I'm going to go out on a whim this week and do something different. This week, I'm not going to complain about something because I'm just not feeling it. Instead, I just want to highlight an observation I've made in the last month or so.
So, anyone that's close to me or talks to me on a regular basis must have realized that I've been m.i.a for the past month. It's not that I've been crammed with school and work and it's not like I went on vacation or anything fabulous like that. Instead, I've been locking myself in my room for hours on end binge watching Prison Break. If you haven't already watched the show, you need to drop what you're doing (after reading this post) and start because it.is. AMAZING. It's smart, it's suspenseful, and the characters are just so delicious. But, man oh man, they make jail look so scary. There's an incredible amount of dangerous blackmail, riots, chopped limbs and handmade weapons. You have to be smart to survive. But, this shouldn't come as a surprise, right? Jail is home to hardcore criminals who have murdered, kidnapped, stolen, raped, etc. etc. etc. so it's obvious that jail is a scary place.
To me though, it was a reality check. Why? Because before I watched Prison Break, I watched Orange is the New Black... and it was nothing like Prison Break. OITNB made jail look like fun! It seemed like one big high school. There were cliques, a hierarchy, fun activities, classes, a TV room..and most importantly, no missing limbs (at least not in the first season. I haven't started the second season to know if things have changed)
Just look at the difference:
Look how serious the PB picture is and how happy the OITNB group is. Would you rather be in at Fox River Penitentiary (Prison Break) or Litchfield Prison (OITNB)?
The scariest criminal on Prison Break is this dude:
While the character I feared most was Pennsatucky:
Why the drastic difference? I don't know. Is there some hidden sexism in there? Maybe. I can't really take female prison seriously and I get the impression that female criminals aren't that bad anyway. It shoots down the idea that women aren't capable of being tough, even though the population of female prisons grow faster than male prisons. Red, however is my favourite character as she knows how to play the prison game. She's tough, conniving, powerful and instills fear in everyone. She's what everyone needs to be like on the show
To be fair, OITNB was written by a mainly female group of writers and is based on Piper Kerman's memoir, "Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison, so there is some credibility to the reality of a female prison. Also, kudos to having a mainly female writing staff and crew. It shows that women have come a long way in making it into a predominantly male industry and are able to come up with edgy material. It's a step in the right direction and it's only a matter of time before we see more women in the industry working behind the scenes.
To be fair, OITNB was written by a mainly female group of writers and is based on Piper Kerman's memoir, "Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison, so there is some credibility to the reality of a female prison. Also, kudos to having a mainly female writing staff and crew. It shows that women have come a long way in making it into a predominantly male industry and are able to come up with edgy material. It's a step in the right direction and it's only a matter of time before we see more women in the industry working behind the scenes.
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