Are Prison Shows Obsolete?
I think I should regularly re-watch movies/tv shows/etc. My perspective may very well change. For no particular reason, I watched Oz again. And I was so insulted by it. Just the style of the show is insulting. It moves in this way that assumes the viewer won't pay attention unless stuff is spelled out for him/her. Or maybe that the viewer CAN'T pay attention unless shit moves in this epileptic ass fashion.
I was watching one of the fifth season episodes. The one where Beecher negotiated with Schillinger to see Keller. He was working in the office with Sister Pete and traded up to work in the mailroom, so he could deliver mail to Keller (who was on death row/protective custody awaiting trial). In return he "gave up" a friend to Schillinger. In one scene, Beecher details how all of this will happen (while negotiating with Schillinger). In the next scenes, all of it happens. Back-to-back-to-back. It's like the show is/was its own fuckin Cliff's Notes.
[bam] Beecher requests McManus to let him change jobs.
[bam] He quits the job with Peter Marie.
[bam] He tells the Sicilians he no longer wants them to protect Adam.
[bam] He has Adam moved out of Em City and into gen pop.
[bam] Adam becomes Schillinger's "prag."
[bam] Beecher starts working the mail detail (and winds up missing Keller anyway).
It's spastic.
It felt like the writer was treating me like a 2 year old dangling keys in front of me to hold my attention. That whole sequence was the writers saying "hey! hey! look! ya still watching?! huh? keep watching!! see? SEE? we're making it happen! we said it was gonna happen and it's happening!" Eventhough none of that would happen nearly that fast. It would be a crazy world to live in where we decided what we wanted and it all happened in a steady sequence of events that took about 2 minutes to completion. Muthafuckas would retire at age 7.
I wonder, though, if it's that the shows, in a fear of losing our attention, created this appetite for immediate gratification (and bad plot movement) in the media. Or if it's that we are such impatient little Veruca Salt's screaming "I want it now" at the tv screen and the media responded in kind. Hmmm. Not sure.
And then, of course, there's the general way the theme itself plays into this idea that prisoners are this foreign "animal" so very different from "the rest of us." And we want to believe that. Because, in general, we want to believe that we are "good" people. And the way to think you are "good" is to contrast yourself against someone/something "bad." Of course, we also miss the reality, which is that we're all extremely complex mixed in with "good" and "bad." It's comforting for things to be that simple, but reality is not simplistic.
So folks can watch Oz and say "yeah I knew it was like that in prison!" Which serves a few purposes
1. The good vs bad bs I already mentioned
2. It makes people feel safe by making them happy that those "bad" people are all locked away.
3. It feeds into that part of us that enjoys sensationalist shit while allowing us the security of not seeing it in-person
That all said, I still like the show. I own 5 out of 6 of the DVD sets. And I have no intention of getting rid of them. I think we tend to get this idea (and again it's connected to good vs bad) that if something is problematic it is wholly unenjoyable. That's absurd (to me). Oz insults its viewers in some ways, but it also informs them/us in some ways. A lot of stats were described that detailed ways in which the prison system is flawed. The characters were outrageous and largely extremes, but they were also multidimensional. There were ways in which the show reinforced the idea of prisons, but there were also ways in which the show challenged the notion of prisons. To watch Oz (or any other show) assuming it's "all good" misses at least pieces of that. And I get how liking something that we perceive to not be "all good" feels well... bad. lol Complexity is a difficult thing for some of us to accept sometimes. Holding "mixed feelings" can be psychologically difficult. But the best way to enjoy anything is to see the details. And in seeing the details, you're likely going to see good and bad. To me, that's where the beauty in everything lies.
Which reminds me, I need to have the follow-up Screening for The Wire.
I haven't done a poll in a good minute.
Poll For fans of Oz "Coooouuuuuuunnnt!"
Oh and here's Adewale Akinnouye (Adebisi) with his *real* accent (which he has yet to use in any role he's been in, unfortunately) speaking about Mr. Eko.Let's see if the embed works...
I was watching one of the fifth season episodes. The one where Beecher negotiated with Schillinger to see Keller. He was working in the office with Sister Pete and traded up to work in the mailroom, so he could deliver mail to Keller (who was on death row/protective custody awaiting trial). In return he "gave up" a friend to Schillinger. In one scene, Beecher details how all of this will happen (while negotiating with Schillinger). In the next scenes, all of it happens. Back-to-back-to-back. It's like the show is/was its own fuckin Cliff's Notes.
[bam] Beecher requests McManus to let him change jobs.
[bam] He quits the job with Peter Marie.
[bam] He tells the Sicilians he no longer wants them to protect Adam.
[bam] He has Adam moved out of Em City and into gen pop.
[bam] Adam becomes Schillinger's "prag."
[bam] Beecher starts working the mail detail (and winds up missing Keller anyway).
It's spastic.
It felt like the writer was treating me like a 2 year old dangling keys in front of me to hold my attention. That whole sequence was the writers saying "hey! hey! look! ya still watching?! huh? keep watching!! see? SEE? we're making it happen! we said it was gonna happen and it's happening!" Eventhough none of that would happen nearly that fast. It would be a crazy world to live in where we decided what we wanted and it all happened in a steady sequence of events that took about 2 minutes to completion. Muthafuckas would retire at age 7.
I wonder, though, if it's that the shows, in a fear of losing our attention, created this appetite for immediate gratification (and bad plot movement) in the media. Or if it's that we are such impatient little Veruca Salt's screaming "I want it now" at the tv screen and the media responded in kind. Hmmm. Not sure.
And then, of course, there's the general way the theme itself plays into this idea that prisoners are this foreign "animal" so very different from "the rest of us." And we want to believe that. Because, in general, we want to believe that we are "good" people. And the way to think you are "good" is to contrast yourself against someone/something "bad." Of course, we also miss the reality, which is that we're all extremely complex mixed in with "good" and "bad." It's comforting for things to be that simple, but reality is not simplistic.
So folks can watch Oz and say "yeah I knew it was like that in prison!" Which serves a few purposes
1. The good vs bad bs I already mentioned
2. It makes people feel safe by making them happy that those "bad" people are all locked away.
3. It feeds into that part of us that enjoys sensationalist shit while allowing us the security of not seeing it in-person
That all said, I still like the show. I own 5 out of 6 of the DVD sets. And I have no intention of getting rid of them. I think we tend to get this idea (and again it's connected to good vs bad) that if something is problematic it is wholly unenjoyable. That's absurd (to me). Oz insults its viewers in some ways, but it also informs them/us in some ways. A lot of stats were described that detailed ways in which the prison system is flawed. The characters were outrageous and largely extremes, but they were also multidimensional. There were ways in which the show reinforced the idea of prisons, but there were also ways in which the show challenged the notion of prisons. To watch Oz (or any other show) assuming it's "all good" misses at least pieces of that. And I get how liking something that we perceive to not be "all good" feels well... bad. lol Complexity is a difficult thing for some of us to accept sometimes. Holding "mixed feelings" can be psychologically difficult. But the best way to enjoy anything is to see the details. And in seeing the details, you're likely going to see good and bad. To me, that's where the beauty in everything lies.
Which reminds me, I need to have the follow-up Screening for The Wire.
I haven't done a poll in a good minute.
Poll For fans of Oz "Coooouuuuuuunnnt!"
Oh and here's Adewale Akinnouye (Adebisi) with his *real* accent (which he has yet to use in any role he's been in, unfortunately) speaking about Mr. Eko.Let's see if the embed works...
Click to view