Piper Chapman is one of the most fucked up characters I have ever had the pleasure of watching, and I have seen most of Martin McDonough’s (In Bruges, The Pillowman) work (if you are unfamiliar with McDonough and don’t like violence or awful people, you should probably remain unfamiliar). In Orange is the New Black, we follow Chapman – and her fellow inmates – from their lives before prison into a messy pit of drama, hypocrisy, and betrayal. But if Orange was only a show that featured interesting characters, a compelling story, and brilliant dialogue, it would be good. What makes it great is that it goes beyond just being well done, pushing boundaries and telling stories that most of Hollywood pushes to the sidelines or completely ignores. This story is about women, and all the shit that happens to women, but they can never speak about. It’s about the users and those who are used. It’s about the players and the fighters and the lovers. It’s about the ones who just want to get off, and the ones who just want to get out. It’s about our insecurities and convictions, the parts of each and every one of us that just want to scream at the universe sometimes. It’s about us.
I think the best place to start while examining this series is the “love triangle” that is at the forefront of the plot. Piper is engaged to Larry, but is incarcerated with her ex-girlfriend Alex, for whom she still has feelings. Unlike almost every other girl centered film or series, it does not make one of the two relationships Piper is having out to be better than the other. Piper is a terrible girlfriend, and just an awful person to most of the people around her. Larry trumps it a little bit by being a pretty decent guy, but a terrible boyfriend; and Alex foils him in that she’s not really a great person, but she’s a really fucking good girlfriend. Neither of these relationships is healthy, and the series does a great job of showing that by having neither of them work out for Piper at all by the end of the season.
Again, this is very contrary to what most “chick flicks” portray, in that a girl’s worth is defined by her ability to discern a good relationship from a bad, and that there is always a good option available. Not to mention that most of the choices that Piper makes are identical to the choices that most leading female characters in “chick flicks” make, but hers end up going to shit, because those kinds of entitled, self-centered choices don’t help build relationships or make friends, and they aren’t good choices to make.
I think the show also handles Piper’s sexuality very well. Her brother mentions – and I think this is somewhat the crux of what the show is trying to portray in the area of her sexuality – that people can’t just be defined “exactly.” Being bisexual myself, I’m very familiar about how most other people don’t understand it enough to even start to talk about it in conversations. Piper glosses over the hard conversations by mentioning that she’s “not gay anymore,” or that she “used to be gay.” Her brother seems to be the only character from her before prison life who seems to understand. He mentions sexuality falling along a spectrum, and not being defined in exacts. The subtlety is there, the context is there, and yet the series doesn’t overdo it by bashing its audience over the head with it. Instead of using contrived repetition to hone its point, it uses acceptance and clarity. Her bisexuality isn’t weird in the show. A few characters find it weird, but the show doesn’t.
And the same is true for the show’s transgender character, Sophia. She’s not comical or a farce, though she has some pretty hilariously witty lines. But she is accepted by the show. Not by all of the show’s characters, but by the show itself. And the really great part is that it shows her (in flashbacks) pre-transition as well, without sacrificing any of her reality. She’s not even clearly transgender to the audience until the show tells you that she is.
It also offers what I feel are some very truthful insights into real world problems for trans people. She has a son who refuses to talk to her, a wife who is “okay with her transition, but not with her sexual reassignment surgery,” and then who later in the series wants Sophia’s blessing to see a man romantically. She’s placed in a position where the continuance of her hormone replacement therapy is threatened. For me, I know all too well the strain that many people place on trans people. Others view transitioning as doing something selfish, as doing something for yourself, and it really feels like they’re equating it to going to the spa, or getting a gym membership. But what they don’t understand is that trans people are just trying to reach ground zero, reach an equal playing field. Cis people start there. When a person is drowning, it is not a selfish act to swim for a buoy. It is not a selfish act to work hard and long, building the best kind of raft you can out of whatever driftwood you find while clinging to that buoy. And it is especially not selfish to ask for help from all the people floating around who were given boats at birth. It’s not fair, and it never will be, but it is certainly not selfish.
I also want to talk about Alex. Laura Prepon’s Donna on That 70s Show was by far my favorite, and she delivers again with an Alex that I fell in love with. I wanted her and Piper to end up together so badly, despite knowing that Piper was terrible for Alex, because I knew Alex would take her on anyway. She is smart, confident, witty, and really good at moving large quantities of heroine. You know, everything I look for in a girl. I am honestly just too in love with her character to talk more about her at this point, but I plan on making another blog post just about Alex, but we’ll see if I ever get to a point where I can write about her with gushing.
There are so many more things to talk about, but this is getting long and there’s enough more to mention to take up several articles worth of space. If you haven’t seen Orange, you definitely should.
a trans-parent perspective 