Why 'Orange is the New Black' is pretty brilliant.

Orange is the New Black. My new obsession. It went from seeing an advert for it on TV,  to consuming the whole season within days. My love for this show has not stopped there. I now follow the related twitter accounts, actor's twitters, scroll through the growing GIFs of the show on tumblr and die with happiness when I see cast members posting "behind-the-scene" pictures on Instagram. The fact that the cast hang out with each other outside the show makes me love them even more. Could they be any more perfect!? This buzzfeed article captures my feelings towards the cast pretty well. And I am now re-watching the 13 episode season, as a way to cope with the sad reality that season two is a year away.

So why I am writing this on my blog? Well because this show is brilliant in so many ways I had to share it. Its emotional, it's dramatic and it's hilarious. But one of the biggest reasons why it is so brilliant is how ground breaking it is. Making new waves in the entertainment we watch out in the TV world!

The whole show is based around a women's prison in NY. The story of Piper Chapman, who enters the correctional institution for smuggling in drug money, something she did 10 years ago. As the season goes on, you learn more about her life as well as her fellow inmates and their experience in prison. There are many better synopses out there but there is one thing I can say, it's not necessarily what you expect. A story of prisoners, their life in prison, the bad choices they got them in there. Yet the show, to me,  reveals how although these women made a bad choice. They themselves are not bad people.

 A heavily dominant cast of women makes the show pretty refreshing. Such a brilliant cast of female characters, it makes it ever more clear that there is not one way a women should be. Women don't have to feminine and look girly. In a world that seems to suggest that women need to dress and look a certain way. I love how these women are totally themselves and don't feel they need to conform to be anything other than who they are.

All types of ethnicities and cultures are represented. The three main groups are Black, Hispanic and White. In a humorous way you see how the lives of each ethnic group are separate, how the prison canteen and sleeping areas are divided. Yet they don't stay exclusively within their group. When prison elections are held,  inmates divide between the set groups: Black, Hispanic, White, Goldies and other (asians).

Sexuality is also a key theme within the show. Uzo Adubu, who plays inmate Suzanne "Crazy Eyes" talks about sexuality in the show in an interview and I think she explains it pretty well.

 "It [the show] crosses every arena in terms of sex, sexuality. It lets people who are open, fluid, defined, whatever! You can be any place in this show."[x]

It is for these reasons why I think this show is pretty special and why I recommend it to anyone. There are characters which represent all walks of life, in terms of Ethnicity/Sexuality/Gender/Age/Income. As many articles on the show have explained, these are the stories of women that have not been seen on TV and yet OITNB is exposing its audience to so many of these types of characters. A great example the character Sophia, a transwomen, played by Laverne Cox, also a transgender women herself.

Thanks for reading! x

Trailer - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nryWkAaWjKg
https://twitter.com/OITNB

Sexism: Examples in Sport, Politics and Film.

The news stories have recently got me riled up. Therefore I wanted to highlight some examples of sexism that have frustrated me in particular.

Sport.
The Women's Tennis Champion Marion Bartoli. This blog posts highlights the disgusting and enraging comments made towards her.You can read it for yourself.
 http://publicshaming.tumblr.com/post/54864863081/womens-wimbledon-champion-marion-bartoli-deemed
What makes the whole thing even more depressing is that John Iverdale, the Radio 5 live commentator, commented on Bartoli's win by saying  "I just wonder if her dad, because he has obviously been the most influential person in her life, did say to her when she was 12, 13, 14 maybe, 'listen, you are never going to be, you know, a looker.".
 And its the sad fact that a male sport person never has to worry about the way they look, they just perform and if they are not necessarily conventionally attractive, it doesn't matter! In fact it doesn't even pass through anyone's mind to comment on it. Yet the way a women looks in sports is somehow relevant enough to be commented on and surely must be relevant to their performance! People commenting that Bartoli was sweaty and using that to put her down. Wow, she was sweating, no shit!

Politics
Another example I want to highlight is with the case of Julia Gillard. Now whether you think she should have been removed as Prime Minister or not, and whether you think she was a good leader or not, is not what I want to address. What I want to address is how she has been treated by the media. In an interview, a radio DJ asked her if her partner was gay, because he was a hairdresser. Why did this even seem an appropriate question to ask her. We can all assume that an interview with a male person of similar position say Paul Rudd, or Tony Abbott, would not have been asked such an inappropriate question. I really recommend this guardian article. It shows how difficult her position was, being the first Australian Prime Minister. That she can't just be seen as a Prime Minister like all others before her, but because being the first Female PM she put on a pedal stool and heavily criticised.

Film.
How Scarlett Johansson gets asked questions about her underwear and her diet while her co-star Robert Downey Jr is asked a serious questions about his character.

http://boston.ihollaback.org/2012/08/21/sexism-in-the-media-and-street-harassment/

Its this idea that women have to look conventionally pretty and if not they are not worthy of respect and can't be praised for their achievements. It's this idea that someone finds it perfectly acceptable to ask a women questions that are obvious inappropriate and humiliating. Its this idea that for a female actor, its more important to know how she fits into her clothes, what she eats to keep her figure and what underwear she wears rather than asking her a serious question about her role in a film.