As Social Comentary

When I told some friends of mine I was starting a blog about prison dramas, and asked them to help me to come up with a snappy and groan inducing title, my friend Michael expressed some concern. He told me, "It's hard for me to think of witty titles when all I'm thinking about is how prison dramas kind of lead people to be more tolerant of the prison industrial system." There is a lot of reason to be concerned about anything that may promote the current prison complex. The current American prison system finds its roots in the early 19th century surrounding rhetoric of criminal reformation (Malsin). The same arguments have been rolled out consistently since this time in order to justify the constant increase of incarceration rates. It is proven to ineffective at prisoner reformation, prison populations are always growing, and incarceration rates firmly prove that minorities (especially black men) are disproportionately targeted for incarceration (Wills).

The effect that television drama has on public perception of the American prison complex is especially marked in Oz. Some hold the drama found in Oz to be an illumination of the hopelessness to be found in the prison system (Hoskin). In season 3 of Oz, Oswald State Penitentiary is renamed .. Agustus Hill, in his first monologue of the season:

The name on the street for the Oswald Maximum Security Penitentiary.
Only, big news: They've changed the name.
It's now called the Oswald State Correctional Facility, Level Four.
I don't know what the difference is.
Leo Glynn is still warden.
Sister Peter Marie is still in psych.
Tim McManus is still unit manager of Emerald City.
And I know for damn sure none of us have changed.
Beecher is still in the hospital after Schillinger and Keller broke his bones.
Alvarez is still in solitary after blinding a CO.
Adebisi, still in the loony ward, after changing hats.
Maybe it's truth in advertising.
Maybe by getting rid of the word "penitentiary" the state is finally admitting that nobody's penitent. Nobody's sorry. Nobody.

Emerald City was established to be a reformatory cell block, as opposed to pure punishment. In this monologue, Hill is acknowledging that it is still a punishment system, and a rigid institution. The characters change in response to their environment, but almost always for the worse (Hoskin). Even when an inmate begins a redemptive arc, they are dragged back down by the other inmates or COs, and to a lesser extent this is also true in OitNB. 

This effect is fundamental to real world prison systems, just as it is in fictional one. There is a fairly common conception that inmate-inmate violence is a necessary part of criminal reformation, and this is one of the cornerstones of the American criminal justice systems (Wills). While this method is effective at removing this behavior from the public eye, it is more effective are creating a "'hierarchy of crime' [...] by structures created around racial and religious stratification (Wills)." Hoskin argues that Oz reifies this viscous system by showing intelligent characters that are forced to conform to brutal simplicity of the prison.

However, there are many critics that are in the same camp as my friend Michael. Oz and to a lesser extent OitNB are fundamentally a shows which make spectacle out of the violence of prison. The idea of creating a public show out of the violent punishment of criminals is nothing new. In 1975 Michel Foucault published an word for word account of the public torture and execution of a man who committed regicide (Garner and Black Hawk). The account references regular citizens cheering for the grotesque spectacle. The open nature of the event served to increase public approval of such punishment. There are critics who argue that Oz is the modern equivalent of the event which Foucault describes (Yousman; Enck & Morrissey). Oz may well have served the purpose of perpetuating the notion that prisons built on redemptive violence are necessary, and the fact that HBO advertised the show based on its violence only increases this reading of the show. However, the show runner states his purpose is to show how awful that violence is in the same promo.

Identities in Prison

As I discussed in my last post, the maintaining identity in a prison is a difficult prospect with COs and other prison staff controlling most aspects of life. Inmates act out in order to maintain some semblance of their person-hood. In the prison drama this is often manifest in the form of grouping together with others the inmates perceive as being like them. They latch onto some aspect of their personal identity and gather around. Sometimes this is a religious identity, sexual orientation, or often a racial identity.

Season 1 of Oz ends with after racial and sexual tensions rise and the prisoners riot. The man who runs Em City believes the cause of the riot was unequal representations -- both in terms of numbers and treatment -- of different inmate factions. A new policy is instituted that identifies 10 groups within Emerald City and the numbers of each group will be maintained at 4 people, and a council will be formed with a representative from each group. One of the representatives is Vern Schillinger (J.K. Simmons), a white supremacist who has been a constant tormentor of Beecher. Another is Simon Adebisi (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), an African man and leader of the African American Homeboys. This event, and the members of the council serve as catalysts for the physical, psychological, and sexual violence based on racism and homophobia for which the show is so well known. There are some who admonish the show for it's depiction of "race and class-based discrimination in incarceration (Yousman)"

Muslim leader Kareem Said (Eamonn Walker)

threatening another inmate

There is a slightly different take on identity in Orange is the New Black. While inmates certainly do group together based on race, it is not as at the forefront of the tension's as it is in Oz. When Chapman is first given a cell at Litchfield another inmate tells her, "we take care of our own," but insists, "it's tribal, not racist." There are characters like Tiffany 'Pennsatucky' Doggett (Taryn Manning) who form their identity, that is not the norm for OitNB. Oz has garnered a lot criticism for it ostensibly being a show about people from many walks of life, but having a lead who is white and middle class (Enck & Morrissey). Orange is the New Black, while it still has a primary focus on a white middle-class character in the beginning, quickly branches out to integrate nonwhite characters into the main cast. Where Oz offers a color blind approach, where all inmates are functionally the same, but all of these underclass inmates will revert to their savagery.

Likewise, sex, and occasionally sexual violence, are often depicted, but it is most often a consensual act. The performance of sex and gender in OitNB is handled in a way that vastly differs from Oz, and most other mainstream media (Trier-Bieniek). Piper Chapman identified as bisexual before going to prison, in contrast with Tobias Beecher who begins a same gender relationship after spending months in prison. For Chapman, her orientation is simply part of her identity. Beecher changes only as a reaction to feelings of loneliness. In Oz, of the factions is "The Gays", and they are often only seen on the fringe. Most of them are portrayed as makeup wearing prostitutes, and seen only as a freak-show. One of the few male characters of OitNB warns Chapman to watch out for lesbians, because they are dangerous. In Oz, a similar warning would come off as a warning against rape because that is the general nature of homosexual relations in Oz, but here we can laugh at the warning because we already know that Chapman herself is bisexual. OitNB paints a picture where pushing against compulsory heterosexually not only acceptable, but heroic (Trier-Bieniek). An all female prison allows the show to explore a feminist perspective that is inclusive of non-noremative sexual and gender performance. It dedicates entire story arcs to same sex couples, and has a supporting character who is transgender, and her story shows a struggle. They are all in the same place, and struggle to deal with their different identities. OitNB is praised for the way it has portrayed gender and sexuality by many orginizations who have given it awards like "'the 2014 Television Critics Association Award for 'Outstanding New Program,' the 2014 Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association (GALECA)’s Dorian Award for both 'TV Drama of the Year' and 'LGBT TV Show of the Year,' and the 2014 AFI Award for 'TV Program of the Year (Trier-Bieniek).'" It has done a wonderful job of breaking mainstream conventions in creating an inclusive show about women in prison.

Piper and Sophia bond over their homemade shower shoes,

one used sanitary pads, the other used duct tape.