The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

‘Feminist Lezzy Heaven’

Posted on | June 7, 2014 | 102 Comments

Lea DeLaria in the Netflix series ‘Orange Is the New Black’

“It’s like I’ve died and gone to feminist lezzy heaven. I’ve been a professional lesbian for over 30 years — before that I freelanced — but my entire career has been about that, putting a human face on what a butch is.”
— Lea DeLaria, star of Orange Is the New Black

A TV series about women’s prison is “feminist lezzy heaven,” and Orange Is the New Black is a cultural phenomenon — like HBO’s Girls — primarily because of critical praise for its feminist themes. Typical is Amanda Duberman’s gushy enthusiasm at Huffington Post:

Perfectly written, hilarious and culturally relevant, the series chronicling a diverse group of women behind bars proved to be a feminist triumph. . . .
The male characters are either punchlines or morally reprehensible gatekeepers of sexism. The first season’s plot lines recognized transgender identity, sexual fluidity, race relations and the triumphant potential of sisterhood.

A show that portrays men only as “morally reprehensible gatekeepers of sexism” must be praised, you see, because this is what feminism is all about: Demonizing men as the source of all evil in society.

Never mind, of course, that  Orange Is the New Black was adapted from the memoir of Piper Kerman, a born-rich woman who graduated from Smith College and was sent to prison for money laundering for a heroin smuggler who was Kerman’s lesbian lover.

You can read Kerman’s own self-pitying account, in which she portrays herself as a victim of federal mandatory-minimum sentencing laws: “Without mandatory minimums, Piper would almost certainly have been sentenced to probation and community service.”

Well, boo hoo hoo.

Other people have suffered far worse fates than doing 13 months in prison for money laundering, but those other people don’t have rich families and elite educations (Smith College annual tuition, $44,450) and so they don’t write memoirs that become TV shows.

Feminism’s victimhood narrative requires us to ignore contradictions and paradoxes. Instead we must pretend that a simple common-sense interpretation of facts — “Hey, maybe dating a heroin smuggler is a bad idea” — is too unsophisticated to be a valid judgment. Piper Kerman is a woman, and when bad things happen to a woman, there must be a feminist morality tale in there somewhere, right? God forbid that we should interpret “sexual equality” in such a way that women are viewed as responsible for their own choices.

Of course, no fan of Orange Is the New Black cares what I think, because I’m just a morally reprehensible gatekeeper of sexism.





 

 

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Category: Crime, Culture, Feminism

Comments

102 Responses to “‘Feminist Lezzy Heaven’”

  1. RFM
    June 7th, 2014 @ 12:52 pm

    But all prison guards actually are sadists, perverts, and incompetents. Most of them are bigger criminals than the people they are assigned to watch. Same goes for cops in this day, and age.

  2. Cactus Ed
    June 7th, 2014 @ 1:10 pm

    …being used as a source of slave labor for rich capitalist swine.

    Are you part of the neo-Marxist sodality?

  3. Misanthrope
    June 7th, 2014 @ 1:46 pm

    Good Lord, that thing is hideous. No wonder it’s a feminist.

  4. Misanthrope
    June 7th, 2014 @ 1:51 pm

    Afghani Feminist: “I’d like to go to school without being shot in the face.”
    Pakistani Feminist: “I’d like to marry the man I love without my family killing me for it.”
    Iranian Feminist: “I’d like to not have my genitals mutilated.”
    Saudi Feminist: “I’d like to drive a car and not have to cover myself from head to toe.”
    American Feminist: “Whaddya mean I have to buy my own birth control?”

  5. RFM
    June 7th, 2014 @ 1:55 pm

    Why? Is it only credible if YOU agree with it? I don’t have to explain shit to you. Do your own research. And no matter what I say, and no matter how much empirical data I show you, you will disagree and spin it because you’re a conservative and you have been brainwashed to hate liberals no matter what.

  6. rsmccain
    June 7th, 2014 @ 1:57 pm

    RT @thatMrGguy: ‘Feminist Lezzy Heaven’ http://t.co/wJP9SA9EWJ

  7. Cactus Ed
    June 7th, 2014 @ 2:12 pm

    Well, from the quality of your mindsets as here displayed I am not confident that you could possibly apprehend this term-“empirical evidence”-, but given your pretensions to logic I shall leave you to try to draw them.

  8. M. Thompson
    June 7th, 2014 @ 2:22 pm

    Just posting here would put you up against the wall to far too many people.

  9. Dana
    June 7th, 2014 @ 2:32 pm

    This was satire, right?

  10. Nan
    June 7th, 2014 @ 2:50 pm

    Whatever happend to the late President Nixon?

  11. Nan
    June 7th, 2014 @ 2:52 pm

    The white male morally reprehensible gatekeepers of sexism who are also devotees of heteronormative patriarchy aren’t the distinguishing characteristic of this show; it’s the fact they’re in a show with professional lesbians who get paid to put them down.

  12. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    June 7th, 2014 @ 3:41 pm

    RFM, do you say that from personal experience (either on one side of the bars or the other)?

  13. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    June 7th, 2014 @ 3:43 pm

    Actually, they prize big butch girls in the Islamic world. They can haul stuff better than a donkey (although the jihadis prefer to screw the donkeys).

  14. Cactus Ed
    June 7th, 2014 @ 3:48 pm

    Perhaps it’s a bit more like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and it was lobotomized.

  15. richard mcenroe
    June 7th, 2014 @ 3:57 pm

    Why is there a picture of John Goodman with this post?

  16. richard mcenroe
    June 7th, 2014 @ 3:58 pm

    So basically, you’re saying you wasted your time and our bandwidth coming here. OK.

  17. AviWoolf
    June 7th, 2014 @ 6:11 pm

    Orange is the New Black as ‘Feminist Lezzy Heaven’ http://t.co/VNFFNQ5UiT #YesAllWomen @rsmccain

  18. Zohydro
    June 7th, 2014 @ 6:37 pm

    Hey…

  19. Zohydro
    June 7th, 2014 @ 6:41 pm

    It’s more like a shaved Michael Moore!

  20. Zohydro
    June 7th, 2014 @ 6:42 pm

    Huh?

  21. Steve Skubinna
    June 7th, 2014 @ 6:53 pm

    “the triumphant potential of sisterhood.”

    Who are all behind bars because why? They’re, uh, criminals?

    Oh, right, and the patriarchy.

  22. Steve Skubinna
    June 7th, 2014 @ 6:55 pm

    I think Ann Heche had some sort of major meltdown and then married a guy.

    Whether she’s still, uh… dunno. Nor do I really care.

  23. Cactus Ed
    June 7th, 2014 @ 6:57 pm

    Well, try this on for size: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1KvgtEnABY

  24. Patrick Carroll
    June 7th, 2014 @ 6:58 pm

    This may be what happens when you fuck a person in the ass.

  25. Patrick Carroll
    June 7th, 2014 @ 6:58 pm

    Oh the huge manatee!

  26. Patrick Carroll
    June 7th, 2014 @ 6:59 pm

    Satire takes a light touch. You don’t have it.

  27. Steve Skubinna
    June 7th, 2014 @ 7:03 pm

    I do not avoid women, Mandrake. But I do deny them my essence.

  28. Patrick Carroll
    June 7th, 2014 @ 7:04 pm

    OK. I’m permanently off Subway tuna salad sandwiches.

  29. Steve Skubinna
    June 7th, 2014 @ 7:05 pm

    You’re right, you don’t have to explain anything to anybody.

    Is that what the voices tell you?

    BTW, newsletter? Subscription, ASAP!

  30. Steve Skubinna
    June 7th, 2014 @ 7:06 pm

    Shut up, Donny! You’re out of your element!

  31. Steve Skubinna
    June 7th, 2014 @ 7:13 pm

    Still go for fish tacos, though, right?

  32. Art Deco
    June 7th, 2014 @ 7:13 pm

    You recall Sailer’s Law of Female Journalism?

    Sailer’s Law of Female Journalism: The most heartfelt articles by female
    journalists tend to be demands that social values be overturned in
    order that, Come the Revolution, the journalist herself will be
    considered hotter-looking.

  33. Patrick Carroll
    June 7th, 2014 @ 7:26 pm

    Heh.

    Situational.

  34. rsmccain
    June 7th, 2014 @ 8:17 pm

    RT @AviWoolf: Orange is the New Black as ‘Feminist Lezzy Heaven’ http://t.co/VNFFNQ5UiT #YesAllWomen @rsmccain

  35. jakee308
    June 7th, 2014 @ 9:39 pm

    “no fan of Orange Is the New Black cares what I think, because I’m just a morally reprehensible gatekeeper of sexism.”

    No. It’s because you’re MALE.

    Does this mean that all the commercials that demean men since about the ’80’s have been written by lesbians?

  36. jakee308
    June 7th, 2014 @ 9:43 pm

    My. That’s a pretty broad brush you’re painting with RFM.

    Although there are more bad guards and cops than there should be (and sadly growing in number) to make the statement as “all” is a bit over the top.

    Trust me, if they were “all” that bad, the prisons would be in perpetual riot as the inmates would have nothing to lose.

  37. jakee308
    June 7th, 2014 @ 9:47 pm

    Ah. RFM’s true self emerges. Don’t you have a party to poop somewhere else?

    It would be a waste of my time to refute every mistaken perception revealed in your comment let alone critique your lack of knowledge and experience.

  38. rsmccain
    June 7th, 2014 @ 9:58 pm

    @KateOH I’d heard about #FakingIt while researching #OITNB, another lesbian pop culture product. http://t.co/RBeLNSvXwc

  39. AderalApocalyps
    June 7th, 2014 @ 11:36 pm

    RT @AviWoolf: Orange is the New Black as ‘Feminist Lezzy Heaven’ http://t.co/VNFFNQ5UiT #YesAllWomen @rsmccain

  40. Adjoran
    June 8th, 2014 @ 12:22 am

    They say beauty is only skin deep.

    We could skin her.

  41. Adjoran
    June 8th, 2014 @ 12:25 am

    No, he’s saying he’s got no data and he resents Cactus Ed pointing that out.

  42. Adjoran
    June 8th, 2014 @ 12:26 am

    My first thought was, “Schmalfeldt got a rug?”

  43. Adjoran
    June 8th, 2014 @ 12:31 am

    Being the “morally reprehensible gatekeeper of sexism” is dirty work, but somebody’s got to do it. Thank you for your service.

    Of course, the book is fiction. She did go to prison, but it was minimum security and there was no violence. She did not have sex while inside or reveal her lesbian tendencies. Her main complaint was bad food and sanitation, and the anecdote she most repeated about what she learned in prison was about making cheesecake with a microwave.

    We shoulda known, every single word out of a feminist’s mouth is a lie. http://uproxx.it/1kCHxoK

  44. Funeral guy
    June 8th, 2014 @ 3:21 am

    I’m conservative as they come and I find the show pretty entertaining. Sometimes I just gotta leave the politics at the door.

  45. James_cmb
    June 8th, 2014 @ 6:43 am

    A whole lot of what’s wrong with the world in one TV show http://t.co/lZuu2okcnE

  46. FMJRA 2.0: A Day Late And A (Silver) Dollar Short : The Other McCain
    June 8th, 2014 @ 9:11 am

    […] ‘Feminist Lezzy Heaven’ […]

  47. Patrick Carroll
    June 8th, 2014 @ 10:15 am

    “Back i’ the loch wi’ ye, Nessie.”

  48. ThePaganTemple
    June 8th, 2014 @ 11:44 am

    I think that’s one reason the show might be so popular. To it’s credit, it doesn’t portray all the women as glamorous, gorgeous movie star divas. I haven’t seen it, but if I understand it correctly, think in terms of Charlize Theron in Monster. That’s actually a good thing.

  49. ThePaganTemple
    June 8th, 2014 @ 11:45 am

    I was disappointed to learn it is seemingly a comedy. If it was a really dark comedy, then fine, but it’s a subject matter that s=deserves to be taken seriously, albeit with a healthy dose of gallows humor.

  50. ThePaganTemple
    June 8th, 2014 @ 11:45 am

    That was a stupid career move that backfired right in her face.