Film & Tv Essay - Feminism and Tv: Orange is the New Black References Orange Is the New Black. PDF

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Feminism and Tv: Orange is the New Black

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Orange Is the New Black. Lionsgate, 2013. Film.
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ENG 214 Ms Ghan

Feminism and Tv: Orange is the New Black The world is sexist, thus the film and TV industry are too. Jenji Kohan writes about women with different personalities and socio-cultural backgrounds, betting on a cast that exudes diversity within the same environment and the result is extraordinary. The plot revolves around Piper Chapman, a well-educated and fearless young twenty something from the upper middle class, when she gets involved with another woman and decides to commit unnecessary crimes, of which they had never been caught until ten years later, with a changed life, a good job and a stable relationship with writer Larry Smith. Having discovered her crimes, Piper is condemned to a term of fifteen months in the women's prison of minimum security where she starts to live with women of different social classes, sexual orientations and ethnicities, and feels on the skin the disregard with which the inmates are treated by the American prison system. Orange is the New Black brings the female protagonist role to the screen: whites, blacks, Latinas, transgenders, heterossexuals, homossexuals, fat, thin, old and young. Real women invading the normal television programming, complete with their wrinkles, cellulite, stretch marks, shaggy hair and all other peculiarities that women's magazines are struggling to hide in their covers and pretend it does not exist. Just as any other current television production, Orange is the New Black breaks with the sexism and certain traditions 'pre-set' by the audiovisual industry without necessarily

raising the feminist flag, since we are speaking of a series of women, made by a woman, based on the story of a real woman. The male characters are all somehow authority figures, although they are hardly shown throughout the series. There’s a corrupt and sexist guard that the more we know about him, the more we realize the feeling of pity for the solitude of the man. On episode three, the guard mentions how “all these offenders want a piece of me[...] they can’t help themselves. I’m musty and they love it.” It’s almost impossible not to feel sorry for his pathetic life outside prison, how he thinks he's being objectified and how that infuriates him, reflecting a gender irony. On the other hand, the prison counselor sees Piper as his "equal" and so he gives her privileges and advice on how to defend against lesbians and all those things that we listen daily, though do not know how to respond to it. Piper’s boyfriend, however,is one of the fairest characters which repercusses his ordinary and somehow irrelevance throughout the show; he’s the housewife that waits for the husband to come home after a long day of work trying to please and work things out with the significant other because that’s what they’re meant to be. All the drama from accepting the sexuality of his wife, her going to prison, his professional crisis, and lack of sex, shape his life during the period in which Piper is in prison. A typical man in love and whose opinion is constantly overlooked by the bride, Larry turns into a man who grows and takes a stand to take care of his life. Most of the mass cultural productions (such as Hollywood movies), the female characters are relegated to secondary roles, to assist the male lead in his journey of becoming a hero, unless the movie is obviously targeted to women - otherwise the female characters are shown the whole time talking about men. Their participations often serve to

reinforce stereotypes - the good girl, the slut, the jealous, the enemy - and the plot revolves around an alpha male. Indeed, it is striking the leading role that is given to men in women's lives, especially the happiest, because it is imposed on women the idea that their relationship with a man is what will be crucial to their happiness. Despite the minor role representations of men in the show, the meaning behind the lack of strong male characters is to point out that women do talk to each other about matters that are not men; they talk about life, about the past, about freedom, about being there, about each other, about everything, just as it is, amazingly, what women are in real life. Another point that the show deals with is the female sexuality and the conflict with the "macho" men around them. Homossexualism is not placed as an aberration or a trial phase. There are lesbians and there are straight women, and there are the ones who just occasionally have sex with each other, and it's all portrayed much more raw than viewers expect it to be. During the first episodes, we can already see that the homosexual theme is addressed with enough veracity and freedom. Sex is shown as a need among women and homosexual relationships develop, but it is all very similar to how heterosexual relationships happen. The show begins right with a lesbian sex scene in the bathroom, as if to warn the unsuspecting viewer: there’s no drama, this is how real life works. Based on Piper’s characteristics, stereotypes are usually imposed by external features of the individual and / or social group, such as appearance, financial condition, behavior, culture, sexuality, among others. In episode ten, a flashback of Piper and her friend Polly points out the question of bissexuality. In the scene, Piper mentions how “[she] likes hot girls and hot guys. [She] likes hot people. What can [she] say, [she’s] superficial.” In this scene, the character

can leave open for the viewer, that it doesn’t matter if they’re dating a man or a woman, not classifying Piper as a homosexual or heterosexual. By taking this position, the time to expose something so delicate as sexual orientation, we can see an improvement. The scenes between Piper and Alex, her old girlfriend who brought her to prison, transcend from nothing but pure sex to a more complex relationship. Choosing Piper Chapman as the main character, along with her ex-girlfriend, Alex Vause, aims to show how a woman who does not have the visual characteristics of a criminal survives in jail. For Piper, being female, having studied, speaking well and having a behavior of someone with status, is a strategy for public (viewers) acceptance before her homosexual experience. Homosexuality is used in the background to give viewers time to cling to the character, and not prioritize their sexual orientation, therefore making that the main purpose of the series does come out of focus. It is observed that Piper’s character does not carry any stereotypes in her behavior or language that can identify her it as a homosexual. Alex, even by keeping female characteristics, is portrayed as a character with a more rustic style. Along with this and the powerful position she had taken due to work she had set out to do, the series shows Alex as playing “the man's role” of their relationship for having a controlling position. Moreover, both Alex and Piper partly don’t carry gay stereotypes in their characteristics, only the concept of a lesbian chic, which does not determine their sexual orientation. Labels are always a strong presence in television programs, when it comes to portraying homosexuality, because in general they present the character in caricature way, which by no means fits with the representation of Piper Chapman and Alex Vausse. The stereotype that lesbian women have to have male characteristics is left to present the main character as being

totally and completely feminine. This evolution in the construction of the characters is what guides our vision, and to show how we, as spectators, construct stereotypes and simply ignore the depth and foundation of each relationship. Many of us forget that human sexuality is not made only between men and women, and we especially forget that everyone has the right to recognize themselves in a work of fiction and be accepted in society. Assuming to be a lesbian/gay or bisexual in a heteronormative and sexist society, means having to hear insults such as "that's a lack of man/women in your life" and inappropriate invitations to threesomes or threats of corrective rape, only because one loves another woman/man. It is necessary for one's own acceptance and the acceptance of society as a whole be seen portrayed on television a variety of lifestyles and sexual orientations that differ from the traditional model. The television series end up playing a key role, as they make the fans think about it, as they accept and contribute to the formation of a more just society. Orange is the New Black plays a major role, displaying various aspects of sexuality that we are not used to seeing pictured. The dramedy does not hide that women can relate with each other, without any need of a man and are very happy that way. Everything is done in a simple and natural way, without any fetishes or a masculine look, as we are used to seeing in any heterosexual relationship. References Orange Is the New Black . Lionsgate, 2013. Film....