Orange Is The New Black

This morning I finished watching the last episode of Orange Is The New Black so I went and took a long shower to process it. I do this whenever I finish any book, movie or TV series I invest myself in. I was planning on writing this after my shower but  I have been trying to write this all morning because I have so many thoughts, and feeling about OITNB that I can't quite seem to effectively write about them yet.

Firstly this is great. I watched it all in three days. When I first started watching I thought it was going to be a boring documentary type about Piper, who I quite frankly found rather boring at first, I saw her as nothing more that the confused lesbian that felt sorry for herself about everything. What drew me into watching the rest of the episodes was the complexity of the other characters and I found myself doing something I rarely do; longing to know more about their lives, their back stories and why they were in prison. Piper eventually joins this league when she starts actually participating in prison life rather than focusing on her life outside of prison. These character are some of the most well represented in television, they have real problems but they are not their problems or defined by the fact they are in prison; they have lives, personalities, stories. This is what makes this one of the greatest series I have seen in a long time.

The second thing that makes this one of the greatest series I have seen is the questions it forces you to ask yourself. Questions like, are all prisoners really bad people? It raises questions about racism and authority and relationships. The segregated bathrooms is something that I struggled to understand, I don't know why this is a thing. I'm not American so i don't think I quite fully grasp how racism is taken in America but in Australia I cant imagine that happening. The things is it probably does I wouldn't know I've never actually taken the time to think about it.

The authority in the series are mainly men. This is not a problem just a real representation of society. The problem is that the three main male character who are in an authority position have too many problems. Two of them (Bennett and Healy) seem nice enough and wanting to help. The other is just a horrible person. Now here is where my problem comes in, I feel sorry for the position that Bennet got himself into. I shouldn't feel sorry for him because he did the wrong thing but I do. These three men are not great example of an overall population of men. One is a drug dealer rapist, one is the nice guy that just 'accidentally' got a inmate pregnant and the other has serious anger issues and is weirdly lonely. Now I'm not saying that men cant have feelings and problems I'm saying they need someone at least one person that is reasonably normal in this show to counteract it because the audience is now getting a wrong stereotype about prison guards; that they are all sad low lives, that have mental health issues.

Overall this show is great. Watch it! I haven't met a person yet who doesn't like at least one of the story lines in it.

 -Izzy