More thoughts on Orange is the New Black

 

Season 2 of Orange is the New Black offers up plenty of twists, revelations, and conflicts to keep fans busy, but it also provides some nice narrative food for thought.  Today, I want to examine two characters and how race and culture are at play to create different results in similar scenarios.  (Again, a disclaimer:  I’ll be getting into season 2 stuff, especially flashback info from episodes 2 and 3.)

 

We found out last season that Suzanne (a.k.a. Crazy Eyes) is the daughter of two well-to-do-looking white parents, with the obvious implication that she was adopted.  Similarly, Taystee has a line in season 1 about having been a ward of the state until adolescence.  The new episodes give us more information about both of their backgrounds, paying special attention to their experience with adoption or lack thereof.

 

Taystee’s story is sad but undeniably familiar.  It’s unclear how old she was when she was first put up for adoption, but at some point she clearly aged out of a desirably adoptable age.  The smart, spirited girl grows up in group homes, being passed over for those younger, lighter-skinned, straighter-haired, and less forceful.  Her yearning for a “forever family” makes her a prime target for Vee, an opportunistic drug dealer.  Like Fagin before her, Vee preys on cast-off children, grooming them to work for her and offering them the parental figure they’re missing in their lives. 

 

Superficially, Suzanne’s situation appears far better than Taystee’s.  She’s adopted into a well-off, loving family at a young age, raised in suburban comfort.  However, Suzanne’s upbringing has left scars as well.  Her well-intentioned mother loves her dearly and fights tooth and nail for her happiness and inclusion, but Suzanne remains an outsider in her own community.  She grows up among white people (probably exclusively, or nearly so,) where no one quite understands her.  Even something as simple as her hair – when she’s young, her parents leave it large and wild, presumably because they don’t really know what to do with a black girl’s hair.  It’s not until her baby sister is born that it’s first styled, a treat from a black nurse who manages Suzanne with an ease her own mother never achieves.

 

So, in a way, Suzanne is looking for family, too.  Taystee makes friends in prison easily; there’s a common vernacular and cultural bond, and she fits in seamlessly.  Meanwhile, Suzanne struggles to find her place.  In Litchfield, prisoners live according to a “tribal” system in which they mainly associate with members of their own race.  Granted, we don’t know much about what her adult pre-prison life was like, but it seems Suzanne has had limited time socializing with other black people.  I wonder if she was excited when she first discovered a black community at Litchfield, if she finally felt like she belonged somewhere. 

 

But here, too, Suzanne is out of place.  With her Standard American English diction, privileged background, and love of Shakespeare and figure skating, she doesn’t have the shared experience that binds together many of the black inmates, and they tolerate her without really accepting her.  (Note:  Suzanne’s clear but unspecified mental health issues definitely have something to do with it as well – the others tend to treat her more like a “special” mascot than anything else.)  When Vee returns to Litchfield, it’s no wonder she quickly recognizes Suzanne as an easy mark.

Relationship Spotlight: Poussey Washington & Tasha “Taystee” Jefferson (Orange is the New Black)

(Wish I had a picture that let you see more of Taystee than her hair, but I had a hard time finding a good cap with both of them in the same shot, and I think this one captures what they're about, so here we are.)

I just finished the first season of Netflix’s original series Orange is the New Black – in addition to joining the series late, I resisted the siren-song temptation to binge-watch, so it took me a little while.  At any rate, I really enjoyed the prison dramedy and am excited for season 2, coming this summer.  It’s fantastic to see a show with so many female characters in major roles, including characters of different races, orientations, and national origins, as well as characters with disabilities (mental illness in this case.)

 

With a large ensemble, there are a ton of characters to get invested in and plenty of interpersonal relationships to follow.  My favorite wound up being, far and away, the tight, loveable friendship between Taystee and Poussey (for the uninitiated, pronounced “Pu-SAY.”)  It was a little surprising to me, since neither character made a huge impact on me at first.  I was more interested in sarcastic Nicky, resolute Sophia, and unhinged Crazy Eyes.  Taystee was mainly the woman who brawled over ice cream, and Poussey was just sort of anonymous.

 

Things started to change for me in episode 6, “WAC Pack,” in which Taystee joins the campaign race for the Women’s Advisory Council, a representative group for inmates to liaise with the administration.  The pair is on fire in this episode, from Poussey serving as the hype man for Taystee’s campaign speech, to facing off against another candidate in a freestyle-rap battle.  Oh, and there’s their hilarious yuppie impressions as well, putting on white-people accents and yammering about NPR, veganism, and really quiet sex.

 

From there, Taystee and Poussey just get more and more fun to watch.  Stuck in a setting that can be pretty bleak, both characters exude life and joy.  It turns out both are fantastic on their own (I think of Taystee explaining why Ulysses is a better book to use as a step-stool than Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, or Poussey awkwardly trying to scare a girl in a wheelchair straight,) but they’re definitely best as a team.  They seem to have a genuine good time together, whether they’re working in the library or hanging out in the cafeteria, and I get the sense that they’re each other’s lifelines to keep their heads up.  They have an effortless, delightful banter, and they balance each other out; Poussey can keep the more outrageous Taystee grounded, and Taystee can inject a little levity when Poussey gets too intense.

 

They’re clearly supporting players, and they’re often used as comic relief, but as the season goes on, they get some meatier material to work with.  While Taystee works on an appeal, Poussey is her rock, cheerleader, and reality check as needed.  Even though Taystee is her family on the inside, Poussey still roots for her to succeed in getting out.  Late in the season, Poussey opens up to Taystee about some of the struggles hidden behind her antics, and the two share a beautiful heart-to-heart about their prison experiences and how much they mean to each other.

 

Orange is the New Black’s first season was released all at once, when the whole thing was in the can.  I hope that, in the year since then, the creators have seen how great these two are together and how much fan support they have, so we can get even more of this relationship in the second season.