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Kate Mulgrew - Orange is the New black

That's great Teacake. :bolian:


Post anything you find there (I don't visit the site :rolleyes: ) and thanks for explaining the significance of the shoes. I hadn't realized they were the blonde's brand.

(See, baby Alex, the popular girls would have STILL made fun of you, even if you had the expensive shoes. :( )
 
FOOL ME ONCE... continued


Another of my favorite "ancillary characters" was showcased this week. I'm not sure why I like him, if we met in real life I would think he was just a "pot smoking fat Bon Iver"... if I had known who Bon Iver was before I googled him last week. :lol:

If you haven't figured out who I'm talking about yet... shame on you. I'm speaking of "Creative Cal" Chapman, AKA Piper's brother. You know him, he lives in the woods, 110 miles from civilization, out of a small camping trailer. Not sure where it is, but it has great cell phone service since every time we visit him out there, he's either on the phone or texting.

This time he's texting as Larry visits and does a little soul searching about his relationship with Cal's sister.

I just got to say... I love the way Cal decorates his campsite. In case no-one has noticed all the decorating going on in the ep (Yoga Jones does it, Caputo does it, Poussey & Black Cindy are doing it) the plastic reindeer standing behind Cal with some Christmas lights hanging from it should have alerted you by now that Christmas is "just around the corner".

I also love the way he lets Larry vent, but then isn't shy about laughing at Larry's honest comments (that while he admitted Piper had a point about the radio program, he also felt he had to talk about her since SHE was the most interesting thing about HIM) nor was he shy about bringing his own biases in to weigh on Larry's biases. Like when Larry complained not just about Piper's infidelity, but that she was GOSH, involved with a woman!

Larry: That's the bigger problem with this whole thing. She fucked a woman. So what, is she gay now?
Cal: (He's finished texting and trying to carve a wooden spoon) I don't know about "now". I think she just is what she is, man.
Larry: Which is what... exactly?
Cal: I'm going to go ahead and guess that one of the issues here is your need to say that a person is exactly anything.

When Larry admitted that he thought their relationship was over (Larry and Piper, not Larry and Cal. ;) ) Cal put his knife and spoon away to admit it was weird being in the middle of this drama and he took pains to explain WHY he moved 110 miles away from civilization... he's allergic to "other people's drama" especially when it involved his sister. :rommie:

The drama wasn't over as Cal's cellphone chimed and he picked it up to read a text response from Neri, the underwater arc welder girlfriend.

"Yes".

Cal mutters a "Holy shit!" then lumbers to stand and with outstretched arms he "ROARS" before turning to the man who feels his life with Cal's sister is over.

Cal: Dude, I'm engaged!" :bolian:
 
FOOL ME ONCE... continued

Cal & Neri, two peas in a pod, two love birds, two people who are, after Neri finds a roasted chicken in the camper that came from a nearby Wegman's and therefore didn't die at the point of their gun, two people who are...

Neri: ... funda-fucking-mentally different people... at a DNA level!
Cal: WHAT? Your Father's a FINANCIAL SYSTEMS ANALYST!

Larry is sitting in the background, quietly drinking his beer and trying not to look at the two lovers as they go at each other at the top of their lungs. (To be honest, she IS louder than he is.) Finally Neri stomps out of the camper, leaving Cal with Larry who feels the need to commiserate.

Larry: Well, that was awkward.
Cal: (spins back to his guest with a puzzled smile) Awkward? How?
Larry: Its a, its just tough to see you hit the rocks like that man.
Cal: (He smiles happily) That was foreplay Bloomer, that's how we relate.
Larry: (Disbelieving) Seems a little aggressive.

And this is one of the reasons why I love Cal... because for ONCE, somebody else tells me what it was like growing up in Piper's childhood home. I wonder, after hearing this, how many of us even thought to have the sympathy for Piper that the hospital scene garnered from us for Nicky in her flashback.

Cal: Think about how baby Cal grew up, all right? Everyone pretended that everything was chill... Dad fucked two different women named Linda (I'm assuming his Mom's name is NOT Linda) Mom lived on gin and cottage cheese from '91 to about '98 ...

(When Piper would have been 10 to 18 years old. No wonder she gravitated towards a strong independent woman when she graduated college. She'd never had one in her life before that.)

...and everyone knew and nobody ever said anything about it. But with Neri... we put everything out there, man. Its safe. We scream and throw shit (Sound like any other arguments WE'VE seen lately in this show???) and its like... electric, you know what I'm saying, its erotic, no joke...

So now we know.

Piper, the little blonde WASP, the girl born with a silver spoon in her mouth, who graduated from a prestigious women's college, was raised by a philandering Father and an alcoholic Mother who never faced any problem that could be shoved under a veil of self imposed politeness or behind an alcoholic induced haze. How could Piper have any self esteem when raised by two such prizes as that?

And to think, Nicky was jealous of the Shalimar hug... when truth be told, Piper would have been jealous of the passionate Russian's love for Nicky had she been aware of it.

So Baby Cal was raised by two people who should have never married, much less had children... and sadly enough, so was Piper.

Cal is still trying to find his way in the world... but its telling his "way" is to hide from it in his camper parked deep in the forest.

But he is trying to reach out to the world bit by bit, with his cell phone, with his friendship-counseling of Larry, with his girlfriend.

Too bad he's not strong enough to reach out to his (?) big sister.

I think she could really use him, about now.
 
So my brother just sent me this text:

"Kate Mulgrew is awesome, she punched a tit to death"

apparently he just decided to watch the show and was up all night watching it LOL
 



Send him this. :lol:

(Who posted it originally?)

Like Janeway says, somethimes you just have to punch your way through. :bolian:
 
FOOL ME ONCE...continued


Someone new showed up this week... and he came to see Tiffany "because" Leanne called him.

No, he's not family. He's too well dressed and his teeth are too white and clean to belong to Tiffany's family.

The first time I saw him, and heard him speak, I assumed he was her Minister.

Tiffany was complaining about CHAPman (and rightly so) pretending that God had chosen Tiffany as a healer, then got her thrown into Psych. Tiffany acknowledged that her experience with CHAPman did 1 of two things for her. Proved to her that God DID NOT EXIST... How else could she rationalize God's silence while she was disrespected and drugged. OR... if God did exist then his silence proved to Tiffany that she didn't want "anything' to do with him.

The good looking stranger (GLS) began to quote scripture, Mathew chapter 5 verse 11.

GLS: "Blessed are ye when men shall revile and persecute you, and shall speak all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. He hasn't abandoned you, Tiffany. Maybe he just wants you to notice someone who needs him.
Tiffany: She don't need him, OKAY! All she needs is her own self and her Sasquatch of a girlfriend!
GLS: People hurt other people, because they're unhappy. (Sounds like Alex alright!)
Because they feel guilty over things they have done. (Sounds like Piper) and they have no-one to forgive them.
Tiffany: You might as well tell me to "turn into a duck". Cause I ain't forgiving her. I mean, I have to confess that to you right now. I ain't that big.
GLS: God WANTS you to be that big. He chose YOU to be a hero. (He leans back in the visitation chair) Remember how you yourself have been forgiven.

The story then segues into the abortion clinic shooting we've discussed earlier.

Eventually the Good looking Stranger's words sink into the meth addicts brain, and Tiffany goes in search of Sasquatch's girlfriend. ;)

Did you ever consider that if Nicky and Alex are 2 sides of the same coin, then Piper and Crazy Eyes are also 2 sides of the same coin? Crazy Eyes interacts with other people inappropriately, or as Pipes told her in this ep's opening scene, "Even you have to admit, you come on too strong, sometimes."

Well so does Piper... come on too strong, too, sometimes.

Like now, when undereducated, uncultured, unsophisticated Tiffany "Pennsatucky" Doggett asked her some questions in the common room as Sister Ingalls looked on.

Tiffany: (Very calmly and quietly) Do you realize you almost ruined my life? I mean, do you? You made the Almighty God into a joke... and a joke ain't nothing to me. A joke didn't write me letters up in here, and... and a joke didn't give me hope so I could do my time and make something out of it. What do you believe in?
Piper: (looks off towards the glazed windows before she lets her Crazy Eyes persona take over and answer the damn question!.) Well, I've always felt that "agnostic" was sort of a cop out... But, uh, you know if I had to label it I would say that I was a secular humanist which is not to say that I'm not spiritual...
Tiffany: (Interrupts this tutorial to deliver one of her own.) You're not religious, Okay? Just stop. Stop. You believe in Hussein Obama? Electric cars, Shakespeare books, and do you go out to eat at restaurants? I don't have any of that. All I have is him. (Points heavenward)
Piper: I'm sorry.

I'm not sure what Piper's apologizing for at this point. Is it for trying to take Tiffany's God away from her... or for a life where a Shakespeare book and eating AT a restaurant is as unbelievable / as unattainable to Tiffany as supporting a "foreign" (To Doggett) President or affording an electric car.

Tiffany's sermon continues as she exhorts Piper to seek the Lord's forgiveness not Tiffany's... "You get right with HIM and then we'll see that all "this" was part of his plan."

Ahhh, she can accept her own suffering/ disrespecting if she can see tangible proof that it was for the greater good.

Pennsatucky obviously watched too many Xena: Warrior Princess TV shows when she was kid.

Tiffany cajoles her into public prayer (again under the watchful eye of Sister Ingalls across the room) and quite frankly she does a good job. Good enough to warrant some raised eyebrows from Sister Ingalls and a HUG from Tiffany followed by a "warning" that a baptism was in Piper's future.

There's just one little problem that Piper hasn't factored into her "let's win Tiffany over" calculus. :wtf:

Believing in Tiffany's idea of a personal savior is not what a secular humanist believes... and pretending to pray to one is just as disingenuous on her part today as it was 2 weeks ago when she pretended that Tiffany could faith heal the disabled teen in the bathroom.

You'd think after 4 years of college, 2 (?) years living with an international drug cartel runner, 8 years smoozing with the Park Slope crowd, and nearly 4 months in the slammer... that Piper would have learned by now how to deal with people of such variant beliefs from her own.

Or maybe... the 18 years of living with her Alcoholic Mom & Philandering Father, pretending everything was chill even when it wasn't... maybe all those years of conditioning are too great for her to overcome. :brickwall:

Maybe Piper thinks she just has to pretend to believe in someone's fidelity and they in turn will pretend to believe in her sobriety and everyone will live happily ever after.

I don't think Tiffany got that memo. :sigh:
 
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More from the Lady in our thread's title.

http://collider.com/kate-mulgrew-orange-is-the-new-black-interview/

Here's a neat article on OitNB's opening credits.

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1673132/move-over-dove-orange-is-the-new-black-celebrates-real-women#1

The women depicted are all former prisoners of the US penal system.

One of whom you might recognize, if you know what the author of OitNB looks like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBITGyJynfA

The article gives you a hint to her identity... she's the one who "blinks".

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBITGyJynfA[/yt]



Is it a surprise that "Esquire" likes the show? It was a surprise to me that there is supposed to be a lot of discussion (?) about vaginas on the show.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/culture/death-of-television-show

Or is that a metaphor for lesbian sex on the show????
 
I never saw anything that I thought Mulgrew was really good in until Orange is the New Black. She is really great in this show though. :techman:
 
KM is awesome in this show!

Here's 2 more interviews, neither with KM this time. (Darn)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMoCTTiEuNY

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMoCTTiEuNY[/yt]

I think TPTB have sent Taylor Schilling out to pour some water on the brushfires caused by the firestorm called Laura Prepon.

Here's a Taylor/Kerman interview before the internet firestorm swept through the OitNB fandom.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEN3v8nVtTg

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEN3v8nVtTg[/yt]
 
FOOL ME ONCE... continued

One of the things I like about this show, which isn't apparent the way I slice and dice these reviews, is the segues between branches of the story. How Tiffany being counseled by the Good Looking Stranger to forgive as she had been forgiven, slid into the flashback on her crime.

I like how the next scene in a bar where Pornstache is confessing his deep feelings for Daya to her REAL lover Bennett, is followed by the scene where Piper discusses her male lover Larry with her female lover Alex.

Before you ask me "in what universe does Piper think that conversation is appropriate", lets review why she's at Alex's bunk at all.

It was the prayer.

The prayer in the common room before Tiffany and Sister Ingalls.

Remember I said, "it was a pretty good one." Well, I define good by whether the prayer changes the audience... and this one certainly did. It changed Piper herself, it opened her eyes to how she's been behaving over the last 24 hours, last 2 weeks, maybe even the last 8 years.

Piper: Dear... Mr. Christ?

(Sister Ingalls looks up from her crocheting)

Piper: Dear Mr. Christ. I know that umm, I've done some things recently that have not been, um, up to your standards... and I feel pretty ashamed.

(Her eyes have been closed and hands clasped since the 2nd "Mr. Christ".)

Piper: Its really easy to point fingers... And I've done some things lately that I feel pretty lousy about. And I'm wondering if maybe you could make things right between us...

(Which "us" Piper?)

Tiffany: Meaning forgiveness?
Piper: (Eyes still closed) If I could be forgiven, that would be really... um...

(She sits back in her seat, eyes still closed, hands still clasped)

Piper: ... that would be really comforting. Amen.

Chapman lets out a big sigh, and slowly opens her eyes to see Tiffany. It takes her a few seconds to process where she is, what she's doing, and before she can, Tiffany is up out of her chair, hugging the woman and planning her baptism. Piper still isn't "all there" when Sister Ingalls offers her critique and as we leave the scene, Piper is slumped in her chair, deep in thought.

I think she's trying to figure out the question I posed above... "which us" does Piper want things to be "right" between?

So from that common room prayer, we went to the bar to watch Pornstache profess his love for the woman who is possibly carrying Bennett's baby, and Bennett can't say anything except "Fuck!" when he reads the love note Mendez wants passed to Daya. And from the bar where one lover had to listen to someone moon over his secret paramour, we go to the white suburbs, the barracks where Alex lives.

Piper: You were right. (Alex looks up from her book) About Larry, you were right.

(Alex closes her book on long distance running... what a great metaphor for Alex' life, eh?)

Piper: I think that I've lost him... (she indicates the spot on the bed next to Alex) Can I?

(Alex waves her over, then looks down into her lap, gathering strength for yet another angst filled Piper conversation about her OTHER lover. Would Piper ever ask Larry if she could vent her soul over ALEX? I think not. Alex lifts her head as Piper sits down, but stares straight ahead, away from Piper.)

Piper: (Piper isn't looking at Alex either) So all of my cards are on the table. (Alex looks at her) Everything. I'm an emotionally manipulative narcissist who bailed on you when your mother died.

Alex: And I'm a ruthless pragmatist who sold you out and then lied about it. (Piper finally turns to look at Alex) We suck.

The conversation goes on from there, at a level I doubt she's ever had with anyone else much less Larry, which is probably very telling. Now she's about to do something she rarely does, talk about what she needs, really needs.

Piper: I've ruined my life now, twice, over you. So, what's the endgame here? When we get out of prison, what's the plan?

(Alex shrugs and looks like she's about to ask her own question, but Piper is on a roll)

Piper: Are we going to move to Vermont and open a pottery studio and wear Tevas?
Alex: That sounds more like Santa Fe.
Piper: I'm being serious. Are you going to get a Job?
Alex: Uhummm. (She looks away from the unpalatable suggestion)
Piper: Like a regular person?

(I love Alex's face at this part, and her little head shake. Is that a "no" or is that an "OMG?)

Piper: I mean... I can't even imagine what that would look like!

Alex agrees.

Piper lays a final card on the table, the future card that says she will NEVER come back to prison and FINALLY Alex seems to wake up and let some steam out from under her collar.

Alex: Listen, I am not planning on going back to doing illegal shit. I'm not planning anything. I don't know what's gonna happen. And that's the point of being with me. If you wanna have babies and remodel your bathroom, then please go. Do. Nest. If you want to do X on a beach in Cambodia with 3 strangers in drag... I'm not saying its going to happen... but it could.

The "awestruck 23 year old that fell in love with the seductive, transgressive older woman" looks out from this 32 year old's soul and sighs.

Piper: I love Cambodia.
Alex: (Smiles back) Me too.

A sweet moment, interrupted, as always in prison, by bad news.

Nicky has come to warn Piper to sleep with "Both eyes open tonight."

Morello has driven Miss Claudette back from her court appearance. Her appeal was denied.

When we see Miss Claudette walking through the corridors like a zombie, all you can think of was her advice to Piper months ago not to give hope to Tricia and the other women trying to file appeals from behind these bars. She had no reason to leave prison before Jean Baptiste's first letter, and he became the only reason to keep living, to keep breathing behind these walls as she waited for the appeal to be processed. When the hope of joining him outside of prison was dashed, she was bereft... and in the middle of her bereavement walked a green corrections officer who was told to treat these women as nonpersons, as sheep to be herded harshly from one pen to another... and that was what sweet Fischer tried to do. And that was how she became the face of everything that was wrong in Miss Claudette's life and maybe even a way to shorten her own life by choking to death this sign of authority standing before her.

It was a heavy moment, watching the guard pull Miss Claudette down the hall, hands cuffed behind her back warning her that she was "going to Max" next.

Miss Claudette didn't care anymore.

Nonpersons don't.

We watched with Piper and Alex and Nicky and several other women at the drama being played out before them, and as they looked down the hall to their right, a new inmate in her bright orange prison uniform entered from the left to stand next to Piper.

Not just stand next to Piper... she picked up her forearm and leaned on the much taller woman's shoulder like they were old friends.

Because they were.

Taystee: What are we looking at?

Everyone turns in shock... and awe... and Piper?

She just smiles as if she's finally seen the sun after a long bleak night.

Oh yeah.
 
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FOOL ME ONCE.... continued

Well, there was one person who DIDN'T smile when she first saw Taystee and her name is Poussey... accent a droit!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtAaXM1GAgw

But even Poussey couldn't be stern with Taystee for too long.

See, Piper... this is what you need... a girlfriend you DON'T have sex with, one who can listen to all your fears and all your adventures with equanimity and love you just the same.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtAaXM1GAgw[/yt]

If Polly doesn't come through for you soon, girlfriend... YOU need to find ANOTHER girlfriend to lean on, confess to, love... and not in that cheery blossom Pablo Neruda way.

Nuff said.
 
FOOL ME ONCE.... continued



For some reason, Watson and Yoga Jones are back. The moment they shared over Yoga Jones' cathartic confession looks to have bonded them.

That's cool, I can accept that.

I just don't get what they were trying to do with the nail.

Did Yoga WANT to kill herself... or was she trying to recreate Kiefer Sutherland / Julia Roberts' 1990's movie, "Flat Liners".

I could maybe accept that she could no longer live with that boy's death on her conscience, but then why did Watson want to die?

I laughed when Watson was SHOCKED that Yoga Jones got knocked flat when she tried to electrocute herself.

WHAT did you expect????

I laughed again when Yoga Jones felt BETTER after her experience. I guess home made shock therapy really does work!

Polly FINALLY sent Piper a baby picture. We don't get to see the letter that hopefully came with it, because Doggett has arrived to give her the keys to the kingdom.

Piper slips too quickly back into her uptight ice princess mode when she stares down at Tiffany (she HAS to look down, she's 7 inches taller!)


Piper: Oh god... the baptism thing... you were serious.
Tiffany: What about me makes you think I wouldn't be serious?
Piper: Good point.

Piper tries to excuse herself from the baptism with some lame excuse that the fiancé who broke up with her might visit today after weeks of absence.

We switch to a flashback where we discover the "Good Looking Stranger" isn't Tiffany's minister. He is her newly appointed lawyer from a "Christian" law firm that has been paid by people un-named to not only represent Past-Tiffany before the judge but provide a small monthly stipend for her parents.

Past-Tiffany is blown away by this offer, and asks what she has to do in return. The GLS smiles and says, all she needs to do is say she killed to protect the unborn.

Not sure why her track record of doing that herself wasn't an issue... but it wasn't for the GLS or for the CROWD of people standing in the court room waving signs supporting Past-Tiffany and her "cause".

As Past-Tiffany stood to face the judge, with her posse backing her up and the GLS at her side, she sports the biggest smile that has undoubtedly ever graced her face.

No problem, Present-Tiffany assures Piper, they'll be done in 10 minutes.

And that damned "Alcoholic Mother / Philandering Father / everyone knows but "we all pretend its not true for the good of the family" conditioning kicks in.

Tiffany is dragging Taylor down the hallway towards the rest of her flock.

Taylor should have stood her ground where Tiffany first stopped her.

She should have explained that despite the prayer, Piper was still a nonbeliever.

It would have been less of a blow to Doggett's pride to refuse her without the laundry room posse in attendance, but as always with Piper, her initial attempt to "get along," in the end just makes everything worse.

And what was it that finally made Piper put her foot down, with Tiffany Doggett?

That partially cleaned muck sink in the laundry room.

There was no way in heaven OR hell that Piper was going to let them "dunk her" in there!


That's when the Crazy Eyes version of Piper showed up once more, explaining why Piper wouldn't allow them to baptize her.

I laughed when she claimed she believed in evolution and science (as if that was mutually exclusive of being a "believer" of another kind) and instead believed in various men who were atheists of one kind or another.

I laughed because she was being so dogmatic, so ideological in her argument against the baptism... and WE all know that Piper only backed off because it was the laundry room MUCK sink that finally made her say "no".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UI0FSuTCAIw

Too bad she did it in front of Tiffany's flock.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UI0FSuTCAIw[/yt]

Piper: Feelings aren't enough, I need it to be real. I gotta go.

And go she did... from the frying pan into the fire.

Look who actually showed up on visitation day.

Is this the first time he's seen her since before Thanksgiving???

:sigh:

Look at her.

Granted, in his world view she has a lot to feel guilty about... but LOOK at her!

Where is the woman who called Alex on the "dance" they had been doing for weeks.... years.

Too bad she didn't carry that new found fervor from the laundry room with Tiffany into the visitation room with Larry.

Too bad she didn't realize that Larry was just offering her another muck sink to dunk in.

Too bad she never realized that she SHOULDN'T have wasted time believing in Alex Vause, Larry Bloom, Nate Silver, Neil deGrasse Tyson or Christopher Hitchens.

Piper needed to believe IN Piper Chapman.

She should have been busy, all these months, doing what Suzanne told her to do days ago.

If Piper didn't start cleaning from the inside out... then she would just keep tracking dirt "onto the clean".

It sure would have helped her recognize all the logical flaws in Larry's argument that they needed to marry NOW, go through this prison thing as "husband and wife"... or break up. :eek:


Somehow, at that exact moment, Piper hearing Tiffany tell her posse that being disrespected by the ice princess meant she now had to die at the hand of Doggett... in a strange way THAT might have been comforting.

ORANGE SCREEN
 
More people telling R. Star to climb on the OitNB band wagon... :bolian:

It was literally hitting me right in the face and I couldn't escape it. So I did it. I watched and my world has never been the same since. Neither will yours, because once you go Orange Is the New Black, you'll never go back...
Click to expand...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-steinberg/crime-of-passion_b_3708771.html


And in case R. Star can't handle seeing Janeway speak with a Russian accent, much less have hair the color of an eggplant... there's always "this"... :alienblush:

...Schilling's portrayal (as Piper) is profound, strong and genuine. Prepon (As Alex) is cunning, intelligent, and quick witted. These two ladies share not just an undeniable spark and chemistry, but their characters seem to share a kismet interwoven bond that can never be extinguished....
Click to expand...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjA3AcFbklg

YOWZA! :drool:

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjA3AcFbklg[/yt]



I mean really... has anyone found an article yet that extolls the Larry/Piper chemistry? That talks about their connection or potential? :confused:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB1Vb_fUXVg

Does she look even the least bit excited here? ;)

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB1Vb_fUXVg[/yt]
 
And if all ^ THAT isn't enough for you to watch this show... there's always Suzanne... AKA Crazy Eyes. :bolian:

Maureen Ryan interviews Uzo Aduba:

I like how Uzo (and everyone this far) has spoken so glowingly about working with her fellow actresses...

Was it interesting or enjoyable to be in a production that is predominantly female?

It was. I've been in smaller productions with a lot of women, but I had never been in a project with so many women, and I've never been in a project with so many different women. Shape, race, style of acting -- it was, across the board, such a beautiful thing to be a part of. I'd never had the experience of being a part of a project with so many women and so many different human stories. Yes, they happen to be women's stories, some of them, but they're really just human stories. They were so rich and diverse, [these weren't] stock characters. They were so complicated.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/22/crazy-eyes-orange-is-the-new-black_n_3796730.html

It's a fun article, but Ryan referenced another more serious article in her column which can be found here. It discusses the politics of Race from a ( I assume white) OitNB lover's POV...

http://cultural-learnings.com/2013/08/22/the-race-to-address-race-in-orange-is-the-new-black/

I'd already read the Aura Bogado's Nation column he referenced and rather than tsk the Nation writer for making judgments based on watching less than 50 % of the eps, I think he, she, and indeed "we" need to acknowledge that we all look at something from our own POV and that means we can't all appreciate the same things.

And that's okay.

Hell... I've been saying that for years when I come up against fans who HATE Janeway & Voyager. Making Ms Bogado sit down to watch the OTHER 7 eps would not have changed her mind, Mr. McNutt, at all.

From Ms Bogado's article: I first saw a poster for the new series on a subway platform. The word “black” plastered near women of all colors in prison jumpsuits made me shake my head in disappointment, but I soon forgot about it along with all the other racist images I’m surrounded by daily...

http://www.thenation.com/blog/175786/white-new-white#

My old neuroscience professor used to have a saying... "I'll see it WHEN I believe it." Bogado can't believe in OitNB and more's the pity.

The pity because if she wants to talk prejudice and oppression, there has been one over riding view that HALF the human race has struggled under for millennia.

In the 1950's movie "Deskset", Spencer Tracy's character asks Katharine Hepburn's character what is the FIRST thing she notices about someone when she first meets them. As a kid , (When I watched it in the 70's... I'm not THAT old!) my mind was racing to answer before she did. Was it hair color, was it size, was it (gosh) race?

Nope.

Naturally Hepburn's character nailed it... it was whether they were a man or a woman.

OitNB is a reminder in so many ways how women are often perceived as the "weaker" sex, the "less intelligent" half of the species, made up of divas and wannabes who would eat their own kind if given half the chance to do so.

In a way, this show is like the recent Starz series on SPARTACUS. That series showed us that even the wealthy women in Roman society were little more than second class citizens. Yes, its better to be a Roman Noble woman than a Roman slave... but given what happened to Lucretia and Illythia and various others in their lofty class... in the end neither the Slaves nor the Nobles were truly free.

The question of sex (the gender, not the act) makes me think of an interview I read from long ago with 1 of the 1st two black male US astronauts. He made a comment that while it was nice being in space, he noticed the white woman got there before the black man.

That struck me.

I wondered if he would have complained as much... (or more?) if the first female American in space was black?

I DID notice that we had three male Captains lead the Star Trek Franchise before we got a woman in the center chair.

Hell, I was just so happy Kathryn arrived, I didn't even mind TPTB put her on a ship that got LOST on its first mission, never making it home for SEVEN long years!

Talk about a stereotype. :p

So watch the show if you want to, but just because I love it doesn't mean you have to even like it.

But do me a favor, if you watch it... WATCH it.

Like a three ring circus, there are so many things going on in so many different arenas, that its easy to miss half the story.

And realize... like that first Huffington post upthread (The Crimes of Passion one), they really are trying to take you on a journey here, through Piper's privileged/painful experience, and don't be surprised when like McNutt, you too become unable to call Suzanne, "Crazy Eyes" anymore. :bolian:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI1kAWS3er4

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI1kAWS3er4[/yt]
 
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