Girls on Film: Orange is the new black

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Before Piper leaves to spend her first day and night in prison,  she crawls on top of her boyfriend: “we have to make this the stuff of fantasies,” she whispers.  And then they struggle through their tears to force one, last meaningful fuck.

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This, says tv, is what women are. They can be smart and interesting, but above all, they must be nymphos. The entire scene is very beautiful and quite real, but it made me think about how instrumental women are in their own objectification. Television shows get this wrong a lot for me; men are wrongfully vilified as the sole source of objectifying remarks that reduce women to hot, horny things.

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“That’s not the way you treat someone who makes you cum the way I do”

But  the dialogue in Orange is the New Black, a show with an almost entirely female cast, seems to get closer to the truth. Sexual confinement cannot survive unless women adopt chauvinistic ideas as their own and then push them into the world: “ I am a catch because I am beautiful, and smart, and I want to fuck ALL the time.”  

We have come a long way, baby,  but there is no arguing that women internalize and perpetuate their own sexual oppression.  Of course it is empowering for a woman to own her sexuality! For a woman to know what she likes and let it be known, but there is a problem when we believe that intellect is secondary to sex-drive. In a time where identity is intensely contrived, this sort of idea can force the element of performance into areas that should be reserved for intimacy or at least sincere pleasure.

It is true that we didn’t start this damn thing, and that the god damn patriarchy must be stopped, but it’s also true that self-objectifying comments come from women. We make them about ourselves and  we make them about other women, sometimes without even realizing it. In Orange is the New Black, an ultimately empowering show, we can still find traces of self-subversion and self-objectification.

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“I know she is hard to leave. I mean we both know how she is in bed”

I would like to pretend that there is some external force bashing me into submission, telling me that sex- how much I want it, how much I have it, and whom I have it with– is the foundation of who I am.. but I have no doubt that I perpetuate these problems in my own way.

Anywho, do you think my hair looks cute in my default pic?

–

Angie

Never have I ever

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At 12 I didn’t have that

homoerotic

best friendship that I’ve

seen in movies–

I never eased my sweaty

palm into yours

and we never

shared powdery-pink

kisses during sleepovers

just for practice.

I always slept on my side

clinging to a small square of

purple sheet

instead of with you

forehead

to forehead

in a sea of plush blankets

You were always different.

Sometimes Lisa

sometimes Brie

Jenny, Mia, Amy

and those faces in between.

and I always felt alone with you

because we never touched.

–all of you so far away

and me too

smart to reach.

But

I choose to have

your girlish warmth–

—lipstick—

— secrets—

youth

A mirage of adolescent love

to make myself

feel

whole

by Angie Hoover-Hillhouse

The Women

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The women

are made of

heaven’s ruby lips

and honey-colored stares–

——–They are

those

chills

that prickle covered arms

 in the brisk night air-

and

——— those

mysterious

flirtations

that  warm dead fingers

with the electricity

of

promise.

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but deep

in the bones of their pretty feet

—–deep

in the pits

of their brown bellies

is a passion sickened

and pale.

-Too old and beaten

to come

to life

for me.

-Angie Hoover -Hillhouse

What I’ve got they used to call the Blues

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the spirit of her

chaste

young

body

rests behind my slanted eyes—

a geisha

with

porcelain skin

and a heart painted onto

her

voiceless mouth.–

so graceful

as she

dances with paper fans

in silky robes.

—sleep —

—sleep—

For I am strong.

A woman

with feet unbound.

Legs bare

hands free.

And she

is

–a face

weak

and wading

in the milky water

Sunday Morning by Angie Hoover-Hillhouse

Artwork: The Porcelain Mist by Elle Hanley Photography