THE PERFECT WOMEN-IN-PRISON FLICK
by
Joe Doe
First, sorry to say, this isn't a review of the best WIP movie
ever, with a link to download it for free. Instead, this is my
response to the essay by Pat Powers, "The Perfect Women in Prison
Movie."
www.bondagerotica.com/articles/women_in_prison_movies/best_women_in_prison_movie.html
He makes a number of interesting points that I agree with:
1) The heroine is placed in both a sympathetic and a submissive
role. You can feel sorry for her and root for her while
simultaneously enjoying the fantasy of watching a beautiful
woman in chains.
2) Part of the pleasure is in watching women "institutionalized"
-– from "reception" on, they are systematically degraded by
an indifferent bureaucracy designed to subdue and humiliate
them.
3) Finally, and I'll quote Powers directly, on this one: "Finally
-- and this is extremely important -- prisoners have had a huge
fall from grace, sliding from the relatively protected environs
of society to the lowly status of prisoner."
I agree that this third element is most important, and it dovetails
nicely with my examination of "The Perfect Strip Search Story –-
Marcy"s First Time." (If you"re reading this, Dudley, I'm still
waiting for the follow-up posting about Marcy's other visit to
County, where she wore a lot of clothes.)
Powers recognizes that the essence of these stories is the contrast
between the heroine's former situation of status and power, and her
lowly situation now.
Mr. Powers, again:
"So you start out with the strip searches and the body cavity
search. And you don't portray it as impersonal and institutional.
You focus on the people. This is where the women's WIP movies that
show up on the Lifetime Sentence Channel excel. They show the
woman who was dressed nicely and surrounded by friends on the
outside, now a naked woman bending over, legs spread (a powerful
posture of submission), listening uneasily as the guard pulls on
a latex glove, and then there's a close up on her face while she"s
grimacing as the guard probes her vagina and anus."
I think this is a good guide to writing stories for this board.
Don't focus on the mechanics of the situation. "I was going
through airport security, when suddenly...." Even if you were
searched by R2D2, the basic mechanics are all the same. Focus
on the psychology of the situation. Who was watching? A friend?
A co-worker? A subordinate? How did they feel about your
predicament? And how did that make YOU feel?
How did it make you feel when you performed a slow striptease to
order? What was the guard"s reaction? How did you feel when they
slipped on the glove and gave you the order to bend over?
Mr. Power also suggests frequent public bondage, which is an
interesting idea, and it's one that I don't use as much in my
stories as I might.
"You show women in chains wherever possible, and as often as
possible, especially in public, most especially before friends
and relatives -- something many WIP films are strangely shy about
doing. Most female prisoners are cuffed in front and wear belly
chains, but it"s better to have them chained with their wrists
behind them to increase their vulnerability."
He nails the key idea, the humiliation of the situation, by
suggesting the woman be bound in public, preferably in front of
friends and relatives who knew her in her previous incarnation.
It's much more mortifying to be in chains when you're the only
one so bound, and people you know are there. It's the psychology
that I liked so much in my essay, "Tibool's Pictures."
www.asstr.org/files/Authors/C_Lakewood/Stories%20by%20Joe%20Doe/Tibool"s%20Pictures.txt
The picture itself is here:
http://www.chainganggirls.com/images/tib36.jpg
What makes this so erotic is the contrast between the casual
editor, dressed in his suit-and-tie, and the tense, know-it-all
reporter, cuffed, barefoot, with the sores from the chaingang cuffs
clearly visible on her bare ankles, dressed in the humiliating
uniform her undercover assignment requires. She was once virtually
his peer on the newspaper, but now the body language says it all.
The editor, with his legs casually crossed, leans back comfortably
on the bench as he literally talks down to the reporter. She,
humiliated, in contrast, nervously kneads her fingers together as
she leans forward in a submissive, defensive crouch.
Powers also favors prostitution scenarios, of which you find a lot
in my stories. Real prostitution (like prison) is nasty stuff,
but, as a fantasy, it's a good way to enforce the heroine's sense
of helplessness. The only thing she has left to offer is her body,
and, even then, the goods (and the profits) belong to someone else.
We do have a slightly different take on the REASON for the
incarceration. He seems to favor women falsely imprisoned
on bogus charges, and reasons that it's more dramatic to see
an ordinary housewife experience a "fall from grace" than a
prostitute or female gang leader. I agree, but I think the
contrast is even MORE powerful if the woman is going into
prison voluntarily, as part of some sort of undercover assignment.
Since this is the main area where we differ, I'll concentrate on
our difference here in more detail.
Being a police officer or an FBI agent is a woman's ultimate power
trip. And she may be in prison to expose the corruption behind
bars. But, paradoxically, to achieve that end she must surrender
all of her authority and play the victim.
Consider the episode of "Law & Order SVU" where Detective Olivia
Benson goes undercover in a woman"s prison. She is the prototype
of an intelligent, powerful career woman, and the audience is used
to seeing her in the superior position, busting bad guys and
comforting the victims of abuse. But, in this episode, she must
play the victim, emotionally and mentally. The writers clearly
understand the powerful psychology of the situation. Her captain
warns her: "If you go inside you'll have no authority, no rights,
no backup." In other words, she will be stripped of everything
and become just another victim, a point emphasized in the
melodramatic voice-over read by the show's psychiatrist as we
watch the once powerful detective being "processed": the trial,
the prison bus, the cuffed march into prison, the strip search,
the shower, the frisk by a male guard.
"Abusive father, abusive husband. Just like all the other inmates.
You"re a target for abuse. Every man's punching bag. At times,
you will feel humiliated and...degraded. You'll have no privacy.
You'll shower, sleep, dress, and use the toilet in full view of
other people. You're going to see things you want to stop with
every fiber of your being. But you can't react. Ever."
No, my friends, Joe Doe or Lakewood didn't write the narration.
This really was on network TV. See the clip here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUSCUp0ql-E&feature=related
Although it's a different scenario, its psychology (and the
breathless narration) is similar to the incident where Tyra
Banks went into prison for her talk show to see what it was
like. In her blog she said she went because she was
"fascinated" with prison, but it takes only a few minutes
to transform her from a powerful talk show host and wealthy
supermodel to just another black girl in prison.
The video is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwgIZQDY5zc
As with Tibool's picture, sometime a single image can perfectly
crystallize the psychology of a situation:
http://www.aolcdn.com/channels/07/02/446b5b1f-0007a-033d1-400cb8e1
Tyra's dull, grim expression and thousand-yard-stare as she stands
naked before the camera, clutching her prisoner ID and her orange
scrubs, makes it clear that the former supermodel knows what it is
to be "processed." Powerful and in charge only a few minutes
before, now she's just another con.
The "undercover" scenario is a popular one on television, with
both reporters and fictional heroines shucking down and bending
over so that justice can be done. A few favorites:
Charlie's Angels: Angels in Chains
Charlie's Angels: Caged Angels
The Fall Guy: Prisoner (available on Youtube)
Mutant X: The Taking of Crows
Silk Stalkings: The Party
Third Watch: Leap of Faith
The Mutant X example is unusual in that you see the girl's reaction
during the cavity search, which I'd never seen in a TV show before.
The Third Watch and Fall Guy examples are unusual, since the
detective and the bounty hunter characters are incarcerated on
bogus charges and have to face prison without even the flimsy
safety net of being undercover. In this way, they are more similar
in tone to "GOTHIKA," where the lovely psychiatrist, played by
Hallie Berry, finds herself imprisoned in her own asylum.
In the 1972 TV movie "Women in Chains" (also called "Terror in
Cellblock C") the undercover safety net vanishes. Lois Nettleton
plays a goody-goody parole officer who sets up a phony ID for
herself with her co-worker so that she can investigate a series
of mysterious "accidents" in a woman's prison. Basking in
self-righteousness, our intrepid reformer truly goes all the
way: not only does she fake a prison record for herself and put
needle marks in her arms, she actually dyes her hair blonde.
Unfortunately, her co-worker (the only other person who knows
about her field trip) is accidentally killed, and our little
princess is in prison for real.
This scenario offers the best of both worlds: a voluntary
incarceration where the cavalry is destroyed on the way.
Some highlights:
a) In reception, our undercover officer endures a most unpleasant
delousing. One particular shot shows a prisoner's point-of-view,
with the hose spraying directly at the camera. I liked that shot
a lot, and it made me think about how much (even for guys)
submission scenarios are fantasy fulfillments. After all, when
you write, or fantasize, you are all the characters, and think of
things from their point of view. My stories, for example, are much
more from the woman's point of view than the guy's. Interesting....
b) Surprised that no one comes to rescue her, she sneaks to a phone
and calls her friend for help. Horrified to learn that her friend
has been killed, she asks for her boss, only to have the temp
secretary put her on hold. She pleads for her to listen, but the
muzak starts. (Ha! I guess in the modern version her call would
be transferred to India.) The guards burst in and drag her away
from the phone just as her boss comes on the line.
c) At the end of the film, when she reveals to the other inmates
that she"s really a parole officer trapped on the inside and
targeted for termination by the head matron, she gets little
sympathy. Rather than protecting her, they accuse her of slumming,
and basically tell her, "Welcome to our world, bitch!" I think
this scene also hits on a key element of these stories. The
undercover officer is, on some level, being punished for her
arrogance in thinking that she can "handle" prison. After all,
she"s a cop, and she"s thrown lots of girls in jaill. How much
different can it be to be on the receiving end? Lots different,
as she finds out to her dismay (and the audience's delight).
You can see the teaser and the first couple of minutes of this
movie (and a brief glimpse of the delousing scene) here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgQmMRTJt0g&feature=related
Silk Stalkings isn't seen on television much nowadays, and it's an
interesting hybrid of genres, so it deserves a mention. In this
one, Detective Cassie St. John (played by the lovely Janet Gunn -–
google her picture for a treat!) is stopped for speeding in a small
southern town. She identifies herself as a police officer, but,
unfortunately, she left her badge and gun in her other purse. (I
hate it when that happens.)
The Sheriff hauls her off to jail, and, from her cell, she asks him
to call her superior, Captain Bristol. The Sheriff tells her he
already called, and the Palm Beach police department claims they
never heard of her. Cassie pleads that it's obviously a dreadful
and totally inexplicable mix-up (the audience will agree with her
on that point), but, locked in a cell, what's a girl (or a viewer)
to do?
She ends up in court, where she argues with the judge over the
amount of her fine (always a good idea) and gets sentenced to
duty at the Charlie's Angels Prison Farm. And so our intrepid
lady detective is dutifully "processed" into prison, and given
hoe duty (the kind where you actually farm).
At this point, she makes a call to her aunt and tells her that
she's going to be late for her niece's birthday party (at this
rate, by about 3-5 years). When she hangs up the phone, it's
revealed that she's actually been talking to her captain...and
that she"s undercover.
This makes no sense whatsoever, of course. If she's undercover,
why have her go in claiming to be herself and identifying herself
as a police officer? Wouldn't that make her investigation of the
prison a tad more difficult?
Clearly the writers were having fun with the notion of the powerful
and in-charge Detective Cassie having an incredibly ditzy blonde
moment and losing her badge and gun, at the same moment her police
department decides to execute the bureaucratic blunder of all time
by forgetting who she was. They wanted to enjoy the sensation of
having her trapped in a situation of ACTUAL powerlessness, as
opposed to the more limited powerlessness that a genuine undercover
assignment implies. Trapped in a real prison on real charges,
Cassie has "no authority, no rights, no backup."
Sorry. Wrong show. Anyway, once it's established she's there
undercover, we get a nice shower scene, a white slavery ring,
and a party where Cassie is encouraged to become a ho (the other
kind) So after a cheerfully preposterous setup, they lapse into
standard stuff from the Charlie's Angels playbook.
The setup actually reminds me a playful silly-putty version of LUST
FOR FREEDOM, where a big city police detective is accidentally
chucked into the prison farm as part of the county's free
"incarcerate-the-pretty-travelers" program. Of course, in this
case, it's SLIGHTLY more believable. Detective Jillian Cates stops
to help another woman along the road, only to find that she's an
escapee from the prison. The Sheriff shows up, and Jillian agrees
to accompany him to make a statement. She is drugged, and the
careless deputy ignores the contents of her purse (her badge and
gun) when he processes her. So, by the time she wakes up, she's
in prison, and identifying her true status will only make things
worse.
It also contains one of my favorite scenes. Detective Cates is
accompanying the Sheriff though the yard on her way to make her
statement. On the steps she encounters the brutish head matron,
Miss Tasker, who is dragging another hapless inmate along to some
unspeakable fate.
Detective Cates looks quite fetching in her red shirt and white
shorts, and Miss Tasker ogles her like a horny fraternity boy.
MISS TASKER (looking Jillian up-and-down): Is she staying with us?
JILLIAN (shocked!): No!
MISS TASKER (to the Sheriff, ignoring Jillian): Is she staying with
us?
SHERIFF: Go about your business, Miss Tasker.
I love Jillian's shocked reply, and the way the butch Miss Tasker
ignores her, as if her answer is entirely irrelevant -- because it
is. The irony is that our comely detective doesn't know her fate
is entirely in the Sheriff's tender hands, at least not yet. She
still sees herself as Detective Cates and doesn't realize that,
when she crossed into the prison, she became just another inmate.
I'd love to discuss "HEAT IN THE HOLE" from Pacific Blue, but
apparently no Spanish-speaking people read the board and are
willing to translate the Spanish language scene I've been
puzzling over for years. (Sigh!) They've released season one
on DVD –- only 4 more seasons to go....
If WIP pictures are studies in power reversals, then the undercover
or falsely imprisoned cop would seem to offer the ultimate version
of this fantasy. What"s my favorite scenario? I'm torn. Although
I love the "undercover" scenario, the sweet revenge on the
psychiatrist in her own asylum, or the total dizziness of a
competent and self-assured police officer like Cassandra Saint John
losing her badge and getting chucked into prison has a certain
delicious appeal. I'd be curious to know what the readers think?
Do you prefer...
1) An undercover cop (Charlie's Angels scenario)
2) An authority figure wrongly imprisoned (Gothika, Third Watch)
3) A reporter or talk show host after a scoop (Tyra, Linsey Mastis)
4) A housewife or college student, wrongly accused (Lifetime)
5) A criminal rightly convicted of her crimes?
I feel a poll coming on....
Edited by C. Lakewood