picture from google
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/day180913.html
by Susie Day
Susie Day is a writer.
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/day180913.html
by Susie Day
Twenty-five years ago, I, a hapless reporter on assignment, went to
the DC Jail and met the woman who was to be my life's partner. I
interviewed her about her political bombing case; we fell in love; I
visited her in various prisons for 11 years; she was released; we're
now spending the rest of our lives working out our relationship, which
has much to do with politics and everything with what she went through
in prison.
Whatta story, right? I haven't written much about this because I've
found it impossible to convey what prison did to us. But when I read Piper Kerman's smart,
funny, heart-grabbing Orange
Is the New Black, chronicling her year behind bars, I thought,
"Whoa, she gets this." Then I caught the Netflix series based on Kerman's book. I now
suspect the most lethal thing you can do to the truth about prison is
to bring it anywhere near the entertainment industry.
From her book, Piper Kerman seems a standup person. Yes, like on
Netflix, she's a thin, white, Smith graduate; yes, she's got the
confidence that comes from being told all your life that you and your
people matter. But during her comparatively tiny 11-month stint in the
Danbury prison camp on a drug conviction, Piper Kerman, for all her
legal reserves, her family's support, her fiancé's devotion, realized
she was as powerless as the scores of mostly poor women of all colors
and cultures who did time alongside her.
Prison corrodes humanity layer by layer with absurd, bureaucratic
cruelties. Inside, as my partner found, the best way to hang on to
your soul is to actually see the people around you. This is
what Piper Kerman did, and the bonds she forged with the women at
Danbury changed her life. Kerman became alive to the fact that the
each of the 2.4 million women and men locked into U.S.
"correctional" facilities -- disproportionately people of color;
almost all poor -- possess souls that weigh the same as her own.
Kerman angled her book in this direction, and now that she's out, she's
on the board of the Women's Prison Association, working to change the
punitive, lock-'em-up mentality that created this nation's prison
system.
Which is why it hurts to see what was, in book form, a credible,
compassionate story of women surviving prison, stream online as
voyeuristic entertainment for anyone interested in
mean-girl-sex-drug-snake-pit lockups. In this hierarchy of
intimidation and deceit, shame trumps compassion almost every time. No
wonder America loves this show.
Prison on Netflix looks authentic. Women have convincingly bad
skin, rotten teeth, lumpy figures. But this docu-realism also works to
shield shallowly conceived characters, many of whom verge on class/race
caricatures. Black, Latina, poor white women, and, lest we forget -- lesbians
-- are trashy, self-hating, predatory, and come with precooked back
stories involving poverty, drugs, abuse, etc., to explain how they got
that way. Piper, on Netflix, becomes a self-avowed WASP narcissist
who, before entering prison, begs her fiancé to "keep my website
updated." Inside, she likes fucking the ex-girlfriend who got her
arrested. She also isn't above turning in someone's contraband to get
what she wants from the corrections officers -- who are portrayed
one-dimensionally as sadistic or two-dimensionally as pitiful.
In transferring any work from page to stage it's legitimate to alter
the original. But OITNB the show goes way beyond this to disfigure the
basic spirit of OITNB the book, refitting characters and storyline to
suit TV's definition of "gripping."
In the book, for instance, Piper, new to prison camp, remarks that
the food is so bad, there ought to be a hunger strike. She doesn't
know the middle-aged Russian woman sitting across from her is the camp
cook. The cook, though hurt, warns Piper not to mention hunger strikes
if she wants to avoid solitary. But on Netflix, the cook seethes, and
next day at breakfast, Piper finds a bloody tampon on her muffin -- an
unsubtle cue to the camp's women that Piper is to be starved. Piper
doesn't eat for days, until she figures out how to make amends.
Crazy Eyes, in the book, is a Latina who had a crush on Piper, but
who respectfully backs off after Piper explains she isn't interested.
Crazy Eyes, in the series, is a wigged-out Black butch, who after being
refused, sneaks into Piper's cubicle to piss on the floor.
Occasionally, Netflix offers pockets of clarity: Poussey, a young
Black woman, is able -- desperately, ecstatically -- to catch a last
glimpse of her best friend Taystee as she's led away on release;
Sophia, the camp's only transgender woman, confides in the activist
nun. And despite the show's moral incompetence, the actors are, for
the most part, extremely competent, dimensional, skilled -- and deserve
better. But once you hear the opening lines of OITNB's theme song, you
know what the show's about:
The animals, the animals
Trapped trapped trapped till the cage is full . . .
I'm truly sorry. I know you probably love this show. Go on, enjoy
this skanky soap opera. Definitely enjoy Season One's
fade-out, as Piper beats a psychotic white-trash Jesus freak possibly
to death during the Christmas pageant. Just please don't think this
teaches you about prison.
Here's the thing. I've been visiting prisoners -- women and men;
state and federal -- since 1988. I personally haven't known life
inside, but I know what it's like to be the good friend of someone who will
probably never get out. My partner's 14+ years inside color every
aspect of our relationship, and that will continue until one of us
dies. And whether you know it or not, prison colors every aspect of your
life this country.
You want to see women in prison? Turn off your flat screen. Get
involved. Teach a class. Write or visit someone inside. Maybe she's
had hot prison sex; maybe she gets into fights; that's hardly the
point. What will probably shock you is how much you have in common.Susie Day is a writer.
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