‘Feminist Lezzy Heaven’

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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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102 comments

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

    Are you part of the neo-Marxist sodality?

  4. 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. 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. 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.

  10. 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.

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

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

  19. “the triumphant potential of sisterhood.”

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

    Oh, right, and the patriarchy.

  20. 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.

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

    Is that what the voices tell you?

    BTW, newsletter? Subscription, ASAP!

  30. 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.

  32. “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?

  33. 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.

  34. 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. 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

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

  42. 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.

  43. 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.

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