In preparation for Netflix’s season four release of Orange is the New Black—a drama that focuses on a white-collar woman adjusting to her new reality in a women’s prison—a few of the GeeksOUT staff sat down to talk about whether this popular show is doing right by our Strong Female Characters or not. Eventually, the conversation drifted to Bitch Planet—a comic book series with a similar premise but set in space.
It’s unquestionable that Orange is the New Black (OITNB)—a show about a white collar woman’s experiences in a women’s prison— has become a phenomenon since its’ debut in 2013. I know I’m very excited to see it return to Netflix on June 17th, so let’s start with the reasons why you all became fans of the show.
Katie: What initially drew me to the show was the casting. I was excited to see a show that focused on women and reflected my communities in terms of race and sexuality.
Amber: I’m not sure I’d call myself a fan after the second season. The first season was bursting with promise—centering the stories of women of color and showing some real diversity. But the second season? Where did all this racism come from?
Gavin: I am immensely excited for the new season. I thought the last season was its strongest and left us on a great note. Besides being brilliantly thoughtful and funny, I became a fan of the series because it did a brilliant Trojan Horse. Piper, the lead character, seemed intended to be the analogue for the audience but ended up being the outlier. After a season it was clear that every woman in that correctional facility was who we were intended to identify with, and I did. Big Red and Crazy Eyes, despite their monikers, relate more to my experience than the scheming bi protagonist. I like everyone’s story (mostly) and found a radiant spectrum of character development to follow.
Even though we’re living in the 21st century, our society still has a problem with how it views and treats women. While the show definitely corners the market for most female representation on television, is having a cast of characters that are all criminals something that alleviates or exacerbates the problem?
Amber: I don’t believe that representation means “only positive role models.” What’s important is how “well-drawn” the characters are. There are plenty of compelling criminals out there.
Katie: I disagree with the the premise that incarcerated women are inherently negative representation. While these women may technically be ”criminals,” they’re ultimately victims of structural violence and a system which is extremely prejudiced against people of color and economically disadvantaged individuals, and let’s be honest, the only “crime” a lot of these women in real life and on the show have committed is struggling with addiction. Furthermore, incarcerated women are intelligent, strong, passionate, nuanced women. They’re people and they deserve to have their stories told and to see themselves on TV. Now whether OITNB always writes its characters as complexly as they deserve to be written or accurately represents the experiences of incarcerated women is a different story. I’d also add that it is important that we continue to have more stories about women, and especially women of color (‘cause as a white woman I feel like I’m being represented albeit imperfectly) so that we don’t rely on a single narrative to give us every type of woman in terms of career, lifestyle, and personality. I don’t think OITNB is the reason we’re not seeing that diversity of women being represented across a bunch of different narratives. It’s patriarchy and it’s racism.
Gavin: That they are all alleged criminals is besides the point. They are all interesting people looking for their place in the world. The flashback structure is one of the strongest on television (looking at you LOST), and reveals everything you need to know to gain insight into how the characters have found themselves where they are. What I enjoy especially is how many of the characters have found the best versions of themselves in prison. Sometimes the locale brings out the complexities and discoveries one seeks in this plane (again, looking at you LOST). The restraint and discipline of confinement has a different reaction in people, so it’s not remotely a problem for me. Criminals are a part of the human spectrum.
Similar programming came out in the 1970s; however, critics called these films exploitative (specifically, they were part of the Women in Prison (WiP) subsect of the sexploitation movement). Such films would use the framework of a women’s prison to show scenes of female nudity and female-on-female violence. Does OITNB fall into that trap or does it redeem the genre?
Katie: I don’t think that OITNB has fully stepped away from that tradition. There are attempts to give characters more depth, particularly through their backstories, and sometimes that is successful. Obviously there is enough character development to keep me coming back, but the show is by no means entirely non-exploitative. Personally, I find the reductive writing of women of color to be the biggest thing holding the show back from reaching its more radical potential.
Amber: Unlike in OITNB, the nudity in Bitch Planet always serves a purpose—and the presentation is powerful, not exploitative. There are naked women engaging in jailhouse riots, for chrissake, not pulling each other’s hair in catfights. DeConnick and Leandro handle the women-in-prison lesbian shower scene trope by using the girl-on-girl action as a trap, leading up to Kamau Kogo kicking a guard’s ass bare-assed. It’s also no accident that lots of different body types are shown. Women’s lack of clothing is not suggestive or alluring—it’s a fact, and it doesn’t play to a male gaze. It underscores the fucked-up power dynamics affecting incarcerated bodies—their states of undress are often not even within their control.
Gavin: I don’t know if “redeem” is the right term for this dialogue. It’s another facet of a well explored genre. What we get from Orange Is the New Black that other presentations do not offer is how complex these individuals are. We get to peek into specific circumstances that brought them to this place, and that informs how they survive these circumstances. Compromise is a part of daily life. These women just find other ways of expressing this essential compromise and fight daily to find love, excitement, and other means of risk to live as freely as they can.
Series producer Jenji Kohan has recently announced that she is going to be working on a show about female wrestlers. From an outsider’s perspective, these two shows would seem to be pandering to a straight male audience that wants to see women in naked shower scenes, in the midst of lesbian sex, or in violent situations. How does OITNB avoid falling victim to the straight male gaze?
Katie: While I’m ecstatic as a queer woman to see queer women having sexual experiences on screen, the way those scenes are filmed and presented often makes me raise an eyebrow and question if women like me are the intended recipient of those scenes or if they are catering towards straight men. Then there are sex scenes between men and women that make me certain the show is on some level catering towards the sexual desires of straight men. For example, the scene in which Joe Caputo receives oral sex from Fig. He delivers several sexist comments throughout it (i,e, “If I was your daddy, I’d spank you real good). The sex itself feels very coercive because Fig performs oral sex on Caputo only after he has put her in a desperate situation. She clearly only goes down on him because in that moment he has power over her and she is desperate for a way out. Caputo willingly, even happily, accepts what follows, only telling her it’s too late to change his mind after it’s over. The whole thing painted him in a creepy light to me, yet I saw male fans celebrating the scene, talking about how Fig “deserved it.” And the show continues to portray him as one of the “good guys.” I don’t know if anything has said “for the male gaze” quite like that. Then you combine that scene with with one of the show’s central romantic relationship of the show existing between a prison guard and one of the women he’s guarding while never exploring the very exploitative nature of their relationship. The result? I often feel hurt and alienated as a female viewer and as a survivor of sexual violence & intimate partner abuse. Maybe they’re writing for a female gaze, but it’s not mine.
Amber: First, off, I gotta take issue with the statement that G.L.O.W. panders to a straight male audience. There was something decidedly queer about that show. I rank it among my queer-formative experiences as a girl. That being said, I’m not sure OITNB DOES avoid falling victim to the straight male gaze. All the sex nudity that’s shown in any kind of detail involve thin, white, cis-female bodies, which is kind of the jam of the straight (white) male gaze.
Gavin: OITNB has much to say about the male gaze with its many enticing lesbian sex depictions. It does nothing for me, but it’s not difficult to recognize. I feel like OITNB is an all opportunity offender in this respect (we see men tits too). Piper and Alex have steamy moments that could get a guy to start unzipping his fly, but the physical aspect is not confined to intimacy—it is always there and exists beyond that pairing. I don’t care for women in shower scenes in the least, but I appreciate that we have something in popular culture that represents the physicality of confinement. It’s raw and vulnerable.
Going back to Amber's reference, comicbook powerhouse Kelly Sue DeConnick has been receiving critical acclaim for her series Bitch Planet (BP). One of the questions she asked herself when approaching the series was: “Can we do exploitation without being exploitative?” How would you answer that question? Does Bitch Planet get some things right that OITNB get wrong or vice versa?
Katie: Thus far, Bitch Planet has not felt exploitative. I think this is partially because the universe is fully aware that the incarceration of the women is unjust, something OITNB feels unwilling to say. As for nudity, it’s typically done tastefully. When women are being exploited by a peeping tom while showering? The main character kicks his ass and makes sure he’ll never be a voyeur again. That’s a reaction to predatory sexual behavior on the part of male characters that is consistent within the narrative. BP doesn’t pretend the exploitation of women doesn’t exist. Quite the opposite: the whole premise intelligently illuminates the many ways it does exist. However, the narrative affirms again and again that exploitation is wrong and must be fought against, which makes it a narrative about exploitation instead of an exploitative narrative.
Amber: For one, Bitch Planet has not yet reverted to stereotypes. I also don’t see that happening. Kelly Sue seems to have enough people around her to serve as sounding boards. She also seems to have enough courage and humility to ask them, “Is this racist?” It’s evident in the diversity and cred of the essayists whose work is included in the single issues: Danielle Henderson, Tasha Fierce, Megan Carpentier, Mikki Kendall](https://mikkikendall.com/), not to mention Laurenn McCubbin’s subversive-as-fuck old school comic book classified ads on the back pages. In case you missed it, three of those five women are Black. In a comic which centers women of color’s experience (the main protagonist [Kamau Kogo] AND the most audacious and beloved character [Penny Rolle] are both Black), this is SO IMPORTANT. Bitch Planet gets it. Bitch Planet unapologetically has an agenda, and kicks ass along the way.
Gavin: I feel like Bitch Planet accomplishes the “exploitation” in its visuals. There exists broad swathes of pulpy text and nudity galore. The challenge against exploitation is entirely in the plotting and dialogue. DeConnick does a good job of maintaining the tropes of exploitation without having to resort to the expectations of the genre. You get bush, sure, but it’s done in such a way where the honest physicality of the women of the Planet is on display. OITNB and BP share a commonality in that it shows a relative diversity of body types and that is a big strength. Exploitation isn’t interested in that.
If you had to sum up the message of either Bitch Planet or Orange Is the New Black in one sentence, what would it be?
Katie: Bitch Planet: The patriarchy polices women in space.
Amber: Bitch Planet: We Are Non-Compliant: Fuck the Patriarchy.
Gavin: One sentence. Hehe, jk. Fun and complexity.
To end on a lighter note, which women from each series would be your kindred spirit and why?
Katie: Though we come from different backgrounds, I really adored and connected with Meiko in Bitch Planet.
Amber: OITNB just lost me, so I’m going to stick with Bitch Planet (as if that wasn’t already obvious). To me, the most important thing about BP is how I can identify parts of my personality in every woman. And they are similarly complicated. They’re not one-dimensional. They’re not “the funny one,” or “the seductress,” or “the brains.” They are women with full and rich back stories and they are us.
Gavin: Morello. In OITNB she exhibits an incredible strength and resolve, but also openness. Her expression of femininity in an environment that fights against her also moves me. I like my femininity and appreciate in other men who seek to explore the same in a society that works against that. Plus, she represents the mentally ill, alongside Crazy Eyes, and that will always have resonance with me.