss - at a certain point - began to come across as more sympathetic, although Alex isn't much better than Piper. Interesting, that in Piper's point of view - Piper is wide-eyed and innocent, a naif who was seduced and mislead. While in both Alex and Larry's points of view, Piper is the seducer, and manipulator. I rather liked how the writers played with point of view in the story - showing how characters changed depending on whose story we were viewing.
The characters that you start to root for are Red, Claudette, Diaz, Sophia, Poussy,
and Suzanne. Can't say I ever rooted for the Jesus freak, Pawlett. But I'm not sure I was supposed to.
The prison guards grated. I think the only ones I found half-way interesting was Healy and the tiny, thin, female guard that the deputy warden was flirting with.
And the jokes tended for the most part to fall flat for me. So I didn't find the series funny, faintly amusing yes, but not laugh out loud funny. The humor was too direct and not subtle enough. I found it to be more sad than funny or embarrassing than funny. It reminds me a great deal of WEEDS, which I didn't find all that funny either and eventually gave up on after the 4th season. (The same person that created Weeds also created Orange is the New Black.)
But as a character drama, featuring an ethnically diverse cast of female characters, it was successful or at the very least better than most. I enjoyed the characters, and their interactions for the most part. I felt the drug sub-plot, which was fairly cliche, almost derailed the story at times. Would have preferred another story. I was pleased they didn't do a rape storyline. Instead they sort of subverted or did the rape storyline/trope a different way, which I'm still not quite sure about. It was part of the drug storyline - which as previously stated sort of derails the plot a bit and doesn't quite work in places. I found that storyline jarring.
How did they do it differently? Instead of the macho guard raping one of the women. Red and Nikki ask Diaz to seduce Mendez, then cry rape. If she agrees - it will protect the father of Diaz's baby, who is a prison guard, and Diaz. It'll be all Mendez's fault. She got pregnant because Mendez raped her. Also, as a bonus, Mendez, who has been tormenting Red and forcing her to bring drugs into the prison through food deliveries to the kitchen, will be fired. Unfortunately it doesn't work - the first time they have sex, he uses a condom and keeps it - so she can't prove they had sex. The second time, they manage to set it up so that the Deputy Warden catches him in the act. Except the Warden's wife who runs the place - doesn't see it as rape, and it would really cut in on her own agenda. She agrees to nothing more extensive than a two month suspension without pay. Realizing Red set him up to get caught (he doesn't blame Diaz, who he fancies himself in love with, he blames Red) Mendez fires back by setting Red up as the one who is responsible for pulling in the drug shipments. Although that backfired as well, since it also doesn't meet the Warden's wife's agenda. And only results in Red being dismissed from the kitchen, but not punished on any other level.
This subplot I could have done without. In some respects the subplots that focused on Piper and her friends worked better, than the one's that focused on Red or Diaz. Also made the story a bit cluttered for 12 episodes. If it had been 22, I could see doing it.
But for 12?
Other than that? I enjoyed the series. But I didn't love it as much as various people in my work-place and online did.
From what I googled, apparently the critics preferred S1 to S2, and found S2 more cartoonish and less realistic. More emphasis on the women, and less on the prison guards. Depicting the women's relationships with each other. While S1 focused on Piper acclimating to prison life. I wouldn't know, haven't seen S2. I do know it's hard for television writers and filmmakers to provide a realistic depiction of prison life without falling back on tropes and cliche. Mainly because most of them have never been inside a prison or seen one. What they know, they've either read or watched on tv.
Having actually been inside a prison - to counsel various prisoners, to attend a parole hearing, and to teach a class, I have some idea of what it is like. Albeit - only a male prison. The Kansas Defender Project's clients were male prisoners inside Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary.
What I learned from my experiences - is television and filmmakers have a tendency to exaggerate the conditions. ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK - to give them credit - actually gets the environmental conditions more or less right. The institutional bureaucracy, and the feel of an actual prison. The room where we counseled the prisoners - looked like an airport lounge. No bars, no phones. You just sat on a chair directly across from them. With maybe a coffee table or table between you, that's it. And there were vending machines. Reminded me of an airport terminal waiting area, except no planes.
And the prison itself had amenities such as movie night, a cafeteria, and a stage. They also had various activities, jobs, etc. It was a self-contained city. The problem in prison - wasn't so much the walls, as one of my clients informed me, but the people you were stuck behind those walls with. ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK S1 - got that across very well and from my limited perspective seemed more realistic than 85% of the television and film prison stories that I've seen to date. (I admittedly have not watched OZ nor plan to. Too many tv shows, too little time.)
Piper from beginning to end bugged me, although I thought the character was realistically portrayed, and I'm not completely certain we're supposed to like her. She seemed to be a bit of an anti-hero. Alex Voss - at a certain point - began to come across as more sympathetic, although Alex isn't much better than Piper. Interesting, that in Piper's point of view - Piper is wide-eyed and innocent, a naif who was seduced and mislead. While in both Alex and Larry's points of view, Piper is the seducer, and manipulator. I rather liked how the writers played with point of view in the story - showing how characters changed depending on whose story we were viewing.
The characters that you start to root for are Red, Claudette, Diaz, Sophia, Poussy,
and Suzanne. Can't say I ever rooted for the Jesus freak, Pawlett. But I'm not sure I was supposed to.
The prison guards grated. I think the only ones I found half-way interesting was Healy and the tiny, thin, female guard that the deputy warden was flirting with.
And the jokes tended for the most part to fall flat for me. So I didn't find the series funny, faintly amusing yes, but not laugh out loud funny. The humor was too direct and not subtle enough. I found it to be more sad than funny or embarrassing than funny. It reminds me a great deal of WEEDS, which I didn't find all that funny either and eventually gave up on after the 4th season. (The same person that created Weeds also created Orange is the New Black.)
But as a character drama, featuring an ethnically diverse cast of female characters, it was successful or at the very least better than most. I enjoyed the characters, and their interactions for the most part. I felt the drug sub-plot, which was fairly cliche, almost derailed the story at times. Would have preferred another story. I was pleased they didn't do a rape storyline. Instead they sort of subverted or did the rape storyline/trope a different way, which I'm still not quite sure about. It was part of the drug storyline - which as previously stated sort of derails the plot a bit and doesn't quite work in places. I found that storyline jarring.
How did they do it differently? Instead of the macho guard raping one of the women. Red and Nikki ask Diaz to seduce Mendez, then cry rape. If she agrees - it will protect the father of Diaz's baby, who is a prison guard, and Diaz. It'll be all Mendez's fault. She got pregnant because Mendez raped her. Also, as a bonus, Mendez, who has been tormenting Red and forcing her to bring drugs into the prison through food deliveries to the kitchen, will be fired. Unfortunately it doesn't work - the first time they have sex, he uses a condom and keeps it - so she can't prove they had sex. The second time, they manage to set it up so that the Deputy Warden catches him in the act. Except the Warden's wife who runs the place - doesn't see it as rape, and it would really cut in on her own agenda. She agrees to nothing more extensive than a two month suspension without pay. Realizing Red set him up to get caught (he doesn't blame Diaz, who he fancies himself in love with, he blames Red) Mendez fires back by setting Red up as the one who is responsible for pulling in the drug shipments. Although that backfired as well, since it also doesn't meet the Warden's wife's agenda. And only results in Red being dismissed from the kitchen, but not punished on any other level.
This subplot I could have done without. In some respects the subplots that focused on Piper and her friends worked better, than the one's that focused on Red or Diaz. Also made the story a bit cluttered for 12 episodes. If it had been 22, I could see doing it.
But for 12?
Other than that? I enjoyed the series. But I didn't love it as much as various people in my work-place and online did.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2014-07-07 08:16 am (UTC)Really?
I think that season 2 is much better than season 1 actually!
no subject
Date: 2014-07-08 12:57 am (UTC)And here: An Ex-Con Reviews Orange is the New Black S2 (http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/film/2014/06/11/where-the-fuck-are-all-the-guards-an-ex-con-reviews-orange-is-the-new-black/)
However, they may be in the minority. Metacritic gave it rave reviews.
Flist has been mixed, a lot of folks had issues with the drug storyline taking over the series.
I wouldn't know haven't seen the 2nd Season. And am trying to avoid the spoilers.
no subject
Date: 2014-07-08 01:54 pm (UTC)