Scattered Observations on Orange Is the New Black

Surveillance of Women

The most important revelation in my blog so far has been the observation that the rise of the surveillance state, as embodied by the Prism program, has resulted in the first comprehensive, constant monitoring of women in the history of the world. The Netflix original series, Orange Is the New Black, addresses this new surveillance of women by examining it within the closed world of prison life, thereby revealing to a wide audience some troubling aspects of surveillance state capitalist patriarchy. 

Persecution of Dissidents

The inmates in OITNB who challenge the state quickly find themselves in either the psych ward or solitary confinement (i.e. "the SHU"), sometimes never reentering the general population, other times returning psychologically decimated. No justification is typically necessary and only because Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling) comes from a wealthy family with access to a public forum does she avoid indefinite detention under inhumane conditions. This is a nod to the growing presence of the surveillance state persecution of dissidents, such as Glenn Greenwald, Chelsea Manning, and Julian Assange,* as well as the legislation and prosecutions stemming from the Green Scare. The extended detention in a London airport of Greenwald's partner, Chelsea Manning's public tarring and feathering, Julian Assange's extended exile in the Ecuadorian embassy, and the prosecution of animal rights and environmental activists as terrorists are all useful examples of the persecution of dissidents. 

Token Women

The state, embodied by men, rules the world. In OITNB the female inmates are constantly monitored by men and a few token women. The women in power within the prison system do not automatically side with the powerless inmates. Natalie Figueroa (Alysia Reiner), the warden's direct subordinate, is only interested in personal gain, as depicted in episode 12 when a journalist inquires about budgetary discrepancies as the camera zooms in on her new Mercedes. The continual failure of token women in power to automatically improve the lot of working class women should serve as a reminder that other women are not automatically feminists or allies in class struggle, something to keep in mind as the Hillary worship begins in a couple of weeks.
 
Although "Red" Reznikov (Kate Mulgrew) appears to be a powerful woman** siding with the powerless by protecting the inmates from narcotic use, her rule against drugs allows the men to control the flow of drugs, causing addicts to deal with power hungry, inevitably underpaid and overworked guards. It also harms vulnerable transwoman, Sophia Burset (Laverne Cox), who experiences a stoppage of hormones through legitimate channels due to alleged budget cuts. Austerity always harms the most vulnerable populations first in surveillance state capitalist patriarchy. Red forbids the smuggling in of estrogen for Sophia--thereby forcing her to desperate measures--under a sweeping War on Drugs. And we all know how effective those are, especially for already marginalized folks.

Susan Fischer (Lauren Lapkus) is a female guard ostensibly on the side of the women inmates, perceiving them as similar to herself. She allows them to sneak out food and socialize during work hours. She tells Piper she perceives them as the same and reopens the running track. However, we will see her "power" decline and her position become precarious since Joe Caputo (Nick Sandow) learned she has a boyfriend and isn't interested in him. Inevitably, when women fall out of favor with men, their lives become hellish.  

Sexual Violence

Women live under constant threat of sexual violence. The most poignant example of the constant threat of rape in OITNB is in episode 8 when George Mendez (Pablo Schreiber)  threatens to rape Lorna Morello (Yael Stone) unless she gives him information about Red's importing methods. The threat is not an explicit one, but everyone knows what he's implying. His next step won't be any fun, for her.

In an omnipotent, omniscient surveillance state, powerless women use rape as a tool of power, of manipulation, in order to control their own destinies and protect their loved ones. In episode 7, Alex Vause (Laura Prepon) threatens to rape "Pennsatucky" Doggett (Taryn Manning) if she won't leave Piper alone and kisses her against her will a couple of episodes later. Daya attempts to frame Mendez for rape to protect the baby she wants to have and her love interest, who would otherwise be blamed for the pregnancy and incarcerated as a sex offender due to the fact that inmates cannot legally give consent.  
 

Compulsory Heterosexuality

The structure of sexual relations between guards and inmates mirrors a Dworkinian critique of heterosexual intercourse under patriarchy as always coerced due to the imbalance of power between the sexes. This critique reflects a radical feminist perception of the inherent subordinate status of women and the corresponding impossibility of consent in heterosexual relations. Within the world of OITNB, inmates cannot legally give consent. Within capitalist patriarchy, says Dworkin and implies OITNB, women cannot genuinely give consent; they are always a lower class, occupying a subordinate position, unable to make free choices.

OITNB and the Evolution of TV

OITNB displays a structural as well as thematic rejection of consumerism. It is part of a recent tide of well-written, often beautifully produced shows structured to omit advertisements, thereby changing the narrative structure--cadence, rhythm--of TV, which has historically been designed around strategically-placed commercial breaks. This new wave recognizes the shift toward streaming-based programs and ad omission through DVR devices, and challenges the ideological status of TV as a tool of consumerism. 

OITNB's accepts existing narrative conventions while expanding and pushing the boundaries of structure and genre, including casting. The show features the first trans* person with a leading role. In Theory of the Film, Bela Balazs, writing about the development of film (and later sound in film), posited that when a new genre is emerging, for it to revolutionize art, for Art History to be made, existing forms are torn asunder. In OITNB is the evolution and perhaps the death knell of traditional television.

Part of OITNB's rejection of ads is inherent in its streaming-only format, which I predict we will see much more of in the near future, and part is in its subversion of the traditional role of TV as modeling consumerism, not only in commercials between programming segments, but also within itself in the form of product placement, the strategic appearance of products to influence viewers to desire and purchase them. The characters in OITNB wear only the barest makeup, a bit of eyeliner here, a dab of smuggled lipstick there; there is no designer clothing, not much clothing at all beyond jumpsuits; no trendsetting purses; no Spanx; and feminine pads serve as shoes. There is no place for selling in the narrative of OITNB. This is a drastic deviation from traditional TV.     

It is worth noting when a genre begins to shift and evolve, especially one as widely consumed as TV. Marxists should always be prepared to observe new developments and changes to the superstructure not only because they reflect shifts in the base, but also because a keen understanding of cultural phenomena allows us to more effectively communicate with fellow and potential anticapitalists and adapt our organizing strategies.  

*This is not an uncritical endorsement of Assange, who may or may not be a rapist.

** I would even challenge the assertion that Red was ever in an actual position of power. Within the inmate population, she indeed held some influence due to her position as head chef and her ability to withhold food and control the drug supply. However, this power was granted only at the whim of the guards and administrators. As soon as she angers them, she is quickly replaced and finds herself being starved out by the new head chef, further depicting that women's lives become wretched once they displease men/the state

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the NSA

Our first guest post, by John Wolfe.

The recent leak of NSA documents by Edward Snowden has confirmed what nearly everyone has long suspected about the extent of the surveillance conducted by the U.S. Government. The public reaction has been predictable. On the one hand, many are outraged. This outrage is interesting in itself. It cuts across the nominal political affiliations dividing society, uniting libertarians and leftists, as well as significant fractions of mainline Democrats and Republicans. On the other hand, supporters of the current administration have deployed rhetoric which, although it for the most part falls short of outright defending NSA activities, seeks to minimize the importance of the leak. A rather unsystematic and impressionistic survey of internet chatter about the case reveals two main strategies of minimization. One is the pose of the jaded cynic. Those who are upset by the contents of the leaked information will be told that everyone has already known about this for years, and asked why they are so upset now. This is uninteresting, and ignores the distinction between well-founded suspicion and undeniable confirmation. The second strategy is to ask what the difference is between the recently revealed government data mining, and the corporate surveillance we have all endured for years. After all, we have become accustomed to, if not exactly comfortable with, extremely elaborate and invasive data collection and synthesis from the likes of Facebook, Google, and even our local supermarkets for years now. What does it matter if the government gets in on this game? This objection, unlike the first, deserves some examination.

It is certainly true that we have been always been surveilled by internet providers, marketing departments and others well into the past. However, I would argue that something markedly different is going on here. What we have is nearly complete, real time, identifiable data on everyone. It was disturbing enough to know that this data was collected and utilized by various corporations. But this kind of polycentric surveillance is different from having all of this data funneled into one central authority, an authority controlled by the entity that deploys the more violent forms of power in our society.

To restate the above in a slightly different way, there is a qualitative difference between being surveilled by a thousand petty authorities, often acting at cross-purposes, and having one major authority collect nearly all of this data. The very centralization is significant in its own right. However, the petty authorities and the central authority have different agendas. As pernicious as corporate surveillance was and is, it really was not about us. What Wal-Mart and CVS wanted to accomplish was selling more of their products and the data collected on individuals was merely instrumental. What Google and Facebook want is to increase their profits, and they want to hawk the data the collect to people who want to sell more things in order to do this. Their activities are merely avaricious, not malicious. What the NSA and its associated agencies want to accomplish is about us. They are policing the general population. Gathering as much data on individuals as possible is itself the purpose. 

It is sometimes additionally said by liberal defenders of these programs that since we are just dealing with surveillance, rather than grosser “rights violations” there is little to worry about. Observation is not control. However, this is a naïve view. We have known better for years. One of the central insights of Foucault's work, particularly Discipline and Punish, is that observation itself functions as a system of control. Under surveillance of any sort people are understood, and come to understand themselves, not as agents but as sites for the generation of data. Under this self-understanding people come to internalize the surveillance, deploy it against themselves. More simply, if one knows that they are always under observation, they will alter their behavior accordingly. Now if this kind of surveillance is a form of control, then to call these NSA programs "totalitarian" is not the least bit hysterical—it is to pay attention to the conventional meaning of the word, namely the use of state power to control every aspect of life.

What is most remarkable here is the ways in which corporate giants like Verizon and Google simply rolled over and acceded to the government's demands. Make no mistake, this was clearly against their individual business interests. Google, for example, has constructed its public image as a defender of internet freedoms, with, for example, their staunch opposition to CISPA. All these companies do international business, and to run the risk of being revealed as effectively agents of the U.S. government is to risk the worst kind of damage to reputation and profits. We have become used to a situation where civil government becomes a puppet of corporate interests, yet here we see the reverse, corporations placing themselves at the disposal of the government for no clear gain.

Now, of course, we have witnessed a stream of carefully worded denials from the companies concerned and assorted government spokespeople who attempt to assure us that the extent of surveillance is not what the leaked documents indicate, and the cooperation of the named companies is far more limited. There may be an element of truth to this, but, at the same time, we must realize that of course this is what they would say. When interpreting secret and sinister activities, one must give more weight to the documents that the actors wish you hadn't seen, rather than to the polished presentations they want you to see. 

So, on the face of it, we see a major integration of corporate power into the state in a way which creates a new totalitarianism. The question then becomes, what does this mean for the left. I argue that, counterintuitvely, this is very good news indeed.  

Traditional leftist theory always centered around the state. Whether the objective was reform, seizure, or abolition, the state was always the main target. However, since at least the time of Marcuse, and accelerated by the failures of the May '68, leftists have come to regard the formal apparatus of "the state" as irrelevant. We have come to analyze the exercise of power in terms of broader systems of power. Herbert Marcuse, for example, made a monolithic, homogenizing entity known as “Advanced Industrial Society” the central actor in his story. Foucault spent his entire career elaborating a theory detailing the ways in which a decentralized power not vested in any one individual or group shapes everyone in a society. When one is fighting a system so broad, the options are limited. “The state” can be pressured or seized, “Advanced Industrial Society” cannot. 

Such a totalizing system leaves only two options. One may settle into a sort of quiescence, as Marcuse and his Frankfurt School compatriots seemed to do at their worst moments, or one may seek alternative forms of resistance. I think here of those currents within Occupy who regarded the primary purpose of the protests as “modeling a new kind of society” and showing people that “another world is possible.” Of course, few people were impressed by a “new kind of society” centered around sleeping on pavement and relying on the largesse of others for food. Theatrical strategies such as this seemed doomed from the outset.  

However, now, at least in the U.S., the state seems to be reasserting itself as the central organ of class power, which is an event of historical significance. The means of this reassertion is the apparatus of "security" in general, and surveillance in particular. The other organs of bourgeois power, the multinational corporations, are submitting themselves again to the formal apparatus of the state, at this point, only behind closed doors, but it may become more explicit in the future. 

We may still lack a suitable unified revolutionary subject, but our enemies have conveniently reunified themselves. As consolidation in one side of a conflict tends to lead to consolidation of the other side, we have every reason to hope for greater popular unity. So let's get back to targeting the state while the opportunity is ripe.