American Mass Incarceration and Post-Network Quality Television: Captivating Aspirations 9789048553686

Table of contents :
Table of Contents
The Captivating Aspirations of Post-Network Quality Television in the Age of Mass Incarceration: An Introduction
1. Mass (Mediating) Incarceration
2. How Does Violent Spectacle Appear as TV Realism? Sources of OZ’s Penal Imaginary
3. If It’s Not TV, is It Sociology? The Wire
4. Is Entertainment the New Activism? Orange Is the New Black, Women’s Imprisonment, and the Taste for Prisons
5. Can Melodrama Redeem American History? Ava DuVernay’s 13th and Queen Sugar
Conclusion: American Politics and Prison Reform after TV’s Digital Turn
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Index

Citation preview

American Mass Incarceration and Post-Network Quality Television

American Mass Incarceration and Post-Network Quality Television Captivating Aspirations

Lee A. Flamand

Amsterdam University Press

Cover illustration: by Lee A. Flamand Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6372 505 7 e-isbn 978 90 4855 368 6 doi 10.5117/9789463725057 nur 670 © Lee A. Flamand / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2022 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book.



Table of Contents

The Captivating Aspirations of Post-Network Quality Television in the Age of Mass Incarceration: An Introduction Remediating Mass Incarceration The Political Economy of Post-Network Television Our Scheduled Programming

7 11 17 22

1. Mass (Mediating) Incarceration 29 Captivity by the Numbers 29 Invisible Punishments & Revolving Doors 30 Socialized Precarity & Captive Profits 33 Punitive Realism & Unruly Spectacles 36 Conclusion 47 2. How Does Violent Spectacle Appear as TV Realism?Sources of OZ’s Penal Imaginary 53 Welcome to OZ 53 What is TV Realism? 56 The Prison as Hyper-Real Institution 69 Looks Like America? Populating the Prison Nation 76 Haunting Repetitions: Plotting the Prison’s Archive 84 Bizarre Realism 97 Conclusion 100 3. If It’s Not TV, is It Sociology? The Wire 105 A Surprising Debate 105 Procedural Anxieties 112 What is Sociology? 119 Tele-visualizing the Surveillance Society 126 Soft Eyes and the Sociological Imaginary 132 Sociological Ambitions: Reform, Critique, Utopia 142 Reassembling Mass Incarceration 153 The Cultural Contradictions of Sociological Aspirations 156 Conclusion 161

4. Is Entertainment the New Activism?Orange Is the New Black, Women’s Imprisonment, and the Taste for Prisons 167 We’re Not in OZ Anymore 167 Scripting Prison Practices 172 Foregrounding Backstories through the Penological Carousel 174 Celebrity and the Politics of Trans-Televisibility 180 Articulating Communities of Concern 195 Finding Oneself There: Inmate Receptions 206 Feedback Loops, Recommendation Engines, and the Taste for Prisons 213 Conclusion 216 5. Can Melodrama Redeem American History?Ava DuVernay’s 13th and Queen Sugar 223 Publicizing Ava DuVernay as Black Feminist Auteur 223 “The Story Never Changes”? 228 History: Assembly Required 235 Homecomings: Melodrama and the State of Innocence 239 The Black Family in American History 244 Black Family Melodrama in the Age of Mass Incarceration 248 The Possibilities and Perils of Popularizing Radical Epistemologies 256 Conclusion 263

Conclusion: American Politics and Prison Reform after TV’s Digital Turn

269

Bibliography

283

Acknowledgements

303

Index

305



The Captivating Aspirations of PostNetwork Quality Televisionin the Age of Mass Incarceration: An Introduction Abstract Why did a President of the USA invite a TV showrunner to the White House? And what does it have to do with mass incarceration? This introduction argues that an inf luential wave of post-network era American television series established their “quality” credentials by advertising themselves as critical interventions into the crisis of mass incarceration. Although these series pushed the frontiers of televisual innovation and helped bring awareness of mass incarceration into the mainstream, their aspirations and achievements cannot be disentangled from their industry patron’s perennially capitalist prerogatives. After elaborating on this book’s key contexts and theoretical investments, it turns to a quick outline of its methods and briefly previews each of the chapters to come. Keywords: American television, mass incarceration, post-network era, new golden age of television, political economy of TV

In 2015, President Obama invited a retired journalist to the White House. At first glance, such an event would seem to be nothing too out of the ordinary. However, this particular journalist had long since left the news business to become one of America’s most celebrated creators of contemporary TV drama. I am speaking of course of David Simon, the creator of one of the most critically acclaimed TV dramas of recent decades: The Wire (2002–2008). Although President Obama succumbed to the urge to confess his fandom for the show, calling it “one of the greatest not just television shows but pieces of art in the last couple of decades” (Simon and Obama) and even letting

Flamand, Lee A., American Mass Incarceration and Post-Network Quality Television: Captivating Aspirations. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2022 doi 10.5117/9789463725057_intro

8

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

slip his favorite character (Omar Little), the topic of conversation did not revolve around the rising cultural distinction of contemporary television, the technology driving it, nor even consequential shifts in the industry and its practices. Nor did the interlocutors dwell too long on Obama’s own fanboy impulses (to Simon’s evident relief). Instead, the two sat down to talk about The Wire’s ostensible relevance for understanding one of the most pressing, yet often ignored, issues in contemporary American society: mass incarceration. The USA has the highest rate of incarceration in the world; with just under 5% of the world’s population, it accounts for nearly 25% of the world’s prisoners (NAACP). Facilitated by illiberal tough-on-crime legislation, the structural and institutional legacies of slavery and Jim Crow, and a futile War on Drugs, mass incarceration has wrought catastrophe upon the economic, social, political, and personal prospects of millions of Americans. Although increasingly punitive criminal justice policies began taking off in the 1970s, they are themselves historically implicated in the intersecting blights of racial segregation and poverty, aggravated in turn over the course of the late 20th century by the deindustrialization of the American economy and the concurrent neoliberal dismantling of the welfare state. Americans are not equally susceptible to these hardships; rather, mass incarceration takes a particularly outsized toll on already vulnerable communities of color. Social scientists and historians have done a good job of documenting the “tough-on-crime” political rhetoric and an attendant “punitive turn” in public policy and criminal law which have spurred mass incarceration over the course of the late 20th century. The fallout from these repressive criminal justice policies, including the War on Drugs, has had a disproportionate impact on the urban poor in general and young men of color in particular. Such disproportionalities have occurred largely as the result of the unequal application of supposedly “colorblind” policies (Alexander 101–102). Although the letter of the law is ostensibly raceneutral, zero-tolerance policing practices such as New York City’s infamous “stop-and-frisk” policy have resulted in the repressive over-policing of precarious and historically marginalized communities of color (KaplanLyman 180). Furthermore, the “collateral consequences” associated with incarceration have not only plagued ex-prisoners long after release but have also rent apart families and strained the social threads holding together many already fragile communities (Travis 16; Hagan and Ronit 122). This situation is exacerbated in turn by still other forms of persistent if often covert racism, including discrimination in housing, employment,

The Captivating Aspir ations of Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

9

and credit markets (Pager and Shepherd 187–192). The stigma that comes with a criminal record keeps those who enter the system subsequently disenfranchised, unable to collect social benefits, and largely locked out of the rest of society. In spite of efforts by academics, journalists, and activists to illuminate issues surrounding mass incarceration, consistent demonization of these communities in the media has ensured that the majority of Americans are largely ignorant of them. Until only recently, many Americans viewed skewed racial outcomes, if they were aware of them at all, as the result of a “culture of poverty” rather than embedded historical structures, systemic racism, or governmental policies applied from above (Beckett and Sasson 97–101). To a great extent, American mass media functioned to shore up these misconceptions. TV is arguably the primary medium through which most Americans come to learn about and understand their wider world. And yet, with a few important exceptions, American news media largely elided critical coverage of mass incarceration until well into the f irst decade of the 21st century, focusing instead on particularly spectacular tales of gruesome crime and victimization or the shrill, attention-grabbing rhetoric of tough-on-crime politicians and pundits. Meanwhile, viewers were rarely exposed to the necessary contextual knowledge which would allow them to adequately evaluate such claims, let alone parse the images and rhetoric accompanying them. This may have been in large part due to the historical structure of the American television industry, which had long been dominated by the “big three” broadcast networks (ABC, NBC, CBS), later augmented by a host of cable offerings which initially produced little in the way of original programming. 1 Nearly all of these channels depend upon advertisers as their primary source of revenue and, as a result, have often tended to purchase or produce what TV critics and industry insiders alike refer to as “least objectionable programming”: news and entertainment programming designed to keep viewership ratings high by upsetting as few audience sensibilities as possible (Klein 327–328). In this climate, few networks seemed willing to take a gamble on critical programming for fear of offending viewers or agitating advertisers. 1 That is, with the notable exception of some branded cable channels targeted specifically at well-defined niche demographics which appeared during what Lotz calls the “multi-channel transition” (Revolutionized 25) such as BET, MTV, and Nickelodeon, as well as major cable news outlets like CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC. Even so, these channels were not specifically known for the production of complex or “quality” long-form drama.

10 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

American television’s historical reticence to address mass incarceration has important social and cultural implications. As David J. Leonard and Lisa A. Guerrero argue, television helps to determine the limits of the ways that a large majority of the population of consumer-citizens make meaning of their world… televisual epistemologies account for a considerable degree of people’s social “knowledge” about the world around them…. Television, then, becomes a site of social ordering that is arguably more powerful than other institutions of social ordering because the veil of ‘entertainment’ effectively hides the mechanisms… on which it operates and makes invisible the constitutive nature between mass consumer culture and systems of social marginalization. (9)

Although genres such as the police procedural, the courtroom drama, and the pseudo-documentarian reality-TV show have met with commercial success, such formulaic programs have generally upheld ideological fantasies and have rarely questioned the legitimacy, functionality, or viability of the USA’s increasingly bloated yet largely dysfunctional criminal justice institutions. Meanwhile, mass incarceration and the sociological, economic, and personal havoc it wrought throughout the country flew under the radar for decades, obscured by political gossip, confessional talk shows, highly staged reality-TV distractions, and Manichaean dramas (Beckett and Sasson 81–89). The Wire, however, would seem to have taken a different route. Over five sprawling seasons it emphasized the precarious conditions of the white working classes and Black urban poor abandoned by neoliberal policies of social disinvestment, left exposed to the vicissitudes of the unregulated market, and ultimately captured by a state beholden to corrupt capitalist interests, making them, as David Simon puts it in the aforementioned interview, “Permanently a part of the ‘other America’” (Simon and Obama).2 It is for this reason that Obama invited Simon to discuss his work at the White House: “Part of the challenge is going to be making sure, number one, that we humanize what so often in the local news is just a bunch of shadowy characters, and tell their stories. And that’s where the work you’ve done is so important” (Simon and Obama). But what precisely is that work? And how did it come about? 2 Simon’s quote is a reference to political scientist Michael Harrington’s The Other America (1962), a seminal exposé detailing the scope of poverty amongst the affluence of post-WWII United States.

The Captivating Aspir ations of Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

11

Remediating Mass Incarceration Even as the dawn of the 21st century witnessed the height of the incarceration boom, technological and industry innovations were concurrently hard at work altering the American media landscape. Far more than merely introducing new communication devices or infrastructures, the innovations of the last several decades have radically altered not only how Americans use media, but also the shape of the content they consume, with a particularly potent impact on the contours of the market for American television drama. Transformations in the TV industry over the past two decades have occasioned an unprecedented proliferation of long-form narrative series which either claim or are widely designated labels such as “prestige” or “quality” TV dramas. Some of these dramas have explored what Arin Keeble and Ivan Stacy, echoing dialogue from The Wire, call the “dark corners” of American life (2). While American television has often been derided as a defender of the status quo or a tool for the ideological reification and consolidation of America’s own most cherished fantasies, some recent programs seem intent on changing what Americans know and the way they think about issues such as criminal justice, policing, prisons, racism, de facto segregation, discrimination, the War on Drugs, urban dislocation, and poverty – all of which play a role in producing the contemporary crisis of racialized mass incarceration. For much of its history TV has been a much-maligned medium, frequently associated with low production values, unsophisticated mass appeal, and ideological complicity (Martin 21–22). In contrast, it has now become increasingly common to speak of a “creative revolution” which gave birth to a so-called “New Golden Age” of “quality” television.3 The story goes something like this: disruptive technological advancements enabled a proliferation of new cable and online industry players. Competition between them primed an arms race for stand-out programming. Eager to push out novel content as quickly as possible, channels gave creators free rein to experiment with narrative complexity and previously taboo themes, offering an expanded menu of “niche” programming choices which, freed from the constricting schedules of network programming and the domestic tyranny of the 3 Popular accounts of this “New Golden Age” range from essentially celebratory narratives penned for mass appeal, such as Brett Martin’s unduly male-centric Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution or Allen Sepinwall’s unabashedly triumphalist The Revolution Was Televised, to the staunchly academic, such as Amanda D. Lotz’s The Television Will Be Revolutionized. However, the key elements of these various accounts have tended to coalesce into a standard narrative.

12 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

boob-tube, consumers can view at their leisure. Technological advancements and industrial competitiveness unleashed creative energies, untethered consumer choice, and brought cultural distinction to a formerly mediocre medium. This “creative revolution” narrative is at once techno-evangelical, pro-capitalist, and even vaguely liberationist. What it tends to obscure, however, is that these energies were not unleashed for their own sake, but rather serve TV industry players’ own ever-shifting yet perennially commercial prerogatives. Many TV critics and commentators attribute the rise of this New Golden Age of “quality” TV drama to the advent of TV’s “post-network era” (Lotz, Revolutionized 8) and trace its inauguration back to the premiere of HBO’s first original dramatic series, OZ (1997–2003).4 Produced at the height of the upsurge in American imprisonment and celebrated as the forerunner for a new generation of critically acclaimed “quality” television series which have inflected recognizable genres with more challenging, edgier, and ostensibly socially relevant postures, OZ is set entirely in a maximum security prison and is widely thought to be the f irst f ictional, long-form American TV drama to explore the opaque back-stages of the criminal justice system. Largely unencumbered by the regulations, censorship, and norms governing traditional broadcast television, it is easy to claim that OZ and many of the series that followed relied primarily upon a banal ratcheting up of depictions of sex and violence. However, these series also often pair such graphic content with a willingness to venture into and tell complex, multi-faceted stories about otherwise forgotten corners of American society. Searching for a vocabulary to describe such programs without naively reproducing their self-celebratory bravura, many scholars have adopted the term with which Jason Mittell christens his study of recent TV cultures: Complex TV.5 A great deal of TV scholarship in the cultural studies tradition still tends to center around concepts of identity, diversity, and visibility, suggesting that such criticism is primarily invested in questions of representation and recognition. Meanwhile, a great deal of scholarship penned by social scientists or communications scholars, while rightly recognizing the enormous influence of the televisual field, often remains primarily anxious 4 For just a few high-profile examples, see: Sepinwall 20; and Martin 14. 5 This rhetoric of complexity, while perhaps descriptively accurate, may still be construed to implicitly promote certain aesthetic standards and value determinations over others. Therefore, this book frequently borrows Mittell’s insights regarding these series’ narrative structures, cultural poetics, and circulation while opting for the more commonly used term “quality,” rendering it in scare quotes to both recognize and analytically exploit the ambiguities, problematic assumptions, and commercial strategies it implies.

The Captivating Aspir ations of Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

13

about television’s capacity to corrupt values or distort public perceptions. Still other modes of TV scholarship (such as that modelled on film history) often tend, if only implicitly, to treat television as a relatively autonomous, self-perpetuating, and generically enclosed system. Even those practitioners of ideology critique who attempt to situate television in wider cultural constellations tend to read TV programs, however complex, in a somewhat symptomatic fashion, drawing focus primarily, if not exclusively, to the ways in which they reproduce, facilitate, or recover hegemonic, emergent, or residual ideological formations. While I am undoubtedly indebted to and often reliant upon the critical assumptions, vocabularies, and scholarly practices outlined above and do not shy away from deploying them in bricolage fashion whenever it is productive, I also find them increasingly insufficient on their own to address the attempts of many recent television programs to advertise their own social relevance or self-consciously posture as social critique in an ever more fractured commercial landscape and rapidly evolving media ecology. I maintain that our cultural politics and critical assumptions need to be rethought in light of television’s own growing self-awareness as a medium historically accused of the “perpetuation, rationalization, and justification” of representational violence even as it increasingly pursues (even when only as pretense) its potential as “a space of opposition, a vehicle for challenging and resisting the representations perpetuated throughout the American cultural landscape” (Leonard and Guerrero 13). Indeed, television often seems not only ever more cognizant of the standard critical models under which it has been scrutinized, but also increasingly capable of deflecting or even assimilating them. It is for reasons such as these that Herman Gray has argued for a shift not only in scholarly practices, but in the cultural politics which attend them: We are approaching the limit of cultural politics that aim primarily for cultural visibility and institutional recognition. Prompted by the new information technologies… the centrality of commercial popular culture, and its relationship to different global projects and enactments of new cultural politics of difference, we face the need for a different kind of cultural politics. (198)

The chapters which follow turn to a small corpus of TV series which seem invested in addressing the moment of American mass incarceration by both engaging with and extending beyond a cultural politics restricted to concerns about visibility, diversity, and recognition. They do this in

14 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

large part by reaching beyond the universe of television conventions to remediate epistemological and cultural domains which might seem at times quite distant from TV’s home turf.6 Through a series of analyses focused around some of the most influential programs of the post-network era between the years of 1997 to 2017, I trace out the ways in which “quality” TV series have helped to render mass incarceration visible as an issue of public concern. While touching on a variety of media and their cultural contexts, the chapters which follow award pride of place to the in-depth analysis of a few select “quality” dramatic series: OZ, The Wire, Orange Is the New Black (2013–2019), and Queen Sugar (2016–), as well as one documentary, 13th (2016). “Quality” television often draws upon and repurposes content drawn from more culturally distinguished fields with an eye towards repairing TV’s bad reputation while overcoming its perceived narrative limitations. It therefore harbors ambitions to not only renew or refresh commercially successful formulas, but also frequently promotes the aspiration to transcend its media identity altogether. This in itself is not terribly uncommon, as screen media often source their material from literary, autobiographical, or journalistic publications and traditions (and these series are no exception). But while television scholars habitually emphasize “quality” TV’s tendencies to style itself along the lines of cinema and literature, I argue that the works analyzed herein are different insofar as each of them source their material, narrative conventions, and even their political commitments not only from other forms of art and media, but also from domains of knowledge production which are more generally associated with academic scholarship than commercial media. These include prison ethnography, urban sociology, identity politics activism, and even Black feminist scholarship. More than merely constructing or marketing themselves as “hybrids” of pre-existing genres, they flaunt a sense of erudite, often pseudo-sociological “knowingness” and derive their 6 It should be noted here that I am using terms such as “remediate” and “remediation” somewhat differently from the usage originally proposed by Bolter and Grusin. For these authors, remediation marks “a double logic” whereby our culture constantly proliferates new forms of media, generating conditions of hypermediacy, in the doomed effort to overcome its reliance upon mediation and achieve a sense of transparency (5). In this sense, new media both parrots and proclaims itself superior to older media (6). My usage is related but not quite identical. I am interested in the effects generated when TV series adopt the convention, aesthetics, and epistemologies of domains not generally associated with screen media. My usage is therefore more similar to, although also somewhat distinct from, that deployed by figures such as Astrid Erll, Ann Rigney, and others working in the tradition of memory studies, in which “remediation primarily describes the transcription of memory content into different media… It is not tied to any one specific medium and can therefore be represented across the spectrum of available media” (Erll 313).

The Captivating Aspir ations of Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

15

cultural distinction from the carefully cultivated perception and explicitly advertised claim that they possess a serious form of superior knowledge – a subtle, but not inconsequential point of nuance. These unconventional investments yield not only creative innovations and interventions, but also activate unconventional routines of cultural circulation and provoke no small degree of controversy. There are very real and productive tensions at work between these series’ avowed ambitions to draw from, disseminate, and ultimately shape “knowledge” about mass incarceration on the one hand, and the ultimately commercial contexts in which they are embedded and to which they are indebted for their very emergence on the other. To explore these tensions, I focus on what I call serial aspirations: that is, the overlapping (and, at times, clashing) aesthetic ambitions, commercial targets, and socio-political objectives – in a word, the cultural work – which a program assigns itself. Serial aspirations are often complicated, sometimes contradictory, and are frequently re-negotiated in complex feedback loops with a series’ own effects, receptions, and contexts. We might variously define serial aspirations as loosely guiding ethos, discursive ambitions, or sets of managerial discourses which help both audiences and production staff to understand a series’ network of various (and often shifting) intentions, orient their attention to certain aspects above others, and help to regulate – but in no way predetermine – the ways in which a serial publication interacts with its receptions and audiences both during production and long after it has ceased to air. In this sense, serial aspirations provide not only brand differentiation, but also narrative orientation, allowing series to coherently organize themselves as networked “entities of distributed intention” (Kelleter, “Seriality” 28). This includes not only their relation to the epistemic domains and cultural contexts which they proclaim themselves invested in, such as Orange Is the New Black’s attempts to portray itself as a kind of activism or Queen Sugar’s assimilation of critical vocabularies native to contemporary social movements or Black studies scholarship, but perhaps even more significantly when seemingly tangential fields of cultural practice respond by laying claim to them, such as when sociologists re-describe The Wire as a televisual dramatization of their own findings or when activist-minded reviewers proclaim that “‘Queen Sugar’ Does Black Lives Matter Storytelling Right” (Phillips). While industry patrons and mainstream commentators often celebrate these series precisely for their pretentions to possess superior knowledge about places and populations which TV has historically either ignored, marginalized, or stigmatized, such aspirations are also problematic. It cannot

16 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

be denied that these series have indeed contributed to and helped to shape public awareness about issues surrounding the social reproduction of mass incarceration, such as The Wire’s treatment of urban abandonment and the perverse outcomes of the War on Drugs. Indeed, these series have brought previously sidelined social milieus and frequently ignored institutional dysfunctions to the attention of a wide array of middle- and upper-class viewers, often for the very first time. While these series both raise and shape awareness about mass incarceration while allowing viewers to glean a certain degree of intellectual pleasure (and frequently flatters them for doing so), they ask for little in the way of direct political engagement; instead, they allow relatively affluent, mostly white audiences the thrill of slumming in ghettos, prisons, or other exotic social environs from the safety of their couches. The structural problems and political policies which produce and sustain the marginalization of these populations are taken up largely to serve the purpose of producing “quality” TV drama; as a result, both the struggles of these populations and the politics of resistance which emerge from them are repackaged into a kind of commercialized spectacle. Moreover, the strategy of appealing to the sensibilities of a particularly lucrative segment of college-educated, relatively affluent, and majority white viewers leads “quality” TV to privilege certain aesthetic tendencies, social perspectives, and political agendas over others. While a great many crime series in the wake of 9/11 catered to either neoconservative or libertarian fantasy structures – think Fox’s 24 (2001–2010) or FX’s Sons of Anarchy (2008–2014) –, other “quality” shows gravitated instead towards postures of liberal reformism and/or progressive solutionism which may have been seen as more appealing to highly educated (and thus highly coveted) audience segments; only rarely, however, do television series seriously entertain more radical political agendas such as prison abolitionism. When they do, such radical agendas are usually paid little more than lip-service, or they are appropriated for the purposes of propelling dramatic conflict and thereby subordinated to television’s commercial imperative for serial continuation. The shows dealt with herein are no exception: they may at times aspire to critique the status quo, but they often fall far short of staging calls for revolution. They may proffer social critique and even tout themselves as credible and knowing participants in larger social and political debates, but rarely do they acknowledge their own role in perpetuating the serial routines of racial capitalism. Instead, their formal, aesthetic, and political ambitions are both enabled and constrained by their industry patron’s own practices of brand differentiation, digital distribution, and audience surveillance. These programs therefore more often end up renegotiating rather than rejecting

The Captivating Aspir ations of Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

17

outright the terms of American culture’s dual investments in the profitable cosmetics of neoliberal multiculturalism and the inheritances of slavery which structure the spectacle of its hyper-carceral state.

The Political Economy of Post-Network Television Instead of merely writing serial aspirations off as purely cynical attempts to appropriate and profit from the commercialization of ostensibly progressive political concerns (although they surely do this to some degree), we must acknowledge the capitalistic context in which contemporary American TV programs are produced while at the same time taking them seriously as “influential makers of American culture” (Kelleter, Serial 40). That said, even as we trace out these series’ participations and (re)negotiations within and across expansive cultural spheres, we must not therefore lose sight of their media specificity in a competitive attention economy increasingly characterized by niche marketing, technological disruption, and corporate consolidation. Indeed, it is perhaps precisely because the series investigated herein so often seek to advertise themselves to select audiences as counterhegemonic alternatives to standardized TV formulas that we need to attend with even more care to the various industry contexts, media ecologies, and business logics which allowed them to come into being in the first place. The “creative revolution” narrative which is so integral to the so-called New Golden Age of “quality” TV is not only the product of creative aspirations, but also denotes a shrewd business strategy which at once responds to, papers over, and inspires other underlying and often unacknowledged business objectives and industry circumstances. Rather than viewing these series as artistic masterworks birthed by genius showrunners over the course of an unqualified creative revolution, we must keep in mind that these series won commission and renewal over several seasons primarily for the valuable role they played in consolidating the brand credentials and market power of their respective industry sponsors and in catering to the presumed or enculturated tastes of lucrative upmarket viewership segments. Indeed, these particular programs belong to an even larger cohort which has helped to shore up the commercial viability of an ever-growing host of upstart competitors who have increasingly muscled the big three networks out of their dominant position. Such industry players include not only cable channels such as AMC, FX, and OWN, but also premium subscription-based offerings such as HBO and, more recently, streaming video portals such as Netflix, all of which have

18 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

sought to profit from ever more finely cut consumer segmentations defined not only along traditional lines of demography such as age or gender but, also and increasingly, less tangible features such as tastes and consumption habits, thus contributing to the progressive fragmentation of the viewing public. Many of the most successful contemporary TV brands increasingly depend not on advertising dollars, but rather subscription fees paid either through cable service providers or directly by individuals to cover costs and generate profit. Subscriber-funded television needs to maintain the perception that its offerings are novel enough for subscribers to keep up their subscription (Lotz, Revolutionized 176). This in turn allows subscribers to flatter themselves as more culturally sophisticated than viewers of basic cable or network fare, converting highly targeted sets of taste and consumption behavior into a specie of cultural capital. As such, the rhetoric and practices of “quality” function as legitimizing discourses which, in the words of Michael Z. Newman and Elana Levine, “produces a bifurcation of the medium into good and bad television” so as to “mobilize taste to include and exclude, to identify members and keep boundaries” (7). Picking up on this last point, many critics have rightly raised alarms about the tendencies of such “quality” TV shows to glamorize the tastes of relatively affluent white male audiences at the expense of lower-income and minoritized ones. And, indeed, the so-called “New Golden Age of Television” arises in large part from the desire to cater to notoriously difficult to reach and ostensibly more “sophisticated” audience segments, while broadcast and basic cable networks continue to push out and license reams of relatively low-cost programming, often packaged as reality-TV or light-hearted, familyfriendly sitcoms, in a bid to gather less affluent but substantially larger audiences. The latter programming may be considered more influential than “quality” TV dramas produced for “prestige” or “premium” audience segments insofar as they continue to make up the beef of programming time in network and basic cable TV schedules. They are often syndicated in rerun blocks which fill the off-peak hours of daytime programming, and therefore the days of those largely confined, whether through choice or necessity, to the home. In terms, therefore, of sheer volume, network programming has indeed tended to reach more eyeballs more frequently, and has very likely had an outsized impact on less affluent or “mass” audiences as compared “quality” dramas produced by premium cable channels or streaming services. Indeed, there is little denying that much of the dramatic programming which awards itself the moniker of “quality” has been largely – although by no means exclusively – produced for and directed at substantially narrower demographic categories, including fairly affluent white male subscribers.

The Captivating Aspir ations of Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

19

Even so, it would be a mistake to assume that the strategies of TV executives and programmers somehow simply reflect the inherent or organic tastes of their target audiences. It is similarly problematic to assume that industry logics just replicate rather than actively help to produce and reify the processes of social sorting which define traditional demographic markers as well as assumptions about their tastes. Televisual tastes are not simply monitored, diagnosed, and fed; they are instead actively cultivated, often in ways which are themselves revealing not of the pre-existing preferences of their targets, but of the biases and assumptions which television producers, executives, and marketers hold towards those audiences. It likewise does not follow that content will be necessarily consumed exclusively (or even primarily) by the audience at which it is initially targeted. Even though TV producers have increasingly vast and ever more invasive systems of technological surveillance at their disposal, they are not omnipotent. Often enough, such systems reproduce the biases of their designers rather than reveal the pre-existing preferences of their targets. Indeed, one need only note how often the “personalized” menu of choices surfaced by Netflix’s recommendation algorithm generate increasingly narrow (and sometimes comical) rabbit holes to see those biases in action. Since tastes, never static, are always being cultivated and developed through the aggregate choices of individual viewers as well as the activities of TV producers, programmers, and marketers, they may be influenced by everything from marketing biases to the sheer accident of viral trends (in cases where they were not algorithmically encouraged, that is); the result is a self-propelling moving target, as tastes evolve in a state of perpetual feedback loops embedded within a complex, ever-shifting media environment. Finally, to assume that less affluent or minoritized audience are somehow uninterested in searching beyond the menu of choices foisted upon them, or impotent to seek out, enjoy, and even cultivate a taste for ostensibly more “highbrow” entertainment options on their own, risks inflating the efficacy of TV segmentation strategies to an unwarranted degree. It also perpetuates (if perhaps unintentionally) a form of soft condescension all too common amongst academic elites, the majority of whom do not hail from such backgrounds, and may therefore inadvertently make assumptions which reinscribe or affirm rather than interrogate the logics of TV marketers. Media critics might do well to challenge such assumptions; from illegal file-sharing to “decoding” against the grain (Hall 263), less affluent and minoritized audiences have all kinds of ways to make “quality” content their own. That said, television producers indeed continue to utilize segmentation models, and there is little question that these practices have been

20 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

especially, albeit not exclusively, amicable to the creation of programs which at once play upon and, to some degree, break with the conventions of earlier “quality” network offerings as they seek to garner the attention of the time-starved professional classes. As Mark Jancovich and James Lyon write, even though “quality” TV programming has “long been criticized for displaying an overwhelming preoccupation with the white, affluent, urban middle classes” and their presumed tastes, we should not therefore simply shrug them off: “The response to such shows should not be to reject them as narrow ‘bourgeois’ entertainment, but to be attentive to the various processes that work to produce them” (3). In this sense, the tendency of contemporary “quality” TV programs to challenge hegemonic ideological positions, foster social relevance, and deploy unconventional forms must be understood as a key component of their producers’ overall business strategies, particularly the need to cultivate brand distinction. Cultivating a distinct brand image suggests the need to groom a specific, relatively loyal (and particularly lucrative) audience segment. Thus, narrowcasting – the identification, analysis, targeting, and cultivation of niche audience segments – has emerged as one of the most important strategies driving content innovation and proliferation. While narrowcasting provides one of the key commercial conditions which justifies the shift away from broadcast-era strategies, it also has crucial implications for questions of representation, recognition, and address. Narrowcasting certainly has the potential to create viewership silos marked by typical demographic segmentations of class, gender, and race, but it also creates opportunities and incentives to produce specialized content in the first place. As Herman Gray argues, this in turn has important implications for how brands decide to accommodate questions of identity and difference in a highly heterogeneous viewing public: the specific problem of symbolically making the American nation through television’s integrative function… has moved, first, from erasure, repression, and transformation of difference… through integration and pluralism… to explicit recognition of the centrality of difference… The corporate brand name and network logo have become the means of expressing distinction and thus the recognition of the intractability of difference on a global scale. Problems of race and ethnicity have given way to the question of how to link a brand name to specific kinds of difference – culture, nation-states, gender, sexuality, and tradition – in order to establish distinctive brand identifications and loyalty through consumerism. (106)

The Captivating Aspir ations of Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

21

Online streaming platforms like Netflix must go even further; rather than appealing to a defined audience segment, they must offer a wide enough variety of content to appeal to many different segments and tastes at once. Thus, streaming platforms deploy what Amanda D. Lotz describes as a “‘conglomerated niche’ strategy of providing a little bit of content for a lot of different audience segments” (Disrupt 158). The advantage of such a strategy is that it “achieves the advantages of scale while servicing heterogeneous tastes” (Lotz, Portals). Indeed, the launch of Disney+ following shorty after Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox and AT&T’s dual ownership of both HBO Max and WarnerMedia content indicate that the fragmentation encouraged by narrowcasting strategies must be juxtaposed against the increasing consolidation of media businesses under the umbrella of a few major conglomerates. This is especially important in consideration of their aggressive attempts to shore up their competitive advantages, whether it be through vertical integration, the dismantling of net neutrality regulations, or more rigorous surveillance, policing, and manipulation of viewers’ behavior. What all of this suggests is that the serial aspirations of these programs are always at once enabled and constrained by the commercial interests and business strategies of their producers and sponsors. Thus, their serial aspirations are all, as the title of this chapter suggests, “captivating” in various and overlapping senses of the term. While all of the programs examined herein tackle questions of captivity thematically by remediating various forms of knowledge related to mass incarceration, we should not for this reason alone merely celebrate or conf irm their own frequently self-styled pretentions to uncompromised or uncompromising social critique; no representational innovation can in and of itself remediate (in the sense of remedy) social injustice. As media products produced in an unabashedly capitalist economy, even the most ambitiously or radically critical American TV program is ultimately held captive to these fundamentally commercial obligations. Thus, while we should not rest with simply decrying TV programs as mere vehicles of ideological dissemination or symptoms of capitalist exploitation, we also cannot fully divorce their serial aspirations or cultural politics from the media ecosystems and political economies in which they are embedded and from which they arise. Indeed, commercial television’s primary objective remains to “captivate” its viewers – that is, to contrive ways to profit by attracting and holding the attention of ever more finely defined and narrowly targeted viewership segments. Such objectives appear especially treacherous in a media and technological environment increasingly criticized for its tendency to surveil and corral us into self-reinforcing filter bubbles or echo chambers: media

22 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

cages constructed of our own predilections, preferences, and prejudices. However progressive or activist these televisual texts may seem, their cultural politics remain irreversibly entwined with a capitalist society mesmerized by its own increasingly shattered spectacle. It is for this reason above all that the more captivating we may find these programs’ serial aspirations to be, the more critical it becomes that we resist falling under their spell.

Our Scheduled Programming In Police, Power, and the Production of Racial Boundaries, Ana Muñiz echoes anthropologist Laura Nadar’s influential call to “study up”: rather than “focusing on what authority considers deviant,” researchers should direct their “energy upward, studying the entities primarily responsible for subjugation” (Muñiz 8). I submit that studying media is one such way to study up. By focusing on “prestige” or “quality” programming, we may gain a better understanding of how emerging business logics and the media cultures they produce are reshaping, for good or ill, the narratives and images which inflect perceptions of law enforcement, criminal justice, corrections, and social justice among middle- and upper-class viewers. After all, these segments comprise not only some of TV’s most elusive and therefore lucrative niche markets, but also American society’s more privileged and politically influential social layers. Studying objects and phenomenon of relatively contemporary vintage presents certain challenges. This is especially true when studying serialized media objects, some of which are still ongoing events. To complicate the matter further, in our current media ecosystem time-shifting technologies, digital distribution, and ongoing (re)appraisals in both the scholarly literature and popular press all combine to ensure that influential media products live extended afterlives and generate media effects long after their air date. While it can be tempting for a researcher working under such conditions to obsessively follow events and continuously update their findings, it can also be disastrous – every research project must eventually terminate, else it dooms itself to obscurity. For that reason, the current work trains most of its attention on the years between 1997–2017. This period is bookended on one end by the appearance of HBO’s OZ, its first storied foray into “prestige” serial drama, while on the other stands a flurry of opinion pieces and critical reappraisals which either predicted or saluted the imminent demise of post-network television’s “New Golden Age.” There are some exceptions

The Captivating Aspir ations of Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

23

to this rule, including a first chapter which defines mass incarceration and details the entanglements of its historical rise with the powerful role screen media played in its cultural construction, political legitimization, and social (re)production. Each chapter thereafter functions by situating an influential post-network era TV show which has sought to position itself as an intervention into the crisis of American mass incarceration between the aforementioned years. In each case, I investigate my core objects from within what might be called their most proximate contexts of relevance – that is, the extra-televisual discourses, forms, and knowledge domains towards which they most adamantly aspire. Each analytical chapter carries a title which orients my explorations around a guiding question. This question is always intimately grounded in its primary object’s own serial aspirations and serves as a springboard for the analysis of its cultural work. Chapters are arranged in terms of the chronological appearance of their central objects so as to suggest the trajectory of television’s development as a media industry and cultural system which is becoming increasingly more aware of and concerned with mass incarceration as a source of thematic content as well as its own historical agency in the legitimization thereof. However, doing justice to the distinct serial aspirations of each program means that each chapter must take a slightly different approach; chapters may therefore be read serially as parts of a broader narrative trajectory, or more episodically as relatively distinct, self-contained essays. The first chapter covers the historical, sociological, and cultural contexts necessary to ground my readings of primary sources in each of the analytical chapters which follow. It also traces out the entanglements of media, and especially television, with the political history, rhetoric, and public policy which gave birth to mass incarceration. It proposes the notion of “punitive realism” to describe a pattern of generic narrative conventions, aesthetics, and tropes arising in the wake of right-wing blowbacks to the civil rights movement and the disastrous 1971 Attica prison massacre. As a hegemonic cultural formation, punitive realism helped bolster moral panics about urban disorder and shape public perceptions around the boogieman of racialized criminality. To a large degree, popular screen media opportunistically played upon and therefore helped to reinforce these trends. While the punitive realism which operated in so much of the 20th century’s screen media, and TV in particular, functioned largely to legitimize the reactionary right-wing political agenda which manufactured the crisis of mass incarceration, post-network television in the 21st century has anchored many of its “quality” claims, if not by ditching punitive realism altogether, then at least by importing and exploring competing avenues alongside it.

24 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

The second chapter extends this historical outline into a reading of the vaunted “realism” of HBO’s OZ – a series often celebrated for kicking off the New Golden Age of post-network era television. By utilizing the mediasaturated cultural form of the prison as a site to stage spectacular scenes of hyperviolence, OZ sought to make its name by transgressing the boundaries of televisual decorum. However, its reliance on stereotypical portrayals of prisoners alongside the tendency to submerge them in increasingly more hyperviolent predicaments serves to reify some of the prison’s own most naturalized claims to legitimate institutional reproduction. Even so, I argue that especially in later seasons the series’ increasing utilization of narrative patterns and aesthetics drawn from the naturalist novel and the gothic mode eventually reach such a level of excess that it bursts, overwhelming its own authenticity codes and rendering the very notion of realism hauntingly bizarre. The third chapter turns to one of OZ’s most proximate televisual heirs, HBO’s critically acclaimed series The Wire. Noting the series’ popularity among sociologists, it argues that The Wire’s sociological ambitions render that disciplinary field both more accessible as popular culture and more acquiescent to cultural critique. The Wire was highly innovative not only for its long-form serial structure, high-culture aspirations, and understated verisimilitude, but also its searing criticisms of the political, social, and cultural practices of urban policing, surveillance, and even reform. The Wire criticizes each of these for claiming the ability to render visible and address the social pathologies which ostensibly drive mass incarceration even as they seem to remain fundamentally unable to really see beyond their own limited set of institutional self-interests. Moreover, The Wire’s media specificity as “quality” television allows it to not only model itself on, but also reflexively ruminate upon sociology’s similarly problematic cultural investments. Even so, The Wire is itself deeply invested in ideologies of visibility; it therefore has trouble transcending many of the self-same cultural contradictions it critiques. In a fourth chapter, I turn to Netflix’s wildly popular Orange Is the New Black. Although Orange Is the New Black is in many ways an heir to both OZ and The Wire, its status and distribution as a streaming Netflix production requires us to think a bit differently about strategies of dissemination and routines of consumption. While its focus on women prisoners heralds the calls of such figures as Angela Davis, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Andrea J. Ritchie to pay heed to the amplified intersectional vulnerabilities of poor, queer, and trans women of all colors behind bars, it does so while problematically yet intriguingly claiming to leverage entertainment as a vehicle for activism. I consider how Orange Is the New Black utilizes narrative

The Captivating Aspir ations of Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

25

strategies and leverages celebrity activism in order to both shore up its own “activist” quality claims as well as to generate online buzz, propel narrative proliferation, and provide cultural resources for formerly incarcerated and at-risk women. Even as different audience constituencies have attempted to negotiate their political and advocacy interests through highly motivated and inevitably mediated readings of the series, Netflix has leveraged these debates somewhat opportunistically. While Netflix’s global ambitions, digital distribution methods, and algorithmic recommendation strategies may trumpet the ostensible virtue of dis-articulating typical demographic markers from often dubious assumptions about taste, they also dissociate identity categories from political commitments by recasting them as consumable entertainment experiences. Taken together, Netflix and Orange Is the New Black thus risk cultivating rather than criticizing an increasingly global taste for prisons. The fifth chapter turns to a consideration of two projects headed by Ava DuVernay: the Netflix documentary 13th and OWN’s drama series Queen Sugar. Noting DuVernay’s rising prominence as a celebrity auteur steeped in Black feminist cultural theory, I argue that these investments color 13th and Queen Sugar’s respective brands of advocacy documentary and serial TV melodrama. Taking note of 13th’s unspoken investments in the cultural history of American racial melodrama, I connect its heroic attempts to assemble itself as a “history of the present” with an investigation of how Queen Sugar couches its take on Black family melodrama within the context of mass incarceration. This leads me to consider how developments in our contemporary media environment and challenges to the reign of mass incarceration have re-shaped the contours of Black representation across media forms. What we just as often discover, however, is not only creative innovation or diversified patterns of representation, but also the repetition of old tropes and dualisms dressed up in new clothes; when it comes to the most deeply engrained habits of American culture, the more things change, the more they stay the same. I conclude this work by reflecting upon the current state of our increasingly hyperactive yet conglomerate-dominated media ecosystem and its potential to produce and sustain media cultures capable of nurturing a radical abolitionist politics. Can our increasingly fragmented and combative digital public sphere sustain social movements, articulate radical political positions, and foster deliberative democratic participation? Or are we gradually falling prey to neoliberal practices of audience surveillance, data capture, and micro-personalized content delivery which are themselves highly captivating and thus curiously carceral?

26 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

Sources Cited 13th. Ava DuVernay, dir. Netflix, 2016. Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: The New Press, 2010. Beckett, Katherine and Theodore Sasson. The Politics of Injustice. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2004. Bolter, David J. and Richard Grusin. Remediation. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000. Erll, Astrid. “Media and the Dynamics of Memory.” Handbook of Culture and Memory. Ed. Brady Wagoner. Oxford Scholarship Online, Oct. 2017. Web. Accessed 27 May 2021. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190230814.001.0001 Fricker, Karen. “‘Quality TV’ on Show.” Quality TV. Ed. Janet McCabe and Kim Akass. London: I.B. Tauris, 2007. Gray, Herman. Cultural Moves: African Americans and the Politics of Representation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Hagan, John and Ronit Dinovitzer. “Collateral Consequences of Imprisonment for Children, Communities, and Prisoners.” Crime and Justice, vol. 26, 1999, p. 121–162. Hall, Stuart. “Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse.” Writings on Media. Ed. Charlotte Brunsdon. Duke University Press, 2021, p. 247–266. Jancovich, Mark and James Lyons. “Introduction.” Popular Quality Television. London: British Film Institute, 2003. Kaplan-Lyman, Jeremy. “A Punitive Bind: Policing, Poverty, and Neoliberalism in New York City.” Yale Human Rights and Development Journal, vol. 15, no. 1, 2012, p. 177–222. Kelleter, Frank. “Five Ways of Looking at Popular Seriality.” Media of Serial Narrative. Ed. Frank Kelleter. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2017. Kelleter, Frank. Serial Agencies: The Wire and Its Readers. Winchester: Zero Books, 2014. Klein, Paul. “The Men Who Run TV Know Us Better Than You Think.” The Mass Media Book. Ed. Rod Holmgren and William Norton. Prentice Hall, 1972. Leonard, David. J and Lisa A. Guerrero. “Introduction: Our Regularly Scheduled Program.” African Americans on Television. Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2013. Lotz, Amanda D. Portals: A Treatise on Internet-Distributed Television. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, 2017. Web. Accessed 12 Dec. 2018. https://quod.lib.umich. edu/m/maize/mpub9699689/ Lotz, Amanda D. The Television Will Be Revolutionized. 2nd Edition. New York: New York University Press, 2014. Lotz, Amanda D. We Now Disrupt This Broadcast. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2018. Martin, Brett. Difficult Men. New York: Faber and Faber, 2013. Mittell, Jason. Complex TV. New York: New York University Press, 2015.

The Captivating Aspir ations of Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

27

Muñiz, Ana. Police, Power, and the Production of Racial Boundaries. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2015. NAACP. “Criminal Justice Fact Sheet.” NAACP.org. Web. Accessed 1 June 2021. https://naacp.org/resources/criminal-justice-fact-sheet Newman, Michael Z. And Elana Levine. Legitimating Television: Media Convergence and Cultural Status. New York: Routledge, 2012. Orange Is the New Black. Jenji Kohan, cr. Netflix, 2013–2019. OZ. Tom Fontana, cr. HBO, 1997–2003. Pager, Devah and Hana Shepherd. “The Sociology of Discrimination: Racial Discrimination in Employment, Housing, Credit, and Consumer Markets.” Annual Review of Sociology, vol. 34, 2008, p. 181–209. Phillips, Carmen. “‘Queen Sugar’ Does Black Lives Matter Storytelling Right.” Autostraddle. 27 June 2017. Web. Accessed 22 Aug. 2018. https://www.autostraddle.com/queen-sugar-gets-its-black-lives-matter-storytelling-right-384286/ Queen Sugar. Ava DuVernay, cr. OWN, 2016–. Sepinwall, Alan. The Revolution Was Televised. Touchstone, 2012. Simon, David and Barack Obama. “President Obama Interview the Creator of ‘The Wire’ David Simon.” Medium. 27 March 2015. Web. Accessed 20 Aug. 2018. https:// medium.com/@ObamaWhiteHouse/president-obama-interviews-the-creatorof-the-wire-david-simon-40fb7bd29b18 Travis, Jeremy. “Invisible Punishment: An Instrument of Social Exclusion.” Invisible Punishment: The Collateral Consequences of Mass Imprisonment. Ed. Marc Mauer and Meda Chesney-Lind. New York: The New York Press, 2013. The Wire. David Simon, cr. HBO, 2002–2008.

1.

Mass (Mediating) Incarceration Abstract What is mass incarceration? What does it have to do with mass media and popular culture? This chapter synthesizes some of the most influential lines of research on mass incarceration and ties its rise over the second half of the 20th century to racialized representations of crime, policing, and punishment. It traces the development of genres which routinely pit hardened police or aggrieved white vigilantes against the so-called dangerous classes. I argue that these conventions tended to both energize and legitimize the punitive turn in criminal justice policy, coalescing into a hegemonic representational mode I call “punitive realism.” I end by ruminating on popular media’s potential to not only reinforce but also unsettle these racialized spectacles of crime and punishment. Keywords: Mass Incarceration, crime and punishment in popular culture, punitive realism, crime genres, prison

Captivity by the Numbers It is all too easy, but instructive nevertheless, to read off the troubling statistics: starting in the 1970s, the U.S. began to witness a drastic rise in its incarceration rate, skyrocketing from 161 out of every 100,000 U.S. residents behind bars in 1972 to about 767 per 100,000 near its peak in the second half of the 2000s (National Research Council 33). Due to the patchwork nature of the American criminal justice system, which includes a federal system, a system for each state, over 3,000 counties and more than 25,000 municipal systems, it is difficult to say just how many people are under state supervision at any given time. However, as of 2018 the Bureau of Justice Statistics indicates that in addition to the 2.3 million people held in prisons or jails in the United States, there are an estimated 4.5 million more on probation or parole (Wagner and Sawyer). Already in 2003, the Bureau of Justice Statistics estimated that one in every thirty-seven adults in America

Flamand, Lee A., American Mass Incarceration and Post-Network Quality Television: Captivating Aspirations. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2022 doi 10.5117/9789463725057_ch01

30 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

had been to prison in their lifetime (Bonczar 1). While recent years have seen a slight decline in overall incarceration rates, it has been estimated that it would take nearly 65 years for the current rate of decline to halve the prison population (Ghandnoosh 3). The costs of maintaining such a system, both in terms of financial expenditures and human wellbeing, are immense if not immeasurable. Ethnic and racial minorities are drastically over-represented in America’s criminal justice system. Although racial disparities have slightly decreased along with overall rates of incarceration in recent years, Blacks and Hispanics continue to be over-represented in America’s prisons and jails; Black males in particular are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of their white counterparts (Carson 1). In the year 2000 alone, one in nine young Black men in the USA were incarcerated, compared to only three out of every 200 young white men (Loury 23). The Bureau of Justice Statistics has projected that 32% of Black males, 17% of Latino males, and 5.9% of white males are likely to find themselves in prison during their lifetimes – that’s one out of every nine American men (Bonczar 8). Women were projected to have a 1.8% chance of going to prison, with Black women facing the highest probability at 5.2% (Bonczar 6). How does one explain such alarming trends? The remainder of this chapter attempts to answer this question while providing the historical and sociological context necessary to ground the analytical chapters which follow. It first turns to the socio-legal context which produces mass incarceration and makes certain racial and class groups more susceptible to it. Next it briefly considers the societal costs and practices of extraction which mass incarceration produces. It finishes by reconstructing the media histories which have helped to erect a popular culture and political climate which work in tandem to authorize and legitimize the (re)production of these socio-political arrangements and outcomes.

Invisible Punishments & Revolving Doors An ever-growing consensus holds that the racial skew of contemporary mass incarceration must be viewed as an institutional afterlife of historical regimes of racialized control dating back to Jim Crow and antebellum slavery.1 Perhaps no single book has done more to bring this interpreta1 A plethora of authors have made notable contributions to our understanding of the complex array of confluent factors which allow mass incarceration to arise from the ashes of these previous

Mass (Mediating) Incarcer ation

31

tion of mass incarceration to the attention of the wider American public than Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. Alexander argues that the designation of masses of poor people of color as “criminal” has become a proxy which enables many of the self-same exclusions originally achieved through explicit racial discrimination: Once you’re labeled a felon, the old forms of discrimination – employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of education opportunities, denial of food stamps and other public benefits, and exclusion from jury service – all are suddenly legal. … We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it. (2)

Such treatment, however, begins even before a person ever steps foot in a courtroom. As the ACLU reports, “racial disparities result from disparate treatment of Blacks at every stage of the criminal justice system, including stops and searches, arrests, prosecutions and plea negotiations, trials, and sentencing. Race matters at all phases and aspects of the criminal process” (“Written” 2). Although numerous studies have found clear statistical evidence of discriminatory application and implicit bias on the part of police, prosecutors, judges, and other agents of the justice system, the requirement that defendants show clear proof of intentional racial discrimination in each individual case in order to evoke anti-discrimination protections makes it nearly impossible to challenge this system in court. Increasingly punitive legislative measures such as mandatory minimum sentencing, three strikes laws, and so-called “truth in sentencing” reforms have not only ballooned the prison population overall, but have been deployed in a discriminatory fashion even though they are notionally worded in a ‘race-neutral’ manner (Alexander 101–109). Yet, the courts continue to perpetuate a myth of race neutrality, assuming that the lack of letter in the law translates directly to its application. This allows those who put law into practice to operate largely with impunity, whether in bad faith and under the influence of unconscious bias. Whereas Jim Crow proclaimed its reign everywhere – on signs, in separate cars, in segregated schools – mass incarceration has by and large functioned behind the scenes of American life. It has therefore been invisible to the systems of racialized control. Although I cannot convey the vast amount of scholarship on the causes and consequences of mass incarceration here, the remainder of this chapter will try to reconstruct in broad strokes some of the strains of analysis from sociologists, criminologists, economists, and legal scholars which account for the rise and perpetuation of mass incarceration in order to provide ample context for the chapters that follow.

32 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

majority of people, especially if they are affluent and white. Meanwhile, it looms large in the consciousness, biographical careers, and life chances of many of the less fortunate. Incarceration haunts prisoners even after their release; once caught in the carceral dragnet, the stigma of criminality follows ex-offenders for much of the rest of their lives, a phenomenon sometimes referred to as “invisible punishment” or “collateral consequences” (Travis 16): ex-offenders in many states cannot by law receive many government services such as welfare assistance or student aid, they often lose the right to vote, and they are usually denied legitimate work since employers almost always ask about prior felonies and run background checks for a criminal record (Travis 18–20). This condition leaves the ex-convict locked in a social state sometimes referred to as civil death – largely banished from formal participation in political or economic life even as he or she is excluded from drawing upon public resources (Travis 25). Because these invisible punishments largely circumscribe and severely limit the opportunities of ex-offenders, they often remain virtual prisoners even when released from prison. Collateral consequences influence not only individuals, but also aggravate and compound pre-existing problems faced by communities which are already subject to economic marginalization, historic discrimination, and rampant over-policing. Poor people of color living in “ghettos” produced through decades of racializing government policies and state-sanctioned practices such as financial redlining, predatory subprime mortgage lending, and racial housing covenants routinely find themselves the targets of police and prosecutors precisely because of the marginalization such policies have produced. In the absence of programs and solutions which mitigate the effects of poverty and address racial discrimination, the cops are called in to manage nearly all of society’s ills. As Jeremy Kaplan-Lyman has argued, this puts police in “a punitive bind… The police are poorly situated to deal with the causes of poverty… Even if police wanted to take a non-punitive approach… their options are limited as the lack of social welfare services under neoliberalism gives them few resources to apply anything but punitive responses to the disorderly” (210). The result is the excessive policing of already stigmatized and largely impoverished demographics such as the homeless, the structurally unemployed, young men of color, and immigrants, all of which have already been negatively impacted by decades of neoliberal policy reform and the attendant dismantling of the welfare state. The effects of racial discrimination and the retrenchment of pro-social policies are reinforced by policing practices which transform entire neighborhoods into urban battlegrounds for the “War on Drugs” (Alexander 197), waged in large part through overzealous “quality of life” policing policies with such

Mass (Mediating) Incarcer ation

33

seemingly race-neutral names as “broken windows” or “zero tolerance” policing. Such policies lead officers to routinely issue citations and make arrests for “undesirable” but otherwise legal behaviors such as loitering, often on the basis of visual stereotypes. Far from improving everyday life in many these communities, over-policing erodes trust in public safety institutions and generates a sense of permanent insecurity (Kaplan-Lyman 180). Overpoliced neighborhoods begin to feel more like occupied territories than safe and stable communities (Kelly 17). Excessive policing is just the feeder tube in a long network of pipelines which disappear large numbers of people behind prison walls. Indeed, policing and imprisonment are not the only weapons in the arsenal of a larger correctional system. While parole and probation are supposedly intended to divert offenders who are not considered a threat to public safety away from incarceration, these programs in fact frequently function as a way of cycling people into the prison system rather than keeping them out. Shut out of government support, socially ostracized, and marginalized in the job market, people find it difficult to meet the demands of parole and probation officers. Indeed, sociologist Bert Useem and economist Anne Morrison Pieh have estimated a recidivism rate of nearly two-fifths within three years after initial release (116). It therefore resonates when Stephen C. Richards and Richard S. Jones describe the correctional system as a “perpetual incarceration machine”: The prison system is perpetuating growth as a result of its own institutional failure to properly prepare prisoners for release. The system is a revolving door that shuffles prisoners from one level of custody to another, from probation to prison, from prison to work release and parole and from parole back to prison. (“Beating” 219–220)

Mass incarceration feeds upon a flow of bodies through perpetual cycles of racialized vilification, state-induced precarity, institutional control, and geosocial containment. This stigmatizing process leaves a paper trail which accrues to the identity of prisoners even after release, often leading them back into the belly of the beast.

Socialized Precarity & Captive Profits Mass incarceration is supposedly invisible to the majority of Americans – and yet, one need only to visit any resource-drained inner-city neighborhood (or,

34 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

increasingly, any struggling rural town) in America to see its consequences everywhere. Perhaps the real problem is that these neighborhoods are themselves, to the majority of middle-class Americans, largely invisible. Indeed, these largely forgotten communities are precisely those which have also been economically left behind as deindustrialization, automation, and anti-union politics destroyed the last vestiges of the now defunct Fordist social compact. Largely left out of the gains accruing to white collar participation in the so-called knowledge economy, these communities have instead been left to scrape by, hustling for low-wage, precarious service sector jobs, some of which have only recently been recast as “essential work.” Those who refuse or are unable to secure this form of employment often end up as low-level players in illicit black markets. Many are people of color who end up doing hard time for servicing a demand for illegal drugs which comes in large part from more affluent white buyers. Rather than seeking to redress this economic abandonment through pro-social policy options, “the public conversation instead focuses primarily on criminal justice responses to the problem, and punitive ones in particular” (Mauer xi). Loïc Wacquant has therefore argued that we must understand mass incarceration as a strategy for managing excess reserves of racialized labor within the wider context of the neoliberal restructuring of the post-Fordist American economy (Punishing 305). By corralling the economically alienated urban underclass into “the novel institutional complex formed by the remnants of the imploding dark ghetto and the exploding carceral apparatus” (Punishing 196), Wacquant argues that the fiercely interventionist neoliberal state criminalizes poverty in order to both “shore up an eroding caste cleavage, and to buttress the emergent regime of desocialized wage labor” (Punishing 197). Who benefits from such a system? John Pfaff has argued that “the real political powers behind prison growth are the public officials who benefit from large prisons” (7). Many politicians have cultivated a “tough-on-crime” image to gain and retain public office. This includes, crucially, elected public prosecutors; indeed, Pfaff goes so far as to argue that “[t]he primary driver of incarceration is increased prosecutorial toughness when it comes to charging people” (Pfaff 6). This, in turn, reinforces disproportional allocations of wealth and power in the larger community: Urban prosecutors are elected at the county level, where political power is concentrated in the wealthier, whiter suburbs, while crimes disproportionately occur in the poorer urban cores with higher populations of people of color. The segregation of costs and benefits is a racial story more than anything else. (Pfaff 7)

Mass (Mediating) Incarcer ation

35

Aggressive prosecutors often threaten harsh sentences in order to coerce defendants into plea bargaining. Indeed, The New York Times has reported that “97 percent of federal cases and 94 percent of state cases end in plea bargains… courtroom trials, the stuff of television dramas, almost never take place” (Goode). This not only leaves a consequential amount of innocent people behind bars but also lubricates the wheels of the court system; if everyone charged with a crime insisted on a trial by jury, the criminal justice system would be overrun and likely collapse. Similarly, rural politicians and the overwhelmingly white districts they represent benefit from having prisons in their towns. Aside from the business and labor opportunities prisons create, they also contribute to electoral distortions; aside from the millions of current and former prisoners who have had their voting rights stripped away under felon disenfranchisement laws, the tendency of census laws to count prisoners as residents of the locale in which they are imprisoned rather the than their pre-incarceration addresses may not only cause misallocations in census-guided federal aid, but also create a phenomenon known as “prison gerrymandering.” By assigning a higher proportion of legislative representation to districts which count prisoners culled from elsewhere as part of their own population, prison gerrymandering unfairly advantages communities with prisons in them over those from whence prisoners are routinely taken (Wang & Devarajan). In Governing through Crime, Jonathon Simon argues that “the technologies, discourses, and metaphors of crime and criminal justice have become more visible features of all kinds of institutions” to the degree that they are now “central to the exercise of authority in America, by everyone from the president of the United States to the classroom teacher” (4). And indeed, criminal justice institutions don’t exist in a vacuum; civil society also plays a role in perpetuating mass incarceration. Ana Muñiz has identified ways in which the police work with city councils, urban developers, wealthier neighborhood denizens, and local interest groups in order to target poor communities and minority neighborhoods, thus criminalizing unwanted demographic groups in order to reinforce racial boundaries and displace populations which are perceived of as barriers to urban gentrif ication efforts (5–7). On a similar note, ethnographer Victor Rios has explored the ways in which Black and Latino boys are criminalized from a very early age, affectively prepping them for the school-to-prison pipeline. Rios documents how schools, the police, peers, and even the parents of young minority boys all play their part in constructing a “youth control complex… a ubiquitous system of criminalization molded by the synchronized, systematic punishment meted out by socializing and social control institutions” (40).

36 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

Mass incarceration therefore affects not only individuals, but also the entire structure of American culture and society. However, it takes an especially outsized toll, both economic and emotional, on prisoners and the families and communities from which they are snatched away. Aside from diverting government funds away from more pro-social public investments, mass incarceration promotes the socialization of precarity, the functional equivalent of an oppressive, selective, and highly discriminatory regressive tax and transfer scheme which falls especially hard on those living in poor urban minority neighborhoods (Katzenstein and Waller 638–639).2 The circulations of bodies through the prison system and the net losses in terms of psychological damage, social dysfunction, and public expenditures are only the flipside of the lucrative returns and wages generated by those who are paid to apprehend, hold, and service the basic needs of the imprisoned. For this reason, mass incarceration is often referred to as “the prison industrial complex,” a terminology which gestures towards the prison’s embeddedness in the larger structures of the American economy, including the networks of overwhelmingly white-owned corporations, small businesses, contractors, and white rural workers hired to build, operate, staff, or service prisons (Davis 83–84). We might add to this list entertainment industry players who use crime, policing, courts, and incarceration as the raw material for spectacular stories produced, marketed, and sold in what may be called a prison-industrial-entertainment complex.

Punitive Realism & Unruly Spectacles An unprecedented media event occurred in September of 1971: Americans across the nation flipped on their televisions to witness a prison uprising unfold in real time from the comfort of their living rooms. Approximately 2 Drawing on and refashioning political scientist Suzanne Mettler’s notion of the submerged state as “a policy regime that – functioning below the radar – provides payouts to underwrite the well-being of America’s relatively well-off citizenry” (638), Mary Fainsod Katzentsein and Maureen R. Waller have argued that “[f]or the poorest of the poor, by contrast, an equally imperceptible system has immerged that is the very inversion of the[se] income and asset enhancements… this inverted ‘welfare state’ taxes poor families to… subsidize the carceral state” as “state entities, in collaboration, often, with their corporate partners, act knowingly but in unseen ways to leverage money from families, partners, and friends of the prospectively, currently, or formerly employed” (638–639). Such “seizure” practices include everything from onerous court, jail, and parole fees to inflated prices charged by prison vendors and services such as telephone companies – all of which are effectively taxes levied on the families of inmates for the financial benefit of the state and its contractors (Kartzenstein and Waller 642–644).

Mass (Mediating) Incarcer ation

37

1,000 prisoners, thoroughly fed up with mistreatment, discrimination, severe overcrowding, inadequate medical care, and inhumane living conditions, gained control of a portion of the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York, taking 43 guards and civilian workers hostage in the process. Among their first demands was that the news media be allowed into the prison; the reform-minded Correctional Services Commissioner, Russell G. Oswald, agreed. There is no downplaying the significance of Oswald’s fateful decision. As historian Heather Ann Thompson writes, “From that moment on, Attica entered history” (77). In the days to follow, Americans watched from the edge of their seats as a group of outside mediators negotiated with the prisoners. Although the prisoners remained largely peaceful, New York State officials, including State Governor Nelson Rockefeller, repeatedly refused to concede to their demands for reform. On the morning of September 13th, Rockefeller ordered the forceful retaking of the prison. The result was a massacre. In the melee that followed, thirty-nine people, including ten hostages, lost their lives; eighty-nine additional people were wounded. The overwhelmingly white troops and officers who retook the prison didn’t stop once the facility was secured. For days and weeks afterwards, guards at Attica took their retribution, refusing or impeding the delivery of medical attention for those injured while beating, terrorizing, and torturing others (Thompson 203–217). Meanwhile, New York State officials began circulating fabricated horror stories about gruesome atrocities supposedly committed by inmates against hostages. These and other such horrific rumors electrified the press, ensuring that lurid, fallacious reports about the depravity of prisoners would circulate for days in the pages of the nation’s newspapers and television broadcasts before forensics reports revealed the truth: almost all of the deaths, including those of the hostages, were the result of shots fired by troops and off icers.3 The damage, however, had already been done. As Thompson reports, One cannot overestimate how much it had mattered… when state officials stood outside Attica in the aftermath of their assault on the prison and told outrageous tales of prisoner barbarism. The rebellion had been front-page and television news for an entire week… to countless white Americans in particular, Attica suggested that it was now time to rein in “those” black and brown people who had been so vocally challenging authority 3 Three of the bodies, all of whom were prisoners, showed evidence of foul play prior to the day the prison was stormed.

38 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

and pushing the civil rights envelope. It appeared, now, that they weren’t legitimate freedom fighters, they were instead just dangerous thugs. (561)

Indeed, Thompson goes so far as to claim that the fabricated horror stories which circulated in the wake of the brutal slaughter at Attica shocked Americans “to such a degree that the nation descended into an internationally unparalleled crisis known as mass incarceration” (564). Attica put issues of large-scale incarceration, prison reform, and statesponsored violence directly before the eyes of an unprecedentedly large American viewing public for perhaps the very first time. As a result, the event has become iconic. Attica has become a major cultural reference point which continues to inform a substantial number of discourses regarding crime, punishment, and imprisonment. As The Official Report of the New York State Special Commission on Attica presciently put it: “Attica is every prison; and every prison is Attica” (xiii). 4 Attica still manages to exert such a powerful grip over the American imagination in large part due to the sheer dearth of news stories about prisons and prisoners in the years to follow. As Bruce Shapiro points out, “prison authorities learned one thing from Attica: keep the media away” (4). With a few important exceptions American news media largely elided critical coverage of prisons, and thus racialized mass incarceration, until well into the f irst decade of the 21 st century. Jonathan Simon is among those who have noted that although “atrocious prison conditions are widespread… their true extent remains hidden by self-protecting correctional bureaucracies and complacent media used to covering ‘crime’ and ‘criminals,’ not mass incarceration” (Trial 7). Indeed, serious journalistic coverage of issues related to punishment and imprisonment pales in comparison to the constant circulation of lurid stories about crime. But while the American news media has been historically either reticent or unable in the wake of Attica to offer substantial coverage of American incarceration, the same cannot be said about crime. Even as prisons disappeared from public view, crime increasingly became a matter of political discourse, media attention, and therefore public opinion. In 1969, the 4 The Attica uprising has been the topic of various documentaries, including Cinda Firestone’s Attica (1974), as well as made-for-TV movies such as ABC’s Attica (1980) and HBO’s Against the Wall (1994). The event continues to exert major influence on how prisons are imagined. OZ, the subject of the next chapter, even goes so far as to name its fictional prison after Commissioner Oswald, and creator Tom Fontana often traces the series’ genesis to the impact Attica had on him during his childhood. Indeed, the first season culminates in a prison riot inspired by the Attica uprising.

Mass (Mediating) Incarcer ation

39

National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence reported that “[f]ear of crime is destroying some of the basic human freedoms which any society is supposed to safeguard” and asked, “Is there a basis for this fear?” (34). That the report addressed “fear of crime” rather than crime itself is telling; even today Americans routinely tend to over-estimate the crime rate although it has plunged sharply over the course of the last several decades (Gramlich). Cultural assumptions about crime matter for the ways in which Americans perceive the utility and functioning of criminal justice institutions. The years leading up to Attica provide a point of pivot in the ways in which Americans imagined the causes and consequences of crime, not to mention their susceptibility to it. Crime was largely understood in the f irst two decades of the post-WWII period in clinical terms, as either the product of psychological maladjustment or as a symptom of social exclusion and economic deprivation. Consequently, sociologists, criminologists, and corrections professionals were by and large highly invested in projects of criminal rehabilitation. Referring to this paradigm as either “penal modernism” or “penal welfarism,” Garland notes that “criminological ideas that shaped policy during the post-war period were an eclectic mixture of abnormal psychology and sociological theories… Criminality was viewed as a problem of defective or poorly adapted individuals or families, or else as a symptom of need, social injustice and the inevitable clash of cultural norms” (Culture 15). Perhaps most importantly, crime was seen as a problem best left to professionals; politicians and journalists were not considered, nor did they very often consider themselves, competent to pronounce on issues of crime and punishment, while wider public opinion seemed to reflect little interest in the question (Garland, Culture 51). The penal modernist consensus began to break down as crime became an increasingly central topic of political discourse and public opinion. As early as 1974 David Rothman expressed wholesale skepticism that prisontime had any effect on correcting, intimidating, or deterring criminals in any way. What it did manage to do, he thought, was to facilitate the abuses of imprisonment and stimulate public distrust of ex-offenders (657). In the same year, Robert Martinson published an article entitled “What Works? – questions and answers about prison reform” in The Public Interest, a document which has since gained notoriety as the Martinson Report. Martinson and his team of researchers performed a meta-analysis whereby they perused all the available literature on prison rehabilitation and found that “[w]ith few and isolated exceptions, the rehabilitative

40 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

efforts that have been reported so far have had no appreciable effect on recidivism” (25). However, this seemingly straightforward summary comes with pages of qualifying details, and to read them is to get the sense that if “nothing works” it is because nothing has in fact ever really been seriously tried. Even so, this did not stop conservative policy hawks, eager to cut prison funding while expanding its capacity, to iron out all such details and disseminate what is now known as the “Nothing Works” doctrine. Armed with this excuse to dismantle and defund whole hosts of rehabilitation programs, conservative politicians cherry-picked and propagated Martinson’s arguments to win popular support for legislation which foregrounded practices of retribution and warehousing. Only four years after the publication of the Martinson Report, legal scholar Francis Allen was already lamenting “the decline of the rehabilitative ideal” and the rise of distinctly punitive criminal justice policies (148), marking what we now commonly refer to as “the punitive turn” in American criminal justice (Garland, Culture 142). The purpose of imprisonment shifted from corrections and rehabilitation towards a model based upon deterrence, retribution, and near-indefinite incapacitation. The punitive turn reflects not only the ascendancy of retributive sentiments and widespread fear of crime in American society more generally, but also highlights a key feature of what I call punitive realism: a dark, fatalistic view of human nature in which people are inherently prone to vice and therefore only respond to the threat of pain and punishment.5 Standing in for legitimate public knowledge regarding crime and punishment, punitive realism denotes first and foremost a distinctly generic set of conventions and schemata circulating through commercial media and political discourse. These media-driven distortions propagated a perverse, deeply flawed, yet commonly shared national sense of social reality. Over time, these conventions coalesced into a hegemonic ideology which perpetuated a set of widely shared beliefs, ideological assumptions, and conventionalized tropes which stand in for credible knowledge about crime and punishment. In the wake of Attica, American media representations of crime have largely tended to focus on particularly heinous criminal spectacles rather than larger structural, institutional, or systemic issues. Although such stories have always held a certain perverse appeal to American audiences, many 5 It is tempting in this regard to read punitive realism as a descendent of other influential historical ideologies, including the Calvinist doctrine of total depravity or particularly bleak interpretations of Bentham’s utilitarian hedonic calculus. However, the scope of the current project prohibits me from further exploring such historical forerunners in depth.

Mass (Mediating) Incarcer ation

41

analysts have pointed to the 1970s as a watershed moment in which fear of crime reached irrational heights: Mass incarceration’s aura of legitimacy proceeds from… a lingering emotional response to the fears of the 1970s. Its emotional “truth” is frozen in the decade’s nightmarish images, which continue to shape opinions about prisons, prisoners, and crime prevention long after the historical context has disappeared. (Simon, Trial 21)

Meanwhile, politicians pandered to public fears of disorder and insecurity while simultaneously propagating the notion that the nation was being overrun by, in Allen’s words, “born criminals” (151), a trope which echoes the racist, biologically deterministic, but nevertheless highly influential theories propagated by theorists such as the 19th-century Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso. Such dark figures and the pessimistic assumptions about human nature they embody are key ingredients of punitive realism.6 The pervasiveness and spectacular character of these media representations matters. Over the course of the 1960s, “rising crime rates ceased to be a statistical abstraction and took on a vivid personal meaning in popular consciousness and individual psychology… These anxieties about crime… paved the way for a politics of reaction in the late 1970s” (Garland, Culture 153). More important than actual crime rates, however, was the impression of crime created by sensationalized media coverage. As Garland writes, “none of us experiences ‘crime’ in an unmediated, untutored, unscripted way” (Culture 147). In America at least, most people experience crime through the prism of commercial mass media in the form of either dramatic entertainment or news programs. Since the business of commercial media is to grab, hold, and sell an audience’s attention, “the media is most likely to focus on stories that highlight the sensational nature of crimes… thereby giving the public a distorted view of how frequent these crimes actually are” (Lugo-Ocando 20). The mass media is not solely to blame for the rise of punitive realism. Political elites, and Republicans in particular, also played a huge role in constructing and validating these nightmarish images. Beckett and Sasson have argued that “popular punitiveness is largely a consequence rather 6 I will have more to say on the cultural roots of this trope in my analysis of OZ’s characters in sections 2.3 and 2.4. However, it is perhaps at this point worth already noting the notion of a born criminal’s representational debts to antecedents in various strains of Western European Gothic literatures (Rafter and Ystehede 264), as well as its similarity to figures portrayed by American literary naturalists, pointing to the transatlantic appeal and lasting cultural resonance of Lombroso’s theories, as well as the cultural lineage from which punitive realism arises.

42 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

than a cause of political initiative on the crime issue; popular attitudes increasingly reflect the claims and narratives about crime that dominate political rhetoric and saturate the mass media” (9). Largely in reaction to the victories of the civil rights and New Left social movements of the 1960s, Republicans fashioned a rhetoric and cultural narrative which tied criminal deviance to notions of civil permissiveness, laxity, and undeserved social support. The result was a morality tale which resonated with voters so well that it furnished much of the logic for dismantling social support programs and replacing them with mechanisms of carceral control for decades thereafter. The poor, urban minority communities most likely to be deprived of this support became instead targets for carceral control. The narrative was so politically successful that eventually Democrats began to parrot it as well; the 1994 Omnibus Crime Bill passed under President Bill Clinton was in large part an attempt to dispel the notion that Democrats were “soft on crime” even though it largely aggravated the issue of mass incarceration. Dobrynina calls this “Penal populism… a process whereby politicians devise punitive penal policies, which are adjudged to be ‘popular’ within the general public, and are designed to mobilize votes rather than improve the crime and justice situation” (98). As many have pointed out, criminality has been and continues to be largely associated with racialized, classed, and gendered images of drug users and gang violence in the inner-city. Along with the “if it bleeds it leads” approach to news coverage which privileges decontextualized and often exceptional incidents of particularly gruesome crimes, f ictional entertainment tends to focus on melodramatic spectacles of violent crime and extra-judicial retribution. Films such as Taxi Driver (1976), Death Wish (1974), and Falling Down (1993) often portrayed frustrated white male vigilantes taking the law into their own hands and wreaking havoc upon the explicitly or implicitly racialized bodies of criminal stereotypes in mean streets of the city. On the flip side, veritable avalanches of police films such as Colors (1988), Training Day (2001), and more recently End of Watch (2012) as well as popular television police procedurals such as Hill Street Blues (1981–1987), NYPD Blue (1993–2005), CSI (200–2015), or Homicide (1993–1999) are commonly focalized through the perspectives of hardened detectives and patrol officers. At the same time, they often produce a thin veneer of post-racialism through the convention of “buddying up” white and minority partners, who play out often problematic fantasies of racial reconciliation. Meanwhile, so-called ‘hood films such as New Jack City (1991), Menace II Society (1993), and Dangerous Minds (1995) have tended to depict Black and brown inner-city youth as deeply dysfunctional, violent,

Mass (Mediating) Incarcer ation

43

and at times wholly sociopathic figures destined to live and die on the streets.7 The images and narratives these televisual and cinematic genres propagate have gradually conditioned audiences to expect only the most harmful pop-cultural stereotypes of Black and brown inner-city denizens. Along with these fictional representations, we should not ignore the avalanche of so-called “reality-TV” shows which attest to show viewers the “reality” of crime, policing, and incarceration in America. Foremost amongst these is the long-running, highly popular, and pervasively syndicated COPS (1989–2020), which “consistently, and casually, presents textbook bad policing as good policing” justif ied through the construction of “a scary, dangerous world where the over-aggressive policing it normalizes seems warranted” (Taberski). As Taberski reports, shows like COPS are anything but real; aside from evolving standardized episode structures and heavily editing down hundreds of hours of footage into small bits of action, COPS and its imitators often allowed the police departments they partnered with to hold final say over completed episodes in exchange for continuing access. Such shows are therefore perhaps better viewed not as documentary series but rather as PR or promotional advertisements for police departments.8 Similarly, one can point to a slew of documentaries and reality-TV series, such as the MSNBC’s long-running Lockup (2005–2017) franchise and its various spinoffs, which ostensibly seek to reveal to viewers the “real lives” of those living and working behind bars, but more often than not tend to screen highly edited selections of material which affirm rather than probe or critique the value of imprisonment. This is often achieved through the confessional-style testimony of especially charismatic or troubled prisoners, thus allowing those carefully selected individuals to stand in and speak for 7 Notably, and as I will discuss in more detail in the next chapter, these categories are themselves some of the stock figures associated with hardboiled modes of filmic and literary realism, thus providing the aforementioned notion of a paradoxically melodramatic punitive realism with a long representational lineage in the American imaginary. This lineage stretches all the way back through literary naturalism, spectacular “city mystery” crime fiction, the American “dark” Romanticism evinced by f igures such as Poe, and the 18th-century gothic novels of English novelists such as Ann Radcliffe. In more recent iterations, these figures are related to what is sometimes referred to in social scientific literatures as the “underclass,” a term which, in spite of a much longer pedigree, was popularized in the 1980s and 1990s due in large part to the aforementioned cycles of popular crime dramas, police procedurals, and ‘hood films. 8 Indeed, given COPS’ popularity and high rate of syndication, one is tempted to wonder to what degree not only the perceptions of viewers, but also the self-understandings and behaviors of police officers across the country (who, after all, also consume television) have been cultivated by constant exposure to this highly influential series.

44 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

the entirety of the incarcerated population. Similarly, staff members tend to recount the most dangerous and exceptional events from their careers working in corrections, and rarely make note of the mundane, almost boring activities which in fact fill the days of most people working in the carceral bureaucracy. As Erin DiCesare notes, such pseudo-documentary TV series produce not only a highly constructed sense of voyeurism, but also “function as soft forms of control” (431), in part by “creating fear and the promise of public safety and protection” (430). Whether they emphasize the spectacularized activities of law enforcement officers or the penal careers of prisoners, these popular shows, targeted largely at prime-time (and, in syndication, daytime) viewing audiences, tend to use the social sorting operations of commercial television’s viewership segmentation strategies to construct, circulate, and reinforce rather than break down or demystify common stereotypes surrounding their ostensible subjects. Such media operations are thus analogous to the socio-historical and political processes of segregation which construct some communities as safe and deserving and others as dangerous and contemptable. They position viewers at home, safe in their domesticity and secure in their sense of moral superiority, as voyeurs of ostensibly lurid yet highly edited underworlds; too many affluent, white, middle-class viewers are confirmed in their suspicions that they are radically unlike the lower-class, often racialized “criminals” they see on screen. Meanwhile images, narratives, or testimonies which may have produced sentiments of identification or empathy often get left on the cutting room floor, save when they may serve as redemption narratives capable of reifying and justifying practices of carceral control. Too often, the cultural work of reality-TV seems to be to confirm “respectable” audiences in their moralizing wariness of the so-called “dangerous” classes on the one hand, even as they seek to foist a set of “low-brow” taste associations upon lower-class audiences, based largely on their presumed inferiority. To borrow the words of the late David Graeber, these shows, and the networks that produce them, are largely involved in a form of “dream-work” which functions to “make rich people feel good about themselves, or to make poor people feel bad about themselves.” On the whole, the perpetual demonization of disadvantaged groups in the media has helped to naturalize the policy outcomes which reinforce perverse lifepath expectations for those at-risk groups most likely to find themselves behind bars. The persistent notion of a racialized, depraved underclass has been a particularly pernicious feature of punitive realism in this regard. Largely associated throughout American culture with both drug crime and the urban “ghetto,” media-driven mythologies of the underclass have

Mass (Mediating) Incarcer ation

45

recast fragile and marginalized communities as the battlefields upon which the War on Drugs has been most ardently waged. Since the War on Drugs was largely “framed… as a war against crack” by political elites and news media, associations with crack cocaine and poor urban Blacks ensured that “[t]he War on Drugs quickly deteriorated into a race-conscious war on urban black and, to a lesser extent, Latino communities” (Marable 5). Vilification of these communities in the media helped reinforce deeply entrenched racial and class stereotypes. This includes images which represent young Black men as inherently violent; as Michelle Alexander points out, “The process of marking black youth as black criminals is essential to the functioning of mass incarceration as a racial caste system” (200). If American media outlets and viewers have been historically reticent to confront the politics of the prison boom in newspapers or the nightly news, they seem to have shown no lack of appetite for it in the form of drama and entertainment. Consider the popularity of films such as The Shawshank Redemption (1994) or the success of original prison documentaries produced by the likes of HBO and Netflix. In 2006, Paul Mason estimated that Hollywood alone “has produced around 350 prison films since the Barnsdale production company made the silent melodrama Prison Bars in 1901” (“Turn On” 197); in recent years that number has ballooned. Indeed, it is instructive to note that prison reform has finally found its way onto the national political agenda at precisely the moment that the prison has become something of a televisual hit, with dramatic series like Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black (2013–2019), along with a new generation of reality-TV “docuseries” such as Girls Incarcerated (2018–2019), drawing large and diverse audiences. Even TV narratives which begin in the prison only to sprawl beyond its walls never really seem to escape it as an operative metaphor for American society. This is especially true of those which largely sidestep the fact of racial over-representation by foregrounding charismatic white male protagonists, as is the case for Fox’s Prison Break (2005–2017). As Paul Wright has argued, prisons are “constantly mystified and mythologized” (16) through spectacular media portrayals, and “prison culture is itself marketed and sold for mass consumption” (17). Not only does the commodification of prisons in and through popular culture repackage, market, and sell what Gresham Sykes has referred to as the “pains of imprisonment” (11); it also reifies the otherwise contingent policies which spur mass incarceration. As a result, such “policy choices seem neutral and natural when in reality they are neither” (Wright 21). Michelle Brown takes this a step further, arguing that not only cultural producers, but consumers are likewise implicated in the ethical perversions of prison commodification. Brown argues that since the majority

46 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

of us have little to no firsthand experience of prisons or prisoners, we occupy the position of “penal spectators” for whom “experiential distance defines [our] relationship” to actual penal practices and conditions (9). Since actual prisons remain opaque to everyday viewers, penal spectators have historically had little access to credible knowledge about either: “The remoteness of the penal spectator… guarantees that his imagining of punishment is haunted by abstract potentialities of danger and insecurity” (Brown 9). Even so, penal spectators still have a degree of choice over the kinds of media and information they consume. It is therefore doubly troubling that not only do many actively search out such entertainment, but that it often reinforces the notion that audiences at home are the ostensible moral superiors of prisoners: Citizens… may be disturbed by these images. They may find such engagement titillating. In any case, they are enthralled in a manner that is not easily conducive to analysis or self-reflection. Thus, a shadow world of moral judgment and penal logics exists beyond prison walls as a constant and perpetually growing cultural resource for people to make sense of punishment. Few other institutions encounter such a radical and momentous divide between their physical realities and cultural imagining. (Brown 5)

Penal spectatorship, then, not only reifies the ideology of punitive realism, but also helps the state to shore up the respectability and rationalize the privileges of certain favored identity positions as ostensibly innocent consumers rather than complicit citizens. Even if most of us occupy a position of penal spectatorship, we should not therefore presume that all media texts or audience receptions unambiguously or slavishly serve mass incarceration’s status quo. While many mass-mediated images have helped to cement associations of racial minorities with criminality, others provide moments for contestation: “Mass media spectacles of race, violence, and crime often become rallying points for aggrieved communities” (Markowitz 3). Therefore, even though they often “work to shore up racist stereotypes… they also create opportunities for critiquing prevalent conceptions of race, and can be used to mobilize political activists” (Markowitz 3).9 Racialized images of violent spectacle 9 Markowitz further points to the importance of considering the roles played by different audiences in interpreting, utilizing, and frequently challenging otherwise oppressive images and argues for “caution for anyone seeking to determine the meaning of racial spectacles,” pointing to the antilynching movement’s “anti-racist” use of spectacular images to “belie conceptions of spectacles as purely hegemonic mass media events that always and only serve the interest of capital and power” (10).

Mass (Mediating) Incarcer ation

47

and incarceration may therefore be produced, disseminated, and consumed to ambiguous or indeterminate ends. If media spectacles reinforce and racialize Americans’ largely irrational fears of crime and mystify the realities of mass incarceration, such spectacles also service continuing American romances with melodramas of victimhood and villainy. More interesting still: whereas sensationalistic news reporting, reality television shows, and police procedurals have generally encouraged identification with either crime victims or criminal justice authorities, prison series and crime films have frequently foregrounded the character development and struggles of criminals and prisoners, often rendering them as victims in their own right. If such narratives do not fully confound the presumed self-evidence of the prison as an indispensable institution, they at least complicate the strict ordering of the world into melodramatic categories of victimized virtue and criminal villainy, even if only by reshuffling the roles. Although the prison form adheres in part through its tyrannical hold on the public imagination vis-à-vis the production of media spectacle, we should not assume that all representations of the prison serve to automatically shore up its legitimacy. Cultural criminologist Philip Smith points out that in spite of being an institution of control, the prison itself “has been unable to control its own narration” (84). This is in large part because the prison inheres as a contested site of constant cultural renegotiation; as Smith puts it, “punishment is a domain of partly ordered and predictable but also frequently unruly and ungovernable meanings” (24). Thus, media texts and cultural stories about the prison may just as often work to undermine the status quo as to shore up its legitimacy, or even complicate the entire notion of a simple binary between complicity and resistance altogether. This is perhaps especially true of those stories which attempt to penetrate its walls rather than merely project terrors upon them. Indeed, the sheer opacity of the prison may itself yield ample opportunities to launch critiques or imagine alternatives. As investigative journalist and anthropologist Ted Connover puts it, “There is little, I think, that engages my imagination like a wall” (17–18). The following chapters seek to explore precisely such engagements.

Conclusion This chapter has introduced some of the main lines of research surrounding the racialized crisis of American mass incarceration before turning to the cultural history which accompanied its rise. It has argued that mass incarceration’s racial skew is the product of structural and systemic racism

48 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

embedded in both the criminal justice system and American history more generally. Moreover, it has argued that mass incarceration locks its victims into self-reinforcing and profit-extracting cycles of perpetual punishment; it is a machine which constantly recycles racialized bodies plucked from highly vulnerable communities through the revolving doors of the prison. A dearth of critical news coverage in the wake of the Attica uprising and a history of residential segregation long occluded the consequences of mass incarceration for (formerly) incarcerated individuals and the vulnerable communities from whence they disproportionately hail from sight for the majority more affluent, largely white populations. Or rather, when such communities were rendered visible, it was through a commercial mass media lens which tended to paint them as crime-ridden, unsympathetic, and dangerous. A great deal of this media exploited the rising popularity of revanchist, reactionary, right-wing rhetoric which tended to paint racially segregated and politically abandoned inner-city neighborhoods and their denizens as inherently criminal. The result was the rise and consolidation of what I call punitive realism: a dark, paranoid ideology driven by highly generic tropes, stereotypes, and narrative patterns disseminated through popular media. Punitive realism reduced poor Black and brown inner-city folks to stock images of unworthy, immoral, and irredeemable criminals. It thus serves as the cultural legitimization of the rhetoric, polices, and practices which produce and sustain mass incarceration. However, even hegemonic cultural formations are never static; due to the work of activists, academics, and journalists, large swaths of the American public have become increasingly aware of and concerned about the human toll taken by half a century of mass incarceration. Since the turn of the 21st century so, too, has commercial media. The chapters which follow consider the ways in which a particularly influential selection of post-network era TV programs have shored up their “quality” credentials and gathered their audiences by at once exploiting and disseminating concern over these issues, bringing debates about mass incarceration out of the courtrooms, classrooms, and streets, and beaming them into our living rooms. Sources Cited ACLU. “Written Submission of the American Civil Liberties Union on Racial Disparities in Sentencing.” 153rd Session of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, 27 Oct. 2014. Web. Accessed 12 Sept. 2018. https://www.aclu.org/sites/ default/files/assets/141027_iachr_racial _disparities_aclu_submission_0.pdf Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: The New Press, 2010.

Mass (Mediating) Incarcer ation

49

Allen, Francis A. “The Decline of the Rehabilitative Ideal in American Criminal Justice.” Cleveland State Law Review, vol. 27, no. 2, 1978, p. 1–56. Beckett, Katherine and Theodore Sasson. The Politics of Injustice. 2nd Ed. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2004. Bonczar, Thomas. P. “Prevalence of Imprisonment in the U.S. Population, 1974–2001.” Bureau of Justice Statistics. U.S. Department of Justice, Aug. 2003. Brown, Michelle. The Culture of Punishment. New York: New York University Press, 2009. Carson, Ann E. “Prisoners in 2018.” Bureau of Justice Statistics. U.S. Department of Justice, April 2020. Colors. Dennis Hopper, dir. Orion Pictures, 1988. Connover, Ted. Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing. New York: Vintage, 2001. COPS. John Langley and Malcolm Barbour, crs. 1989–2020. CSI. Anthony E. Zuiker, cr. CBS, 2000–2015. Dangerous Minds. John N. Smith, dir. Buena Vista Pictures, 1995. Davis, Angela. Are Prisons Obsolete? New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003. Death Wish. Eli Roth, dir. Paramount Pictures, 1974. DiCesare, Erin. “Reality TV: Instilling Fear to Avoid Prison.” The Palgrave Handbook of Incarceration in Popular Culture. Ed, Marcus Harmes et al. Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. p. 425–436. Dobrynina, Margarita. “The Roots of ‘Penal Populism’: The Role of Media and Politics.” Kriminologijos studios, vol. 4, 2016, p. 98–124. End of Watch. David Ayer, dir. Open Road Films, 2012. Falling Down. Joel Schumacher, dir. Warner Bros. Pictures, 1993. Garland, David. The Culture of Control. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2001. Ghandnoosh, Nazgol. “U.S. Prison Decline: Insufficient to Undo Mass Incarceration.” The Sentencing Project, May 2020. Web. Accessed 1 Dec. 2020. https:// www.sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/U.S.-Prison-DeclineInsufficient-to-Undo-Mass-Incarceration.pdf Goode, Erica. “Stronger Hand for Judges in the ‘Bazaar’ of Plea Deals.” The New York Times. 22 March 2012. Web. Accessed 19 Nov. 2018. https://www.nytimes. com/2012/03/23/us/stronger-hand-for-judges-after-rulings-on-plea-deals.html Graeber, David. “After the Pandemic, We Can’t Go Back to Sleep.” Jacobin. 4 March 2021. Web. Accessed 17 Dec. 2021. https://jacobinmag.com/2021/03/ david-graeber-posthumous-essay-pandemic?fbclid=IwAR3zGBgQKwhIqq1fu oqRbK2oLPQ1 TasphzyVRhm OrvC6cSe SVp6xKLRGHV0 Gramlich, John. “What the data says (and doesn’t say) about crime in the United States. Pew Research Center. 20 Nov. 2020. Web. Accessed 1 Dec. 2020. https:// www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/20/facts-about-crime-in-the-u-s/

50 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

Hill Street Blues. Steven Bochco and Michael Kozoll, crs. NBC, 1981–1987. Homicide: Life on the Streets. Paul Attanasio, cr. NBC Universal, 1993–1999. Kaplan-Lyman, Jeremy. “A Punitive Bind: Policing, Poverty, and Neoliberalism in New York City.” Yale Human Rights and Development Journal, vol. 15, no. 1, 2012, p. 177–222. Katzenstein, Mary Fainsod and Maureen R. Waller. “Taxing the Poor: Incarceration, Poverty Governance, and the Seizure of Family Resources.” Perspectives on Politics, vol. 3, no. 3, 2015, p. 638–656. Kelly, Robin D. G. “Thug Nation: On State Violence and Disposability.” Policing the Planet. ed. Jordan T. Camp and Christina Heatherton. Verso: 2016. Lockup. Rasha Drachkovitch, cr. MSNBC, 2005–2017. Loury, Glenn C. Race, Incarceration and American Values. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008. Lugo-Ocando, Jairo. Crime Statistics in the News. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Martinson, Robert. “What Works? – Questions and Answers about Prison Reform.” The Public Interest, vol 35, p. 22–54. Markowitz, Jonathan. Racial Spectacles: Explorations in Media, Race, and Justice. New York: Routledge, 2011. Marable, Manning. “Introduction.” Racializing Justice, Disenfranchising Lives. Ed. Manning Marable, Ian Stenberg, and Keesha Middlemass. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Mason, Paul. “Turn on, Tune in, Slop out.” Captured by the Media. Ed. Paul Mason. London: Routledge, 2006. p. 1–15. Mauer, Marc. “Forward: Challenging Mass Incarceration.” The Punitive Turn. Ed. Deborah E. McDowell, Claudrena N. Harold, and Juan Battle. Charlottesville, University of Virginia Press, 2013. p. vii–xiii. Menace II Society. Allen and Albert Hughes, dirs. New Line Cinema, 1993. Muñiz, Ana. Police, Power, and the Production of Racial Boundaries. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2015. National Research Council. The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences. Ed. Jeremy Travis, Bruce Western, and Steven Redburn. Washington DC: The National Academies Press, 2014. New Jack City. Mario Van Peebles, dir. Warner Bros. Pictures, 1991. The New York State Special Commission on Attica. Attica: The Official Report of the Special Commission on Attica. New York: Bantam Books, 1972. NYPD Blue. Steven Bochco and David Milch, crs. ABC, 1993–2005. Pfaff, John F. Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration. New York: Basic Books, 2017. Prison Break. Paul Scheuring, cr. 20th Century Fox Television, 2005–2017.

Mass (Mediating) Incarcer ation

51

Rafter, Nicole and Per Ystehede. “Here Be Dragons: Lombroso, The Gothic, and Social Control.” Popular Culture, Crime and Social Control. Ed. Methieu Deflem. Emerald Group Publishing, 2010. Richards, Stephen C. and Richard S. Jones. “Beating the Perpetual Incarceration Machine.” After Crime and Punishment. Ed. Shadd Murana and Russ Immarigeon. Willan Publishing, 2004. Rios, Victor M. Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys. New York: New York University Press, 2011. Rothman, David. “Prisons: The Failure Model,” The Nation, Collected Volumes. 21 Dec. 1974. Shapiro, Bruce. “The Ghosts of Attica.” The Nation, 31 Jan 2000, p. 4. Web. Accessed 30 Aug. 2018. http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A59676317/AONE?u=fub&si d=AONE&xid=3f5e24fc The Shawshank Redemption. Frank Darapont, dir. Columbia Pictures, 1994. Simon, Jonathan. Governing through Crime. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Simon, Jonathon. Mass Incarceration on Trial. New York: The New Press, 2014. Smith, Philip. Punishment and Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Sykes, Gresham M. The Society of Captives. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007. Taberski, Dan. “Is the Show ‘Cops’ Committing Crimes Itself?” The New York Times. 8 June 2019. Web. Accessed 1 Dec. 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/18/ opinion/cops-podcast-investigation-abuse.html Taxi Driver. Martin Scorsese, dir. Columbia Pictures, 1976. Thompson, Heather Ann. Blood in the Water. New York: Vintage Books, 2017. Training Day. Antoine Fuqua, dir. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2001. Travis, Jeremy. “Invisible Punishment: An Instrument of Social Exclusion.” Invisible Punishment: The Collateral Consequences of Mass Imprisonment. Ed. Marc Mauer and Meda Chesney-Lind. New York: The New York Press, 2013. Useem, Bert and Anne Morrison Pehl. Prison State: The Challenge of Mass Incarceration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Wacquant, Loïc. Punishing the Poor. Durham: Duke University Press, 2009. Wagner, Peter and Wendy Sawyer. “Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2018.” Prison Policy Initiative. 14 March 2018. Web. Accessed 20 Aug. 2018. https://www. prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2018.html Wang, Hansi Lo and Kumari Devarajan. “‘Your Body Being Used’: Where Prisoners Who Can’t Vote Fill Voting Districts.” Code Switch. Dec. 31, 2019. Web. Accessed Dec. 1 2020. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/12/31/761932806/ your-body-being-used-where-prisoners-who-can-t-vote-fill-voting-districts Wright, Paul. “The Cultural Commodification of Prisons.” Social Justice, vol. 27, no. 3, 2000, p. 15–21.

2.

How Does Violent Spectacle Appear as TV Realism?Sources of OZ’s Penal Imaginary Abstract OZ is widely regarded as the first fictional American TV drama to explore the opaque back-stages of the criminal justice system. Celebrated for its ostensible “realism,” the series utilizes the hyper-mediated cultural form of the prison as a site which self-consciously generates and puts into circulation stories and images of grotesque and nightmarish violence in order to repeatedly transgress the boundaries of televisual decorum. It therefore ends up reinforcing TV’s reliance upon spectacle and, in the process, reifies the prison’s own most naturalized claims to legitimate institutional reproduction. However, its tendency to constantly recycle increasingly strange figures through repeating cycles of narrative decline ultimately explodes its own sense of realism, rendering the very notion hauntingly bizarre in the process. Keywords: OZ, prison theory, TV realism, hyper-reality, spectacle, naturalism and the gothic

Welcome to OZ OZ, which premiered in 1997 and ran for six reasons, is widely believed to be the first US-American television drama to take place almost entirely inside a prison.1 Set inside an experimental rehabilitation unit called Emerald City (Em’ City for short), which is in turn housed in the fictional maximum-security 1 In fact, HBO also aired the six-part drama series Maximum Security in 1984 to some critical acclaim but little popular success. Likewise, ABC first aired the prison comedy On the Rocks in 1975, only to cancel it in 1976.

Flamand, Lee A., American Mass Incarceration and Post-Network Quality Television: Captivating Aspirations. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2022 doi 10.5117/9789463725057_ch02

54 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

prison Oswald State Penitentiary, OZ follows the ambiguous moral careers, shuffling alliances, and violent activities of its diverse, ensemble cast of prison staff and prisoners as they organize themselves into ethnic gangs and vie for power within the confines of the unit.2 OZ has been described as “a testosterone-driven soap opera for guys” (Axmaker) which works hard to push the envelope in terms of graphic televisual content. The result is a series which has won praise for its gritty “realism” and for tackling previously taboo topics such as homosexuality and drug addiction just as often as it received harsh criticism for its exaggerated and excessive deployment of violence. OZ holds a special, if contested, place in TV lore; the series is often hailed as an influential forerunner for the contemporary “quality” TV drama. Allen Sepinwall has called OZ “the first revolutionary cable drama of the period” and hailed it as “the foundation for everything that followed” (Sepinwall 19). In a more recent retrospective on OZ, Joe Bish declares that on the day OZ aired “the landscape of television – and the way we consume and relate to entertainment – changed forever.” Adulations such as these seek to position OZ as either a forerunner or inaugurator in an aesthetic revolution. The narrative is perhaps so convincing because it is so profoundly simple: in the beginning, there was OZ. The decision to produce OZ as HBO’s first long-form fictional TV drama has at least as much to do with business incentives as with any purported aesthetic revolution, including HBO’s need to differentiate itself amongst an increasing crowded cable lineup. Indeed, OZ fits well with HBO’s own business model and brand strategy. Unlike its network and basic cable competitors, HBO is largely unencumbered by the regulatory restrictions, reliance on advertisers, and normative practices of broadcast television. Moreover, as a premium subscription channel, HBO has historically targeted upmarket niche demographics. It therefore had every incentive to experiment with provocative storytelling strategies as a means of both attracting subscribers and shoring up its distinct brand image. Moreover, there was reason to believe that OZ would appeal to HBO subscribers due to its past success with prison documentaries (Sepinwall 20). OZ, in this sense, fit relatively well as a new slant on HBO’s pre-established programming reputation, and its gruesome spectacles of hyperviolence served as a litmus test for how HBO viewers would respond to graphic content in long-form dramas. While OZ received critical praise and won modest success by attracting a loyal and relatively diverse following, it also attracted a great deal of 2 The fictional prison is christened after Russell G. Oswald, the prison commissioner who oversaw the New York’s response to the 1971 Attica uprising discussed in the previous chapter.

How Does Violent Spec tacle Appear as T V Realism?

55

criticism for its graphic depictions of extreme violence, profanity, and sex. For many audience members, OZ’s sensationalistic deployment of violence was a clear marker and maker of the series’ realism. Michael Albernethy writes that “no other fiction [sic] show has offered such a frighteningly realistic look inside our nation’s prisons or so openly debated their moral and social obligations.” Other critics argue that OZ’s graphic content undermines its claims to realism. As Bryan Jarvis has noted, “When OZ was applauded for its ‘realism’ this label was not referring primarily to the built environment, nor the aspects of social geography such as demographics and healthcare. ‘Realism’ was largely a euphemism for the ceaseless displays of violence that were the series’ distinguishing feature” (158). Sociologist Dawn K. Cecil writes: “OZ offers a complex look at prison life, but that is often overshadowed by violence” (54). In an early review, TV critic Caryn James wonders: “are its sociological themes anything more than window dressing for lurid prison scenes?” Or, as Tom Shales puts it: “Is ‘OZ’ stark realism or just sensationalism? Sometimes it seems a weird, yet essentially conscientious mixture of both.” Discussions regarding OZ’s cultural politics have remained similarly contentious. In early interviews, series creator and showrunner Tom Fontana stated that he wanted the series to be politically agnostic. Even so, as OZ began to wrap up in 2002, Fontana began to tout a larger set of political concerns: “over the years, as crime continued to rise, conservative pundits blamed the lawlessness in our streets in the ineffectiveness of prison reform. Drug recovery and educational programs corroded, as revenge once again became our nation’s prime agenda” (“Epilogue” 190). While Fontana voices concern over the state of American corrections, he stops short of taking a coherent political position: “‘Why did we start OZ in the first place?’ First, to put a human face on our faceless prison population. Second, to tell a tiny piece of the truth, not just about the people in prison, but our individual selves as well” (“Epilogue” 192). However, some have argued that, due primarily to the series’ ceaseless portrayal of outlandish violence, “the show is as dehumanizing as the prison system it attacks” (D. Smith). Academic opinion is also split. Jarvis asserts that more than simply dehumanizing characters, OZ sidesteps the most important political issues of the time: “The spectacle of fighting and murder obscures the underlying structural violence of social inequality and the crime of transferring public resources from welfare to warfare” (Jarvis 159). Still others argue that OZ implies a political position merely by putting the prison on screen. Joe Wlodarz argues that “OZ humanizes its criminals and points to ways that the prison system only exacerbates,

56 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

rather than remedies, larger social crises and conflicts” (67). Likewise, Wilson & O’Sullivan argue that: …although OZ represents itself as being formally agnostic on the origins of the ‘prison crisis’ and the solutions to it the show makes no sense if there is not some kind of problem to be addressed. If prison were a smoothly functioning, valuable social institution then we would have no need to see it. The simple act of showing prison is an agenda setting intervention suggesting a problem in need of consideration. (154)

Rather than getting bogged down in debates about OZ’s cultural politics or attempting to determine how closely it adheres to “the facts” of life behind bars, this chapter instead asks a somewhat different set of questions. Writing about “the reality effects of The Wire” – a series with infrequently acknowledged commercial, aesthetic, and even professional debts to OZ – Frank Kelleter asks: “Which habits must pertain so that television stories can offer the representation of more violence, and more graphic violence, as signs of enhanced realism?” (Serial 3). When applied to OZ, such a question quickly instigates a host of other, related inquires. Given that the prison so frequently celebrates itself as an institution for inculcating discipline, dedicated in the words of Michel Foucault to the production of “docile’ bodies” (D&P 138), what makes OZ’s spectacle of decidedly undisciplined prisoners run amok appear as “quality” televisual realism? Upon which cultural assumptions, social conditions, operative discourses, storytelling modes, and media antecedents does the series’ ostensibly “realistic” yet so obviously over-the-top portrayal of the prison rely? And how do these sources relate to larger socio-cultural projects of containment, criminalization, and control?

What is TV Realism? When no less authoritative of a figure than Angela Davis claims that “[t]he long-running HBO program OZ has managed to persuade many viewers that they know exactly what goes on in male maximum-security prisons” (18), it raises questions about exactly how media texts seeking to represent prison life produce such persuasive illusions as well as why they are mistaken for reality. As Jason Mittell reminds us, Televisual realism is not a marker of accurate representation of the real world but rather is an attempt to render a fictional world that creates

How Does Violent Spec tacle Appear as T V Realism?

57

the representational illusion of accuracy – a program is seen as realist when it feels authentic, even though no media text comes close to a truly accurate representation of the complex world. (221)

Here, Mittell highlights the feeling rather than the fact of authenticity as a marker of realism. Although realism commonly, in the words of John Fiske, “presents itself as an unmediated picture of external reality” (17), we must remain attentive to the fact that this presentation is itself not coterminous with reality. As Fiske points out, realism “is actually a fairly slippery concept capable of a variety of inflections” (17). In a discussion of NBC’s Homicide: Life on the Streets (1993–1999) – a program on which Tom Fontana also served as producer and writer, and which will come up again in the next chapter – Bambi L. Haggins argues that we need to think about realism as a strategy which “synthesizes a variety of specific qualities… signifiers of realism that build upon each other, resonate for the viewer, and make the televisual world… feel real” (14). Real, however, does not seem to necessarily mean simply familiar, conventional, or quotidian. As Haggins points out, Homicide generates an “aura of realism” which does not simply hew to recognizable conventions and pre-established images of police work, but rather offers up its own novel configuration thereof: “By spurning, for the most part, the violence of chases and shootouts typical of conventional cop shows, [Homicide’s] Charm City stories achieve their ‘Realfeel’ by offering a condensation of the everyday drama of being Murder Police” (14–15). Part of Homicide’s superior sense of realism, in other words, resides in its willingness to eschew the tried-and-true formulas of the police procedural. Homicide thus both relies upon and refines the conventional world of the police drama introduced in forerunners such as Hill Street Blues (1981–1987) and NYPD Blue (1993–2005). In the process, it participates in a continuing renegotiation of realism’s conventions in relation to the genre: “each series builds upon the other, refining its sense of the real” (Haggins 14). It is in part due to the extent to which realism is predicated upon a series’ ability to reconfigure pre-existing forms in new and disarming ways that Jason Mittell reminds us that “different approaches to style and storytelling highlight distinct modes of realism pursued by each series” (221). Since any new text will attempt a novel refinement and reconfiguration of existing conventions, Mittell highlights issues of formal specif icity and artistic autonomy: “the need to evaluate a series on its own aesthetic terms” (226). However, the vast variability this produces suggests that even if there is some genealogical continuity between instances, realism is always and

58 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

everywhere a distinctly contingent, historical, and socially embedded practice. Above, then, we have accounts of realism which stress the need to pay attention to inflections and variants. However, television’s own selfdescriptions and aesthetic aspirations often distract as much as they reveal. Aesthetic and formal arguments in particular can frequently have the effect of displacing or whitewashing the work of ideology. In this regard, a series’ ability to construct an internally coherent sense of verisimilitude may in turn be wrapped up with the degree to which it manages to adhere to our most deeply ingrained cultural assumptions. Or, as Fiske succinctly puts it: “Ideology and realism are inseparable” (26). Televisual realism is itself not autonomous or distinct from larger ideological effects, but rather participates in them: “we can call television an essentially realistic medium because of its ability to carry a socially convincing sense of the real. Realism is not a matter of any fidelity to an empirical reality, but of the discursive conventions by which and for which a sense of reality is constructed” (Fiske 17). Realism, in other words, exercises a set of conventionalized narrative procedures and ideological expectations upon which it predicates and dramatizes its “revelation” of the “real.” As a generic configuration, realism therefore exists not only as a set of representational effects or epistemological truth claims, but also and perhaps more importantly as a set of performances and discourses about itself. In OZ, the deployment of violence is especially connected to conventional expectations. Because audiences have long associated violence with prisons, realism in this setting also becomes tethered to those expectations. OZ’s creators, of course, know this, and bank upon those expectations accordingly. As Bill Yousman has pointed out: It seems that the manner in which rampant violence has become routine and conventional in American films and television programs has cultivated in at least some observers of popular culture the notion that it is this sort of imagery that is required for a program to be considered an accurate reflection of real life. (Prime 175)

Violence is intimately built into the genre conventions which surround and lend meaning to both televisual realism and the prison: a hard-wired component of many of the conventions which comprise vectors of the American genre system and thus, by extension, a constitutive aspect of the ways in which American viewers perceive at least some especially media-saturated corners of their own reality.

How Does Violent Spec tacle Appear as T V Realism?

59

Reflecting upon OZ near the end of its run, Fontana argues that a great deal of television’s reticence to seriously engage with the site of the prison has to do with the anxieties of TV executives: I decided to create a series about life ‘behind bars.’ I went to various networks, pitching different versions of the series – juvenile detention, minimal security, a boot camp – all rejected by terrif ied executives. Television had room for cops, doctors, lawyers and lifeguards, but not for the stories of the men and women who live each day on the edge of an abyss. (“Epilogue” 190)

Here, Fontana positions OZ as a kind of maverick or pioneer, a sojourner into the heart of darkness. Such aspirations and the sense of novelty they entail are key features of many series’ claims to offer a superior sense of realism. By daring to enter territory in which TV typically fears to tread, OZ relies upon distinctly American cultural habits which tend to locate a more primal reality “out there” in the dark corners, back alleys, and other unexplored frontiers of American life. Indeed, as Frank Kelleter has noted, American realism frequently relies upon “a notion of reality that assumes that real life takes place, not in the complacency of secure living, but in a state of exposure, exertion, and incompletion” (Serial 63). Indeed, Fontana makes much of the way OZ purportedly transgresses the conventions of the commercial TV genre system, which has much more frequently followed the heroic frontend of the criminal justice apparatus than exposed its murky backend. To a certain degree, OZ bases its own sense of novelty on an inversion of this formula; rather than following cops as they pursue criminals, it follows criminals after the resounding thud of the judge’s gavel. In flaunting its willingness to break both industry norms and cultural taboos by daring to tell raw, controversial stories about some of society’s most marginalized and detested individuals, OZ not only marks itself out as “transgressive” television, but also helps to sanction HBO’s own prestige claims as a venue offering a “quality” alternative to standard network fare. Realism, it therefore seems, often thrives by playing up its audiences’ (and especially its suburban, middle-class audience’s) lack of familiarity with the kinds of people and places it represents – what we might call, pilfering a bit of prose from Frank Kelleter, their “lack of practical integration” (Serial 69). How many suburbanites are intimately acquainted with corrupt cops, urban gangsters, or members of the ostensibly dangerous “underclasses” who so frequently populate TV dramas? This alienation between TV’s

60 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

targeted audiences and those “alien” others it allegedly represents allows hardboiled modes of televisual realism to both maintain their illusions and exert their own truths. In this sense, televisual realism often relies upon the degree to which the places television audiences see on screen remain unfamiliar, and therefore bizarre, threatening, and dangerous. Realism in OZ is perhaps best defined above all by the way in which it not only presents viewers with settings and stock character types with which they are personally unfamiliar, but also the way in which it stylistically generates the conspicuous sense of their being unsettling, strange, and even dangerous. Or, as one of OZ’s more recognizable taglines puts it: “It’s No Place like Home.” Hardboiled TV realism frequently relies upon the various forms of space which separate spectators and spectacle. It exploits a structurally constitutive distance between the geographic, institutional, and social position of its most likely viewers and the spaces it depicts. As Kelleter puts it, realism on American television often means “rough living on urban streets, not suburban condos… A core assumption is that the life of the middle class, anxiously seen as slipping away and yet experienced as constricting at the same time, is somehow less real than the more elemental struggles elsewhere” (Serial 63–64). Positioning viewers as bored consumers hungry for spectacle while positioning prisoners as contestants on a more primal and visceral plane of reality, OZ works to assuage middle-class monotony. OZ’s graphic spectacles of violence, then, are perceived of as realistic precisely because they are so foreign and, therefore, so dangerous. The epistemological and experiential distance which inserts itself between realism’s rote representations and its assumed audiences is itself mirrored by the wide socio-geographic distances which separate the places and people represented by TV realism and its most typical viewers at home. Thus, it may be that our attraction to violence – that is, our conviction that spectacle represents something more real than our daily lives – is only a symptom of our chronic malaise with the routines which structure quotidian, mainstream lifestyles, including our TV viewing habits. Thus, TV realism – and punitive realism in particular – not only assumes but often relies upon its audience’s fundamental ignorance, a gap sustained by socio-economic, geographical, and cultural rifts between peoples and populations. After all, what percentage of likely HBO viewers have ample firsthand experience with urban police precincts, inner-city drug corners, interrogation rooms, or, for that matter, prisons? In effect, what TV realism enables for middle-class and more affluent viewers is a particular kind of slumming – one can feel immersed in the worlds of the down-and-out,

How Does Violent Spec tacle Appear as T V Realism?

61

marginalized, and criminal from the safety and security of one’s own home. “The problem with TV violence [is that] it’s a lie… People get shot and don’t bleed. They get hit and walk away. If you have to do it, you have to do it as horrifically as it really is” (Fontana, qtd. in D. Smith). What does it mean for TV violence, which is always staged as an element in a narrative and manufactured by special effects technicians, to be anything other than a lie? OZ underwrites its “quality” claims with a promise to show violence “as it really is” and thus generate a more “authentic” effect through the production of a superior artifice: better effects beget a more primal horror, all of which generate claims to distinction, themselves tied to the provision of an ostensibly enhanced realism. The “more realistic” staging of violence necessitates a complex, highly intricate process achieved through a higher level of exertion. Props, compositions, timing, stunt doubles, character acting, editing, not to mention character psychology and narrative sequencing: all of these and more are necessary components in the credible construction of violence. In the case of OZ, the highly mediated, meticulously directed performance of violence appears as a competition over who can more effectively stage convincing spectacles. The series is therefore able to play up “realistic” violence as a marker of how it works harder, expends more effort, and thus achieves a higher “quality” of craftsmanship than others. Hardboiled TV realism, like all filmic genres, relies heavily on camerawork, mise-en-scène, and editing. OZ also relies on a variety of aesthetic strategies, including the construction of stark, austere set designs and the use of documentary-style filming techniques to generate a very unsettling sense of the bizarre and abnormal. Consider, for example, an early scene in OZ’s pilot episode, in which McManus and Warden Glynn walk through the hallways of the solitary confinement unit. The camera does not simply track unobtrusively as they walk; rather, it moves erratically, swinging back and forth at odd angles. Over-emphasizing the use of hand-held cameras creates a bizarre sense of derangement which highlights the equally bizarre space of the solitary conf inement unit.3 The result is disorienting, but also appropriate to OZ’s story world, in which prison life is presented as unsettling, dangerous, and deeply strange. OZ, in other words, puts a lot of energy into deranging its penal landscape; this is not a stylistic flaw, but rather part and parcel of OZ’s own unique aesthetic. OZ’s relentless stream of excessive violence thus becomes indicative of a particular species of serial aspirations which Andreas Jahn-Sudmann and 3

“The Routine.” Episode 1, Season 1: 02:30–03:46.

62 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

Frank Kelleter have referred to as serieller Überbietung (205) and which is often translated into English as either “serial outbidding” or “serial one-upmanship.” Initiating a competition with itself, OZ also generates increasingly intensifying competitions with other series, setting a precedent or benchmark for newcomers to meet. In turn this heightened intensification hardens over time into a new set of audience expectations which themselves need to be surpassed. Whereas detective stories and police dramas on traditional network programming often open in media res, safely ensconcing the violent crimes which propel police investigations in an unwitnessed prelude, OZ wagers that bringing that background to the fore will be read as a marker of superior realism. It flatters niche audiences into believing that they are enjoying a more sophisticated and realistic televisual experience by staging ostensibly superior spectacles of media violence. Here, “quality” credentials are premised on graphic content, with sex and violence indissolubly intermingled as strategic components of OZ’s televisual aspirations; realism enhanced through intensification of taboo sexual practices and hyper-violence becomes a marker of cultural distinction, which in turn helps to reinforce claims about OZ’s superior sense of realism and HBO’s prestige branding. OZ ups the ante regarding graphic content and links this to discourses of “quality” and realism; television which comes after OZ responds in kind. At the same time, the multiplication and increasing intensity of brutally staged and expertly executed TV violence may desensitize viewers. Proliferating violence may become increasingly expected, and thus decreasingly effective. The result is, of course, heightened tolerance, necessitating the attempt to retrieve an ever-fading sense of potency by increasing the dosage. Each successive act of violence becomes part of a competitive attempt to outdo the last; OZ’s reality claims, and perhaps those of television more generally, eventually become tethered to the need to invent increasingly brutal acts of violence and evermore outlandish forms of spectacle. As a result, violence becomes generically normalized in the reproduction of TV’s cultural system. Both OZ and its lineage may thus fall into the habit of renewing their claims to superior “realism” by constantly struggling to surpass their previous violent spectacles, playing a variation upon the distinctly American theme Richard Slotkin called “regeneration through violence” (6). “Realism,” writes Jennifer Friedlander, “has long been indicted for its complicity with ideological conservatism” (17). Indeed, in various strands of common American discourses, ‘realism’ connotes a certain hardnosed insistence upon common sense and a clear-eyed perspective on reality,

How Does Violent Spec tacle Appear as T V Realism?

63

which in turn is seen as something self-evident and taken for granted. In this sense, being “realistic” often means mistaking the status quo for the inevitable, fixed, and unalterable. Such is the case with prisons. As Angela Davis points out, “the prison is considered an inevitable and permanent feature of our social lives” and therefore “Prison abolitionists are dismissed as utopians and idealists whose ideas are at best unrealistic and impracticable, and, at worst, mystifying and foolish” (9–10). Here, Davis implicitly draws our attention to the way in which the rhetoric of “realism” is appropriated as a distinctly conservative viewpoint, set in partisan opposition to ostensibly “foolish” forms of radical idealisms such as prison abolitionism. Realism in this scheme is not only staunchly partisan, but deeply ideological, almost tautologically grounding itself in the presumption of its own self-evidence. Common sense, however, is neither transcendent nor universal; it is historically, socially, and culturally contingent. The history of prison reform teaches this lesson well: whereas it was once considered commonsensical that American prisons should be, at least in policy if not in practice, places of redemption and rehabilitation, it is only in the second half of the last century that the “reality” of crime and punishment began to shift towards the “emergent common sense of the get-tough era” which “portrayed all offenders – regardless of the convicted offense – as potentially violent, prison as incapable of reforming anyone, and all reentering criminals as a threat to community safety” (Cullen et al. 175). Thus, the punitive turn towards a new tough-on-crime “common sense” occasions not a more clear-eyed or “true” view of the offender, and even less so a more “realistic” or levelheaded approach to punishment; instead, it works to justify conditions which are in themselves not only patently criminogenic but deeply inhumane as well. In this way, common sense’s ostensible “realism” can function as a self-fulfilling prophesy; ideologies have implications which can be realized in policy, public discourse, and even daily routines, thereby serving as major factors in the realization of their own portrayals of reality. Struggles over the construction and meanings ascribed to the conventions of realism would therefore seem to have important political implications. Friedlander builds upon the work of Jacques Rancière to envision a form of radical, anti-conservative realism which “does not merely seek to give voice and representational privilege to those who have been marginalized within a given system but instead requires challenging the very configurations of the sensible through which they have been excluded” (32). For Friedlander, “realism’s charge in the project of aesthetic politics

64 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

is to conspire with deception in order to dispute the established regime of representation… through which new organizations of perception may emerge” (Friedlander 18): This disrupts established distributions of the sensible by severing expected correlations between images and their meanings and effects, forms of expression and their subject matter, and between ‘artistic hierarchies and social hierarchies.’ The political force of such an ‘aesthetic regime’ emanates from its ability to upset the naturalized, taken-for-granted system of perception that, by making the exclusion upon which the impression of such a totality depends, perpetuates the illusion of total inclusivity. (Friedlander 32).

Rather than relying on settled perceptions and the illusions of presumed verisimilitude, realism must work to constantly disrupt such expectations if it wants to continue its project. As OZ perpetually attempts to one-up its own graphic violence, it runs the risk of exhausting its effects; audiences, in other words, may simply become bored with violence of any amount. It therefore needs to unsettle established “distributions of the sensible” in order to ward off desensitization and gore fatigue. OZ responds to this problem early on by incorporating an increasing diversity of modes, genres, and registers to generate what we might call a sense of sur/realism: it constantly revitalizes itself by introducing supposedly non-realistic and often bizarre elements, thereby transgressing our generic expectations only to assimilate such features into its own conventions. As Wlodarz points out, OZ “resists the traditional entertainment value and form of mainstream commercial television” in part by constantly exploding its generic range: labyrinthine plots, innumerable characters, Greek-chorus monologues, complex camera work, and a deeply despairing tone… in fusing high and low cultural forms – borrowing from “quality” television, realist docudramas, exploitation cinema, and soap opera… [OZ] unsettles traditional modes of TV (and film) viewing in ways that can seem simultaneously pretentious and crass, aloof and assaultive. (Wlodarz 61)

Wlodarz points in particular to an episode in Season 5 which splices its dramatic action with campy musical numbers sung by various characters, creating an uncharacteristic sense of upbeat, exaggerated, and distinctly “queer” jocularity, only to shatter this sense in its final scenes, in which we

How Does Violent Spec tacle Appear as T V Realism?

65

witness the aftermath of the brutal prison rape of a young inmate, set to a sobering rendition of Janis Ian’s “Days Like These.”4 Ultimately, the campy musical numbers spliced into this episode function to set viewers up for the shock of an exceptionally brutal “reality” check.5 Wlodarz’s focus on campy and musical elements are examples of how recent critical commentaries have tended to lay less emphasis on how OZ deploys elements which are not commonly associated with televisual realism. For example, Robert Humphrey has pointed to OZ’s myriad investments in modes of theatricality: While watching OZ, it is easy to think that the writers are attempting to create a series depicting prison life and its daily struggles (to put it very mildly) as realistically as possible to the viewer. But this is just surface level. […] The series decides… to represent itself, however implicit it may be at times, as a play.

Brett Martin has likewise made note of OZ’s myriad entanglements with the theatre, both on and off camera: “Set behind the walls of an open-floor prison and shot entirely indoors, the show had the feel of eighties downtown experimental theatre… The cast – stocked with actors who would populate later HBO shows – functioned like such a theater company” (57).6 Although it may at first seem counterintuitive to compare TV realism to the theatre, we should remember, as Bolter and Grusin point out, that “[i]n its early days, television remediated vaudeville and live theater more often than it remediated film” (82). Indeed, our contemporary tendencies to associate TV with other forms, as Humphrey points out, has little to do with TV’s own media archaeology and may instead be largely the function of the various other forms of media against which “quality” TV after OZ has frequently tried to define itself: “it is hard for us to accept OZ’s aesthetic debt to the 4 “Variety.” Season 5, Episode 6: 54:40–55:53. 5 This is, of course not to deny the reality, brutality, nor the urgent need to address prison rape, sexual violence, or coercion. It is rather to indicate that such brutality is itself frequently exploited, in a decidedly violent sense, by its appropriation to produce commercialized spectacles which package and sell themselves as realism. 6 Consider also the following comment by a reddit.com user: “I think while OZ was billed as this realistic, gritty show… There’s a real element of theatricality to it. The show just puts these characters in as many tight spots as possible during the limited running time and hopes they shine. OZ didn’t have anything really to emulate. Filmmakers and film actors didn’t really mingle with TV at this point in time like they do now, so they had to draw from theater. I believe many of the actors and writers probably had a lot more experience doing plays than doing movies or shows, and it really shows in the way OZ is put together” (renton5555).

66 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

theatre from our contemporary standpoint mostly because the series that followed in its footsteps, such as HBO’s The Wire and The Sopranos, veered away from this sense of theatricality in favor of either more ‘novelistic’ or ‘cinematic’ sense of realism.” And indeed, there is reason to believe that Tom Fontana, who started his career writing for stage, understood the series at least partially in terms of the theatre, as evidenced by his insistence that the monologues frequently given by paraplegic inmate Augustus Hill and which introduce, interrupt, and close the diegetic action of each episode are meant to function as a Greek chorus (Sepinwall 23). The Hill monologues are a particularly prominent device, yet are seemingly difficult to square with OZ’s ostensible realism. Indeed, Jarvis writes the Hill monologues off as “postmodern naval-gazing” (168), pointing especially to their “expressionistic excess and postmodern self-reflexivity” in moments during which “Emerald City could unexpectedly be transformed into a war zone or a nightclub” (Jarvis 156). However, it must be remembered that as a theatrical convention, the chorus, much like TV realism, is “a medium whose rich potential is handled differently from one play to another” (Gagne and Hopman 28). The very meaning of the chorus may change drastically from period to period and even between productions, retained through its repeated reinvention. It might therefore be more useful to compare the Hill monologues not to the Greek chorus, but to a relatively more recent theatrical incarnation, particularly Bertolt Brecht’s use of choral features to render a Verfremdungseffekt, commonly abbreviated as V-Effekt.7 Brecht often used the choral-function to de-familiarize seemingly quotidian, unremarkable narrative events, breaking audiences out of the comfortable sense of immersion created by the conventions of realism to stir them to thought and action: “What is ‘natural’ must have the force of what is startling.” (71). Ostensibly de-familiarizing quotidian activities and situations, the V-Effekt revealed them as historically contingent and socially conditioned, drawing attention to the more fundamental material conditions obscured by the realistic behavior of characters and rendering dramatic action distinctly political: Oil, inflation, war, social struggles, the family, religion, wheat, the meat market, all became subjects for theatrical representations. Choruses 7 There is substantial controversy as to how to best render this term in English; rather than getting bogged down in such debates, I will instead analytically exploit the slippage inherent in the term, showing that the ambiguity which results from deploying it in an English-language context can be wielded to productive effect.

How Does Violent Spec tacle Appear as T V Realism?

67

enlightened the spectator about facts unknown to him. Films showed a montage of events from all over the world. Projections added statistical material. And as the ‘background’ came to the front of the stage so people’s activity was subjected to criticism. (Brecht 72)

The above passage could read as an index of the themes and strategies utilized by the Hill monologues, which, aside from breaking the fourth wall to address the audience directly to preach in Greek-choral style to the audience-as-demos, frequently cite statistics, sample film footage, and introduce themes standing in the background of the dramatic narrative to the foreground of the audience’s attention. However, the Hill monologues just as frequently appeal to its audiences’ collective bogymen. For example, in the first episode of Season 4, Augustus soliloquies about mass incarceration, citing statistical factoids which undermine commonly held beliefs that higher incarceration rates result in lower crime rates. 8 He thus interrupts the diegetic action to call into question common sense assumptions about the social utility of warehousing inmates, a seemingly Brechtian move. Yet, by the end of the episode, Augustus uses these facts not to reason with, but rather to taunt the audience: The scariest part is, all those criminals who were locked into all those prisons in the 80’s – you know, the good old Reagan years – all those criminals, their sentences are up. Those bad men who are more dangerous now than when they went in, they’re getting out, and coming to dark street corners near you.9

The sociological generalization that prison only makes bad people worse is in some circles nearly a cliché. However, rather than serving a didactic function, this monologue exploits fear of crime for dramatic effect. In the mode of a dark omen, Augustus suggests that society has it coming to them once these vengeful prisoners are released back on the streets, threatening to breach the protective distance which secures audiences at home from a nightmarish invasion of the dangerous classes. Here, the V-Effekt fails to a large degree because OZ exploits settings and character which are already estranged: situated at a social distance, alienated, and unfamiliar to the average viewer. Indeed, OZ would seem 8 9

“A Cock and Balls Story.” Season 4, Episode 1: 12:43–13:10. “A Cock and Balls Story.” Season 4, Episode 1: 52:45–53:10

68 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

frequently uninterested in achieving the kinds of political goals intended by Brecht. Instead, it shores up its own “quality” claims by borrowing against the culturally distinguished lineage of experimental theatre. Likewise, OZ’s brand of sur/realism already aspires to continually transgress televisual norms even as repetition of the Hill monologues generates conventions of its own rather than undermining them. For example, OZ only very rarely leaves the space of the prison, but when it does so it is almost always for Augustus to introduce characters through flashbacks of their crimes. Immediate exposure to their de-contextualized criminal transgressions ensures that empathetic lines of character identif ication are fraught from the start. In this sense, Brechtian strategies merely reinforce the reactionary sense of alienation and social distance upon which both hardboiled TV drama and the ideology of punitive realism depend. Since OZ’s transgressive serial aspirations cause it to frequently disrupt the rules of its own game, the sur/realism which results would therefore at least theoretically seem to have the potential to make realism visible as a set of culturally productive (if, at times, socially destructive) routinized practices and patterns of perception, enabling in turn the possibility of disruption. However, hardboiled modes of realism, especially in the case of OZ, seem predicated not only upon a conventionalized “distribution of the sensible” but perhaps even more fundamentally upon a constitutive social and material distance between viewers and subject matter. When this distance is traversed by a medium which organizes itself around the procedures of an unapologetically capitalistic entertainment industry, it may therefore be that any of TV realism’s conventions could be better described of as compulsive misinterpretations, conflating social difference with authenticity, misconstruing experiential distance with worldliness, and transforming spectacle into verisimilitude. In that case, nothing would be more disruptive than a full-scale collision with the material realities which TV realism obscures. In any event, it seems evident that merely rendering realism’s contingencies visible by disrupting its conventions will not always result in a radical reconfiguration of our hegemonic regimes of perception; as we have seen above, even the intrusion of external genre elements and narration strategies which break our immersion in narrative action and continuously transgress the norms of realism can still ultimately shore up and promote the reactionary ideologies underlying punitive realism. Indeed, even better acquainting us with the actual conditions of those lives masked by realism’s conventions may not be enough to adequately reconfigure

How Does Violent Spec tacle Appear as T V Realism?

69

punitive realism’s patterns of perception; challenging punitive realism’s well-entrenched hegemony is no small task, and it is doubtful whether any particular project can do more than simply pass the ball along a little further down the field. This is especially true in the presence of deeply embedded, self-legitimizing cultural forms which are perfectly comfortable transgressing their own norms in the service of self-preservation, commercial TV being just one example. The prison, to which we now turn, being yet another.

The Prison as Hyper-Real Institution Although OZ produces increasingly graphic spectacles as a strategy to continuously refresh its own brand of sur/realism, critics such as Jarvis remain deeply skeptical of this strategy: In the absence of sustained attention to broader social contexts, structural causes and possible solutions, OZ could only mirror media images of violence and their associated demonologies. Hypersaturation results in banality… This is the violence of images: its conversion of the reality of violence into spectacle. (159)

While almost certainly correct, Jarvis’s observations suggest its own set of questions: How is the spectacle of delirious prison hyper-violence successfully marketed and persistently misread as an indicator of televisual realism? What conditions sustain such mis-readings? What cultural processes facilitate their continual (re)production? American popular culture is rife with nightmarish tales about prisons. As Angela Davis observes, our media-saturated social landscape ensures that “[i]t is virtually impossible to avoid consuming images of prison” (19). Even so, it is strange that TV – arguably the most influential of American media – had for a long time before OZ largely declined to generate sustained dramatic representations of prisons and prisoners. Indeed, as communications scholar Bill Yousman has argued, even news broadcasts tend to avoid reports about prisons (Prime 105). This is in part the result of policies which deny academics and journalists access, at least without strict supervision (Yousman, Prime 107). As a result, “the fantasy prisons and prisoners of popular films such as The Shawshank Redemption and television shows such as OZ fill the void left by the hole in television news coverage of the prison-industrial complex” (Yousman, Prime 110). Or, as Terry Shauer concludes: “Prison visibility… is

70 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

at the present time intimately tied to the spectacular politics of popular culture” (214). Where other discourses fear to tread, popular culture rushes in to fill the void. In 2002, Loïc Wacquant penned a lament to the decline of prison ethnography in the last third of the 20th century.10 While prisons have always restricted access to mediate and manage their own public image, the prison’s tendency to become increasingly more cloistered and secretive has curiously also aligned with its increasing politicization: “By becoming simultaneously more bureaucratic and more porous to the influences of the political, juridical, and media fields, jails and penitentiaries have turned into opaque organizations that can be difficult and sometimes nearly impossible to penetrate” (“Eclipse” 387). Yet, as a cultural form dedicated to the project of social control, the prison has always jealously guarded its secrets; control over access is integral to the prison’s design. The institutional opacity of the prison serves several seemingly incongruous functions at once. For Gresham M. Sykes, the imposing “prison wall does more than help prevent escape; it also hides the prisoners from society… and the vision of men held in custody is, in part, prevented from arising to prick the conscience” of the wider public (8). For Foucault, by comparison, the prison’s commitments to secrecy have a much more nefarious, not to mention wide-ranging, purpose: For punishment is directed above all at others, at all the potentially guilty… the representations of the condemned man must therefore circulate rapidly and widely; they must be accepted and redistributed by all; they must shape the discourse that each individual has with others and by which crime is forbidden to all by all – the true coin that is substituted in people’s minds for the false profits of crime. (D&P 108)

Although passages such as the above have often been read in relation to public punishments, Foucault does not quite argue that this generalized 10 “Until the 1970s, the United States was… world leader in carceral research… social scientists, stimulated by the scientistic belief in the rational betterment of social control and by the challenges to established forms of authority issued from the social movements of the 1960s, conducted the ground-breaking f ield studies that form the plinth of the modern sociology of the carceral institution” (Wacquant, “Eclipse” 383). Indeed, while the era of penal modernism produced modern classics of penal ethnography by the likes of Donald Clemmer, Gresham Sykes, John Irwin, and Erving Goffman, these works remain influential not only due to the depth of their insight, but also because of the relative paucity of contemporary works.

How Does Violent Spec tacle Appear as T V Realism?

71

fear of punishment disappears with the institution of prisons. Instead, he marks “a shift in the point of application of this power”: it is no longer the body, with the ritual play of excessive pains, spectacular brandings in the ritual of the public execution; it is the mind or rather a play of representations and signs circulating discreetly but necessarily and evidently in the minds of all. (Foucault, D&P 101)

For Foucault, disciplinary society is based perhaps even prior to structures of surveillance upon the circulation of signs and representations. Spectacle has not yet disappeared from the scene; indeed, it has been promoted from lead actor to the director’s chair. Even more so than the particularized, disciplined body, it is the public imaginary, constituted through the circulation of media and popular culture, which is the site at which penal power most nefariously applies its pressure. Indeed, such tendencies were not lost on the penitentiary’s earliest advocates. As early as 1787 Benjamin Rush proposed that the prison’s function should be to hide punishment away from the public gaze. The goal, however, was not merely to shield the prisoner from public sentiment, but more importantly to provoke the public’s collective imagination. Rush insisted that the secrecy of punishment would shortcircuit in the f irst instance the formation of public sympathy with the prisoner while furthermore preventing the public from gaining knowledge about punishment: “Let the various kinds of punishment… be def ined and fixed by law. But let no notice be taken, in the law, of the punishment that awaits any particular crime. By these means, we shall prevent the mind from accustoming itself to the view of these punishments, so as to destroy their terror by habit” (Rush 151). For Rush, it is not the deterrence of known consequence, but rather the mysteries of the unknown which sparked the public imagination and set it to work as the most effective criminal deterrent, maintaining public order through the concoction and circulation of dark fantasies, rumors, and cautionary tales regarding what happens behind its walls. “I conceive this secret to be of the utmost importance in reforming criminals, and preventing crimes. The imagination, when agitated with uncertainty, will seldom fail of connecting the longest duration of punishment, with the smallest crime” (Rush 151). Essential to this function is the proliferation and circulation of stories: I cannot conceive anything more calculated to diffuse terror through a community, and thereby to prevent crimes… Children will press upon the

72 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

evening fire in listening to the tales that will be spread from this abode of misery. Superstition will add to its horrors; and romance will find in it ample materials for fiction, which cannot fail of increasing the terror of its punishments. (Rush 152)

Taken together, what these accounts suggests is that the prison so effectively inflames the public imagination not in spite of but precisely due to its institutional opacity. The prison, then, has from its emergence fostered a design which harnesses its own opacity to occasion the proliferation of narratives as part of its larger project of social control. While it may be that the prison’s high walls jealously guard its secrets from the pressure of public sentiment, they also work double-time as a narrative engine which utilizes its own media representations to generate and feed upon dreadful tales. Secrecy provokes the imagination, while the horrors it dreams up are circulated through the vehicle of popular storytelling, manipulating the public imagination into terrorizing itself. As the penitentiary’s horror stories circulate as popular culture, they also become amenable to the demands of entertainment industries. In audio commentary for OZ’s pilot episode, entitled “The Routine,” Fontana explains that he intended certain features of the episode to “establish… how incredibly dull prison life is… It’s constantly the same, day after day after day and night after night. So the great trick of this for me was… to show how boring life in prison is without it actually being boring. Not that I’ve succeeded.”11 Indeed he has not; instead of laying out the boring daily regimen of prison life, OZ’s pilot episode invents its own routine: When I first said to HBO that I wanted to do this story and that I wanted this character to die at the end of the episode they were very surprised that I wanted to do that, and I said to them, one of the reasons I wanted to do it was no pilot in the history of television has killed off the leading character on the first episode. So they were very supportive of that.12

The sensationalistic manner in which this death occurs – the inmate, strapped to a gurney and medically paralyzed, is doused with gasoline and burned alive – could hardly be called dull. In this sense, “The Routine” refers not the day-to-day of prison life, but rather to the modus operandi this 11 “The Routine.” Season 1, Episode 1: Audio Commentary. 12 “The Routine.” Season 1, Episode 1: Audio Commentary.

How Does Violent Spec tacle Appear as T V Realism?

73

Pilot episode inaugurates; it primes audiences on what to expect, and over the course of six seasons OZ indeed claims a high body count as central and peripheral characters alike routinely meet gruesome ends by increasingly outlandish methods; indeed, for all its generic transgressions, it is precisely this routine which OZ never fails to reproduce. Fontana has indicated that many of OZ’s events are inspired by stories he gathered from interviews with prisoners. And indeed, the very murder method portrayed in the final scenes of “The Routine” is reported in Jack Henry Abbot’s collection of prison letters, In the Belly of the Beast (1981): “You never see violence in the open and it’s always with a knife or a piece of pipe (lately, here they use gasoline – dousing the enemy and igniting him)” (72). The circulation of violent and secretive murder scenarios such as these in prison lore suggests that this “routine” exists not only in OZ, but also defines to some degree a wider imagination of prison life propagated not only by outside fabrications, but by prisoners themselves. Generic expectations about prison violence also seem to bleed into first-person accounts. Using scenes from OZ as a primer for focus group discussions with ex-prisoners, Bill Yousman reports “a general acceptance that prison life is just as violent as OZ represents it to be”: OZ works very hard at establishing the veracity of the program’s construction of prison life. Viewers are thus positioned to accept that the program provides a ‘real’ peek behind the scenes in a maximum-security prison. Many of the respondents seemed to accept this even when they were shown scenes of repeated acts of outrageous and bizarre violence. As [one participant] said, ‘That show OZ, that shit real.’ (Yousman, “Revising” 204)

Particularly interesting here is the way in which Yousman’s respondents made such statements even as their own stories seemed to refute the severity of such violence in actuality (“Revising” 204). Indeed, in spite of expressing a fair amount of skepticism regarding popular representations of prison life, Yousman’s interviewees frequently filtered their own personal experiences through media images: “Even when I had made no reference to media, respondents invoked media stories when discussing prison life. The centrality of media culture as resources of ideas, knowledge, and descriptors in our everyday lives was clearly apparent” (“Revising” 210). Media images, it seems, are so pervasive and influential that they even structure the perceptions and responses of these prisoners with regards to their own first-person experiences, generating a certain kind of experiential self-alienation.

74 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

The media effects Yousman describes call to mind Jean Baudrillard’s notion of hyperreality. Baudrillard argued that since media has replaced production as a basis for organizing and reproducing society, we now live in an era characterized by the relentless reduplication of simulations or “hyperreality” in which spectacles, images, and the play of signs saturate – and in doing so, effectively obliterate – the distinction between simulacrum and reality: “reality itself is hyperrealistic… Now the whole of everyday political, social, historical, economic reality is incorporated into the simulative dimension of hyper-reality; we already live in the ‘aesthetic’ hallucination of reality” (146). For Baudrillard, it is not so much that simulations blanket over or conceal social reality, deceiving or instantiating a form of false consciousness, but rather that simulation becomes, in the words of Charles Levin, “a constitutive dimension of society” (184). Hyperreality thus both mediates and saturates the distances between us and our ability to experience our world, effectively colonizing and filtering even the immediacy of our own experiences and memories. If this is so, then TV realism, as a kind of weak or self-proclaimed hyperrealism, not only exploits epistemological distances but also saturates them. While viewers may be aware on a theoretical level that fictional media representations are not ontologically co-extensive with reality, they may also frequently respond and behave otherwise. In a similar fashion, few institutions work harder to simultaneously obscure their reality and proliferate horrifying imaginaries of themselves as the prison. It thereby actively regenerates through the continual (re)production of its own spectacular mediations. If it is not reality, but rather something more akin to Baudrillard’s notion of hyperreality which allows for the projection of OZ’s penal spectacle as televisual sur/realism, then it is the prison, as a cultural form which has always attempted to generate and circulate nightmarish cautionary tales about itself, which supplies the content thereof. The prison, then, would seem to be the hyper-realistic form par excellence insofar as its project of social control is routed through the provocation of the public imagination as it hijacks mass media to proliferate and circulate gruesome and spectacular simulations of itself. As Erving Goffman argues in Asylums, the prison’s publicly avowed, officially sanctioned missions rarely align with its structural realities: Many total institutions, most of the time, seem to function merely as storage dumping grounds for inmates, but… they usually present themselves to the public as rational organizations designed consciously, through and through, as effective machines for producing a few officially avowed and

How Does Violent Spec tacle Appear as T V Realism?

75

officially approved ends… one frequent official objective is the reformation of inmates in the direction of some ideal standard. This contradiction, between what the institution does and what its officials must say it does, form the basic context of the staff’s daily activity. (74)

As many commentators have noted, the prison’s cultural form is fundamentally structured through a constitutive paradox: it cynically justifies its own reproduction through the recurring narrative of its endemic failures. Far from deterring crime or correcting criminal proclivities, the prison has long been accused of producing and aggravating delinquency. As Foucault points out, “the prison, in its reality and visible effects, was denounced at once as the great failure of penal justice” (D&P 264). And yet, he asks, “Is not the supposed failure part of the functioning of the prison?” (D&P 271). In Foucault’s account, it is through this perpetual crisis of confidence that the prison form maintains its mission and exerts its institutional inertia. The more disorder it generates, the more necessary becomes the goal of maintaining social order through punishment: “the proclamation of the failure of the prison has always been accompanied by its maintenance” (D&P 272). The prison thus enacts a cynical double-logic: it officially promises to produce discipline even as it relies upon the staged, hypermediated exposure of its own failure so as to justify its reproduction. It pretends to strive towards a distinctly utopian mission of moral redemption which cannot – indeed, must not – align with its actuality; the successful reformation of inmates would, after all, result in the obsolescence of the institution itself. Instead, it produces a perpetual dramaturgy in which its failures initiate a struggle for reform, and in which the repeated fall from grace of the prisoner suggests the perpetual deferral, but never the explicit denial, of the possibility of redemption. OZ likewise exploits this failure to ensure its own serial endurance. Even though Emerald City, as I have noted, is modelled largely on the panopticon, OZ’s staff is consistently unable to maintain order: inmates routinely plot and hatch criminal conspiracies right under the noses of corrupt and incompetent prison guards. If the prison’s rehabilitative regime must routinely fail for OZ to continue its serial chronical of seemingly unending delinquencies, then the same may be said of the prison’s repressive function, which must continually stage its own failure in order to ensure the demand for more repression. However, OZ portrays that reproduction not as a condition of its own serial continuation, but rather deflects it through the prison’s own cynicism. Even so, since the prison relies upon media to proliferate narratives of its own failure as guarantors of its own perpetuity and expansion, OZ

76 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

serves as both accomplice and manifestation thereof. As John Bender notes, “the very nature of the penitentiary as a representation of a representation works to explain both its practical failure and its ideological persistence” (226). The prison is therefore not merely Janus-faced, but intrinsically structured by and indeed dependent upon the cynically staged simulations of its own alarming failures. These failures are circulated through the vehicle of popular media and serve to justify its reproduction. The prison’s cynical self-presentations are, in other words, reliant upon the serial reproduction of the prison’s own hypermediated, autopoietic operations vis-à-vis their proliferation in and as popular culture.

Looks Like America? Populating the Prison Nation In a retrospective in the New York Times Magazine, Stanley Crouch writes that OZ “had set a new standard for realism and expanded the dramatic territory of cable television” in part due to its “fully integrated cast, with a range of characters who ‘looked like America’ and were conceived with impressively realistic ethnic nuances, from the administrators all the way down the very lowest criminal.” Ostensibly delighting in OZ’s on-screen diversity, his account is soon complicated – or rather, its political commitments are betrayed – by his own exposition: The prison population in ‘Oz’ is broken into ethnic tribes of one sort or another – from Aryan racists to black worshipers of Islam – all vying for control of some part of the turf. Remarkably, the imprisoned characters, no matter how human and complex, are never depicted as though they should be anywhere other than prison. No small feat, because clichéd popular entertainment usually projects the naïve idea that the prisons are chock-full of endlessly brilliant types who, but for the unfairness of fate, race and class, would be out in the big, wide world doing great things. (Crouch)

Not only is imprisonment as a social practice naturalized while the undeserving status of prisoners is (re)affirmed, but Couch’s initial celebration of diversity devolves quickly into a vision of America defined most prominently by an insistence on the veracity of stereotypes. More to the point, Couch seems unaware as to the degree to which the series’ tribalized “authenticity” is itself due to its saturation by popular media clichés. Certainly, OZ produces little in the way of the melodramatic sentimentalism we have come to

How Does Violent Spec tacle Appear as T V Realism?

77

expect from cinema hits like The Shawshank Redemption (1994) or Cool Hand Luke (1967). But from The Godfather (1972) to Goodfellas (1990); from Colors (1988) to Menace II Society (1993); from The Hate That Hate Produced (1959) to Malcolm X (1992), OZ manages to reiterate virtually every stock ethnic character and criminal stereotype ever contrived by the commercial genre system.13 If OZ looks like America, then it is an America most prominently found on-screen. Couch is not the only commentator to render either OZ or the prison as a microcosm, however distorted, of the nation. Tom Fontana’s own recollections regarding his first prison visitations seems to support this reading: “Walking the halls… I came to see their struggle to survive as a microcosm of our society in general” (“Epilogue” 190). How exactly does the rhetoric of “the microcosm” work here? The operative figure would seem to be synecdoche, the prison acting as the metonymic stand-in for the nation, with the whole of American life condensed and concentrated within its walls. Or is it allegorical, a projection of “our society” upon “their struggle” – a way of reading what sociologist Gresham M. Sykes called the “pains of imprisonment” (11) as parables about ourselves? In any case, within the logic of this brief passage there operates a definitive sense in which the prison is utilized to stage the nation. In a similar fashion, 20th-century prison ethnographers and sociologists have argued that “[w]e must see the prison as a society within a society” (Sykes xxx). Yet, there has been substantial debate about whether that society imports external social relations or creates a world all its own. Sykes, for example, emphasizes the ways in which a unique social order arises when the ordinary rules of society are suspended; the prison “must inevitably give rise to a social system – not simply the social order decreed by the custodians, but also the social order which grows up more informally as men interact in meeting the problems posed by their particular environment” (xxx). Far from reflecting a recognizable microcosm of the outside world, Sykes’ account of prison society is one uniquely tailored to its unique environment. Yet, the prison is also far from a manifestation of the social order imposed by custodians. More than just a binary system which separates prisoners and staff, the prison generates a host of daily social interactions out of which 13 One should also point out OZ’s debts to the subgenre of exploitation f ilms sometimes referred to as “women in prison” films first popularized in the late 1960s and early 1970s and which tend to feature imprisoned female protagonists subjected to sexual abuse at the hands of sadistic wardens, guards, and other inmates. Particularly notable examples include Caged Heat (1974) and The Concrete Jungle (1982).

78 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

arise what Sykes calls “argot roles” and defines as “distinctive tags or the distinctive social roles played by its members in response to the particular problems of imprisonment” (87). Erving Goffman makes a similar point: Each moral career, and behind this, each self, occurs within the confines of an institutional system, whether a social establishment such as a mental hospital or a complex of personal and professional relationships. The self, then, can be seen as something that resides in the arrangements prevailing in a social system for its members. The self in this sense is not a property of the person to whom it is attributed, but dwells rather in the pattern of social control that is exerted in connection with the person by himself and those around him. This special kind of institutional arrangement does not so much support the self as constitute it. (168)

Whereas Sykes and Goffman highlight the ways in which the structural condition of the prison give way not only to its own distinctive form of social order, but the particular kinds of selves, roles, and character types which constitute that order, others, such as John Irwin, have tended to focus on the ways in which convicts import their “subcultural beliefs, values, meanings, and world view” (3) from their lives on the outside. In The Felon, Irwin (himself an ex-convict) enumerated a variety of different “criminal identities” acquired through “involvement with criminal systems prior to arrest” (7). Further noting that “not all felons have a criminal identity” (7), Irwin describes several other socially conditioned roles, such as the “lowerclass man” for whom “life is almost totally unpredictable” (30), or “the square Johns” who “have had no contact with criminal behavior systems, and in fact have always considered themselves upstanding citizens” (32). Irwin’s taxonomy highlights the ways in which inmates import their prior social careers, worldviews, and identities into the prison setting from the outside. OZ, interestingly, draws upon both of these genealogies; its drama arises as characters attempt to negotiate a complex set of argot roles. However, the sources of its cultural argot roles are not so much the actual careers of real prisoners, but rather the media which circulate about them. OZ populates its prison primarily by reproducing the stock characters of popular culture and other prominent discourses circulating in mass media. As Wilson and O’Sullivan observe, despite the fact that OZ never strays from its internal set, one of its aims is to show that prison is a product of a wider set of social forces. Whilst the characters are often believable and plausible, they are at the same

How Does Violent Spec tacle Appear as T V Realism?

79

time stylized and symbolic. Each of the main characters carries a defined ‘discourse’ or perspective on prison which rarely changes. (149)

OZ marries its stock roles to discourses circulating in the mass and popular media more broadly. The focus on discourses is especially evident in the case of OZ’s prison managers and staff, who inhabit professional roles which exist only by virtue of the prison’s existence. The series’ custodians are also products of particular discursive positions or stereotyped as standard bearers of rigid and often conflicting penal philosophies. Key narrative conflicts often arise as competitions over conflicting penological missions. Here, I focus on three characters: Em’ City Unit Manager Tim McManus, Warden Leo Glenn, and State Governor James Devlin. McManus is the Unit Manager and mastermind behind Em’ City. He is an advocate of rehabilitation policies, and in this sense is a bit of an ideological minority figure; not only are his superiors skeptical about rehabilitation, but most of the inmates are as well. Indeed, much of OZ’s drama revolves around McManus’s failure to either rehabilitate the inmates or his difficulties in managing the unit. In some ways, this failure is quite literally written into McManus’s character, emphasized for example by his inability to sustain romantic relationships. Likewise, McManus has trouble dealing with corruption amongst prison CO’s, most of whom outright deny McManus’ penal philosophy. Indeed, it often seems that his efforts are hardwired to fail by the series’ own designs, as it must continuously defer even the redemption of the custodians in the interest of producing ongoing serial narratives. In this sense, McManus enacts the endemic failure of the prison, one of the primary measures by which the form cynically ensures its own reproduction. In the first minutes of the series, McManus discusses Emerald City with the prison’s African American warden, Leo Glynn. If McManus exemplifies the penal modernist faith in the malleability of man, Glynn represents a hardline attitude which emphasizes strict deterrence; he believes that criminals respond only to “punishment, hard and swift.”14 In this sense, Glynn’s membership in the so-called “talented tenth” leadership class of African Americans and his belief in disciplined, self-motivated uplift activate post-racial ideologies while pointing to important class cleavages within the Black community. Whereas McManus routinely promotes addiction treatment, Glynn generally believes in harsh retributive techniques, such as lockdowns, and the strict enforcement of even the most repressive or petty of prison policies, leading to widespread dissatisfaction and, it is 14 “The Routine.” Season 1, Episode 1: 02:55

80 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

strongly insinuated, creating the powder keg conditions which lead to the riot which closes OZ’s first season.15 In this sense, Glynn serves as a conservative proponent of punitive realism even as the outcomes of his hardline policies produce perpetual crises. His efforts therefore work to illustrate a procedural paradox of penal disequilibrium described by Sykes: “The system breeds rebellions by attempting to enforce the system’s rules” (124).16 Finally, there is State Governor Devlin, a law-and-order conservative who tries to score political points by promoting “tough on crime” legislation, making prison life more punitive and thereby making the prison more difficult to manage for McManus and Glynn. Indeed, in his first appearance McManus complains that Devlin’s polices are sowing seeds of unrest amongst inmates,17 foreshadowing the aforementioned riots which conclude the first season.18 While both Glynn and McManus embody discourses rather neutrally, Devlin’s brand of punitive retribution is unambiguously portrayed as political opportunism; his diminutive stature is matched by his petty character. Whereas the series tends to remain ambiguous as to the difference of opinion between McManus and Glynn, it routinely portrays Devlin in distinctly archetypical roles as a corrupt politician and, by extension, villainous ruler. By positioning Devlin, the highest state authority, as a villain who symbolically typifies American suspicions regarding government corruption, moral cynicism, and political repression, OZ maintains familiar structures of American melodrama, positioning Devlin as a clear villain. Both McManus’s liberal idealism and Glynn’s conservativism are portrayed, by comparison, as equally sincere insofar as they are motivated by conviction rather than corruption. However, personifying that corruption undercuts broader social critiques by deflecting questions about the intrinsically repressive character of the prison’s bureaucratic rationality as such, instead attributing institutional deficits primarily to the professional incompetence or political cynicism of particular authority figures. Rather than embodying commonplace or popular penal philosophies, OZ’s prisoners seem to appear as ethnic stereotypes or else figures frequently derived from the history of commercial media genres. However, other pseudo-sociological types also feed into their composition. The cultural “argot roles” sustained in popular media representations of the prison have 15 “A Game of Checkers.” Season 1, Episode 8: 18:25–23:00. 16 Sykes explains by stressing that “[t]he effort of the custodians to ‘tighten up’ the prison undermines the cohesive forces at work in the inmate population” (124). 17 “The Routine.” Season 1, Episode 1: 17:25–18:00. 18 “A Game of Checkers.” Season 1, Episode 8: 18:25–23:00.

How Does Violent Spec tacle Appear as T V Realism?

81

far less to do with the actual roles and social hierarchies of prisoners, and much more to do with representations circulating through mass and popular media. Let us focus on three examples: Kareem Said, Simon Adebisi, and Vern Schillinger. Kareem Said, it is suggested, is more of a political prisoner than a criminal; indeed, most of the Black Muslims in the show frequently debate aspects of political philosophy which vaguely echo political Islamist or Black Nationalist discourses. The character itself is rather unique, amongst the very few Black Muslim characters ever to appear on TV, and a sympathetic one at that. He is in many ways a foil for McManus; whereas McManus tries to realize the ideals of a rational and humanist penal policy from within the system, Said is a political revolutionary bent on nothing short of prison abolition. However, Said’s radical persona is tempered by his sense of genuine resolve and solidarity; in the second season finale he refuses a pardon from Governor Devlin in protest, asserting that “even the cost of freedom can be too high” when offered to the individual under circumstances of group oppression and corruption.19 While African American conversion to Islam in prisons is (still) relatively high, Said is primarily a composite of famous Black Muslim figures from the 1960s and 1970s such as Malcolm X and other Black prison activists such as George Jackson who were often characterized in the media as political radicals or even domestic terrorists. Indeed, it is suggested that Said is in prison due primarily to an act of political terror. Significantly, he represents in part what a report published by the American Correctional Association in 1971 called a “New Type of Prisoner” and blamed for many of the uprisings which occurred in prisons and jails in the early 1970s. This new type represented a “new breed of politically radical young prisoners” who were thought to have acquired “a knowledge – superficially or otherwise – of history, race problems, street fighting and the vocabulary of radicalism” and therefore believed themselves to be “in a ‘Holy War’ against racist oppressors” (ACA, qtd. in Thompson 561). This (typically propagandistic) policy document encapsulates to a large degree the feelings amongst both policymakers and many Americans during the time who witnessed racial uprisings and yet lacked the social and historical consciousness to understand them as anything other than militant threats. In many ways Said’s character, although frequently portrayed as politically righteous, echoes these racialized fears.

19 “Escape from Oz” Season 3, Episode 8: 01:00:45–01:02:25.

82 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

If Said weaves together the myths and anxieties surrounding political Islam and Black Power activism of yesteryear into a sort of anti-hero protagonist, Simon Adebisi – a Nigerian inmate of Yoruba ethnic origin serving a life sentence for murder – represents a racialized, nightmarish fear of the foreign Other. One of OZ’s most feared, powerful, and vicious inmates, Adebisi is a leader of “The Homeboys” – a group of young Black inmates, many of whom are drug dealers and/or addicts. The Homeboys recycle stereotypes of young Black gangsters commonly depicted in the so-called ‘hood films of the 1990s, including Menace II Society and Boyz ‘N the Hood (1992). Adebisi and the Homeboys in many ways reflect the so-called “Super-predator” scare of the 1990s, a term coined in 1996 by William Bennett, John P. Walters, and John DiIulio, Jr., who predicted skyrocketing crime and linked it to a new generation of sociopathic urban youth.20 In the media discourse of the day, the rhetoric of the super-predator portrayed inner-city Black youth as dysfunctional, impulsive, violent “zombies” whose very “lifestyle seemed to be a kind of crime” (Simon, Trial 157). Here, the myth-making capacities of social pseudo-science are on full display. Adebisi in many ways merges these late 20th-century discourses with biological theories of crime dating back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, during which thinkers such as the Italian criminologists Enrico Ferri and Cesare Lombroso began adopting Social Darwinist tenants to ground criminological thinking in (largely racist) theories of degenerate biology. As Pasquale Pasquino explicates, these theorists imagined a figure of “homo criminalis” who, unlike the rational subject of the enlightenment notion of homo penalis, is defined by an essentializing, tautological reference to its inherent criminality. Homo penalis posits a rational actor with a free will and describes crime as an error in judgement; for homo criminalis, however, crime is simply “the manifestations of an evil nature” and therefore crime is in turn “an excrement of the social body, at once a residue of archaic stages in the evolution of the species and a waste-product of social organization… the criminal is naturally a savage, and socially an abnormal” (Pasquale 238). Both the super-predator and its cultural legacy in the theory of homo criminalis animates Adebisi’s character throughout OZ, a marker tied to the interconnected intersections of his foreignness and race.21 20 See Bennet et al. Body Count. Simon & Schuster, 1996. 21 In many ways, these attributes imbue the character with an almost sublime, horrif ic otherworldliness which makes Adebisi feel like a nearly supernatural figure. Indeed, by the time he is killed off in Season 4 during a fight with Said, he has attained the status of a minor Emperor in Emerald City. His death at the hands of the equally charismatic but much more virtuous Said thus becomes an episode drawn from the pages of old-world epics, orientalist intrigue, and Greek

How Does Violent Spec tacle Appear as T V Realism?

83

Finally, Vern Schillinger is the leader of the Aryan Brotherhood in OZ and one of its central antagonists. Indeed, Schillinger’s rape of the white, everyman “square John” Tobias Beecher only minutes into the pilot episode initiates a feud between the two which serves as a major plotline up until the series’ finale. As Wlodarz argues, this rape “destabilizes intraracial bonding narratives and posits whiteness itself as both site and source of violation and betrayal” (69). This reading fits into a larger trend aptly described by Daniel Lachance: “important popular depictions of prison in the 1990s identified a different kind of white anxiety, one focused not on a menacing racial other, but on white masculinity itself” in which “prison had become… a fictional setting in which a white, masculine obsession with control was being exposed as self-destructive” (162–163). In many senses, then, OZ’s “persistent alignment of the Aryan Brotherhood with forced sexual assault… exploits white male vulnerability” (Wlodarz, 69). As Wlodarz argues, “spectacles of prison rape in mainstream media in general serve as distillations of a central fear and fantasy for straight white men in American culture – namely, the collapse and inversion of hierarchies of power” (69). This is especially so when they take the form of racialized fears of Black-on-white prison rape, as Andrew Sargent notes: “the possibility that a white man could be raped in jail by African American or Latino inmates exerts a powerful hold over the American racial imaginary” (131). OZ’s positioning of Schillinger as key antagonist and brutal serial rapist thus “reverses this racist scenario” (Wlodarz 69) by turning those fears on their heads. However, as Sargent continues, this reversal merely plays into a cultural trend which “transforms prison into a site of white male self-assertion” (235): instead of depicting black-on-white rape directly, they sublimate and reconstitute it into a more palatable form by positioning the black prisoner not as a potential rapist but as a protector of the white male against a white sexual predator – one who is so leeringly, inhumanly white (e.g., an albino “hillbilly” or neo-Nazi skinhead) that his presence comes across as a form of narrative overcompensation. (135–136) tragedy, allowing the series to bank on Adebisi’s foreignness while also serving as a strategic moment for OZ to tout its cultural literacy. Whereas much less-beloved characters could die at any twist of the plot, Adebisi’s death occasions much more fanfare; it feels appropriate that he should die in a life-or-death struggle at the hands of Said. By skyrocketing the storyline into the epic register of mythology through this tribal struggle between powerful leaders representing diametrically opposed visions, OZ banked on its racist depictions of Adebisi’s foreignness while simultaneously making it easier to stomach the discontinuation of a fan favorite.

84 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

However seemingly transgressive OZ’s portrayal of white-on-white prison rape may seem, there is also the sense in which it merely serves to exploit pre-existing anxieties about the hypersexualized threat of a monstrous, lower-class, “hillbilly” whiteness.22 Characters like Schillinger are themselves frequently portrayed as “oppressively and excessively white” (Wlodarz 87), a condition which not only plays down the whiteness of other characters but also renders quotidian practices of white supremacy invisible. The grotesque portrayal of white supremacists overshadows the insidious banality of white privilege to the point that the latter is rendered nearly invisible by virtue of its sheer and pervasive normalcy. Thus, Schillinger’s status as a primary antagonist also has the effect of diverting attention away from the structural and systemic components of racism. Instead, it would seem to locate racism in the personal morality, attitudes, and criminal corruption of individuals. This is especially problematic insofar as mass incarceration is a distinctly racialized phenomenon. Just as the character of Warden Glynn would seem to imply a post-racial order which insists that Black men on the straight-and-narrow can easily attain positions of power, the character of Schillinger would seek to paint racism as a consequence of particularly virulent strains of violent, hyper-masculinist white supremacy, thereby suggesting that racism is a function of personal intentions and attitudes rather than the systemic result of pervasive, historically persistent, institutionalized, and structurally reinforced inequalities. In this sense, then, OZ performs some of the same structures of cynical disavowal related to the prison form more generally. Even as it generates stock characters from the dual systems of prison discourses and popular culture, it implicitly denies responsibility for them, effectively papering over its own role in perpetuating persistent stereotypes and common cultural misconceptions.

Haunting Repetitions: Plotting the Prison’s Archive The f inale of OZ’s penultimate season culminates in a characteristic outbreak of violence which is nevertheless shocking for the life it takes: 22 This trope, which has deep historical roots in the American imaginary, surfaces in American screen culture at least as far back as the 1972 film Deliverance. Its most prominent manifestation can perhaps be found in OZ’s near contemporary, American History X (1998), in which reactionary white violence is turned against the white supremacist main character in the form of prison rape, instigating a redemption narrative.

How Does Violent Spec tacle Appear as T V Realism?

85

Augustus Hill. In the season which follows, however, Hill continues to haunt OZ. Aside from continuing to appear in the extra-diegetic monologues which open and close each episode – albeit now assisted in between by the ghosts of other previously deceased characters – the surviving characters discover and decide to posthumously publish Hill’s journals. The result is not only an internal narrative device, but was accompanied by HBO’s publication of a collector’s item under the title Behind These Walls: The Journal of Augustus Hill.23 Here, product placement and branded merchandizing mesh with diegetic narrative to generate an almost spectral object insofar as it exists simultaneously on two ontological planes, emanating from within OZ’s fictional story world while finding commercial form as a commemorative item existing outside its diegesis. Behind These Walls therefore belongs to a thoroughly strange genre, almost a contradiction in terms: f ictional autobiography. The bizarre effects of contemplating this combination are only heightened by the book’s own paratextual pretensions, as OZ’s f ictional world attempts to realize itself under the sign a non-fictional genre. Summoned through the medium of commercial opportunity, Behind These Walls, as preternatural para-text, invades and attempts to stir up genre trouble for the representational conventions and epistemological assumptions which structure conventional notions of realism. 23 Aside from representing a commercial opportunity for HBO, Behind These Walls has several other distinct paratextual functions. With exhaustive lists of cast and characters as well as an episode guide, it serves as an orienting paratext, helping fans navigate OZ’s complex story world. It also includes a retrospective essay by Tom Fontana, from which I have cited above. At the same time, it includes didactic material which exceeds the scope – or, perhaps, informs the making – of OZ’s narrative story-world in the form of textbook-like editorial sidebars. These sidebars lift or paraphrase nonfictional sources, including sociological and historical studies about prisons. In this sense, Behind These Walls extends the work performed by the Hill monologues which punctuate each episode, providing conceptual frames or elaborate metaphors meant to direct audience interpretations. The sidebar format is a convention recognizable to anyone who has ever read a textbook, complete with citations to nonfiction works, calling out their “scientific” or scholarly legitimacy, making it supposedly easy to sort out “fact” from “fiction.” Sometimes this information is grafted upon OZ’s story world, as is the case with a sidebar which fuses information about prison gangs in maximum security prisons taken from criminologists Jeffrey Ross and Stephan Richards’ nonfiction book Behind Bars: Surviving Prison, which is then applied as an explication of OZ’s own particular “tribes,” lending the fictional world a sense of scholarly authenticity (HBO 7). As a result, it can be difficult to distinguish between those aspects which are grounded in nonfictional research and those which are pure entertainment. The function of Behind These Walls’ sidebars – their oft failed attempts to reliably sort out fact from fiction – and the notion of realism they suggest sits in turn rather uncomfortably besides the faux-autobiographical form which its main text impersonates.

86 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

Behind These Walls is a narrative re-description – which is also to say, a haunting repetition – of OZ’s first five seasons; however, it presents itself with all the accoutrements of genre familiar to the prison autobiography. In doing so, it calls up questions about the status and function of genre in structuring our modes of reading and reception, themselves often based upon certain ideas about authenticity. Behind These Walls, for all its “realistic” pretentions, is fiction flippantly and openly masquerading as nonfiction. As fiction, it cannot be subsumed by legal categories such as fraud, counterfeit, and forgery; and yet, something feels somehow deeply disturbing about rendering prison fiction in a conventionally non-fictional form even before it is wrapped up and sold as commemorative merchandise, especially when autobiographical genres are already so thoroughly haunted by problems of memory and authenticity. Insofar as prisoners are amongst the most abjectly treated, routinely silenced, and least trusted among us, the politics of representation it conjures up only work to aggravate such concerns. And yet, in a sense, Behind These Walls merely reproduces genres which circulate freely, and are, in themselves, already troubled by spectral residues of sincerity and authenticity, not to mention power and coercion. Indeed, as Caleb Smith reminds us, while inmate autobiographers who published exposés of their own experiences are important and far too often forgotten contributors to the penal imaginary, they also frequently embellished or altered their memories, adding an element of fabulation to their nonfictional self-narratives. Thus, he argues that: …writings by inmates do not hold such a special status. Their authors are readers, often writing for audiences in the outside world. They do not only record the lived experiences of abjection or struggle. They also engage the ideological and even imaginative dimensions of the institutions that hold them. They belong to a common archive that includes the works of political theorists, penal reformers, and writers at large. (C. Smith 20–21)

I do not here summon Smith to discredit or depreciate the work of inmate authors, who are amongst the most important contributors to our wider understanding of prisons and prison life, but rather to point out that nonfictional works, for all their generic claims, do not represent unmediated, pristine reportage of the “facts” alone, but rather carefully craft reality effects based upon existing aesthetic codes and forms, thus participating in larger systems of (often commercialized) culture. In this regard, Behind These Walls raises haunting questions about the ways in which fiction perpetually haunts and troubles the purportedly factual.

How Does Violent Spec tacle Appear as T V Realism?

87

Printed on the inside covers which bookend Behind These Walls is an architectural map of the fictional Oswald State Correctional Facility. The lines and writing on the map are themselves blurry, and the background print on the page is designed to look like a weathered, concrete gray wall. However, if one looks closely and compares the map with the set designs used in the series, one can distinguish the modern, state-of-the-art, platinum shine of the Emerald City Unit from the rest of the cell blocks with their unkempt stone walls and rusting iron bars. It is interesting to compare the bipartite design of OZ’s fictional prison to non-fictional descriptions of modern prisons. Consider, for example, Loïc Wacquant’s critical description of Los Angeles’ Men’s Central Jail. The jail is characterized by “deafening and disorienting noise…. Ubiquitous filth” and “the total absence of light”: metaphorically, it is “a tomb. A subterranean grotto. A safe for men buried alive far away from society’s eyes, ears and minds” (Wacquant, “Eclipse” 373). Just next door, by contrast, are the newly built, sleekly designed Twin Towers, housing “women, declared homosexuals and detainees needing medical care” (Wacquant, “Eclipse” 373). The Twin Towers, it would seem, carry none of Men’s Central Jails “architectural stigma” but instead represents the “hypermodern, high-tech” and “futuristic” side of American corrections: MCJ and the Twin Towers are the two faces of the US carceral cosmos… the one hypermodern, high-tech, high-skill, fluid and continuous flow, and high productivity; the other, anchored in deskilled services and downgraded manufacturing, characterized by antiquated means, low technical input, stop-and-go, and low yield. One must not dismiss or disregard either, for neither is ‘the’ American prison: the two components, the backward and the futuristic, must be held together and understood in their relation of structural hierarchy and functional complementarity – much like the two planes of the US economy. (Wacquant, “Eclipse” 373)

Here we have two quite diametrically opposed yet somehow complimentary visions of the carceral. Each serve as metaphors conjuring up vestiges of the Fordist era crumbling under the shadow of the post-industrial economy – a key historical condition leading to the oversupply of surplus labor which the prison is called upon to manage. However, what I want to highlight here are not just the theoretical symmetries Wacquant constructs by rendering the bipartite structure of the jail as a metonymic projection of larger socioeconomic cleavages. Instead, I want to draw attention to two other cultural pedigrees at play in the prison’s socio-architectural design: the naturalistic,

88 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

as suggested by the metaphor of the machine, and the gothic, as suggested by the metaphor of the tomb.24 In The Urban Sublime in American Literary Naturalism, Christophe Den Tandt introduces the notion of the “naturalist gothic” to describe “the grotesque representation of populations in [works of late 19th- and early 20th-century literary] naturalism” (124). According to Tandt, turnof-the-century literary realism had “a tendency to exclude and demonize non-genteel populations” (123) which often results in the “racist caricaturing [of] secondary characters in realist fiction” (124). Tandt argues that such caricatures are often filtered through a gothic imagery which rendered characters as “urban savages… both pitifully weak and inexplicably strong… [who] have a capacity for unpredictable acts of violence [and] whose viciousness is literally supernatural” (127). This dehumanization of prison populations as not only racially marked but as the violent, criminal waste of the marginalized lower classes is, as already implied, commonplace in OZ’s depiction of its prisoners.25 Thus, whereas Tandt traces the ways in which the naturalist gothic frequently blurs “the boundary between city and nature” (10) by underwriting attempts to render the city in its totalizing sublimity with “uncanny tropes of Darwinian primitivism” (9), I shall argue that the naturalist gothic also frequently structures representations of the prison. In The Prison in the American Imagination, Caleb Smith argues that “for as long as the prison has defined punishment in the United States, it has been accompanied by the imagery of inmates as the living dead” (28). Smith’s book maps out “the poetics of the penitentiary – the images and tropes that give meaning to the violence of incarceration” and in which “enlightened 24 Wacquant’s description conjures a universe of pre-existing tropes, modes, and images which have become so central to the ways in which we imagine the prison that they even inform and sanction sociological accounts such as his. This universe draws from and contributes to what Caleb Smith calls a “common archive”: the modes, tropes, and figures which underlie, energize, and facilitate the production of both imaginative fiction and non-fictional critical discourses alike. This archive informs not only prison architecture and sociological explications thereof but also, as we can tell from the close homology between MCJ and OZ’s fictional prison, popular and televisual accounts as well. What this suggests is that the literary, popular, and screen cultures which precipitate, circulate, and participate in these archives also cross-pollinate with scholarly practices. Critical culture thus cuts across not only mediums but also knowledge domains. In this sense, even commercial television can facilitate, preserve, (re)produce, and circulate modes of critical culture. 25 As Mark Seltzer has argued, such gothic, dehumanizing f igures constitute the core of naturalism’s “counter-aesthetic… an aesthetic of caricature, monstrosity, and deformity, an aesthetic of genesis as degeneration… Stated as simply as possible, the brute is the generative principle of naturalism” (Bodies 38).

How Does Violent Spec tacle Appear as T V Realism?

89

sentimentality is bound up with the violent and ghostly nightmare of the gothic” (39). Pointing out that these poetics “were organized around a narrative of rebirth, and that narrative required, as a precondition, the convict’s virtual death” (6), Caleb Smith argues that such narratives of redemption and resurrection rested upon a gruesome set of preconditions: “Before the prisoner can receive the humanizing embrace of the community, he must be stripped down and dehumanized. Before he can be resurrected, he must be made to live out his death” (47). Smith’s account of incarceration is bound up with notions of genre and ideology – the gothic and the sentimental, respectively: “the ‘wretched prisoner’ was displayed, then contained; a gothic vision of living death appeared, only to be drawn into a sentimental narrative of resurrection” (47). Smith traces these discourses across the landscape of the American imaginary, and in doing so identifies two versions of what he calls the “carceral gothic”: one in which “ghostly prisoners are displayed in the service of penal reform, helping to expand and refine the prison system” rather than dismantle or fundamentally challenge it, and one in which “ghosts haunt their captors, disturbing rather than reinforcing the penitentiary’s sentimental design” (58). However, the prison’s moral design is never merely either sentimental or grotesque; instead, it is often mechanistic. Analyzing discourses frequently found in prison films, Paul Mason identifies a pervasive “discourse of machine” images and metaphors (“Relocating” 202): “The visible movement of inmates against the backdrop of cold steel and grey concrete which contains them mirrors the workings of a machine – prisoners are the cogs that turn, driving the huge mechanism of punishment relentlessly onward” (Mason, “Relocating” 203). The daily grind of routine and the “inflexibility of rules” is emphasized and thematized through various recurrent narrative patterns: “escape from the machine, riot against the machine, the role of the machine in processing and rehabilitating inmates, and entering the machine from the free world” (Mason, “Relocating” 204). Closely entangled in this machine metaphor is an “emphasis on the dehumanizing process” it generates via even the most mundane of prison routines and regulations (Mason, “Relocating” 204). Interestingly, Mark Seltzer notes that similar mechanistic metaphors produce a “cultural logistics” of “the American body-machine complex” (Bodies 4) which pervade naturalist novels and social scientific discourses: “production, both mechanical and biological” not only “troubles the naturalist novel at every point” but also underwrites its aesthetics: “naturalist aesthetic requires… a principle of generation that incorporates rather than opposes the machine: in short, a mechanics that forms part of its

90 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

very textuality” (Bodies 36). Such aesthetics are in turn “closely bound up with the emergence of a biopolitics of populations, with the possibility of a social science” (Seltzer, Bodies 105). This persistent analogy between bodies and machines as an animating metaphor in social scientific thought frequently emerges and holds great purchase in descriptions which evoke mass incarceration by way of machine metaphors. When economist Glenn C. Loury, for example, remarks that “recitation of the brutal facts about punishment in today’s America may sound to some like a primal scream at this monstrous social machine that is grinding poor black communities to dust” (27), his figurative language displays a literary sensibility of which any naturalistic writer would be proud even as it draws from and contributes to Seltzer’s body-machine complex. American penal practices are routinely described in a distinctly naturalistic language which imagines the prison as a de-personalized carceral machine. In an interview following his visit to Attica in the aftermath of the 1971 prison uprising, Foucault describes the Attica prison as “an immense machine” (Foucault and Simon 26) and posits that “the questions one obviously asks is what does the machine produce” (Foucault and Simon 27) before concluding: …nothing at all is produced. That it is a question simply of a great trick of sleight of hand, a curious mechanism of circular elimination: society eliminates by sending to prison people whom prison breaks up, crushes, physically eliminates; and then once they have been broken up, the prison eliminates them by… sending them back to society; and there, their life in prison, the way in which they were treated, the state in which they come out insured that society will eliminate them once again, sending them to prison… Attica is a machine for elimination. (Foucault and Simon 27)

Playing rhetorically on the same circulatory tendency, criminologists Stephen C. Richards and Richard S. Jones have characterized the contemporary prison-parole system as a “perpetual incarceration machine” which promotes recidivism by creating perverse incentives and erecting major legal impediments to successful re-entry (“Perpetual” 4). In other words, the system not only assumes failure but actively generates it in an endless, mechanized waltz of imprisonment, release, and recidivism. Marrying criminal depravation to penal deprivation, the prison’s narrative cycles captured prisoners in ceaseless oscillation between processes of dehumanization, rituals of redemption, and expectations of recidivism. The mechanistic rendering of the prison suggests narrative modes in which human bodies are the fuel for

How Does Violent Spec tacle Appear as T V Realism?

91

the serial continuation of the prison. The bodies of the naturalist gothic, in other words, fuel the carceral machine. Is it really enough to say, as Foucault would have it, that the prison only eliminates? On the one hand, the carceral machine is yet another variant of the prison’s cynical self-simulations; in that sense, the spinning wheels of the machine merely sustain its institutional reproduction. We could therefore say that the Carceral Machine does not produce the cyclical “elimination” of prisoners, but rather uses them for fuel in the perpetuation of its own simulations and narratives. The prison’s perpetual “elimination” of individuals – both fictional and actual – thus appears as a method to perpetually reproduce narrative cycles upon which the prison regenerates itself. However, the prison cannot produce these narratives itself, but must instead rely upon the proliferation of its own simulations, which circulate as both media representations and critical discourses. In other words, the prison assimilates its own circuits of remediation and becomes, in the process, an undying narrative engine. In staging its own processes of perpetual elimination as self-justifying failures, the prison activates narrative conventions which are deeply related to American literary naturalism’s deterministic plot of decline. As Seltzer points out, literary naturalism’s performance of what he calls its “principle of dissipation” – evoking naturalism’s own investments in the technological logic of thermodynamics – is at the same time closely linked to late 19th-century theories of reproduction: “One of the most striking indices of the naturalist aesthetics… is just this close link between generation and degradation… between reproduction and death” (Bodies 38). Here, we see a link between naturalism’s insistence on the reproductive engine of degradation and death identified by Seltzer as well as Smith’s account of the resurrection narrative: living out the process of death becomes the precondition of a regenerative, and therefore redemptive, resurrection. The narrative drive which undergirds the carceral machine is a way of enacting naturalism’s socio-biological engine; the two are variations on the very same theme. However, whereas the sentimental narrative of resurrection culminates in the closure of redemption, naturalism’s cycles of degradation and regeneration short-circuit any such sentimental closure.26 The result is a perpetual plot of decline, a narrative structure which both authenticates the cultural logic behind the prison’s 26 This framing of gothic rhetoric and the prison’s cultural poetics within the sentimental genre of the resurrection narrative is, in the era of mass incarceration, largely abandoned: “the prison no longer promises to correct criminals or to train citizen-subjects. Instead, it appears

92 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

institutional survival in the face of its own endemic failures and services OZ’s ongoing serial narrative by constantly short-circuiting any sense of redemptive narrative closure. In an interview with the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB) in 2014, Tom Fontana discussed his desire for OZ to be a show which both addressed his concerns with the American criminal justice system while avoiding “[t]he big lie that American episodic television does” in relation to themes of redemption: In the American justice system… we go through periods of retribution and then we go through periods of redemption… And what was wonderful about this gift that I was given to write this insanely violent, sexual show was to embed it with this idea that redemption… isn’t something that happens and then it’s done, redemption is something that happens and has to be renewed practically every day of your life. (14:00)

Here, redemption appears not as a principle of closure, but of constant struggle. This would seem to jibe well with long-form serial drama’s commercial imperative to perpetually defer endings. However, the notion of a continuously deferred redemption has important narrative consequences. In particular, it suggests that the prisoner needs to be constantly reinserted back into the structures of mortification. The result is a repetitive narrative cycle which locks characters into what I call perpetual plots of decline. We can begin illustrating how this works by tracing out the ways in which it plays out in OZ’s long-form, serialized narrative development. In particular, we shall follow the carceral careers of two main characters. Within seconds of OZ’s first episode, we are introduced to Miguel Alverez and Tobias Beecher as they are being checked into Emerald City. Even before we learn their names, we watch as Alverez is stabbed, seemingly without provocation, and falls to the floor bleeding. This causes the white, middle-class, ex-lawyer Beecher to panic.27 This scene immediately sets expectations about OZ’s compulsive reiteration of violence; it quickly establishes a familiar formula which OZ will play out time and again. At the same time, it repeats and reinforces certain racialized expectations and conventional tropes. As Fontana has reportedly explained, “Beecher was the HBO subscriber” (Sepinwall 22); audiences are expected to relate as a kind of grotesquely violent warehouse whose inmates have been divested of rights, even of humanity, and condemned to a living death” (Prison 201). 27 “The Routine.” Season 1, Episode 1: 01:45–02:07.

How Does Violent Spec tacle Appear as T V Realism?

93

to Beecher as the fish out of water, middle-class, white professional man who mimics the audience’s own assumed horror at witnessing Alverez’s stabbing. However, no explanation is immediately offered for this apparently random act of violence; it is only what media has conditioned American audiences to expect from representations of the racialized underclass as the carceral brute. In many ways, the moral careers these characters follow are deeply related to generic expectations deployed in both popular culture and academic criminology. Conforming at first to John Irwin’s aforementioned ideal type of “the square John,” Beecher becomes increasingly “institutionalized.” He is raped and branded by his white supremacist cellmate, Schillinger, and then enslaved as his “prison punk” (or in OZ’s own lingo, “prag”). After some time, Beecher breaks down and slowly becomes increasingly more erratic and aggressive in his behavior, before initiating a series of violent tit-for-tat retaliations which become a major plotline throughout the series. While Beecher eventually regains some of his “respectability” he never really escapes his “institutionalization” – indeed, even when he is released on probation, he falls prey to a scheme by his psychotic jailhouse lover, Keller, to entrap him in an illegal act and is returned to Emerald City.28 OZ’s final frames leave Beecher essentially exactly where he began: on a bus heading to yet another prison.29 Alverez, on the other hand, comes from a criminal background: his father and grandfather are imprisoned in OZ when he arrives. He falls from being a key player in OZ’s Latino gang, a fictionalized version of El Norte, to a complete outcast. Over the course of the series, Alverez spends substantial time in solitary confinement for blinding a guard to try and preserve his social standing – and thus his identity – in the Latino gang.30 While in solitary, his mental state slowly deteriorates (at one point he smears feces around his cell) before being released. Upon release, Alverez makes substantial strides at rehabilitation and is referred for parole; however, he is sent back to solitary after assaulting a particularly belligerent member of the parole board.31 Eventually released from solitary, Alverez tries for release again; the same member of the parole board, however, informs Alverez that he never intends to allow him to be released and instead intends to break him down by making him go through the same procedure year after 28 29 30 31

“4 Giveness.” Season 6, Episode 5: 48:55–55:15. “Exeunt Omnes.” Season 6, Episode 8: 01:35:40. “Escape from Oz.” Season 2, Episode 8: 21:30–23:13. “Impotence.” Season 5, Episode 8: 08:44–10:20.

94 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

year.32 As OZ wraps up, Alverez falls into despair, sacrificing his hard-won sobriety and surrendering to the sexual advances of the bizarre and ghastly newcomer, Torquemada.33 These characters are perpetually denied redemption and left trapped in the prison’s plot of perpetual decline. Indeed, even OZ’s strange series finale resists easy closure within a sentimental structure. While some minor characters forge emotional bonds with others and therein score moments of reprieve from past suffering, we have the sense that their peace will only last so long, and they are indeed the outliers. When we do arguably see closure in the life of mentally handicapped inmate Cyril O’Reilly it is only by way of his execution. The series plays out its final showdown between Keller and Beecher to surreal effect as Keller seems to throw himself from a balcony for the presumably perverse reason of framing Beecher for his own murder. Directly afterwards, the Aryans in the mailroom are poisoned by a powder, presumably sent by Keller, prompting an emergency mass evacuation by bus. The prisoners are taken away, but we are left behind; the series ends with a shot of Emerald City as echoes of the past reverberate hauntingly in the empty cell blocks.34 However, the series does not allow the credits to roll without addressing us once more through the vehicle of Augustus Hill’s ghastly final monologue: “The story is simple. A man lives in prison, and dies. How he dies? That’s easy. The who and the why, is the complex part, the human part. The only part worth knowing. Peace.”35 Invoking a rhetoric which celebrates its own ostensible complexity, OZ eulogizes its own demise even as it leaves its surviving characters suspended, denied closure, and unredeemed even after its final adieu. This is not the register of sentimental fiction; but it might have been. In a later interview, Fontana reveals that he would have liked to end the series differently and imagines a flood in which local townspeople would work side-by-side with the prisoners to erect a barrier to protect the town. Aside from effectively “busting” the present-tense narration out of prison, such an ending would have signified, for Fontana at least, sentimental closure: “Symbolically, what I was trying to say was these are people, too. They have faces, too. And in moments they have a shared humanity with all of us. That, to me, would have been the perfect ending” (Fontana and Green). In OZ, 32 “Exeunt Omnes.” Season 6, Episode 8: 46:01–47:50. 33 “Exeunt Omnes.” Season 6, Episode 8: 48:08–52:00. 34 “Exeunt Omnes.” Season 6, Episode 8: 01:36:10–01:37:20. 35 “Exuent Omnes.” Season 6, Episode 8: 01:37:55. This is the final monologue of Augustus Hill, closing the OZ series finale.

How Does Violent Spec tacle Appear as T V Realism?

95

the sentimental haunts the gothic as its unrealized other. However, even sentimentality would have failed to break the prison’s cyclical engines: by the series’ own logic any moment of redemption, any humanizing moment, must be contained again within the unavoidable fall. The prison ultimately depends upon a perverse, overbearing, endless descent into the dark oblivion, the narrative abyss of its own gothic (in)humanity; it reproduces stories of unavoidable human fallibility which therefore allow it to continuously defer sentimental closure. To conclude this section, let us haunt again a scene we have already revisited. OZ’s first season opens with a montage over which Augustus Hill monologues. This scene immediately sets expectations about OZ’s compulsive reiteration of violence; almost poetically, Hill’s monologue not only reinforces these expectations, but echoes it in its own cadence, alliteration, and anaphora: “Oz is retro. Oz is retribution. You wanna punish a man? Separate him from his family, separate him from himself, cage him up with his own kind. Oz is hard times doing hard time.”36 As a pilot episode, “The Routine” not only functions to immediately introduce viewers to its various modi operandi; it also immediately introduces them to its central themes, using verbal repetition not only to drive home its point, but also, in a sense, to practice its own narrative structures. Moreover, Hill’s monologue reproduces a certain set of dehumanizing processes which run prisoners through unending gauntlets of mortification: rituals in which people are transformed into something less than human. As McManus tells Leo a bit later in the episode: “Leo, you said it yourself, our first conversation, all we do is recycle… A new inmate comes in, we sit on him, send him back out, he’s back with a vengeance. If we don’t do something different, we don’t do something radical, we’re never gonna break the chain.”37 Beyond the rhetoric, OZ is all about re-cycling. Hill continues to utilize these repetitive forms as his monologue resumes later in the episode: “Oz is where I live. Oz is where I will die, where most of us will die. What we were don’t matter. What we are don’t matter. What we become don’t matter.”38 This anaphora works triple time: First, it draws attention to the ways in which total institutions, in the words of Erving Goffman, enact rituals of social “mortification” (35) in which inmates are inaugurated into a state of “civil death” and put through a series of “abasements, degradations, humiliations, and profanities” (14). Second, it activates 36 “The Routine.” Season 1, Episode 1: 01:45–02:15. 37 “The Routine.” Season 1, Episode 1: 03:00–03:20. 38 “The Routine.” Season 1, Episode 1: 28.35–28.55.

96 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

the “gothic vision of living death” through which early penal reformers imagined the prisoner to traverse before being “drawn into a sentimental vision of resurrection” (C. Smith 47). Third, and although it was likely not yet planned, Hill’s ruminations on his own fate foreshadow not only his own death in later seasons, but the various others which the series already conditions us to begin to expect. Keeping with the theme of this section – which is also to say, the rhetorical and narrative logic of this reading – let’s repeat each of these three points again: “What we were don’t matter.” Dispossession. “What we are don’t matter.” Degradation. “What we become don’t matter.” Damnation. The anaphoric rhetoric of this monologue foreshadows OZ’s repetitive narrative structures while activating tropes of mortification to deny the possibility of redemption. As Hill puts it later in the episode: “See, in Em’ City, retribution gives way to redemption. Timmy boy believes he can save every one of us, from each other, from ourselves, from the system that dumped us in here. Only thing he don’t get is, you gotta want to be saved.”39 Hill’s monologue densely interweaves various penal logics of punishment, penitence, and forgiveness even as it mocks McManus’s rehabilitative mission. The prisoners of OZ are trapped in a web of interlocking and frequently contradictory logics which sustains the legitimacy of their perpetual dispossession. The penal logics which propel OZ’s narrative forward predetermine a status of perpetual damnation. As viewers, OZ conditions us to always expect a plot of decline, a fall further and further into the abyss. Sentimentality is, under such circumstances, rendered wholly impotent, while mortification does not result in rebirth, but rather an unending burial. Interestingly, this is in many senses precisely Caleb Smith’s prescription. He locates human salvation in the re-animated figure of the living dead: identifying a “language of critique” crafted out of “a gothic alternative to the sentimental language of reform” and which “confronts humanity with the monstrousness it creates, not through exclusion but through the most profound, and most mortifying, burial within itself,” Smith argues that “it is not enough to expand humanity, if the promise of humanity claims the power of mortification; we must also unmake and recompose our concept of the human to divest it of its dehumanizing power” (209). The human itself must be taken apart and sewn back together, like Frankenstein’s monster, in order to be reborn. Caleb Smith, not unlike OZ, defers human salvation into the afterlife of its final mortification.

39 “The Routine.” Season 1, Episode 1: 06:30–06:35.

How Does Violent Spec tacle Appear as T V Realism?

97

But alas, as OZ reminds us: “Only thing he don’t get is, you gotta want to be saved.” What OZ’s serial dependency on perpetual mortification suggests is that perhaps even prior to a longing for the narrative closure which attends sentimental redemption, it is the all-too-human, unrepentant desire for narrative itself, narrative unending, which animates both popular culture and the prison’s undying regeneration. Changing this will require not only innovative narratives which re-animate our concept of the human; it will also require a radical rethinking of what popular storytelling is all about. Until then, realism will continue to obscure the prison behind our flashing screens while its inmates will remain buried under our storybooks, their voices drowned by our quenchless thirst for entertainment, edification, and spectacle, all of which shield us from an unmediated encounter with the prison’s catacombs of the living entombed, the horror of its mountainous piles of the untimely dead.

Bizarre Realism In this chapter I have charted a course which took up the question of violent spectacle and realism as they relate to the sources of OZ’s penal imaginary. We have found, along the way, that those sources are manifold. If, like OZ itself, it has been a bizarre journey, with perhaps too many twists and entanglements, this is itself largely a consequence OZ’s attempts to perpetually regenerate its sur/realism through increasingly bizarre depictions of spectacle and violence. Rather than expanding the space of its story world, OZ assimilated an increasingly diverse array of genres, modes, and conventions, actively assembling together not only contemporary and pre-existing penal discourses but drawing from a dizzying array of less obvious cultural resources. It is not surprising that such a text would inevitably gravitate towards genre conventions which are flamboyantly theatrical, strangely gothic, and grotesquely hyper-naturalistic. Indeed, OZ is arguably at its best when it is most bizarre, pushing the norms of televisual realism by venturing ever deeper into modes of gothic and naturalistic storytelling. By rendering images and stories about the prison in increasingly outlandish registers, OZ might hold some potential to help de-familiarize the prison form, rendering imprisonment not as a natural outcome, realistic expectation, or common-sense given, but rather as the product of deeply embedded cultural conventions and social divisions which are in turn underwritten by surreal fictions masquerading as hard-nosed realism, thereby allowing historically contingent, and therefore alterable, decisions to appear as inevitabilities.

98 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

Rendering these default practices and assumptions bizarre is important if we are going to imagine a world in which the administration of justice is not taken to be automatically and unproblematically commensurate with the mortifying practices of imprisonment and in which criminal justice is not allowed to stand in for social justice. As Caleb Smith argues, “In the end, it is not the inmate but the prison, with its harrowing forms of resurrection, that must be sacrificed in order to be redeemed” (209). If OZ has not, in spite of its best attempts to convince us otherwise, helped us to infiltrate and expose the “truth” about what “really” happens behind the prison’s walls, it has nevertheless occasioned an opportunity to analyze the spectacular (and eventually, spectral) mechanisms by which America’s penal imaginaries are projected upon the phosphorescent screen of the real. Tracing out the ways in which OZ serializes, dramatizes, and remediates American penal imaginaries through its various claims to televisual realism has allowed us to trace out the hypermediated stories, forms, and tropes by which the prison reports back about itself over the airwaves of American media. Casting its eerily familiar ensemble from an increasingly deep pool of popular stereotypes, OZ stages the prison as a kaleidoscopic prism through which the dull-drum, quotidian life of the nation becomes again strange, unfamiliar, and haunting. Conjuring up a universe of prototypical American outcasts, OZ crams them into a small, suffocating setting and stages a host of increasingly de-humanizing gothic spectacles. However, as Caleb Smith points out, “there [are] complex problems involved in using the gothic as a language of protest” (57). On the one hand, such violent spectacles would seem to “reveal the gap between enlightened theory and violent practice, between humane interventions and cruel realities” (C. Smith 57). On the other, the prison itself seems to rely upon such violent spectacles to (re) generate the terror which justifies its own institutional necessity: “the revelation of dehumanizing violence inside the penitentiary system… seems to have reinforced the very foundation of that system” (C. Smith 47). Like America itself, the prison is an undying narrative engine, sustained in and as the perpetual circulation of its own self-narrations. And yet, as with TV realism, neither America nor the prison can perpetuate their own reproduction in a static state; they must repeatedly stage their own transgressions, a process which necessitates both aspiration and innovation. It is therefore interesting that it is precisely by way of its transgressive aspirations that OZ’s realism becomes increasingly unrecognizable as such, generating a thoroughly disruptive rupture and leading the series to increasingly lapse into the gothic mode. The value of a series like OZ is therefore not in the ways in which it conforms to any preconceived code of realism, but rather

How Does Violent Spec tacle Appear as T V Realism?

99

the way in which it eventually overwhelms those codes completely. As it approaches narrative exhaustion, the series generates a sense in which realism itself, as a category, ruptures completely “in a way that confounds our analytic separations and confounds the social separations themselves” (Gordon 19). That this process appears as a kind of devolution or breakdown of narrative realism reveals the genealogical kinship between earlier forms of gothic storytelling and their eventual sublimation into more recent modes of hardboiled realism, thereby causing realism itself to appear as patently bizarre and historically contingent. Rather than leveling an explicit or intended social critique, this generates a haunting: a state in which “that what appears absent” – in this case, the buried voices of actual prisoners – asserts itself as a “seething presence” (Gordon 17). Behind These Walls in particular haunts the ontological fictionality and generic claims of non-fictionality which underwrite prison genres; as a ghastly double presence predicated upon the apparent absence of a “real” autobiographical author (both within the narrative and as a condition of its fictional status) Behind These Walls renders bizarre the authenticating absences and social distances which both obscure and mark as spectacle the apparitions which at once constitute and perennially haunt the claims of televisual realism.40 OZ’s gothic figures thus become naught but the spectral residue, the remainder which results from long-held American practices of dividing captivating stories from captive bodies, the residual revenants which haunt the American dream. At the same time, we should not for these reasons celebrate OZ’s seriously defective cultural politics. As a series which aspired towards becoming unprecedented television spectacle, OZ inevitably courted controversy and pushed boundaries in ways which served to shore up HBO’s desire to differentiate itself as well as blaze a trail upon which its successors could follow. However, it also eventually normalized the very operations it inaugurated, forcing it to continuously raise the bar to avoid exhaustion. The increasingly bizarre ways in which OZ sought to continually defer narrative exhaustion in the claustrophobic, closed site of the prison served nothing so well as to ensure both its own serial survival and the development of HBO’s brand equity in the increasingly cut-throat competitive environment of commercial television. Even if OZ does not exactly set out 40 This may relate to what Jennifer Friedlander has in mind when she argues that “realism’s potential political power… emerges by staging deceptions that imperil any recourse to the metalanguage that sustains the very categories of true and false, thereby undermining the possibility of belief and the system of authority that it secures” (18). However, as this happens in a moment when the codes of the gothic mode have overwhelmed those of realism, I prefer here the critical metalanguage of haunting.

100 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

to challenge, in the final instance, the ideological hegemony of punitive realism, it at the very least succeeds in terms of its own aspirations to transgress the norms of TV drama. It is perhaps for precisely this reason that OZ’s cultural politics are indeed so deeply flawed: it favors its televisual ambitions over all else. When we shift analytical level to that of the industry, it becomes clear that OZ helped to prove that there was a lucrative market of consumers receptive to more challenging and unconventional televisual experiences and eager for edgy series which examine the dark sides of contemporary American life. As we will see in coming chapters, the critical or popular success of later, more thoughtful shows parallels to some degree shifts in American national discourse. What this suggests is that while TV representations should not be excused when they almost inevitably produce distortions in their pursuit of commercial or artistic goals, we should not therefore reduce their complex cultural work to simplistic generalizations, nor discount their role in drawing attention and awareness, even if only in a distorted or roundabout fashion, to important social issues. This adheres especially when those issues pertain to people who are usually smuggled out of our collective representations altogether and hidden away behind concrete walls. As Frank Kelleter puts it, “To be seen means to be real” (Serial 73). In this sense, OZ’s most convincing claim to transgressive realism may simply be that it brought the prison’s nightmares, with all their perversions, repressions, and anxieties, into the sequestered spaces and weekly routines of American domesticity. For too long, prisoners went virtually unseen in the scheduled dramas of American television; OZ, at the very least, helped to correct for that.

Conclusion Much of OZ’s vaunted “quality” credentials are based in the exploitation of cultural conventions which associate “realism” with hyper-masculine violence, and perhaps even more fundamentally with transgressing boundaries, breaching social distances, and allowing an unfamiliar and threatening “real world out there” to invade otherwise mundane spaces of domesticity: the series transgresses televisual decorum by staging increasingly bizarre acts of hyperviolence; it allows the space of the prison to invade quotidian routines of TV programming; it urges viewers to feel as if they are getting a peak into the dark underbelly of society without having to leave the safety of their own homes; and it draws a “hardboiled” universe of characters, themes,

How Does Violent Spec tacle Appear as T V Realism?

101

and conflicts usually associated with prison ethnography, tough-on-crime political or policy discourses, and crime-focused genres of Hollywood cinema into the conventions of serial TV drama. Studying this transgressive approach to realism allows us to discover the extent to which the prison itself is a hyper-real institution, reproduced and legitimized through the circulation of often nightmarish images disseminated through the field of popular culture; these images permeate our media landscape to such a degree as to saturate it completely. Media images and popular narratives about the prison have proven themselves so potent that even real prisoners seem to accept and reach for fictional analogs when trying to communicate their own predicaments. However, OZ eventually packs the claustrophobic site of the prison to the point of bursting, and the series’ claims to realism begin to collapse in on themselves: in its attempts to continuously one-up and rejuvenate its own spectacle of prison drama and hyper-violence over the course six seasons, OZ turned to increasingly unrealistic, strange, and even gothic tropes, figures, and forms. Eventually the veneer of realism begins to crumble, and OZ ends up making the very notion of realism – and, by extension, the prison itself – seem hauntingly bizarre. Sources Cited Abbot, Jack Henry. In the Belly of the Beast. New York: Vintage Books, 1981. Albernethy, Michael. “Oz.” popmatters. 9 Feb. 9 2003. Web. Accessed 20 Aug. 2018. https://www.popmatters.com/oz2-2496225834.html Axmaker, Sean. “Amazon Product Review for Oz: The Complete Seasons.” Amazon.com. Web. Accessed 31 Aug. 2018. https://www.amazon.com/ Oz-Complete-Seasons-1-6-Six-Pack/dp/B000G6BL42 Baudrillard, Jean. Selected Writings. Ed. Mark Poster. Stanford University Press, 2001. Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation. Tr. Sheila Faria Glaser. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1994. Bender, John. Imagining the Penitentiary. Chicago: The University of Chicago, 1987. Bennett, William J., John J. DiIulio, Jr. and John P. Walters. Body Count. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996. Bish, Joe. “20 Years of ‘OZ’: The Show That Changed T V Forever.” Vice. 6 June 2017. Web. Accessed 20 Aug. 2018. https://www.vice.com/en_uk/ article/3kzzaj/20-years-of-oz-the-show-that-changed-tv-forever Bolter, David J. and Richard Grusin. Remediation. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000. Brecht, Berthold. Brecht on Theatre. Tr. John Willett. New York: Hill and Wang, 1992. Cecil, Dawn K. Prison Life in Popular Culture: From the Big House to Orange Is the New Black. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2015.

102 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

Crouch, Stanley. “My Favorite Show; Stanley Crouch on ‘Oz’.” The New York Times. 20 Sept. 1998. Web. Accessed 20 Aug. 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/1998/09/20/ magazine/my-favorite-show-stanley-crouch-on-oz.html Cullen, Francis T. et al. “Seven Ways to Make Prisons Work.” What is to Be Done about Crime and Punishment? Towards a ‘Public Criminology.’ Ed. Roger Matthews. Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Davis, Angela. Are Prisons Obsolete? New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003. Fiske, John. Television Culture. 2nd Ed. New York: Routledge, 2010. Fontana, Tom. “Epilogue.” Oz, Behind These Walls. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. Fontana, Tom and Elon Green. “The Legacy of Oz. A Chat with Toma Fontana.” The Toast. 11 Aug. 2015. Web. Accessed 20 Aug. 2018. http://the-toast.net/2015/08/11/ the-legacy-of-oz-chat-with-tom-fontana/ Fontana, Tom and Sir Peter Jonas. “The Birth and Rise of Epic TV Series.” WZB. Video Interview. 20 Nov. 2014. Web. Accessed 20 Aug. 2018. https://www.wzb. eu/en/node/33049 Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Penguin Books, 1991. Foucault, Michel and John K. Simon. “Michel Foucault on Attica: An Interview.” Social Justice, vol. 8, no. 3, 1991, p. 26–34. Friedlander, Jennifer. Real Deceptions. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. Gagne, Renaud and Marianne Govers Hopman. “Introduction: The Chorus in the Middle.” Choral Mediations in Greek Tragedy. Ed. Gagne and Hopman. Cambridge University Press, 2013. Goffman, Erving. Asylums. New York: Anchor Books, 1961. Gordon, Avery F. Ghostly Matters. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008. Haggins, Bambi L. “Homicide: Realism.” How to Watch Television. ed. Ethan Thompson and Jason Mittell. New York: New York University Press, 2013. HBO. Oz, Behind These Walls: The Journals of Augustus Hill. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. HBO. OZ: The Violence. Promotional Video. Web. Accessed 30 Aug. 2018. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=dllKFoLmtU4 Humphrey, Robert. “‘Oz’ as a Play: The Show’s Implicit Fight against Strict Realism.” The Artifice. 11 Aug. 2013. Web. Accessed 30 Aug. 2018. https://the-artifice.com/ oz-as-a-play-realism/ Irwin, John. The Felon. Englewood: Prentice-Hall, 1970. Jahn-Sudmann, Andreas and Frank Kelleter. “Die Dynamik serieller Überbietung: Zeitgenössische amerikanische Fernsehserien und das Konzept des Quality TV.” Populäre Serialität: Narration – Evolution – Distinktion. Ed. Frank Kelleter. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2012. p. 205–224.

How Does Violent Spec tacle Appear as T V Realism?

103

James, Caryn. “High-Tech Prison and the Face of Horror.” The New York Times. 12 July 97. Web. Accessed 20 Aug. 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/1997/07/12/ arts/high-tech-prison-and-the-face-of-horror.html Jarvis, Brian. “The Violence of Images: Inside the Prison TV Drama Oz.” Captured by the Media. Ed. Paul Mason. Routledge, 2006. p. 154–171. Kelleter, Frank. Serial Agencies: The Wire and Its Readers. Winchester: Zero Books, 2014. Lachance, Daniel. “Rehabilitating Violence: White Masculinity and Harsh Punishment in 1990s Popular Culture.” Punishment in Popular Culture. Ed. Ogletree and Sarat. New York: New York University Press, 2015. Levin, Charles. Jean Baudrillard: A Study in Cultural Metaphysics. London: Prentice Hall, 1996. Loury, Glenn C. Race, Incarceration and American Values. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008. Mason, Paul. “Relocating Hollywood’s Prison Film Discourse.” Captured by the Media. Ed. Paul Mason. London: Routledge, 2006. p. 191–209. Mittell, Jason. Complex TV. New York: New York University Press, 2015. OZ. Tom Fontana, cr. HBO, 1997–2003. Pasquino, Pasquale. “Criminology: The Birth of a Special Knowledge.” The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality. Ed. Burchell et al. The University of Chicago Press, 1991. Renton5555. “New Perspective on Oz.” Reddit. 29 April 2015. Web. Accessed 20 Aug. 2018. https://w w w.reddit.com/r/ozshow/comments/34bp1g/ new_perspective_on_oz/ Richards, Stephen C. and Richard S. Jones. “Perpetual Incarceration Machine.” Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, vol. 13, no. 1, 1997, p. 4–19. Rush, Benjamin. “An Inquiry into the Effects of Public Punishments upon Criminals, and upon Society.” Essays, Literary, Moral and Philosophical. 2nd Ed. Philadelphia: Thomas and William Bradford, 1806. p. 136–163. Sargent, Andrew. “Representing Prison Rape: Race, Masculinity, and Incarceration in Donald Goines’s White Man’s Justice, Black Man’s Grief.” MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the U.S., vol. 35, no. 3, Fall 2010, p. 131–155. Seltzer, Mark. Bodies and Machines. New York: Routledge, 1992. Sepinwall, Alan. The Revolution Was Televised. Touchstone, 2012. Shales, Tom. “HBO’s Brutal ‘OZ’ Not Entirely Captivating.” LA Times. 13 July 1998. Web. Accessed 20 Aug. 2018. http://articles.latimes.com/1998/jul/13/entertainment/ ca-3214 Shauer, Terrie. Spectacles of Prison: Masculinities, Punishment and Social Order in US Screen Prison Drama 1995–2005. Ph.D. Dissertation. Simon Fraser University, 2007. Slotkin, Richard. Regeneration through Violence. University of Oklahoma Press, 1973.

104 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

Smith, Caleb. The Prison and the American Imagination. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. Smith, Dinitia. “Prison Series Seeks to Shatter Expectations.” The New York Times. 12 July 1999. Web. Accessed 20 Aug. 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/12/ arts/prison-series-seeks-to-shatter-expectations.html Sykes, Gresham M. The Society of Captives. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007. Tandt, Christopher Den. The Urban Sublime in American Literary Naturalism. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1998. Wacquant, Loïc. “The Curious Eclipse of Prison Ethnography in the Age of Mass Incarceration.” Ethnography, vol. 3, mo. 4, 2002, p. 371–397. Wilson, David and Sean O’Sullivan. Images of Incarceration. Winchester: Waterside Press, 2004. Wlodarz, Joe. “Maximum Insecurity: Genre Trouble and Closet Erotics in and out of HBO’s Oz.” Camera Obscura, vol. 20, no. 1, 2005, p. 59–105. Yousman, Bill. Prime Time Prisons on U.S. TV. New York: Peter Lang, 2009. Yousman, Bill. “Revisiting Hall’s Encoding/Decoding Model: Ex-Prisoners Respond to Television Representations of Incarceration.” Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, vol 35, no. 3, p. 197–216.

3.

If It’s Not TV, is It Sociology? The Wire Abstract The Wire builds a vast, novelistic, and sociologically informed portrait of the interlocking institutions which comprise the post-industrial American city in the era of mass incarceration. It has therefore been an object of both high praise and intense controversy amongst sociologists. This is due largely to The Wire’s own sociological ambitions, as it sources many of its insights, narrative conventions, and aesthetics from sociology’s own cultural history. The Wire dramatizes practices of surveillance associated with policing, urban governance, and social science so as to render visible the complicity of such institutions in the (re)production of mass incarceration. However, as a series which is itself deeply invested in ideologies of visibility, The Wire has trouble transcending the self-same cultural contradictions it critiques. Keywords: The Wire, urban sociology, police procedural, post-industrial city, realism and naturalism, social reform and surveillance

A Surprising Debate1 In the summer of 2008, the journal Dissent published a debate between, on one side, a group of respected sociologists – William Julius Wilson amongst them – and, on the other, activist John Atlas and political scientist Peter Dreier. The debate is interesting not so much for any kind of theoretical disagreement or methodological innovation it yielded, but rather for the issue it addressed: the verisimilitude of an HBO television series. Such an object would seem strange given the professions of the participants who took part in the debate. That is, unless one is familiar with the series they were debating: The Wire. 1 Parts of this section are adapted from: Flamand, Lee A. The New American Naturalism in the Age of Mass Incarceration. MA Thesis, Freie Universität Berlin, 2013.

Flamand, Lee A., American Mass Incarceration and Post-Network Quality Television: Captivating Aspirations. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2022 doi 10.5117/9789463725057_ch03

106 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

Originally running over five seasons from 2002 to 2008, The Wire attempts to reconstruct the nitty-gritty of life on the streets, on the docks, in the schools, and amongst the political and journalistic elite of contemporary Baltimore. It deploys an unobtrusive televisual style by judiciously deploying, if not quite completely eschewing, the use of editing techniques such as montage, non-diegetic music, and flashbacks. Featuring an ensemble cast of mostly African Americans – thus more accurately representing the actual demographics of the city it reconstructs – it tediously traces out the lives of its characters as they negotiate intersecting institutional contexts such as street gangs, the criminal justice system, and failing inner city schools. Free from reliance on advertisers due to HBO’s subscription payment model, it ditched well-established televisual conventions; episodes are not self-contained closure engines, and the action is not chopped up into to bite-sized commercial-friendly intervals. Instead, major storylines play out or taper off over the course of entire seasons. The series has not only won critical acclaim in both the popular press and academic forums; it has been repeatedly hailed as “the best TV show ever broadcast in America” (Weisberg). At the same time, as Beer and Burrows point out, “The Wire has been widely lauded by professional sociologists, politicians, critics, journalists and others as being profoundly ‘sociological’” (153). For a television show, The Wire has had a strange career in academic circles. It can be found as often on the syllabi of sociology lectures as in film studies seminars, and it has been the subject of multiple conferences and seminars extending widely across the disciplinary landscape. Social scientists ranging from anthropologists to sociologists have either taught classes on the series or used it as a case study in their courses. In the debate mentioned above, the sociologists, while admitting that “The Wire is not documentary but fiction” (Chaddha, Wilson and Vankatesh 83) nevertheless argue that such details are beside the point: Quite simply, The Wire – even with its too-modest viewership – has done more to enhance both the popular and the scholarly understanding of the challenges of urban life and the problems of urban inequality than any other program in the media or academic publication we can think of. (Chaddha, Wilson, and Vankatesh 83)

The sociologists’ reading suggests that The Wire’s verisimilitude makes it interesting not only for its depiction of frequently obscured and ignored aspects of contemporary American society, but also for its didactic function – that is, as a tool for educating the American public about issues such

IF IT’S NOT T V, IS IT SOCIOLOGY? THE WIRE

107

as urban poverty and the War on Drugs. As Chaddha and Wilson have elsewhere written, Through the characters of The Wire, viewers can clearly see that various institutions work together to limit opportunities for the urban poor and that the actions, beliefs, and attitudes of individuals are shaped by their context. While scholars of inequality often take these ideas as basic assumptions, Americans remain strongly disposed to the idea that individuals are largely responsible for their own economic situations… In the face of a dominant belief system emphasizing personal inadequacies as the cause of poverty, The Wire effectively undermines such views by showing how the decisions people make are profoundly influenced by their environment or social circumstances. (“Way Down” 165).

On the other side of the debate, Atlas and Dreier argue that The Wire’s didacticism doesn’t go far enough: The Wire offered viewers little understanding that the problems facing cities and the urban poor are solvable… The Wire offered viewers little reason for hope that the lives of the people depicted in it could be improved not only by individual initiative but also (and primarily) by collective action and changes in public policy. (“Response” 87)

Atlas and Dreier charge that while The Wire might get some (but by no means all) of the facts straight, it gets the lesson all wrong: while they concede that “[t]he show really captured Baltimore’s nuances, flavor, language, and culture” (“Fable” 193), they simultaneous claim that “it is not a very accurate portrayal of urban poverty” (“Fable” 192). In their eyes, “The Wire was the opposite of radical; it was hopeless and nihilistic. The city portrayed in The Wire is a dystopian nightmare, a web of oppression and social pathology that is impossible to escape” (Atlas and Dreier, “Fable” 194).2 However, as even they must admit, “The Wire was a sociological treasure chest… viewers got a

2 Interestingly, this reading privileges Simon’s own pessimistic glosses on the series, thereby deploying a crass auteur theory which completely ignores not only the inherent polysemy of all meaningful, man-made artifacts, but also fails to recognize the status of TV shows as multi-authored media texts. At the same time, one is left wondering to what degree this critique is informed above all by anxieties and perceived threats to the authors’ own jealously guarded activist-identities. Perhaps, above all, these complaints betray anxieties about a popular, highly influential TV show’s potential to be the more effective activist.

108 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

sense of how people were shaped by the larger system – their relationships with each other and the web of institutions” (“Fable” 193). Despite their disagreements, the assumptions held by both parties quoted above seem to center around The Wire’s political value as an instrument for public pedagogy. Any aesthetic considerations, we are left to assume, are only secondary. Problematic issues arise, however, when the show’s identity as a work of fictional TV drama is bracketed off from its sociological aspirations. As Kelleter notes, reading The Wire in this way requires that one first forget that it is, in fact, a work of fiction: sociological interest in the show’s realism conflicts in a number of ways with the show’s identity as a television series… to use television series as ‘new fictional sources,’ sociologists and ethnographers have to explain the text’s practice of storytelling as insignif icant for their research interests. Strategies to do so include: talking about fiction not as a set of multiauthored social acts but as a finished, onetime translation of reality into a textual medium; conceding that The Wire is fiction, but then proceeding as if it were not. (Kelleter, Serial 39)

In describing how such a negation of The Wire’s fictional, aesthetic, and media qualities must proceed in order to render discussions about its usefulness to sociology clear, Kelleter is careful not to tread on such a research agenda so long as it does not merely result in a priori selfverif ication of the research questions it poses. Nevertheless, he insists that “the series’s other activities will not be put to rest… A sociologist who excludes the agency of fiction from her understanding of American society – or an Americanist who regards TV narratives as illustrative mirrors rather than influential makers of American culture – will almost certainly produce insuff icient knowledge, and quite unnecessarily so” (Kelleter, Serial 39–40). Kelleter’s remarks suggest an interesting question from which to enter in upon an analysis of The Wire. Given that sociologists (and very eminent ones to boot) seem to buy into The Wire’s much advertised claims to, as Kelleter puts it, “maverick authenticity” (Serial 37), we might refrain from asking how such readers approach The Wire (a question which Kelleter already addresses) and instead pose a somewhat more eccentric question: if these authors approach The Wire foremost not as televisual fiction, but as sociology, what does that then say about the epistemological and ontological status of each of these fields? To pun a bit on HBO’s most well-known marketing slogan, we might ask: if it’s not TV, is it sociology?

IF IT’S NOT T V, IS IT SOCIOLOGY? THE WIRE

109

The simple answer, of course, is no. Aside from historically entrenched generic conventions, creative practices, and hermeneutic assumptions which produce and maintain the distinction between fictional and nonfictional forms, there is the matter of media specificity to attend to, and there is certainly no lack of television scholars who have insisted upon preserving The Wire’s media identity as TV. This is unsurprising given their own disciplinary identities, and I suspect that it is in many instances motivated by the urge to firmly claim The Wire’s cultural prestige for their own field of study. If other domain experts are willing to grant the status of “great art” to The Wire, after all, then The Wire’s media identity not only shores up TV’s reputation, but also paints TV studies as an academic endeavor which is just as respectable as, for example, art history, literary criticism, or even, for that matter, sociology. And certainly, they are not wrong to do so: no number of critical accolades can change the fact that The Wire belongs to television’s cultural and media systems; if one wanted to watch The Wire during its original run, one quite simply had to own a TV. If, in comparison, we think of sociology is that nearly impenetrable, jargon-ridden stuff written by experts, for experts, stuffed with statistical tables, published in heavy tomes, and stowed away on dusty library shelves, then no, The Wire is most certainly not sociology. A more interesting answer is: maybe. As various historians of sociology have shown, there is deep consanguinity between modern f iction, the fields that serve as its expositors such as literary criticism, and sociology. Anxieties over sociology’s kindred relations with f iction have generated competition between the fields ever since sociology first appeared on the scene. As Wolf Lepenies has argued, “[f]rom the middle of the nineteenth century onwards literature and sociology contested with one another the claim to offer the key orientation for modern civilization and to constitute the guide to living appropriate to industrial society” (1). One effect of this sibling rivalry is sociology’s tendency to oscillate between attempts to mimic the (ostensibly) cold, calculated rationality of the natural sciences, and its desire to emulate the lively, descriptive social drama of the novel: from the moment of its inception sociology became both a competitor and a counterpart of literature. On the one hand, when sociology desired to be sociography it came into conflict above all with the realistic novel over the claim to offer an adequate reproduction of ‘the prose of everyday circumstance’; when, on the other, it claimed to be social theory it incurred the suspicion of degenerating into a “closet science” … this arid closet

110 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

science was then contrasted with literature in its capacity to express the “poetry of the heart.” (Lepenies 12–13)

Contemporary sociologists such as Chaddha and Wilson have retained and reproduced these self-same intellectual tendencies in their exposition of The Wire. More than just depicting social problems in a manner which they find authentic, they claim that The Wire’s fictionality confers upon it a special ontological status which makes it especially effective at communicating those conditions while, at the same time, rendering it incomparable with academic sociology. Whereas individual sociologists suffer the cold-blooded constraints of academic rigor, time, and resources, The Wire, they (erroneously) suppose, is unfettered by such institutional barriers by virtue of its ontological status as fiction and “the freedom of artistic expression” which comes with that status. Their theorizing, in this sense, not only propagates dubious myths about artistic autonomy, but furthermore retains core assumptions – which is also to say, betrays old anxieties – about fiction’s supposed ability to produce a more animated, affective, and complete description of social reality. The Wire is not particularly unique in this respect, but merely inherits its “analytical insight” from the novel’s superior “art of description” (Lepenies 4–5). Indeed, when Chaddha and Wilson compare The Wire not with other TV series but rather with literature, they not only reiterate the series’ own aspirations to transcend its media identity, but also inadvertently draw attention to sociology’s own participation in wider networks of cultural production. This allows us to read sociology not only as a “science” or a community of practice, but also as a system and tradition of representation which interacts and cross-pollinates with other such systems. The Wire is in many senses a particularly successful product of these generative liaisons; its hybrid status, however, also places it in competitive and at times antagonistic relation with each of the separate domains of its own nascence. As The Wire self-consciously courts comparisons to other media domains, it aspires to dissolve the fiction/fact rupture which engenders the epistemological divide between “non-fictional” sociology and other forms of “fictional” storytelling. While both sociology and the novelistic traditions of social realism which The Wire inherits aspire to tell stories which approximate social reality, the cultural assumptions which underwrite fiction’s own ostensible ontological status as a form of purely imaginative work allow it to sidestep any complaints or critiques that it fails to achieve a totalizing or accurate correspondence with the social. Sociology, on the other hand, must maintain its scientific pretentions, and must therefore constantly

IF IT’S NOT T V, IS IT SOCIOLOGY? THE WIRE

111

arbitrate and apologize for its own inability to accurately render itself as coterminous with the full expanse of social reality. It does this somewhat paradoxically, given that, as a conceptual instrument, and therefore as a working fiction, social reality exists most readily, if not exclusively, as a product of its own descriptions: that is, as sociology. As Frank Kelleter points out, “acceptance of The Wire’s documentary ambitions highlights the fictional base of many social science accounts” so as to “invite investigation into the narrative dimension of sociological knowledge production itself” (Serial 36).3 The Wire, in this sense, might be productively read not only as an attempt, however successful, to invent a more superior sociological re-description of reality by bridging the epistemological ruptures and media ontologies which separate (academic) sociology and (popular) fiction, but may also serve as a site from which to unsettle the borders which separate epistemological categories, hypostatize theoretical assumption, and erect walls around disciplinary terrains. Thus, rather than mining The Wire for its sociological fact content (an exercise which has in any case already been quite exhaustively performed by those more qualif ied than myself), this chapter will argue that the sociological ambitions which underwrite The Wire’s televisual depictions of the post-industrial city in the era of mass incarceration renders sociology’s own representational projects and epistemological assumptions legible as an object of cultural criticism and, by extension, disciplinary reflexivity. The Wire aspires not only to a high degree of sociological relevance, but actively generates narrative structures, a hard-boiled aesthetic, and an ethnographic viewer position which hold particular appeal to sociologists and help to explain much of their enthusiasm for the series. Interrogating The Wire’s extended network of representations, self-descriptions, and re-descriptions as the series re-configures sociology in a competitive mode (realist fiction) and foreign media (serial television), this chapter seeks to tease out the mutual investments, shared entanglements, and problematic double dealings of popular culture on the one hand and academic sociology on the other in an age of neoliberal abandonment and mass incarceration.

3 Even so, to leave the question there is to, in a sense, confirm cultural and media studies’ own sense of disciplinary coherence (if not superiority), leaving its own theoretical presuppositions and practices largely undisturbed. Thus, I might argue that such accounts also work, however inadvertently, to reproduce received distinctions which police and maintain the divide between fictional and sociological description in the interest of maintaining the disciplinary coherence (and, perhaps, elevate the academic status) of the humanities as practices which yield critical readings (in fact, writings) and celebrate them, however implicitly, as superior re-descriptions.

112 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

Procedural Anxieties Both The Wire and its advocates loudly celebrate what Erlend Lavik calls “the show’s serious treatment of serious issues” (“Forward” 84). Indeed, as Frank Kelleter points out, the series’ earliest commentators tended to trumpet these issues when advertising its merits: The Wire, one could read, revolutionizes American television with dense story-telling. It paints an uncompromising image of the institutional, economic, and racial dimensions of inner-city decline. In painstaking detail and epic breadth, it brings to light what the American media have so far kept in the dark. It formulates a sophisticated indictment of postindustrial capitalism. It critiques the state of a nation which thinks it can afford to ignore these harsh realities. In a word, The Wire is “the best television show ever.” (Serial 1)

Kelleter’s quick rundown efficiently condenses an entire archive of early critical praise even as it provides an at-a-glance-index of a particular set of inter-related values. If The Wire’s greatness is bound up with a set of critical postures and political viewpoints, then these are in turn related to the ways in which The Wire’s “dense storytelling” ostensibly eschews network television drama’s less impressive conventions and practices. The Wire’s designation as “the best TV show ever” is very much a function of its own attempts at distancing and distinguishing itself from its peers. As The Wire’s “Bible” – the original proposal submitted to HBO – puts it, “as with the best HBO series, The Wire will be far more than a cop show” and thus should “be judged not merely as a descendent of Homicide or NYPD Blue, but as a vehicle for making statements about the American city and even the American experiment” (Simon, “Bible” 2). Such serial aspirations far exceed those generally attributed to TV series, and it is these aspirations which set The Wire apart. They represent attempts to rethink and reformulate the limits of standard TV genres: “Visually, this drama will be the next generation in what has become classic American television fare, and as such, it will be hard for other police procedurals to ignore the implications” (“Bible” 2). These are lofty ambitions indeed. On screen, The Wire is a profoundly self-assured series: it insists upon its own distinct style, slow-burning rhythm, nuanced narrative complexity, and catholic adherence to an understated and muted cinematic style. Off-screen, however, The Wire teems with anxieties; or rather, its most influential spokespersons do. The Wire expends a great amount of energy

IF IT’S NOT T V, IS IT SOCIOLOGY? THE WIRE

113

extolling its virtues as a novel for television, a post-modern Greek tragedy, a political polemic, or journalism by other means; it works hard, in other words, to convince us that it is anything other than TV. Indeed, a great deal of ink has been spilt by critics, fans, and commercial spokespersons trying to distance The Wire from its media identity, suggesting instead a host of other, more culturally distinguished points of reference such as journalism, the novel, and Greek tragedy. Such aspirational self-comparisons participate in a discourse of selfpromotion which casts HBO as a creative sanctuary, albeit a precarious one, in an otherwise stifling creative environment: “the best work on HBO expresses nothing less than the singular vision of individual writers, as expressed through the talents of directors, actors, and film crews. Story is all” (Simon in Alvarez 11). David Simon’s heroic, almost romantic vision of creative genius sheltered by HBO’s ostensibly hands-off patronage opposes itself to the supposed cultural wasteland which goes by the name of network television. While even he must admit that “[o]ur 35mm misadventure in Baltimore – for all its self-professed iconoclasm – is nonetheless sponsored by a massive media conglomerate with an absolute interest in selling to consumers,” he can simultaneously discern the devil hiding in the details: without needing to rely on advertising dollars, “the only product being sold is the programming itself. In that distinction, there is all the difference” (Simon in Alvarez 11). Distinct, different, discerning: these are some of the most common markers of “quality” or “prestige” branding in American commercial culture. Despite all its attempts at transgression, The Wire – or at least, Simon’s description of it – conforms to the brand tenets embedded in HBO’s most famous slogan: “It’s Not TV, It’s HBO.” Touting its various and distinctly non-televisual ambitions, the show positions itself as a fugitive undertaking which found refuge in HBO’s desire for idiosyncratic programming, even though it is HBO’s own commercial ambition which occasions its realization. Discussing HBO’s early programming strategy in an email to producers Chris Albrecht and Carolyn Strauss, Simon points out that “HBO has succeeded in the past by creating drama in worlds largely inaccessible to network television, worlds in which dark themes, including sex and violence, can be utilized in more realistic ways” (Simon in Alvarez 35). Indeed, HBO’s first original dramas, including OZ – a series to which The Wire owes more than just commercial debts – were, in a sense, forays into social worlds that network television at the time dared not to tread. By picking up such distinctive programming content, HBO helped to cement its claims to be something other than – and therefore better than – network TV. “So, why

114 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

do a police show when the networks trade in such?” (Simon in Alvarez 35), Simon’s rhetorical question crescendos from a sales pitch into nothing less than a full-scale declaration of war on the networks’ own most well-fortified territory: It is a significant victory for HBO to counterprogram alternative, inaccessible worlds against the standard network fare. But it would, I argue, be a more profound victory for HBO to take the essence of network fare and smartly turn it on its head… because the world of cops and robbers is so central to the American TV experience, The Wire would stand as… a threat to the established order… (Simon in Alvarez 37)

Indeed, if OZ insisted on and “was marginalized because it offered a world (prison, gangsters, sex) where some viewers are reluctant to tread on any terms” (Simon 37–38), then the brilliance of David Simon’s strategy – as undeniably commercial as it is irreducibly political – is not only to double down on those televisual aspirations, but also to plant HBO’s flag atop one of network television’s most ideologically dominated strongholds. If The Wire seems at first to indeed be “grounded in the most basic network universe – the cop show,” its ambitions very quickly work to overflow and subvert the genre’s most commonplace assumptions: very shortly, it becomes clear to any viewer that something subversive is being done. Suddenly, the police bureaucracy is amoral, dysfunctional, and criminality, in the form of the drug culture, is just as suddenly a bureaucracy. Scene by scene, viewers find their carefully formed presumptions about cops and robbers undercut by alternative realities… And the idea – as yet unspoken on American TV – that no one in authority has any reason to care what happens in an American ghetto as long as it stays within the ghetto is brought into the open. Moreover, within a few hours of viewing, the national drug policy – and by extension our basic law enforcement model – is revealed as calcified, cynical, and unworkable. (Simon in Alvarez 36–37)

Notice the language at work here: “subversive… carefully formed presumptions… alternative realities… brought into the open… revealed” – this is the language of superior, “quality” realism, of a “revolutionary” realism capable of defamiliarization, revelation, and revolt. Now look again at how commonplace features of the police procedural are described: “bureaucracy… amoral, dysfunctional… criminality… drug culture… ghetto… drug policy…

IF IT’S NOT T V, IS IT SOCIOLOGY? THE WIRE

115

law enforcement model.” This is not a language native to network television; it is the language of the social sciences. The Wire revels in its own “subversive” standards not only by importing qualities from cultural systems outside the f ield of standard TV genres, but also by simultaneously touting itself as an insider in others. For many, The Wire’s realism derives largely from a degree of authenticity which only f irsthand experience and insider knowledge can confer, a consequence of its showrunner’s own (much advertised) prior life as a journalist. As Linda Williams points out, Simon’s journalism often takes on a decidedly ethnographic twist (Williams, On The Wire 11). Indeed, both of Simon’s longer works of New Journalism which presage The Wire, Homicide (1991) and The Corner (1997), def ine themselves f irst and foremost as works of immersive, “stand-around-and-watch journalism” (Simon, The Corner 538). 4 Interestingly, both were later repurposed for television as an NBC drama and HBO miniseries, respectively. And indeed, The Wire similarly attempts to immerse its viewers through on-location shooting and by using non-professional locals as actors, all of which, as Kelleter notes, “serve to produce an all-important effect: this is real” (Serial 12).5 However, it does not necessarily do so in order to celebrate, but rather to challenge, the credibility of contemporary journalism. This is especially true in its fifth season, which tackles the changing contours of print journalism as it is increasingly corrupted by commercial encroachments. By critiquing profit-driven news ventures, The Wire reverses the terms of authenticity between non-f ictional and f ictional media forms, seeking to dethrone journalism as the pinnacle of “factual” storytelling by advancing its fictional world as more realistic, authoritative, true-to-life alternative to a profession increasingly beholden to advertisers and thus colonialized by spectacle. Beyond journalism, David Simon has regularly referred to The Wire as a “visual novel” or a “novel for television” (Simon, “Truth” 28). While the drastic 4 These works also owe a great debt to distinctly progressive traditions of muckraking and social reformist journalism; Simon and Burns have noted, for example, the influence of James Agee and Walker Evans’s 1941 publication Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (The Corner 542). Indeed, it is tempting to read The Wire as, in many senses, the culmination of a tradition which combines reporting with photojournalism, dating at least as far back as Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives (1890) or indeed even the sketches which accompanied Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor (1861). 5 Famously, The Wire’s production team opted to film in the standard 4:3 format familiar to network television as opposed to the more up-to-date, cinematic 16:9 format. David Simon claimed that this was because it “feels more like real life and real television and not like a movie” (Chappelle and Griffin).

116 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

difference in medium makes these comparisons striking, they are not, on deeper reflection, terribly surprising; as an HBO series eager to distinguish itself from network television, much is gained from drawing on both the conventions and cultural distinction of the novel.6 Indeed, its complex, slow-burning narrative structure means that following The Wire requires a level of attention, temporal investment, and memory capacity which is more commonly associated with novel reading than with television viewing; its cases or “details” last an entire season or more, and narrative events hold continuing repercussions over time – lessons are learned, grudges are deepened, and stakes are raised. In the popular press, comparisons to the works of famous realists such as Dickens and Balzac abound; a comparison which, if the fifth season is any indication, The Wire itself sits somewhat uneasily.7 Perhaps the most notable generic conventions The Wire seeks to associate itself with is Greek tragedy. As Simon is fond of repeating, the guys we were stealing from in The Wire are the Greeks. In our heads we’re writing a Greek tragedy, but instead of the gods being petulant and jealous Olympians hurling lightning bolts down at our protagonists, it’s the Postmodern institutions that are the gods. And they are gods. And no one is bigger. (Simon, qtd. in O’Rourke)

It is easy to see analogies between the tragic heroes of ancient Greek tragedies and charismatic protagonists such as Frank Sobotka, Omar Little, and Stringer Bell, all of whom are ultimately laid low according to their own hubris. However, this substitution of the whims of the gods for the pathdependency of institutions does not preserve the structure of the analogy 6 Linda Williams has argued that it can feel “feeble” to characterize The Wire as “the greatest novel (never written)” due to the way such “praise borrows a literary prestige that corresponds to the series’ excellence but not closely enough to its actual serial television cultural form” (On the Wire 3). Such sentiments arise less, I think, from a failure to recognize The Wire’s novelistic aspirations, and more from the desire to champion and elevate television as a cultural system deserving of the same prestige afforded the literary. 7 Curiously, The Wire at times unfavorably addresses its own comparisons to Dickens in Season 5: in the fictional Baltimore Sun newsroom, “Dickensian” becomes synonymous with spectacle, fabricated melodrama, or the toothless sentimentality of human-interest pieces; it is rather the “amorphous series documenting society’s ills” with which the series more closely identifies (“Unconfirmed Reports.” Season 5, Episode 2: 20:12–22:03). Walter Benn Michaels, who has called The Wire the “most serious and ambitious fictional narrative of the twenty-first century” (qtd in Williams, On the Wire 3), compared it not so much to works of Victorian realists, but rather to the works of literary naturalists such as Theodore Dreiser and Émile Zola.

IF IT’S NOT T V, IS IT SOCIOLOGY? THE WIRE

117

but rather alters it. Eager to reclaim The Wire’s prestige as television’s own, Linda Williams has argued that “The Wire’s aspirations to be tragedy” (On The Wire 80) generate not tragedy but “a new dimension of melodrama grounded in social institutions” (On The Wire 116). Pushing back a bit on Williams’ account, I would argue that The Wire’s dual investments in realism and “institutional melodrama” yield generic features more closely akin to American literary naturalism.8 I would therefore propose that these two tendencies are in fact one and the same: the conventions of literary naturalism appear, when transmuted into the medium of television, as what Williams describes as “institutional melodrama.” This yields not only an expansion of our concept of melodrama, but also the occasion to revise our notions of contemporary naturalism. Consider again the aforementioned examples of Frank Sobotka, Omar Little, and Stringer Bell. As M.H. Abrams has observed, the demise of naturalist characters “is usually ‘tragic,’ but not, as in classical and Elizabethan tragedy, because of a heroic but losing struggle of the individual mind and will against gods, enemies, and circumstance. Instead, the protagonist of the naturalistic plot, a pawn to multiple compulsions, usually disintegrates, or is wiped out” (175). Replace the role played by “multiple compulsions” in this description with “institutional melodrama” and one has a fairly good description of how character operates in The Wire. This is a naturalism, however, which has effectively shed the deterministic power of 19th-century socio-biological frameworks for a distinctly late-20th-century understanding of the feedback channels between institutions and individuals which constrain characters’ opportunities and actions. This qualifies The Wire as a kind of neo-naturalism, defined by an engagement with contemporary sociological theories, models, and tropes.9 And indeed, The Wire often instructs its viewers to read its naturalistic conventions through subtle cues, references, and foreshadowing. Consider, for example, D’Angelo Barksdale’s commentary on The Great Gatsby late in Season 2. D’Angelo is taking part in a prison English class when the instructor asks for opinions on Fitzgerald’s contention that there are no second acts in American lives. D’Angelo responds: “he’s saying that the past is always with us… it don’t matter that one fool say he different… Gatsby, he was who he was, and 8 Kelleter seconds this: “Many ruling assumptions of the series, such as the appreciation of scope and precision in representation, its fascination with the lower classes, and above all its belief in the priority of environment over character, derive from (American) naturalism’s philosophical investment in scientism, anti-gentility, and determinism” (Serial 17). 9 See: Flamand, Lee. “The New American Naturalism in the Age of Mass Incarceration.” MA Thesis. Freie Univerität Berlin, 2013.

118 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

he did what he did. And ‘cause he wasn’t ready to get real with the story, that shit caught up to him.”10 Here, the past is rendered as deterministic: it decides who you are and where you end up. The exchange functions on several levels at once: it foreshadows D’Angelo’s murder even as it cements the series claims to literary gravitas. The Wire’s sociological ambitions, in other words, cannot be divorced from its aspirations to transcend its media identity by positioning itself within a universe of more culturally respectable forerunners. This would seem to indicate a break with televisual conventions. However, as sociologists are apt to point out (and the characters of The Wire experience), the self-same conditions that enable action function by simultaneously constraining it. New routes can only diverge from paths already taken. Or, as Sherryl Vint reminds us, “The Wire would not have been possible without the crime drama that came before” (11). Similarly, The Wire emerges from and feeds back into an entire genealogy of police procedurals, including a slew of network shows which established many of the realist narrative conventions upon which it relies, including Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue, and of course Homicide. Indeed, it relies heavily upon the common conventions of that genre even when it does so by subversively re-scripting them. As such, The Wire constitutes not a break with, but rather a palimpsestic revision of standard TV formulas; it cannot help but rely upon its audience’s pre-existing knowledge of the police procedural’s most common formulations: “The Wire gains its audience in part because other aspects are more conventional: the police investigations, the wars between rival gangs, the shoot-outs and murders, the cool gangster ambiance and style” (Vint 100).11 The Wire thus relies upon two levels of “insider” knowledge at once: that of the police procedural’s history and genre conventions, and its own ostensible knowledge of the social realities which TV regularly obscures. In doing so, The Wire also ups the ante both for itself and for its followers, breaking new terrain for its descendants even as it lays fresh pavement over well-worn paths. As Vint puts it, The Wire not only caters to the conventionalized pleasures of TV genres, but also “combines them with stories that enrich our contextual understanding of crime” (100). What to call such stories if not sociologies? 10 “All Prologue.” Season 2, Episode 6: 30:39–32:35. 11 At the same time, however, it would be wrong to argue that these conventions arise solely from televisual antecedents; rather, these are some of the most familiar tropes of urban life in American popular culture more broadly and are perhaps even more readily indebted to cinematic conventions than televisual precursors.

IF IT’S NOT T V, IS IT SOCIOLOGY? THE WIRE

119

What is Sociology? If we are to argue that The Wire’s ambitions qualify it, in some sense, as sociology, and thereby make not only The Wire legible to sociology, but also and in turn makes sociology more readily available to television audiences and amenable to cultural criticism, we must first address the deceptively simple question: what, after all, is sociology? Etymologically combining the Latin terms “socius” – associate or companion – with the term “logos” – meaning study or science – the term sociology is most commonly referred to as either the ‘science’ or ‘study’ of ‘society.’ If ‘society’ is related again back to its etymological roots, it refers to the study of beings – usually, although not always, assumed to be either human, or else comprised of and/or designed by humans – in association or relation to each other. Interesting as well are the terms ‘science’ or ‘study’ – the first of which connotes, in English at least, a certain kind of orientation towards positivism and the natural sciences, while the latter of which, at least as a noun, denotes various other terms ranging from observation, data gathering, and analysis to closely detailed representations of something, such as when artistic sketches are referred to as studies. If we are sufficiently inclusive as to the semantic emphasis implied by these terms, we might define sociology broadly as any activity which produces a “study” of associations.12 Sociology is a discipline with a distinct, and distinctly fragmented, cultural history. Perhaps more than any other discipline, sociology is, as Loïc Wacquant (channeling Pierre Bourdieu) puts it, particularly sensitive to a host of “deep-seated antinomies that rend social science asunder, including the seemingly irresolvable antagonism between subjectivist and objectivist modes of knowledge, the separation of the analysis of the symbolic from that of materiality, and the continued divorce of theory from research” (Reflexive 3). Major strands of early sociological thought exhibit a high degree of methodological and theoretical discord, as exhibited by deep-seated differences in the assumptions underlying, for example, the positivism of Auguste Comte, the interpretivism of Max Weber, and the functionalism of Émile Durkheim. Across the Atlantic, American sociology 12 While this definition might seem to suggest that any set objects in association could be considered the object of sociology, even those who include non-human agents in their notion of society, most notably Bruno Latour and other practitioners of actor–network theory (ANT), tend to include at least one acting human agent in their “networks” of associations, suggesting that even ANT approaches to sociology require the presence of distinctly human agency somewhere in the networks of association it produces to qualify as such.

120 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

has also exhibited a certain degree of disunity. Although some thinkers, such as Talcott Parsons, have tried to synthesize sociology’s various theoretical threads into a coherent, comprehensive synthesis, and while such efforts have had outsized impact on the discipline in particular historical eras, there have always been competing schools and thinkers committed to much different visions and practices – for example, the symbolic-interactionism of micro-sociologists like Erving Goffman.13 As with all systematically organized bodies of knowledge, sociology is deeply, if uneasily, reliant on rhetorical conventions, classificatory schemes, form, figures, and narrative structures which allow it to coherently construct its objects of investigation and guide its methodological and theoretical practices and procedures. Sociology, in other words, is a discipline born in the process of its own narration. Like all epistemological endeavors, sociology’s self-narratives are open to revision with each new telling; they can be edited, updated, remixed, or trashed. As a science, constant revision in standard accounts – and the competition between narratives which results – is necessary to the discipline’s own development. As such, sociological narratives tend to quickly proliferate, and not without reason: sociology requires constant narrative revision in order to promote the theoretical competition necessary for disciplinary rejuvenation. Moreover, since the ostensible object of sociology – society – is not only ambiguously defined, but also historical and contingent by nature, sociology needs to constantly re-narrate its own object (and thus itself) in order to grasp it anew. In other words, sociology exists in a state of competitive serial reproduction with itself: proliferating and competing narratives play variations on a set of relatively consistent themes as they try to generate increasingly credible “working fictions” about social reality. Lepenies argues that sociology in its early years was born from a set of deep-seated anxieties: beset by the existential threat of “dangerous rivals… which threatened their disciplinary identity at its core… the social 13 American sociology is furthermore at certain junctures frequently portrayed as a discipline in crisis, although it might also be characterized as a discipline at war with itself, with those inspired by the rational-actor theories of economics squaring off against, and frequently derogating as “anti-rationalism,” a Marxist-inspired “critical” sociology which in turn derides its antagonists as “neoliberals” or crass positivists. In spite of (or perhaps, because of) this fierce competition, a mishmash of various and diverse schools and theories occupy and flourish in the space between. In this sense, and unlike the natural sciences to which early sociologists aspired, sociology is a disciplinary space defined by rupture, competition, and conflict; it coheres not on the basis of shared consensus or agreed-upon base principles, but rather through a shared set of ongoing intra-disciplinary debates.

IF IT’S NOT T V, IS IT SOCIOLOGY? THE WIRE

121

sciences… fortified their struggle for an academic reputation by imitating the natural sciences” (7).14 Even so, “it was precisely the sociological novel which called into question the right of the discipline of sociology to exist” (Lepenies 144).15 Sociology, at least in its positivist variants, functions by vociferously distinguishing itself from literature and instead assumes a fraught, incomplete (mis)identification via analogy to (a specific conception of) the natural sciences. Indeed, while positivist sociology would like to define itself by its scientific aspirations and empirical commitments, it is perhaps best understood through its existential antagonism with literary fiction’s own sociological aspirations. By claiming to describe reality in a more wholistic, detailed, immersive sense than the bloodless formulas, opaque theorizing, and exasperating abstraction of positivist sociology, the novel would seem to more fully breathe a vitality, and thus a detailed sense of authenticity, into its social observations.16 Margrethe Bruun Vaage points out that such authenticity claims are part and parcel of social realism’s own generic ability to produce not only reality effects, but to construct credible, referential truth claims through the presumed intentions of the genre. Against those who maintain a strict binary of fictional and nonfictional representation, she argues that genres which aspire to social realism blur this distinction by issuing “a double invitation” to readers, in which they are asked “not only to imagine what is true in the story but also to assess these story events as conveying something about the actual world” (260). According to Vaage, the audience’s generic expectations about (assumedly authorial) intentions ground the assumption that although social realism may be fictional, it is nevertheless understood to be intended as a credible commentary on actual, historical, and place-specific 14 Doing so, however, required positivists to disavow sociology’s own reliance upon narrative even as they produce it. This has the effect of obfuscating its debts to the distinctly literary and humanistic traditions from which it sprung: “The problem of sociology is that, although it may imitate the natural sciences, it can never become a true natural science of society; but if it abandons its scientific orientation it draws perilously close to literature” (Lepenies 7). 15 However, it was not the novel per se, but rather its self-appointed expositors, who claimed for themselves a more complete comprehension of social life, when they “insisted that literary criticism was better sociology than sociology: for, while sociological experience must necessarily remain limited and no questionnaire could unlock human nature, such writers as Dickens offered in their novels an analysis of contemporary society whose liveliness and precision no professional specialist could equate” (Lepenies, 183). 16 As convincing as Lepenies’ own narrative is, it has the effect of illuminating one kind of (highly caricatured) positivism at the expense of other, more qualitative and interpretative traditions. This is perhaps due to a selective focus on sociology’s more dominant (read: wellfunded) and reputable (read: modelled on the natural sciences) research traditions.

122 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

states of affairs. Whereas “prototypical nonfiction asks the spectator… to believe that this very person experienced this in this actual location, or that these particular events took place… social realist fiction asks the spectator to assess what is shown as true as type… true in the sense of being representational or typical of the (real) group that she perceives the work to make claims about” (Vaage 263). Whereas we tend to treat “fiction as one singular category… arguably there are several kinds of fiction, and the role played by truth in one kind of fiction may not be the same as that played in another” (Vaage 264).17 The Wire actively proffers Vaage’s “double invitation” from the get-go. Its first episode opens in a typical police procedural fashion, with the sounds of sirens, police radios, and close visuals depicting thin streams of blood running over pavement and a body lying face down on the street. Officers collect evidence and write reports nearby, and we are shortly introduced to Detective McNulty as he questions a witness. Immediately, however, we recognize that the dialogue which occurs departs from stereotypical procedural dialogue – this is not TV’s typical police interrogation. Rather, it is a humorous exchange in which McNulty puzzles over the victim’s uncommon nickname, Snot, and the witness responds in the distinctive vernacular speech of West Baltimore. Rather than pressing the witness, McNulty gently prompts him to do most of the talking. Eventually, it comes out that Snot was shot over a theft when he tried to pinch a dice game. The catch is that Snot’s theft is nothing new; it is a weekly recurrence – part of the ritual of the Friday night game. McNulty, puzzled, asks why they let Snot play every week if they knew he would try to snatch their winnings. The witness responds: “Got to. This America, man.”18 The claim is at once a darkly humorous and sharply critical jab at the myth of American egalitarianism (even the desperate thief gets to play in a free country) and a framing device which sets in motion a truth claim upon which the rest of the series is predicated – everything that comes after is meant to be taken as a serious, realistic, authentic examination: this is America. 17 The same, I might add, can be said of nonfiction: the role of truth played in a biographical film is not the same as that played in historical fiction, nor even in an autobiography, and still less in an immersive journalistic account of, say, the Baltimore police department in the early 1990s or a socio-economic theorization of the inner-city drug market. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the latter two non-fictional genres function with a generic notion of the role of “truth” which is much more closely related to that of fictional social realism than with the prior two genres, and that it is the close similarity of the operation of truth in these genres which causes sociology so much of the anxiety described by Lepenies. 18 “The Target.” Season 1, Episode 1: 00:09–02:51.

IF IT’S NOT T V, IS IT SOCIOLOGY? THE WIRE

123

This is not meant to reductively imply that sociology is nothing more than a fanciful fiction, nor that social realism should be unproblematically read as sociology; instead, it is merely to point out that while each individual work might make distinctly individual – and at times, diametrically opposed – truth claims about how the social world is or functions at a particular place and time and for particular groups of people, they are nevertheless very closely related because of the role categories such as “truth” or “reality” play in their generic structures; indeed, I would go so far as to say that they play in these cases identical roles and the stark differences in genre which separate fictional social realism and sociological writing are the product of other sets of conventions, expectations, and institutional practices, perhaps most notably when it comes to data collection and evidentiary standards.19 Thus, what separates sociology from social realism is not so much their relation to truth or the kinds of social insights which they aspire to communicate, but rather the conventional procedures, ritualized practices, and institutionalized methods by which they strive to achieve their ends. What this in turn suggests is that the production of sociological knowledge is largely a matter of genre literacy, of understanding how to read and interpret a disciplinary body of knowledge as a reservoir of shared narratives, tropes, and representational styles. Nominally a discipline for obtaining knowledge about social reality, sociology reinforces not only certain rules about which practices for marshalling and interpreting evidence will be considered credible, but also the forms, language, and narrative frames in which such knowledge may be credibly and effectively conveyed. Insofar as mediation and representation are preconditions of producing and disseminating knowledge, sociology is inevitably inseparable from the media affordances and aesthetic conventions in which it is indissolubly embedded and through which it is reliant for its conveyance. Of all social scientific traditions, there is little question that The Wire has been most directly influenced by the Chicago School.20 In Sociology Noir, 19 Whereas sociological texts must make their theoretical assumptions and methods of data collection and analysis as transparent as possible and submit to institutionalized rituals of peer review, fictional social realism need submit to no such set of protocols. Indeed, including too much factual evidence or methodological explication might break genre expectations to the point of undermining a sense of realism, creating instead a sense of post-modern pastiche. 20 In a footnote in The Corner, David Simon and Ed Burns express their indebtedness to Chicago School sociology, a research tradition which shares cultural roots with both literary naturalism and immersive journalism. In particular, Burns and Simon mention Elliot Liebow’s classic ethnography Tally’s Corner: A Study of Negro Streetcorner Men (1967) as a source of inspiration. Simon has also actively noted the influence of William Julius Wilson’s When Work Disappears (1996) as a key inspiration for The Wire’s second season, a legacy which helps to explain Wilson’s

124 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

Roger A. Salerno points out that Chicago School sociology shares certain features with hardboiled American fiction and film noir, most notably “a popular romance with marginality at this time, and a new openness about sex, gender, and deviance – or at least a greater awareness and recognition of their importance. While these interests were characteristic of literary genres of this era, they were central to urban sociology” (2). Drawing attention to “[t]he importance of sociology as a narrative… that speaks to the broader culture and maintains an ongoing dialogue with it” (2), Salerno argues that Chicago School authors’ fascination with urban marginality “helped to move sociology beyond the social gospel discourse of an earlier, moralistic generation. It established a tone of urban naturalism in sociological scholarship that eventually made its way into the American imagination” (6). Salerno’s work interests me for the ways in which it suggests a process by which different and at first glance relatively autonomous domains of cultural production intersect and influence each other. Even if it would be too simplistic to simply conflate sociology, literature, and film into each other, they nevertheless share certain key investments: While it cannot be argued that this urban sociology was a type of literature, it can be easily posited that it was part of a larger noir narrative emerging from the forces of modernity that encompassed art, literature, and film – work that had the city at its core and which focused on loneliness, alienation, and social marginality. It is in this work that personal life at the margins becomes a central sociological concern. (Salerno 28)

Participating in a shared cultural fascination with marginalized urban subcultures, Chicago School sociology was only one of many fields of cultural representation to carry on a romance with the modern city, illustrating how shared cultural preoccupations can facilitate the cross-pollination of aesthetic styles and narrative conventions across distinct media domains. In many ways, The Wire is a testament to American popular culture’s continuing fascination with Salerno’s notion of sociology noir. Noting a similar impulse, anthropologists Jean and John Comaroff have placed The own tendency to see his work reflected back in his own readings of the The Wire (Caroli). Indeed, it is difficult not to read The Corner or view The Wire as works which fit rather neatly into the universe of more recent iterations of this tradition: the work of Elijah Anderson, and Code of the Streets (1999) in particular, resonates. Notably, Elijah Anderson has both praised The Wire for being both “very good” and, at the same time, frustratingly “dark” (Anderson, qtd. in Bowden). Likewise, many commentators have compared The Wire to Alice Goffman’s controversial yet popular ethnography On The Run (2014).

IF IT’S NOT T V, IS IT SOCIOLOGY? THE WIRE

125

Wire amongst a corpus of contemporary televisual and cinematic texts which participate in the cultural construction of a “new noir” (xvi) in which the marginalized move out from under the microscope of social reformers, extract themselves from the pages of newspaper exposés, break their prison bars, and take center stage at the heart of culture. This provokes a sense of social vertigo which is, in their estimation, perhaps most evident in The Wire: its center of gravity rests, unapologetically, on the drug-dealing corners the mean streets, and the projects of the black inner city with minimal condemnation, romance, or righteous redemption… law and lawlessness, criminal and legitimate labor, gangs and unions blend seamlessly in the business of everyday life, all of the them intersecting fluidly with the grand institutions of the American society. (Comaroff and Comaroff 80)

The Comaroffs’ exposition indicates both a continuity with and a transformation in Salerno’s notion of sociology noir: the margins of society are no longer mere curiosities or objects for the exploration of particular social problems; instead, they become central figures: “ethnoracial differences, and violence along its fissures, lie at the sociological core of the economy… everyone, in one way or another, is drawn into the tainted, dark-gray spaces of the il/licit” (81). What is ultimately remarkable about the Comaroffs’ account of “the new noir” is how seamlessly their interpretive descriptions of The Wire and its fictional contemporaries track their sociological explications. In other words, their analysis of “the new noir” works double-time as a participant therein. They frequently construct a sociological narrative which is remarkably in-line not only with the pop cultural trends they describe, but also the self-descriptions of the texts which make up those trends. Crime and its representation become both object and lens: “criminality is a critical prism by means of which societies know themselves, take the measure of themselves, and contemplate ways of perfecting themselves” (Comaroff and Comaroff xiv). Here, in other words, the social investigators’ expository re-descriptions of The Wire, its contemporaries, and contemporary society melt together. Sociology transcends its disciplinary identity as a hermetically sealed, self-perpetuating science and instead appears as an inter-textual and a media-traversing mode, one which paints itself noir.21 21 Meanwhile, our cultural obsession with crime becomes a social diagnosis and a methodological premise all at once: “criminality is a window, a wide-angled lens, into the dark heart of the new Order of Things, into the interior workings of economy and society in the global age

126 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

Sociology, in other words, is a cultural system of representation which must openly traffic with other such systems in order to reproduce itself. As such, it is porous; it seeps out into the wider culture, and can, in turn, flow back into the discipline in a process which may, from time to time, help to transform it. This is evident in the way in which the Comaroffs’ reading of The Wire as “new noir” in turn exerts a force upon their own scholarly narratives, altering and indeed enriching their theoretical architecture. In adopting and updating the aesthetics of sociology noir, both The Wire and its exegetes participate in the media-traversing and trans-disciplinary circulation of the tropes, conventions, styles, and forms as they color the perceptions of observers and researchers while trafficking incessantly between overlapping practices, description, and theorizing; which is also to say, mediation and representation.22

Tele-visualizing the Surveillance Society If The Wire draws heavily upon the aesthetics, tropes, and conceits of “sociology noir,” then given their shared genealogy it is not surprising that the form it is most often compared to is the novel. In The Novel and the Police, D.A. Miller draws attention to the ways in which the discursive strategies of the 19th-century realist novel, such as omniscient third-person narration, seem to produce a totalizing, panoptic omniscience: “Nothing worth knowing escapes its notation, and its complete knowledge includes the knowledge that it is always right. This infallible super-vision is frequently dramatized… as an irresistible process of detection” (Miller 23–24). If the discursive strategies of the novel would seem to exercise an omnipresent, Foucauldian marriage of knowledge and power, it also routinely seeks to disavow its policing power by rhetorically performing “an arrangement that keeps the function of the narration separate from the causalities operating in the narrative” (Miller 24). This separation, however, is in fact an illusion, constituted by nothing other than the discursive strategies of novelistic narration itself. Narration of the market” (Comaroff and Comaroff, 80). It is difficult to understand whether statements such as these are intended as analyses of objects, or whether they are intended as theoretical pronouncements upon the state of the world; most likely, they are intended as both. 22 Something similar must be said of this current work, not to mention the host of prior readings upon which it draws, integrates, and critiques. Indeed, insofar as every critical exposition is also and always at the same time a writerly act of participation, then criticism cannot help from being acted upon by its own objects of analysis; my critique of sociology may, in the last analysis, merely fold back into its object.

IF IT’S NOT T V, IS IT SOCIOLOGY? THE WIRE

127

thus papers over its power to order and sequence the narrative world as it pleases, thereby rehearsing a pretended separation of knowledge and power: The knowledge commanded in omniscient narration is thus opposed to the power that inheres in the circumstances of the novelistic world. Yet by now the gesture of disowning power should seem to define the basic move of a familiar power play, in which the name of power is given over to one agency in order that the function of power may be less visibly retained by another. Impotent to intervene in the ‘facts,’ the narration nevertheless controls the discursive framework in which they are perceived as such. (Miller 25).

Just as an ethnographer may, for example, deploy passive constructions to generate “unattributed sentences… in which the writer assumes in effect the voice of culture” (Clifford, Predicament 48), Miller emphasizes the ways in which the strategies of novelistic discourse celebrates its ability to ostensibly report its knowledge of the story world while denying its own generative control thereof.23 The sense of transparency and realism omniscient narrative generates is thus nothing more than a highly staged spectacle, albeit one which attempts at every turn to obscure its own artifice. Just as Miller’s novelistic discourse aspires to a total yet inconspicuous omniscience, The Wire pours substantial effort into generating a panoptic yet seemingly unobtrusive sense of omnipresent surveillance from which to observe the social relations it unfolds. Many have argued that The Wire most resembles the novel in terms of structure; however, it also seeks to ape the functions of novelistic narration. The translation of novelistic strategies such as third-person omniscient narration into a televisual idiom is, however, neither fluidly nor literally achievable; aspirations may be maintained, but strategies must take a shape which befits the specific media affordances of television.24 23 In this way novelistic narration mimics the state, which deploys the police to ostensibly surveil and control the problem populations which it itself produces, yet actively disavows having any control over. 24 For example, Linda Williams argues that The Wire distributes a novelistic “editorial voice… into the voices of characters” on the one hand, and through the powers of juxtaposition afforded “through the device of the beat” on the other (On The Wire 71). By constructing beats around pithy, short, seemingly off-the-cuff observations spoken by characters, the series attempts to embed direct social commentary within its dialogic world. Likewise, cross-cutting and parallel editing allow the series to show rather than explicate comparisons (Williams, On The Wire 71–72).

128 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

As Erlend Lavik has observed, many early TV reviews complained about The Wire’s apparent lack of visual style (“Style” 01:50–02:20). However, what at first glance seems to be a total absence of style turns out upon reflection to be in fact nothing but. The Wire struggles mightily to create the impression of unobtrusiveness through the deployment of distinct, if somewhat restrained, sets of media-specific strategies and conventions. Lavik catalogues a host of these stylistic strategies, including the lack of extra-diegetic sound, minimal editing, the relative (although by no means complete) absence of self-conscious storytelling devices, wide frames, and smooth, unobtrusive dolly shots. Although these strategies self-consciously struggle to create an impression of transparency, such effects are in fact highly contrived. Aspiring to the sense of an omniscient, seemingly transparent, impersonal view-fromnowhere produced by omniscient novelistic narration, The Wire generates an inauspicious, muted cinematic aesthetic which serves to “conjure up a vague sense of voyeurism” (Lavik, “Style” 11:00–12:45).25 One way it does this is by attempting to either sink into architectural space or dissolve itself in surveillance technologies. As Lavik astutely notes, The Wire’s photography is frequently framed against doorways and surfaces which tend to cut the screen with vertical and horizontal lines, generating a wide-screen effect highly reminiscent of wide-screen cinematic formats. Especially in early episodes, the series frequently couches the perspective of its camera from within the built environment, peeking through doorways and windows, creeping up from behind walls, or observing characters from behind by peering at their reflection in rear view mirrors or glass window panes (Lavik, “Style” 13:40–16:38). Even as The Wire pours substantial effort into rendering its own camera unobtrusive, it similarly busies itself with investigating – which is also to say, narrating – other practices of surveillance. Especially in the first and final seasons, The Wire’s camera is frequently caught peering through “found footage”: glancing at CCTV screens, peering through surveillance cameras, and lingering on photographic snapshots. Lavik argues that the series uses this manufactured surveillance footage to generate a sense of documentary style. Although these various strategies might upon reflection prove conspicuous, they nevertheless avoid generating any coherent sense of subjective perspective: “it doesn’t seem to be attached to anything or anyone within the story. The voyeurism emanates from the narration itself” (“Lavik, Style” 12:55–13:58). As with the reality effects generated by the novel, this is in fact a highly staged artifice – or, if 25 As Executive Producer Joe Chappelle confirms, this is an intended effect: “we’re very much trying to get that sense of constant surveillance, of eavesdropping” (Chappelle and Griffin).

IF IT’S NOT T V, IS IT SOCIOLOGY? THE WIRE

129

you prefer, a spectacle, albeit one which is cleverly constructed to create a media-specific sense of immediacy and transparency. The Wire attempts to dissolve its camera into various dimensions of materially structured social space, thus generating the ethnographic fantasy of the fly-on-the-wall observer. Of course, these strategies serve a thematic purpose. In particular, they allow The Wire to draw attention to how power is written into social reality vis-à-vis a “staging” or “framing” of the physical environment. This is one way of understanding the oft-parroted assertion that The Wire’s main character is the city of Baltimore in a non-trivial sense: The Wire frequently frames its action within surveillance technologies and the built environment to show how they seek to produce and maintain the power relations which (re)produce the city as a social ecosystem. The Wire’s visual style not only generates a sense of realism, but also frequently draws attention to the ways in which surveillance is built directly into urban space and thus structures social interactions, drawing our attention to the ways in which social reality is not merely projected upon or lived within the confines of those spaces, but is instead actively produced and structured by matrices of power which inhere in material practices, architectures, and technologies. The practices of surveilling, ordering, and connecting such spatial assemblage are of course part and parcel of the pipelines which (re)produce mass incarceration. As such, they frequently imply relations of social positionality and geopolitical power. Lavik, for example, points out a cut away from the corner boys in Season 4 as they discuss their lives under surveillance: “there [are] always people watching” explain the corner boys before the scene cuts to Burrell and Carcetti peering out of a car window, the editing arranged “so that the scenes somehow comment on each other” (Lavik, “Style” 27:10–27:35). Although Lavik doesn’t explicate this scene further, it seems clearly meant to emphasize not only the conditions of social control under which the corner boys live (they are always under surveillance and suspicion whether at school or out on the streets), but also the power differentials between those who make decisions about surveillance and those who are the objects thereof.26 Even as it draws attention to the omnipresence of surveillance practices and technologies in society, The Wire also suggests a particular critique of 26 Lavik points to another cut in Season 4, which juxtaposes a vapid teacher training with an equally uninspiring police training session, thus highlighting the impotence and mediocrity of each institution (Lavik, “Style” 34:00–34:37). In this scene, The Wire seems to be cataloguing and comparing the features and elements of two distinct, yet generically similar, institutional spaces: a comparative methodology utilized by sociologists when analyzing institutions.

130 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

the surveillance society it stylistically mimics. Practices of surveillance often appear perversely counterproductive, as they often fail to instill any real sense of order or discipline amongst the surveilled. For example, CCTV cameras are virtually everywhere, yet the pit boys routinely break them without consequence. Likewise, the telephone wire-taps for which the series is named routinely fail to record enough evidence to win solid convictions. Indeed, most of the mid-level and upper-level players in the drug trade seem aware of the most common police surveillance tactics and adapt accordingly. Of course, all of this plays in to The Wire’s own performance of superior knowingness; if narration is going to represent itself as a kind of superior surveillance yet constantly disavow its structuring power as a producer of narrative, then lesser forms of surveillance must not exert a superior power of control. Even as surveillance routinely fails to instill a sense of discipline over those it surveils, it is also frequently portrayed as creating perverse institutional incentives and facilitating corruption within the institutions tasked with surveillance. With the exception of characters like McNulty or Freamon, for whom attentiveness and care is what separates “good Po-lice” from sell-out careerists, the Baltimore PD is institutionally unaware of the Barksdale crew which virtually dominates the drug trade in West Baltimore. However, when these characters attempt to bring to light the department’s dysfunctions or shortcoming, they are often punished by their embarrassed superiors. When investigations are triggered, the intelligence gleaned by detectives and wire-taps is almost exclusively put to use in executing spectacular, headline-grabbing busts rather than exposing deeper levels of corruption. The same goes when institutions use surveillance technologies to monitor the police themselves. The CompStat software which ostensibly allows for data-driven interventions into especially crime-prone areas of the city becomes, in the hands of career-driven bureaucrats, a tool for public relations and the punitive “management” of “problem populations” rather than a way of identifying and assisting those areas of the city most in need. Instead, surveillance technology merely justifies the disruptive, militarized overpolicing of already fragile urban communities, turning them into virtual occupation zones in the War on Drugs. Meanwhile, the means by which the Baltimore PD surveils and evaluates its own effectiveness – for example, the homicide “clearance rate” or CompStat statistics – continually pressure investigators to “juke the stats” (that is, downgrade levels of offense or else try cases with insufficient evidence merely to clear them).27 The institu27 “Mission Accomplished.” Season 3, Episode 12: 25:50–27:08.

IF IT’S NOT T V, IS IT SOCIOLOGY? THE WIRE

131

tion and its agents orient their attention towards impersonal bureaucratic standards, effectively policing their own image rather than attending to actual problems plaguing the streets. The Wire’s fourth season extends this critique to schools, thus initiating a subtle critique of the school-to-prison pipeline. During a meeting in which teachers are informed that they are all expected to “teach to the test” in preparation of upcoming standardized examinations, detectiveturned-schoolteacher Roland Pryzbylewski (aka “Prez”) realizes that data on student performance is being “juked” in order to procure federal funding. Thus, student examinations actually induce a perverse discipline amongst teachers and administrators rather than serving the needs of students.28 Teachers and school administrators test kids relentlessly, subjecting them to endless and meaningless rounds of examination, upon which they are in turn scored by the state bureaucracy. Almost no one questions the degree to which the ideal of meritocracy upon which these standardized testing systems rests is even feasible in a society drastically riven by inequality of means, wealth, and opportunity. Meanwhile, even though students are frequently monitored in the classroom and surveilled on the streets, one gets the distinct sense that even if they are always being watched, no one is really watching out for them. The Wire suggests that institutions fail when they focus on bureaucratic standards of self-evaluation or image management rather than attending to their actual missions and the needs of the communities they supposedly serve. In Dark Matters, Simone Browne concerns herself with the ways in which “enactments of surveillance reify boundaries along racial lines, thereby reifying race… the outcome of this is often discriminatory and violent treatment” (8). To a large degree, The Wire is concerned with exploring the consequences of just such phenomenon within its own story world. However, rather than suggesting that there is a kind of repression operative in all forms of observation, The Wire draws attention to what is missed and who is forgotten when mere surveillance takes the place of careful (and care-full) attentiveness. Social injustices, and racism in particular, appear here as a kind of willful negligence, a refusal to really see what is going on.29 As 28 “Know Your Place.” Season 4, Episode 9: 34:25–36:03. 29 Browne gestures towards just such an argument near the end of her book, where she points out that “[w]hen particular surveillance technologies, in their development and design, leave out some subjects and communities for optimum usage, this leaves open the possibility of reproducing existing inequalities” (163). Her response to this issue, however, is not to argue for inclusion or technological “neutrality” but rather to exploit such failures in the name of resistance by, for example, using makeup to further confuse the camera and thus optimize “the

132 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

opposed to critiques which would situate surveillance itself as inherently repressive, The Wire seems to argue that being unseen is precisely the problem facing underserved and marginalized communities. Institutions in The Wire generate a kind of impotent, perverse self-surveillance: they watch, but they do so myopically, narcissistically, and therefore blindly. They lack an ethic of attentiveness and care, monitoring their own self-image rather than attending to their missions to serve and improve the community. This results in the propagation of a dysfunctional status quo. It points to the perverse outcomes of utilizing surveillance strategies myopically. The resulting negligence – or worse, repressive opportunism – has the effect of reproducing and even aggravating the vulnerabilities and marginalization of those clinging to the bottom of the social order. Contrary to this, The Wire promotes the benefits of an observant, careful, and attentive sociological vision: namely, its own. In this sense, The Wire celebrates itself as a corrective to such invisibility by virtue of merely bringing these issues to our TV screens. Conflating narration with reportage allows The Wire to disavow its own power over narrative structures and events even as it champions itself as superior (to) surveillance.

Soft Eyes and the Sociological Imaginary In an early episode of The Wire, Detectives Freamon and Prez listen in via wiretap during a call between two Barksdale gang members. After the seemingly innocuous call, Prez marks the exchange non-pertinent, much to Freamon’s surprise: freamon: How do you log that non-pertinent? prez: No drug talk? freamon: They use codes to hide their pager and phone numbers. When someone does use a phone, they don’t use names. And if someone does use a name he’s reminded not to. All of that is valuable evidence. prez: Of what? freamon: Conspiracy… We’re building something here, Detective. We’re building it from scratch. All the pieces matter.30 productive possibilities that come from being unseen” (163). The Wire, in large part due to the commitments implied by its own media identity, would not seem to recognize such possibilities as subversive. 30 “The Wire.” Season 1, Episode 6: 22:35–23:20.

IF IT’S NOT T V, IS IT SOCIOLOGY? THE WIRE

133

In many ways, this seemingly low-key exchange is one of The Wire’s signature scenes. By schooling Prez on the value of close observation, the ever-observant Freamon also schools The Wire’s audience on how it wants to be read: closely, with great attention to detail. Such pedagogical moments are echoed in the series’ own para-texts, not only schooling viewers in the value of attentiveness, but also guiding and circumscribing their interpretations. It instructs us to “Listen Carefully” (an imperative which appears repeatedly in marketing materials and DVD covers). The Wire carries such instruction forward all the way into its fifth and final season, whose marketing materials prompt us, punning on the season’s thematic emphasis on newspaper journalism, to “Read Between the Lines.” Such paratextual cues and moments of instructive dialogue warn viewers that they are expected to pay attention while playing up The Wire’s status as “quality” TV – that is, TV which requires both attention and intellect. Instead of positioning viewers as arm-chair sleuths and walking them through an hour-long who-dun-it, the series invites them to become amateur sociologists.31 This generic re-orientation in turn fosters unconventional lines of viewer identification as The Wire extends its focalization, and thus viewers’ sympathies, away from police authorities and towards those who are policed. In this sense, then, The Wire’s claim to “quality TV” status is in part a function of how it disappoints the expectations of a certain class of viewers in favor of attracting, and perhaps even flattering, more “sophisticated” ones. As Simon rather succinctly, if provocatively, puts it: “fuck the average reader” (Simon and Hornby).32 The Wire also instructs viewers as to what they should direct their attention. As Erlend Lavik reminds us by way of The Wire’s own most common self-comparisons, The Wire’s realism, like that of Dickens and Balzac, is highly codified. The dialogue, for example, has often been praised for its true-to-life-ness, 31 That said, intellectual predilections and disciplinary allegiances are also likely to play a role. A television fan with a particular taste for TV mysteries, detective stories, and thrillers may be let down to discover this is not an invitation to solve a who-dun-it. An academic trained in the humanities and inclined towards discursive and formal analysis may view such prompts as an invitation to close reading and formal analysis; a fairly good description of my own practice herein. A sociologist, however, may feel more inclined to play along with the series’ own pretentions and construe its paratextual directives as an invitation to analyze those forms not as aesthetic choices but as social signifiers, effectively reading dramatic action and dialogue as social analysis. 32 Or in an alternative rendering which instead emphasizes commitment, discipline, and regimentation: “fuck the casual viewer” (Simon, qtd. in A. Smith 87).

134 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

which is partly due to its heavy use of street slang and work-related jargon… This lends the conversation a certain eavesdropping quality, camouflaging the ways in which the dialogue is nevertheless carefully constructed…. a decidedly idealized version of actual speech… in a word, more poetic – than actual discourse. (“Forward” 54)

Of course, one reason that slang and jargon can be used so artfully is because such language itself is highly codified – it marks insiders from outsiders and confers a certain species of cultural capital. By adopting these and other such “local color” codes to artful effect, the series very self-consciously constructs a sense of “authentic” realism. However, it also turns our attention to the fact that such codes are themselves the product of convention, generated by way of the affectations one adopts when donning certain outfits or speaking certain dialects. Take, for example, an early episode in which the streetwise junkie/informant Bubbles schools the newly formed Barksdale detail – and, in particular, Detective Leander Sydnor – on how to successfully appear undercover as a street junky. In this scene, Sydnor, new to the detail, enters the office dressed in ragged clothes and begins strutting and spinning like a fashion model, describing his “West-side project wear” in the manner of a run-of-show script. We are meant to view the scene with a sense of humorous irony, since the outfit being modelled, the “uniform” of a West-Baltimore junky, could not be further from high “couture” fashion. Things get “real,” however, when Bubbles jumps in the game and begins pointing out the various flaws in Sydnor’s appearance, including the wedding ring he still wears long after any normal junkie would have pawned it off, his clear skin, and even the soles of his shoes, which are unscarred from walking on broken heroin vials.33 Here, Bubbles’ astute observations, themselves the product of his superior local knowledge, are constructed not only to tip us in to the value of observation, but to actively direct our attention to the way these codes are utilized to produce a superior sense of realism. Following this scene, we watch Sydnor and Bubbles as they make handto-hand buys in the projects and Detective Greggs secretly snaps pictures from an unmarked surveillance van. The scene culminates, however, in an observation of those doing the observing: as Greggs departs in the van, the camera lingers on yet another one parked unobtrusively at the corner. The rogue stick-up artist Omar has been watching the detectives at work. Omar’s own superior powers of observation and knowledge of police surveillance techniques, which are not unlike those he uses to scope out stash houses and 33 “The Buys.” Season 1, Episode 3: 31:00–33:32.

IF IT’S NOT T V, IS IT SOCIOLOGY? THE WIRE

135

plan stick-ups, allow him to observe what none of the dealers have been able to see.34 Omar reads the deeper code of behavior underneath the detective’s disguises and deftly spots the detectives by marking incongruencies in the codes at play. When other characters fail to be so attentive, they get caught. Johnny, Bubbles’ first protégé, panics during an attempt to scam the pit boys with fake money, thus tipping off the observant Bodie that something is amiss. As a result, Johnny gets a beatdown from the pit boys which lands him in the hospital.35 Again and again, The Wire praises the value of close observation and authentic appearance, rewarding diligence and punishing carelessness in viewers and characters alike.36 By presenting first Bubbles and then Omar as superior social observers and analysts, The Wire in turn reinforces in its viewers the stakes involved in the ways in which it wants to be read: closely, with attentive eyes locked on the details of its social codes. This of course extends beyond individual scenes. The Wire’s long-form narrative development requires that its viewers pay enough attention to piece together discrete details, plot points, and events across various episodes and even seasons into a larger narrative totality. As the detectives and schoolteachers in Season 4 of The Wire put it, this requires learning to see with “soft eyes.” As Simon Parker reminds us, the term “soft eyes” is often “used by coaches and instructors to convey a sense of looking at nothing while seeing everything” (547). Parker notes that The Wire extends this definition to include a facility for reading that which is “plainly hidden” (547).37 While Parker continues on to compare many of The Wire’s representations with the works of various prominent social theorists, including C. Wright Mills, he unfortunately does not develop a coherent reading practice from his analysis, and instead merely falls into the common practice of enumerating analogies between sociological accounts and The Wire’s representations. More interesting, however, is consideration of the reading practices we can develop from following The Wire’s didactic lead without getting bogged down in questions of authenticity. In The Sociological Imagination, Mills endorses a turn away from both the “formal and cloudy obscurantism” of grand theorizing and the “formal 34 Ibid. 33:33–35:55. 35 “The Target.” Season 1, Episode 1: 45:40–48:03. 36 It may also be fair to say that by doing so, The Wire also betrays the various methods by which it disciplines and polices our reading and viewing habits. 37 This contention echoes sociologists’ frequent claims as to the “hidden” character of contemporary social issues surrounding mass incarceration, which I discuss in the first chapter of this book.

136 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

and empty ingenuity” of quantitative statistical modeling or, as he calls it, “abstracted empiricism” (75). More than merely collecting and analyzing brute data to better serve the interests of bureaucratic ruling elites, Mills promotes the ability of individual analysts to imaginatively draw connections between the individual, his or her milieu, and the historically fluctuating social institutions which make up his or her social environment. This process, as it turns out, is a hermeneutical one; doing sociology is, for Mills, the process of learning to read data about the social world with a certain “quality of mind” (13): For that imagination is the capacity to shift from one perspective to another – from the political to the psychological; from examination of a single family to comparative assessment of the national budgets of the world; from the theological school to the military establishment; from considerations of an oil industry to studies of contemporary poetry… and to see the relations between the two. Back of its use there is always the urge to know the social and historical meaning of the individual in the society and in the period in which he has his quality and his being. (7)

In other words, the sociological imagination requires the ability to read social reality with soft eyes – it demands that we attend to the intricate interrelationships which produce our social world. An awareness of this relation between individual lives and the aggregate march of historical societies is not lost on avid viewers of The Wire. By using rhetorical leads, serial structure, and narrative complexity to cue the viewer in to how “all the pieces matter,” The Wire coaches its viewers in reading with soft eyes and, thus, with a sociological imagination. Following The Wire’s complex, serial narrative demands that its viewers take the long view when formulating narrative expectations. Rather than simply expecting resolution at the end of each episode, The Wire conditions its viewers to notice repetitions and draw connections across seasons. This structure, however, is intimately and auto-referentially tied up with The Wire’s sociological content, allowing repetitive narrative structures to appear as sociological phenomenon. Chaddha and Wilson’s sociological reading of The Wire explicates this: …we must not lose sight of an important recurring theme in the series: given a limited set of available opportunities, there is often no exit from the predetermined life trajectories of residents in poor urban neighborhoods. This is vividly illustrated in the lives of D’Angelo, Wallace, and

IF IT’S NOT T V, IS IT SOCIOLOGY? THE WIRE

137

many other characters. By the end of the series, the problems remain unsolved, and the cycle repeats itself. Disadvantages become more deeply entrenched over time, and across generations. (“Way Down” 187)

For Chaddha and Wilson, this repetitive cycle merely follows from The Wire’s sociological realism, as isolation, deprivation, and social reproduction lock characters into a cycle of poverty and violence which repeats itself over generations. However, this repetition relies upon a conventionalized narrative structure. Reading The Wire with soft eyes therefore also means reading with an eye towards formal patterns of narrative repetition; the flip side of the sociological imagination, in other words, are the conventions which comprise sociology’s cultural imaginary. The Wire does not merely champion reading with “soft eyes” but also actively produces the narrative structures which require it. Take, for example, the character of Michael Lee. When we first encounter Michael, he is perhaps the scrappiest of the young Season 4 kids. When he and his group of friends are offered a no-strings cash handout by members of the Stanfield gang, Michael rejects it.38 When Namond asks him why, he response: “Owin’ niggas for shit, it ain’t me.”39 Observing and reconstructing the inner complexity of Michael’s moral life – for example, his desire to protect his brother upon the return of his sex-offending stepfather – paired with his lack of social resources is crucial in understanding the motives which drive Michael, over the course of two seasons, to eventually turn to the Stanfield gang for help and support, shedding his fierce sense of autonomy to join the gang before eventually assuming the now-deceased Omar Little’s role as vigilante stick-up artist. We cannot fully understand the broad sweep of Michael’s transformation without understanding narratives which position him within a milieu of severely troubled and disadvantaged Black inner-city youth with few other places to turn to for security than gang membership and a life on the streets. Understanding how Michael develops requires understanding not only how The Wire frames the pressures which social structures and circumstances exert over Michael and his group of young friends, nor even how those pressures relate to the individualized biography with which the show provides him, but perhaps more importantly the ways in which that career fits a conventional narrative modus operandi. Michael’s story is only one example of how the repetition of social roles is suggested through the narrative reproduction of stock types: Avon’s prison sentence merely clears 38 “Soft Eyes.” Season 4, Episode 2: 23:20–24:50. 39 Ibid. 27:30.

138 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

the way for Marlo’s rise, Bubbles’ rehabilitation is countered by Dukie’s implied fall into homelessness and (implicitly) heroin addiction, and Kima picks up the mantle of “good murder Po-lice” when McNulty is banished to the docks. These narrative cycles mimic urban sociology’s own interest in social reproduction, wherein institutional structures reproduce the same outcomes and social roles across generations. Here, the very notion of social reproduction reveals itself as a coded, conventionalized, and reproducible narrative structure. However much The Wire seeks to foster particular kinds of readerly activity, we should be careful to avoid ascribing too much coherence to The Wire’s intentions. As a multi-authored system, neither The Wire nor its paratextual system are perfectly consistent in terms of the cues they send to viewers. As Frank Kelleter reminds us, “Series are not intentional subjects but entities of distributed intention” (“Seriality” 25). Rather than positing a coherent, unified, core intentionality, we must think about “serial agency as something dispersed in a network of people, roles, organizations, machineries, and forms” (Kelleter, “Seriality” 26). Various actors – human, nonhuman, institutional, formal, and so on – are marshalled together by their shared investments in the series, and they do not always act in harmonious concert. Ascribing particular intentions to different kinds of agents can shift the assumptions under which viewers and readers interpret intentions. The widespread prominence of auteur theory may lead viewers to honor the statements of creators and showrunners such as David Simon as more authoritative than actors such as Idris Elba or Sonja Sohn. In turn, celebrity figures may be viewed as more privileged explicators than commercial agents such as HBO’s marketing team, the pronouncements of which may be viewed as tainted by commercialism and therefore are more likely to face interrogation under the application of a hermeneutics of suspicion. In general, viewers tend to value agents whose intentions are perceived to be largely artistic (and thus noble) over and above those which are considered primarily commercial (and therefore base). Indeed, if we trace our investigation outward through The Wire’s networks of self-description, we often find not only different sets of possible intentions, but also different kinds of messages and, perhaps more importantly, messengers at work. Compare, for example, David Simon’s frequent allusions to Greek tragedy. As previously discussed, Simon uses this comparison to render (post)modern institutions as indifferent, failed, or failing gods by positioning the series as an explication of “the dysfunction of the drug war and the general continuing theme of self-sustaining postmodern institutions

IF IT’S NOT T V, IS IT SOCIOLOGY? THE WIRE

139

devouring the individuals they are supposed to serve or who serve them” (Simon and Hornby). This in turn is often connected to a reception which assumes conspiratorial intent. What often results is a critique of capitalism: to quote Lester Freamon again: “follow the money, you don’t know where the fuck it’s gonna take you.”40 Such assertions are echoed throughout the series, including the epigraphs which open each episode: as one character, a school administrator, puts it, “Lambs to the slaughter here.”41 The predatory sentiment is seconded by the Greek, the mysterious head of an international drug dealing and human trafficking ring. The Greek represents both the largely inscrutable (we eventually learn that he is not even Greek) and destructive forces of rampant global capitalism and, on a more conspiratorial note, the powerful men who secretly profit from it: “Business. Always Business” he ensures his colleagues, echoing the second season finale’s epigraph. 42 This conspiratorial strain extends even unto the series’ final seasons: “The bigger the lie, the more they believe,” notes Bunk. 43 Whereas the prior set of examples emphasized close observation to detail, this second set directly asserts the role of insidious, inscrutable, and frequently hidden forces which sociologists are likely to imagine not as intentional conspiracies but rather as large structural abstractions. Whereas the prior group of directives assert the importance of attentively tracing out details, these cues insist upon the deterministic power of settled institutions and largely invisible but nevertheless powerful social structures they create. In Mysteries & Conspiracies, Luc Boltanski undertakes an investigation of the cultural logics which inform the development of the social sciences alongside the rise of detective f iction and the spy novel. Identifying a “thematics of inquiry” associated with the former genre and a “thematics of conspiracy” with the later, Boltanski argues that these “fictional stagings… sought to establish a procedural framework” which “made inquiry their principal instrument” (xiv). However, by thinking of mysteries as “a kind of scratch on the seamless fabric of reality” (Boltanski 3) and treating “inquiry and investigation” as principal practices capable of “unveiling” hidden cause (Boltanski 14), this model occasioned an “anxiety about the reality of reality” itself (Boltanksi 15). It thus gave birth to “the conspiracy form… the operation of unveiling that sets an apparent but fictitious reality and a hidden but real reality side by side” (Boltanski 13). This bifurcation of social reality 40 41 42 43

“Game Day.” Season 1, Episode 9: 10:18–13:03. “Boys of Summer.” Season 4, Episode 1: 22:18. “Port in a Storm.” Season 2, Episode 12: 16:00–17:50. “More With Less.” Season 5, Episode 1: 03:33.

140 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

into a merely apparent surface world and another hidden one submerged beneath it turns the “official” or “background” reality underwritten by the law and the state on its head so that a whole world of “non-legal, unofficial and properly social entities” are brought to light (Boltanski 11). Upsetting the state-guaranteed order of things, social reality “reverses itself and unveils its fictional nature, revealing another much more real reality that it had been concealing” (Boltanski 14). This “thematics of conspiracy” inflects not only popular literature but also the human sciences in a paranoid mode which is inherently “suspicions about the exercise of power. Where does power really lie, and who really holds it? State authorities… or other agencies, acting the shadows: bankers, anarchists, secret societies, the ruling class…?” (Boltanski xv). If we treat the two thematics put forth by Boltanski as epistemological modes, we can associate them with many of sociology’s own critical selfevaluations. For example, in Reassembling the Social Bruno Latour makes a similar distinction when he compares what he calls “sociologies of the social” to the more ethnomethodological approach of actor–network theory, which he describes as a “sociology of associations” (9). Whereas the former mode of sociological thinking relies upon settled, black-boxed abstractions to explain the existence of particular social phenomenon – thus, in a sense, assuming to know the “deep causes” of social events prior to undertaking their investigation – the latter insists upon a detailed, tedious tracing out of the complex universe of human and nonhuman actors as they unfold, and therefore prefers to operate without recourse to such prior abstractions. As Luc Boltanski points out, such distinctions are very much about “the question of what entities sociological analysis is to take into account in its descriptions, and the question of their size” (226). Similar analytical distinctions have been applied to The Wire. Perhaps most notably, Linda Williams claims that The Wire uses serial melodramatic fiction to generate what she, drawing on anthropologist George E. Marcus, calls “a multi-sited ethnographic imaginary” (On The Wire 14–15). Whereas most traditional ethnographic research suffers from “an inherent problem… when it concentrates solely on a specific location of study” (On The Wire 14), multi-sited ethnography strives to expand the “breadth and scope of the discipline” by replacing “the classic concern with the unique perspective of local cultures (especially those of colonial subalterns or the underclass)” with “a more ‘diffuse time-space’ of study that expands beyond the single site. This method maps a more complex thread of interconnected cultural processes in a related world system of geopolitical interaction” (Williams, On The Wire 15). Noting that one aspect of Marcus’s notion of multi-sited

IF IT’S NOT T V, IS IT SOCIOLOGY? THE WIRE

141

ethnography included “the ambition to reach beyond ‘academic forms,’” Williams argues that “the place where the knowledge of the world of cops and the world of the corner converge to produce their own ‘contexts of significance’ proves to be Simon’s unique fabrication of ethnographically informed serial television melodrama, The Wire” (On The Wire 15). It is not, in other words, realized in the practices of ethnographers, nor even in the theories of sociologists, but rather through the particular affordances of fictional television: “Serial television melodrama makes possible the large canvass of the ethnographic imaginary” (On The Wire 15). Williams argues that one valuable contribution of The Wire’s multi-sited ethnographic imaginary is that it ostensibly overcomes sociology’s reliance on “fictions of the whole” (On The Wire 14), by which she means black-boxed abstractions which name large-scale, intangible, social conceptualizations such as the state, capitalism, imperialism, and so on. (Williams, On the Wire 19). While I concur fully that The Wire aspires to precisely the kind of multi-sited ethnography Williams describes, I do not think that The Wire rids itself of these “fictions of the whole.” Indeed, its paratextual cues are full of references to such “godlike” abstractions, re-described as Simon’s “post-modern institutions.” These concepts are part and parcel of The Wire’s self-understandings as well as sociology’s cultural imaginary. Likewise, abstractions routinely emerge within The Wire itself, both as implied structuring principles and as allegories and symbols. Grand notions such as “capitalism” or “globalization” are frequently personified by particular characters. As already suggested above, although the identity of “The Greek” remains one of The Wire’s unsolved mysteries, on the semiotic level his true name is all-too-easy to discern: he is an allegorical stand-in for nothing other than multinational global capitalism. Similarly, after Stringer Bell’s demise near the end of Season 3, McNulty and Bunk visit his apartment which, to their surprise, is lavishly furnished, exhibiting a distinctly bourgeoise taste for interior decor. Perplexed, McNulty pulls a copy of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations from Bell’s bookshelf before asking: “who the fuck was I chasing?”44 For viewers, who have by now become well-acquainted with the industrious Bell and have seen him diligently apply the lessons learned in his college macroeconomics class to the drug trade, the answer is again all too clear: far more than a mere drug dealer, Bell is in more ways than one a personification of capitalism itself. Thus, many characters stand in as symbols or allegories for theoretical abstractions which structure the text without needing to explicitly name themselves. 44 “Mission Accomplished.” Season 3, Episode 12: 10:38–11:40.

142 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

The Wire thus seems to self-consciously invoke both an epistemology of observational inquiry and one of conspiratorial critique drawn from the sociological imaginary as co-extensive parts of its own narrative operations while often at the same time subverting the distinction between the two, implying that each is indissolubly entangled or even dialectically dependent upon the other. Thus, when Detective Freamon declares the need to “follow the money,” it is simultaneously a mystery as to which particular individuals’ pockets such money might flow through and, at the same time, all-too-obvious where the money leads: up. Just as the Baltimore Police Department insists upon maintaining its chain of command, with information flowing only upwards through the hierarchy rather than outwards, drug money runs up the socio-economic ladder, from the corners and the docks, up through the halls of power, and even further up into the pockets of the as-yet unnamed class of the powerful and wealthy. As the grand conspiracies animating The Wire’s social critique, globalized neo-liberal capitalism and the carceral state are not dissolved in The Wire’s multi-sited perspective. Rather, they become influential and ordering agents therein; it is the ability to connect narrative structures to these self-same abstractions which activates the imaginary work necessary for the sustenance of the social and the sociological both on screen and off.

Sociological Ambitions: Reform, Critique, Utopia Late in The Wire’s third season, Brother Mouzone, a contract assassin who dresses like a member of the Nation of Islam, returns to Baltimore with his aide, Lamar. Eventually, the two park their car at the recently demolished Franklin Terrace Towers housing project and the following discussion ensues: lamar: What happened to all them towers? brother mouzone: Slow train coming. lamar: Huh? brother mouzone: Reform, Lamar. Reform!45

While other seasons also reference or depict the largely unsuccessful efforts of would-be reformers, The Wire’s third season most fully thematizes reform. 45 “Reformation.” Season 3, Episode 01: 03:14–03:38. Here, Brother Mouzone makes a pop cultural reference to Bob Dylan’s 1979 record Slow Train Coming. Written after Dylan’s conversion to Christianity, much of the album is a testament of personal reform and a vision of social redemption. However, The Wire alludes to the album in a rather ironic sense.

IF IT’S NOT T V, IS IT SOCIOLOGY? THE WIRE

143

And yet, to simply argue that The Wire therefore launches an unqualified attack – or worse, an uncritical celebration – of reformers or reform efforts would be incorrect. Rather, The Wire’s third season is in many ways a sustained meditation on the intentions, methods, unforeseen troubles, and processes of social reformation; it approaches reform efforts with no less skepticism than it does the status quo. The season’s first episode opens with the demolition of the aforementioned project towers, which Mayor Royce, speaking at the event, claims “came to represent some of this city’s most entrenched problems.” Royce’s promises of reform, which include replacing the towers with affordable housing, are juxtaposed by an argument between two of the pit boys, Bodie and Poot. While Poot nostalgically remembers his experiences growing up in the towers, Bodie takes a much more cynical view, arguing that “they should have blown them motherfuckers up a long time ago” while at the same time remaining distrustful of Royce’s claims: “they gonna tear this building down and they gonna build some new shit. But people? They don’t give a fuck about people.” As Royce throws the switch to bring the towers down, the explosion and subsequent collapse sends a cloud of dust raining down ominously upon both the crowd of previously cheering bystanders and Royce’s promises of reform and redevelopment, an unintended consequence which foreshadows much of the fallout which will ensue from the season’s other explorations of reform efforts. 46 By the time Mouzone and Lamar arrive to survey the scene, all that remains of the towers is an empty lot. High-rise public housing projects like the Franklin Terrace Towers were built throughout American cities in the early decades of the 20th century as an attempt to “induce better behavior among the poor” and to “make that group more a coherent mass, and subject it to effective oversight” (Corkin 86). As such, they are themselves icons of various efforts at social engineering which are in no small part genealogically related to the social reformist impulses which birthed the prison. Indeed, the family resemblance between housing projects and prisons is notable in the dull, uniform, rectangular, “institutional” design of such buildings: a great many early housing projects resemble nothing if not prisons. As with prisons, this architecture itself seems to have generated the self-same unintended criminogenic consequences Royce bemoans. Treating poverty as a matter of group or individual pathology, reform efforts such as these treat the racialized poor as a “problem” population and attempt to generate environmental conditions to inculcate more “normative” and ostensibly “mainstream” (read: white, middle class) 46 “Time After Time.” Season 3, Episode 1: 00:01–03:48.

144 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

values, attitudes, and behaviors. Rather than reforming society, addressing institutionalized racism, or ameliorating poverty, they confined the most vulnerable, victimized, and stigmatized to “social laboratories” designed from a matrix of bureaucratic policies and built environments. As with Royce’s own promises of reform (in fact, gentrification), early project housing designs proved equally hollow. Focusing on either the social engineering of “problem” populations or their displacement by revitalization efforts rather than system-wide change, reformers often aggravated the conditions they hoped to ameliorate. Drawing on nothing if not this self-same reformist impulse in urban planning, architectural scholar Benjamin Leclair-Paquet argues that The Wire’s marriage of fiction and sociological nuance allows it to function as a “simulation platform”: The Wire’s development of speculative scenarios hints at the possibility of overcoming dysfunctional aspects in contemporary urban systems by opening the imagination to potential alternatives… This feature allows the scenario to develop in a way that mimics reality, while keeping the freedom to overwrite very specific aspects of the real world with something unreal and perhaps utopian. (139)

In this sense, Leclair-Paquet follows in the footsteps of Fredric Jameson, who detects “a plot in which Utopian elements are introduced, without fantasy or wish fulfillment, into the construction of the fictive, yet utterly realistic, events… the Utopian future here and there breaks through” (372). Picking up on this, Leclair-Paquet argues that we should study these moments as “failure-points responsible for the collapse of transformative programmes” (142). Leclair-Paquet’s treatment of The Wire as a kind of speculative social laboratory echoes arguments made by Ruth Levitas, who argues in Utopia as Method for “a kind of speculative sociology” (xiv). Arguing against “the most culturally prevalent understanding” of utopia as “an irrelevant fantasy or traduced as a malevolent nightmare leading to totalitarianism” (xiii), Levitas instead proposes that we define utopia as “the expression of the desire for a better way of being or of living” (Levitas xii). Redefining utopia as an analytical desire rather than a reformist directive, she endorses “a constructive, architectural mode” of utopian thinking associated with the literary: We need to push forward to a less cautious and more imaginative engagement with possible futures, in which utopia is understood as a creative

IF IT’S NOT T V, IS IT SOCIOLOGY? THE WIRE

145

form of sociology… a process which is necessarily provisional, reflexive and dialogic… always suspended… always under revision, at the meeting point of the darkness of the lived moment and the flickering light of a better world, for the moment accessible only through an act of imagination. (Levitas 149)

Levitas’ “flickering light” and Jameson’s utopian “breaks”: these figures betray rhetorical habits of thought which posit surfaces and depths as operative features of reality, in which a dormant desire – here understood as the utopian impulse which drives reform – lies hidden, repressed, or obscured beneath the mere surface of the real. In spite of these readers’ enthusiasm for utopian reforms, The Wire is in fact far more skeptical about such aspirations. Indeed, the series seems to challenge the notion of prescriptive, paternalistic reform efforts, preferring to dredge their complications. It shares this in common with one of the 20th century’s greatest urbanists, Jane Jacobs. In The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961) Jacobs argues that urban reformers have more often than not opted to impose their own aesthetic and moral standards over the urban landscape, usually to the socio-economic detriment of its dwellers. Thus, urban reform projects are often “essentially paternalistic, if not authoritarian” (19); they foster docility by imagining urban space as “not only a physical environment” but also “a social Utopia too” (22). This has often been to the detriment of facilitating the crucial urban interactions which make cities culturally dynamic, livable ecosystem in the first place. By undermining the very structures of interpersonal relations upon which urban centers depend, early urban reformers restricted socio-economic interaction and mobility in favor of social sorting, “bringing order by repression of all plans but the planners’” (Jacobs 25). 47 Here, utopian thinking masks the ultimately moralizing impositions of power under (essentially bourgeoise) aesthetic preferences even as the technocratic language of reform is deployed to obscure questions of ideology and politics. 47 These planners often confused aesthetic appearance with moral proscriptions and presumed that urban ugliness led to moral decay. They thus sought to create conditions “where the city poor might again live close to nature” and thus modelled such reform efforts as housing projects on “self-sufficient small towns, really very nice towns if you were docile and had no plans of your own and did not mind spending your life among others with no plans of their own” (Jacobs 17). Of course, the assumption is that the poor need not have plans of their own, because the ultimate goal was not to raise their status, but to keep them docile: “As in all Utopias, the right to have plans of any significance belonged only to the planners in charge” (Jacobs 17).

146 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

The relation between aesthetics, moralistic storytelling, reform, and power noted above bring to mind Zola’s characterization of the novelist as “experimental moralists” and the naturalistic novel as a laboratory of moral science (25). As Zola puts it, “the [novelist as] experimentalist appears and introduces an experiment, that is to say, sets his characters going in a certain story” (8). Insisting on the primacy of “true observation… called forth… as all observation, without any preconceived idea,” Zola argues that “[t]he experimentalist should then disappear, or rather transform himself instantly into the observer” (9). As D.A. Miller might have put it, Zola motivates the ostensible “determination” of narrative events in the “experiment” of the novel through the curious disavowal of the author’s (not to mention the scientist’s) own powers of narration, a disavowal which allows narratological power to masquerade as mere reportage. In this sense, the impulse to generate knowledge through practices of storytelling is intimately intertwined with issues of power and its disavowal – that is to say, of ideology. However, Zola is not content merely to mystify the relations between knowledge/description and power/narration; naturalistic storytelling, in his estimation, yields further conclusions which can be put to work by those aspiring to use technocratic means to direct the course human civilization: “we shall construct a practical sociology, and our work will be a help to political and economical sciences” (26). Indeed, it is not long until this line of thought yields outright utopian ambitions: To be the master of good and evil, to regulate life, to regulate society, to solve in time all the problems of socialism, above all, to give justice a solid foundation by solving through experiment the questions of criminality – is not this being the most useful and the most moral workers in the human workshop? (Zola 26)

Here, Zola’s description shows remarkable resemblance to what Michel Foucault has called biopolitics, the utilization of epistemological techniques which “[bring] life and its mechanisms into the realm of explicit calculations and [make] knowledge-power an agent of transformation of human life” (History 143). In this light, it is not very surprising that Zola models these novelistic practices on sciences of the body, namely physiology and medicine, whose ostensible purposes are “to make one’s self master of life in order to be able to direct it” (25) and yields “a scientific psychology to complete scientific physiology” (17). Indeed, by applying these principles not only to the human, but also to the social body, Zola betrays chauvinistically reformist aspirations, as he reveals that the purpose of the experimental

IF IT’S NOT T V, IS IT SOCIOLOGY? THE WIRE

147

novelist is “showing by experiment in what way a passion acts in certain social conditions” so that one day “we gain control of the mechanism of this passion” in order to “treat it and reduce it, or at least make it as inoffensive as possible” (25). In other words, the science yielded by the naturalistic novel, Zola hopes, can then be put to instrumental ends in reforming the “offensive” passions and behaviors of its subjects. It is then no wonder that Zola routinely relies on a rhetoric of control, scientific mastery, and “human machinery” (25). The biopolitical aspirations underwriting Zola’s explication of naturalism help us to highlight the dangers involved in such reformist or utopian thinking while at the same time drawing attention to interesting questions about the relation between biopolitics and sociological storytelling. As the discussion of Jacobs and Zola above indicates, the desire to ascribe to cultural production the role of moral theater upon which to stage the drama of social life – a desire which motivates the theorizing of Leclair-Paquet and Ruth Levitas no less than the receptions of sociologists like Wilson, Venkatesh, and Chaddha which open this chapter – have a long and highly problematic genealogy. In Zola’s hands no less than Wilson, Chaddha, and Venkatesh’s, naturalistic storytelling is not only a mode for advertising sociological insights or “simulating” thought-experiments, but also runs the risk of providing the biopolitical blueprints and intellectual cover for the imposition of social and moral reformation from above. While The Wire on several occasions seems to play very literally upon the idea of naturalistic storytelling as a social laboratory within its own plotline, it is in fact highly ambiguous about the outcomes of such experimentation. One much-discussed example of this is the “Hamsterdam” plotline in Season 3. It involves Howard “Bunny” Colvin, a disillusioned police major who, sick of watching petty drug dealers spin through the revolving door of the penal system with no effect on the streets and harried by the impossible demands of his commanding officers, instigates a de facto legalization of drug sales. He does so by forcing low-level dealers into designated “free zones” composed of (nearly) abandoned blocks of West Baltimore, which quickly become known as “Hamsterdam.”48 Colvin’s scheme, essentially a harm-reduction policy, shows results, with crime rates dropping in all other areas. Meanwhile, the concentration of vice in a small area makes it easier for social workers to administer much needed public health services. However, as Stanley Corkin points out, the “Hamsterdam” experiment is not an unqualified success. Even though Colvin’s strategy is innovative 48 “Hamsterdam.” Season 3, Episode 4: 25:55–26:15.

148 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

for “its recognition of the intractability of the drug problem” (Corkin 81), the audience is made discreetly aware that Hamsterdam is by no means an unqualified, unambiguous success: “Hamsterdam gradually takes on the quality of an urban hell; children run amid the chaos of drugs, prostitution, drug paraphernalia, bold theft, and violence. We can see this erosion occurring as what was once a relatively orderly place of drug use and sales becomes a site of general chaos” (Corkin 84). Indeed, as deteriorating conditions in Hamsterdam eventually attract the attention of other police officers and the media, Colvin eventually comes clean about his scheme to his superiors. 49 He is demoted and retires in disgrace, but not before Mayor Royce unsuccessfully scrambles last minute to find a way to preserve some aspect of the Hamsterdam experiment’s limited success.50 In the end, just like the Franklin Terrace Towers, Hamsterdam is razed, and along with it the utopian hopes to which it aspired. The Hamsterdam experiment suggests a set of policies geared towards social manipulation, thus adhering surprisingly well to Zola’s laboratory and Leclair-Paquet’s simulation platform. As the show frames them, such narrative “experiments” yield “results,” and by focusing on their “failure points” – aka, the melodramatic moment at which the programs are unjustly and hurriedly axed in spite of showing promise – we supposedly gain knowledge not only of the policies’ effectiveness, but of the social forces and barriers which inevitably stand in the way of their implementation. This knowledge, however, does not (only) come in the form of data or empirical observation; rather, it is built into The Wire’s plotlines and unfolds through its well-rehearsed conventions. Having become familiar with these conventions, veteran viewers understand the connection between the experimental policy being exercised and the powerful social forces (which is also to say, the deterministic narrative logic) guiding it towards its ultimate dissolution. Reproducing these narrative conventions as sociological “simulations” of reality, The Wire flatters itself and its viewers for possessing “knowledge” of how the social world operates, a reality effect which borrows sociology’s own pretentions as superior explicator of the social world in order to cover up its reliance on a set of aesthetic strategies and narrative conventions. Framed by The Wire’s sociological realism, social experiments undertaken by characters are often presented within the logic of the series as effective reform efforts which are all too predictably hindered by public opinion, powerful interests, institutional path-dependency, or petty bureaucratic 49 “Reformation.” Season 3, Episode 10: 44:30–50:50. 50 “Mission Accomplished.” Season 3, Episode 12: 09:09–10:00.

IF IT’S NOT T V, IS IT SOCIOLOGY? THE WIRE

149

rules. We are made to feel that somehow those vulnerable groups most likely to benef it from these innovative approaches have been unjustly cheated by vested institutional interests and the repressive moralizing of mainstream society. These could indeed be re-described as the self-same sentiments which melodramatic storytelling seeks to inculcate. Thus, Linda Williams argues that The Wire’s most important innovation is to generate an “up-to-date” form of melodrama which functions “by confronting new and seemingly intractable problems… with the end of recognizing institutional routes to social good” (On The Wire 114). Here, melodramatic impulses form the heart of naturalistic storytelling, which is also to say, marks the problematic utopian impulses inherent in the very notion of constructing a “melodrama of institutional connections” (On The Wire 45).51 “Melodrama is the dramatic convention in which timely social problems and controversies are addressed… to generate outrage against realities that could and, according to its creators, should be changed” (Williams, On The Wire 114). Insofar as utopian thinking is invariably wrapped up with questions of aesthetics, themselves linked to the moral preferences of reformers and often indicative of the power invariably wielded by planners, it must not be celebrated on its own account. Questioning the aesthetics of utopia and the motives of reformers will invariably lead us back to questions of social justice and biopolitics. This suggests that utopianism is itself heavily invested in modes of melodrama and naturalism – that is to say, utopian thinking tends to produce “simulations” or fictional “experimentations” which are themselves suggestive of laudable if not infrequently naïve melodramatic impulses. Put simply, utopian dreams, no less than sociological descriptions, are intimately wrapped up in questions of melodrama. As Linda Williams asks in direct response to Jameson: “what shall we call this utopianismwithin-realism if not melodrama?” (On The Wire 220). Reform efforts in The Wire are not circumscribed to the activities of those usually designated as the good guys; The Wire is full of investigatory targets who are themselves out to “change up the game.” Two of the biggest figures which stand out in this regard are Stringer Bell, who tries to reform the drug game by applying economic principles, and Frank Sobotka, who gets involved in illegal activities to raise money for campaign contributions 51 Williams argues that one of The Wire’s many successes lies in its ability to “forge a less self-righteous kind of melodrama, less dependent on wild swings between pathos and action, less a matter of cycles of victimization and retributive violence… and more a matter of reaching beyond personal good or evil to determination of better justice” (On The Wire 115) and thus generates “a new dimension of melodrama grounded in social institutions” (On The Wire 116).

150 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

with the intent of “bringing back” the Baltimore harbor in the wake of deindustrialization. Bell tries to rationalize the drug game by applying orderly rules of governance and market logic.52 Sobotka attempts to preserve an increasingly vulnerable way of life through a mixture of smuggling and purchasing influence for Baltimore’s port workers union. Sobotka imagines that his illegal activities can purchase political clout to rejuvenate the port and thus save the slowly fading lifeworld of the dockworkers. On the one hand, Bell and Sobotka are both players deeply enmeshed in criminal conspiracies; on the other, they are themselves cogs in much larger globalized networks of licit and illicit international commerce. At first, each seem to be key players and reformers in their respective organizations; eventually, however, they are laid low by forces beyond their control. Bell, unable to maneuver the bureaucratic field, attempts to buy his way into the real estate game and is subsequently embarrassed when he gets fleeced by the corrupt politician Clay Davis. Although Bell is himself a master of the drug market, the bureaucratic state appears to him as a grand conspiracy. Likewise, although Sobotka is the union leader of the dockworkers – a role that is, at least historically, not without clout – he is unable to grasp the causes of deindustrialization brought about by the amalgamated forces of globalization, automation, and market restructuring.53 Indeed, even the surveillance programs initiated by the Baltimore PD begin to take on the tinge of conspiracy; this is especially so in the case of Sobotka, who is placed under surveillance in part over a petty run-in with the police Commander Valchek.54 In each of the cases above, the hubris of reform-minded players is intimately connected with their inability to grasp the reins of social forces which appear to them as nothing less than grand conspiracies. Indeed, at various moments The Wire seems to suggest that the state itself is mysteriously complicit in many of the dealings the detail takes under surveillance; when the detail picks up an aid to State Senator Clay Davis in the first season for 52 It is interesting in this regard to compare Stringer Bell to Avon Barksdale. Bell is less concerned with status and reputation and more concerned with wealth. If Barksdale’s criminal activities still serve aspirations anchored in street culture, Stringer’s are aimed at social mobility and economic advancement. Barksdale wants to solidify his hold on the corners using violence; Bell wants to ascend into the world of legal commerce by getting involved in legitimate real estate development ventures. 53 Or, at times, a pyramid scheme; as Sobotka puts it: “We used to make shit in this country, build shit. Now we just put our hand in the next guy’s pocket” (“Bad Dreams.” Season 2, Episode 11: 39:00). 54 “Collateral Damage.” Season 2, Episode 2: 14:35–15:55.

IF IT’S NOT T V, IS IT SOCIOLOGY? THE WIRE

151

carrying tens of thousands of dollars of drug money in his car, it doesn’t take long for Deputy Commissioner Burrell to arrive and demand his release.55 When Burrell eventually demands that Daniels wraps up the detail’s case in Season 1, Daniels resists; Burrell produces a folder of FBI field reports ostensibly implicating Daniels in past shading dealings.56 The implication is clear: state surveillance is potentially omnipresent, and the state even watches its own. The state bureaucracy appears not as an open institution, but as a conspiracy. The logic of conspiracy, then, drives The Wire’s conceptualization of the social. The god-like power of Simon’s post-modern institutions derives not from supranatural will but appears instead as a conspiratorial confluence of agents and interests. Moreover, as Season 2 in particular makes clear, that conspiracy is not confined to particular locales, nor does it terminate in an upper-echelon of elite puppet masters – or at least, not as far as we can tell. In The Wire, society itself appears as a vast array of forces coordinated above all by the impersonal invisible hand of international global capitalism and facilitated by a corrupt state hierarchy. Everyone – the police, congressmen, drug gangs, stevedores, real estate moguls – is complicit. Responding to Detective Sydnor’s complaints about following up the paper trail in an investigation, Freamon, summarizing The Wire’s own sociological aspirations in the fifth season, responds: “A case like this here, where you show who gets paid behind all the tragedy and the fraud, where you show how the money routes itself, how we’re all, all of us vested, all of us complicit… Baby, I could die happy.”57 In this sense, The Wire attempts, to borrow the words of Luc Boltanski, to establish narrative forms that make it possible to describe reality in general as a vast conspiracy… an elevated viewpoint intended to transcend the conflict between divergent interpretations… the construction of a position of utterance from which it is possible to take on different expressions of the accusation of conspiracy simultaneously. (155)

By preventing Freamon and the detail time and again from following the paper trail, The Wire continuously gestures beyond itself, outside of its narrative, to a larger social totality. Conspiracy takes on the character not so much of a mystery, but rather of an ever-expanding network: “because 55 “Lessons.” Season 1, Episode 8: 17:45–24:45. 56 “Cleaning Up.” Season 1, Episode 12: 47:25–50:10. 57 “Unconfirmed Reports.” Season 5, Episode 2: 06:00–07:35.

152 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

networks are open by construction, and because their limits depend essentially on the scope of the researcher’s inquiry, they transcend the micro/ macro opposition. One can always extend a network by connecting beings that would otherwise remain isolated and thereby devoid of signification” (Boltanski 248). Conspiracy therefore serves not only as a model of social reality, but also as a placeholder, a way of designating that which has not yet been described in relation to that which has; in other words, that which escapes realism’s powers of narration. Sociology therefore becomes the practice not of uncovering realities, but of utilizing narration for the purposes of bridging distances – of describing increasingly dense webs of interconnectivity and, by doing so, extending its explanatory empire over social reality. Conspiracy marks not that which is hidden behind a veil of the apparent, but that which is merely still too distant to connect; or, put otherwise, that which has not yet been integrated into narration’s ever-expanding network of description. As social reality’s self-appointed explicator, sociology seems to alternate between the cyclical process of dissolving old conspiracies and, in the process, constructing still new ones. It is the self-perpetuating circularity of this logic which drives social critique in all its forms – as sociology, as fiction, as utopian aspiration – forward. Maintaining this cycle and extending its network is, we might say, the formula by which sociology continuously reproduces itself as reality effect par excellence.58 It is therefore not terribly surprising that Levitas suggests that utopia plays an operative, even primordial, role in the sociology’s own critical project: Sociology is comfortable with utopia only as an element in the social imaginary that is the object of explanation. It repeatedly approaches utopia and retreats from it. And yet the impulse towards social transformation, there at the origin of the discipline, does not go away. The warm stream runs underground. (Levitas 101)

Caught between its commitment to critique and its desire to hold the reins of social reformation, sociology is suspended between the dual pursuits of de-mystifying social reality and projecting its own wishes upon it; the tension between its critical vocation and utopian aspirations is the engine that drives not only sociology, but also The Wire’s performance thereof. It 58 Utopian thinking, however, must remain ever-aspirational; put into practice, it collapses in on itself once it becomes realized, and becomes apparent not as utopia, but rather as official reality – which is also to say, as conspiracy.

IF IT’S NOT T V, IS IT SOCIOLOGY? THE WIRE

153

is thus in the tension between utopian aspiration and critical vocation that both sociology and The Wire operate, revealing a set of central concerns, tropes, and topoi which animate both. Each model themselves on cyclical operations of “unveiling” and “discovery,” rendering social reality as a set of mysteries on the one hand and, on the other, ever-extending networks of associations. Both participate in a larger cultural universe which assumes the logics of critique as a central, animating mode of storytelling, which in turn provides the means for delineating associations.59 Fueled by a cultural logic in which critical descriptions are at once occasioned by and generate utopian aspirations, reform and critique are therefore in self-sustaining perpetual motion, spinning out not only sociology, but the cultural fabric from which the tapestry of our shared social reality is woven. For a few years running, part of this tapestry took the shape of an HBO series.

Reassembling Mass Incarceration The Wire combines epistemologies of observation and critique to trace out increasingly dense networks between institutions, generating what Linda Williams, as previously discussed, calls “a melodrama of institutional connections” (On The Wire 45) traversed by the series’ production of “a multi-sited ethnographic imaginary” (On The Wire 14–15). In the process, The Wire traces out the age of mass incarceration as a systemic, ever-moving network of interlocking conventions, practices, institutions, forms, and epistemologies. It presents itself as a sophisticated observer (as well as a mediation) of the sociological assemblage which produces mass incarceration through an interlocking matrix of historically embedded and narratively motivated institutions. As noted in the case of the prison in the last chapter, such institutions are shaped in large part by their simulations in the media and cultural sphere. Thus, the age of mass incarceration appears as the product of a hypermediated assemblage of practices and structures given shape, meaning, and mission in large part through a set of not infrequently competing mediations and narratives. In this sense, individual sociologists, The Wire, and indeed a host of other actors all contribute to the production, contestation, and continuously mediated renegotiations which (re)produce 59 In this sense, “critique” is perhaps best described not as a scholarly practice or set of assumptions, but as a versatile and pervasive cultural mode which cuts across not only genres and media, but also disciplinary domains.

154 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

these institutions and articulate them in such a way as to render them as sprawling narrative-praxeological systems. This self-same trans-medial system of narrative sprawl not only renders visible, but cannot help but reproduce (even if in a critical mode) the highly mediated and often perverse logics upon which many of these institutions function; indeed, sociology is perhaps only topped by popular culture in terms of the production of highly naturalistic narratives which terminate by following (or, perhaps, even leading) poor, often racialized lives into the belly of the beast. Much like the hyper-real site of the prison, the institutional spaces and structures The Wire remediates for the production of televisual realism are themselves largely entangled with, and therefore analytically indissoluble from, a whole history of cultural simulations and narratives which help to constitute them as intelligible institutional structures and practices in the first place – sociology has been and continues to be one such venue for the production of such simulations and narratives. That is to say, both these institutions and the discipline which studies them cannot be wholly divorced from the media narratives which circulate around, about, and through them, because to a large degree these narratives provide the (oftentimes melodramatic) formulas through which institutions and actors construct their self-understandings and identify their own purposes, rendering them both legible and meaningful. The Wire, then, cannot transcend its status as a media product largely because it is so heavily invested in and assists in the reproduction of heavily mediated institutional matrices which generate and perpetuate mass incarceration: the police department, the projects, the drug trade, city hall, the schools, and the newsroom all appear as not only intersecting and mutually entangled, but as inescapably hyper-real institutions. These institutions persist in large part through praxeological and quotidian processes of social reproduction which cannot be divorced from the structures of mediation which maintain them, including their popular representations. The Wire’s televisual critique and sociological knowledge of these interconnecting institutional structures is therefore itself implicated in their reproduction, even if it crucially inflects them in a critical key. It therefore joins a host of critical remediations – including those penned by sociologists – which may potentially tinge the self-understandings of these institutions and the agents whose practices reproduce them with a sense of self-reflexivity, and may thus contribute to the impetus for their reform. That said, The Wire’s tendency to traverse the urban contexts, institutions, and socio-political landscapes which surround the site of the prison

IF IT’S NOT T V, IS IT SOCIOLOGY? THE WIRE

155

also often has the curiously paradoxical effect of frequently hiding that site behind the assemblage of institutional networks it (re)constructs as mediations. Rarely diving for sustained amounts of time into the prison (and even then, usually for the primary purpose of marking its porous inter-connections with the world on the outside), The Wire has the tendency to focus instead on the “edges” or “pipelines” by which the prison connects to and feeds from the larger institutional supernetwork(s) which surround and help to reproduce it. The effect is to create an impression perhaps most memorably articulated in dialogue by Avon Barksdale near the end of Season 3: “You only do two days no how. There’s the day you go in, and the day you come out.”60 While aspiring to deny the “corrective” eff icacy of the prison sentence by rhetorically compressing it into an almost inconsequential gap between two days, what this dialogue ironically misses – and what the show intimately dramatizes – are the various pipelines which feed bodies like Barksdale’s through cycles of crime, violence, and imprisonment, thereby warping and restricting their professed sense of restricted temporality as well as their expected narrative horizons. In this sense, rather than condemning the criminal justice or corrections wing of the state in particular, The Wire purports to generate a superior visibility capable of rendering apparent the intrinsic carceral logic of the entire neoliberal social order as such. The neoliberal order thus becomes yet another name for what I have followed Richards and Jones in calling “the perpetual incarceration machine” (“Perpetual” 4). Loïc Wacquant has argued that the neoliberal retrenchment of the welfare state in the late 20th century and the institutional desertion of black urban ghettos has “spawned a carceral continuum that ensnares a super-numerary population of young black men… in a never-ending circulus” (“Deadly Symbiosis” 97). The resulting “carceral mesh” comprised of the imploding “hyperghetto” and the prison have become “interlocked via a relation of functional equivalency… and structural homology” (Wacquant, “Deadly Symbiosis” 115). The Wire adds to this by proposing a narrative of allegorical totality which implicates the entire post-Fordist global order in this continuum even as the series itself exists in a state of critical dependency with it as an agent of medial continuity. Ultimately beholden to and limited by its commercial media identity, The Wire must generate a superior realism which simultaneously obscures its own reliance on and facilitates its participation in the perpetual reproduction of our media-saturated 60 “Mission Accomplished.” Season 3, Episode 12: 36:45.

156 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

hyper-reality, even if it does so in the mode of social critique.61 As a result, the prison is curiously neglected, crowded out of its vast narrative scope, and becomes instead an obscured yet centralized point of implied terminus and termination: a zero-level institution presumably so integral to the structure and function of entire economies of dispossession and disappearance that it need hardly appear at all.

The Cultural Contradictions of Sociological Aspirations The continuing importance of The Wire adheres not so much in its initial viewership ratings, which were in any case lukewarm at best. The show, as mentioned, was never a huge hit while running, although it garnered substantial critical attention and has gathered a substantial cult following ever since. Indeed, much of the show’s continuing importance resides in the sheer productivity of its afterlives; few cultural objects have been so thoroughly studied in such a wide variety of fields as The Wire. The series remains a go-to text for instructors who use it as an alternative to textbooks and case studies, and it has been used to instruct students and professionals on everything from the dynamics of illicit markets to the finer points of policing procedure. However, using The Wire in such a way relies upon practices of what Frank Kelleter has called “selective duplication” – that is, they “duplicate statements from the series’ paratexts… transform them into statements of fact or treat them as if they were results of analysis” (Serial 34). Indeed, many sociological commentators treat The Wire’s sociological aspirations “not in terms of mutual dealings between the series and urban sociology (texts contextualizing each other) but in terms of the show’s use-value for urban sociology. The ruling assumption is that there exists a socio-historical background of facts which is then represented – reported, in fact – in the show’s surface narrative” (Kelleter, Serial 35). The Wire’s 61 Indeed, even in the highly self-reflexive fifth season’s ruminations on the ostensible complicity of the mainstream news media in producing distracting, incomplete, and essentially dishonest (not to mention highly melodramatic) alternative realities, the series never allows viewers to lose sight of the “real story” behind the curtain: both McNulty’s calculated exploitation of the media and Scott Templeton’s fabulations are apparent from the get-go. Furthermore, this season constantly invites us to empathize with the frustration and outrage of newspaper editor Gus Haynes, who denounces such commercially motived distortions: “Our job is to report the news, not to manufacture it” (“-30-.” Season 5, Episode 10: 34:56). The implication is that for all the trappings of fiction, The Wire does a better job of “reporting” the news than commercial journalism.

IF IT’S NOT T V, IS IT SOCIOLOGY? THE WIRE

157

afterlives, in other words, have been not merely conducive to the production of knowledge, but more pointedly to its instrumentalization; sociology, in other words, has found The Wire nothing if not useful for its own purposes. The ethical hazards which arise from the instrumentalization of knowledge is a recurring theme throughout the series. Perhaps the most obvious moment appears in Season 4, when we learn by way of the following dialogue that an intervention program for at-risk youth started by sociologist Dr. David Parenti and Bunny Colvin has been unceremoniously axed: colvin: So that’s it? A ten-minute hearing and they stick a fork in us? I’m a liability in there, man. It seems like every time I open my mouth in this town, I’m telling people something they don’t want to know. parenti: It’s not you, it’s the process. colvin: The process!? parenti: We get the grant, we study the problem, we propose solutions. If they listen, they listen. If they don’t, it still makes for great research. What we publish on this is gonna get a lot of attention. colvin: From who? parenti: From other researchers, academics. colvin: Academics? What, they gonna study your study? When does this shit change?62

Colvin’s complaints echo The Wire’s larger critique of both the surveillance society and social reform efforts: for all the eavesdropping and interference, nobody seems to really be listening. This goes for Parenti as well, who spots an opportunity to garner professional notoriety. The series critiques epistemological practices which produce knowledge largely for either individual gain or institutional reproduction; here, it takes aim at the insular system of academic research, peer review, and publication, wherein knowledge production serves first and foremost the reproduction of academia’s bureaucratic field.63 Even more troubling is the possibility that sociological knowledge is utilized, whatever its original intention, to reinforce the disadvantages of those it studies. Such is the issue at stake when Kenneth W. Warren accuses William Julius Wilson of being the unwitting dupe of predatory 62 “Final Grades.” Season 4, Episode 13: 54:20–54:50. 63 At the same time, The Wire’s media identity as serial TV – an identity it so often tries to disavow – appears as a critical asset, allowing it to adopt the pretentions of an outsider’s perspective.

158 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

capitalist interests when he helped initiate a shift in “the dominant sociological model of poverty” from the concept of class to “one that subordinated politics to neighborhood demographics” (206). The result, according to Warren, is not only the erosion of “working-class politics as an alternative to this power grab of capitalist interests” (205) but also ideological cover for policies aimed at dislocating impoverished residents “not only because they felt it was in their best interest to do so but also because sociologists like Wilson had presumably demonstrated that it was in the best interests of the poor to do so” (205). Thus, Warren contends that Wilson’s research was not only “a window onto how the urban poor were dislocated” but also, and perhaps quite unwittingly, an unwary actor therein: “Wilson’s sociology was also part of that process of dislocation. All that is in question here is whether or not the cynical appropriation of sociological ideas by real estate developers adequately explains how Wilson’s ideas came to play the role they play” (Warren 205). Warren concludes that while Wilson’s tendency to read “The Wire as mirror of his own sociological preoccupations is… somewhat justifiable in light of the fact that this work inspired the series’ creators… It also shows what can happen to a society when those who set policy affecting the lives of our nation’s most vulnerable citizens do sociologists the courtesy of taking them seriously” (207). I do not mean to take sides in this rather heated debate; undoubtedly, ideas – and especially sociological ones – circulate widely and may therefore be (mis)interpreted and (mis)applied towards virtuous as often as nefarious ends. And indeed, Wilson is not the only sociologist to come under fire for ostensibly if unintentionally providing ammunition for the cannons which pound down upon the disadvantaged, disenfranchised, and vulnerable. No doubt, it is not difficult to list sociologists who, in however problematic a fashion, earnestly and well-meaningly argued for such things as the de-institutionalization of the psychologically ill (Erving Goffman), sought intervention into the plight of the Black urban poor (Daniel Patrick Moynihan), or called attention to the ostensible failure of prison rehabilitation programs due in large degree to their never having been honestly instituted nor properly analyzed in the first place (Robert Martinson) only to find their words, however ill-considered or well-intentioned, strategically misappropriated to catastrophic ends by partisan opportunists and the political advocates of institutional abandonment, social dis-investiture, and “nothing works” penal warehousing. Knowledge which styles itself as not only objective or positivistic, but also instrumentally applicable, can easily fall prey to misappropriation.

IF IT’S NOT T V, IS IT SOCIOLOGY? THE WIRE

159

Indeed, in reducing a person’s autobiographical history to a case file, in aggregating the data of lives lived and lost into discrete data points on a ledger of socio-economic profits and losses, and in turn converting those into either statistical representations or descriptions of generalizable trends, social science runs the risk of unwittingly dehumanizing the very people it studies. More ominously, by converting people and lives into the raw materials and instruments for the exercise of state power, sociological methods can easily be converted into technologies of biopower. This has especially pernicious consequences when it comes to the issues of race and racialization which are so often the flashpoint in debates about mass incarceration. As the academic discipline most often tasked with asking and answering questions about the character, composition, structure, reproduction, and reformation of discretely ordered populations within society, the only thing sociology might find more disturbing than the frustrating sense of being roundly ignored by politicians and policymakers is the nightmarish possibility of the uncritical, and perhaps even malicious, mass application of its instruments and findings by those seeking to exert control over life itself. Indeed, this has often been the case, achieved in large part by using the language and practices of sociology to generate flagrantly eugenicist discourses of racialization. These discourses in turn provided the ideological cover for the practices of the plantation and its institutional afterlives. As Howard Winant reminds us: The social sciences have never been able effectively to address race and racism. This is not a mysterious thing; it is a result of the deep implication of the disciplines in the organization of racial oppression. Not only were the nascent social science disciplines core components of running the empires and managing the natives, the slavocracies, and the depredations fundamental to the rise of Europe and the development of the USA, but they were also vital explicators and rationalizers of these systems… the social sciences had their origins, and still operate today, in the effort to manage ‘race relations’. (2176)

Indeed, mass incarceration is only one of the more recent examples of how sociology’s aspirations to guide the work of the state have been put to the service of producing barbaric catastrophes. Of course, The Wire has its own agenda apart and aside from that of sociology or its misappropriation, parts of which are not unrelated to HBO’s commercial goals. Such aspirations would seem, in the eyes of its toughest critics at least, to culminate in anything other than a zealous call

160 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

to action. And indeed, The Wire may seem, from a certain angle, patently conservative: it abjures fast action and questions brash intervention. Instead, as both long-form serial television and detailed sociological sketch, The Wire takes its time: it counsels caution, preaches skepticism, and teaches attentiveness. It is precisely for this reason that Dreier and Atlas contend that “The Wire reinforces the notion that the status quo cannot be changed” (“Cynical”). And indeed, it must be conceded that The Wire is nothing if not wary of self-styled reformers. If, as Warren contends, those sociologists most intent on solving the problems of urban blight, poverty, and mass incarceration have done those for whom they claim to advocate a disservice in failing to cautiously consider the implications of their findings and proposals in light of power politics, then The Wire also seems to insist that it takes more than melodramatic action, technocratic management, or even simple good intentions to generate positive social outcomes. The Wire’s critique of the production of knowledge for instrumental purposes would then appear intimately bound up with its refusal to produce popular representations of unqualified utopianism, societal redemption, or righteous resistance. However, when paired with The Wire’s success in drawing its wrecked socio-cultural life-worlds so vividly into the dramatic foreground, such skepticism may have the curious, somewhat paradoxical effect of concealing the tangled mix of contingent and therefore alterable policy choices, quotidian practices, and cultural narratives which (serially) reproduce that wreckage in the first place. This leaves ample room for already influential narratives to take precedence, including destructive pseudo-sociological accounts which already hold undue purchase in the popular consciousness. Whether such accounts attribute urban decay and mass incarceration to the fallout of autopoietic cultures of poverty or the corruption of political elites, they nevertheless have the effect of rendering social injustice as resulting primarily from the failures of individuals. Equally problematic, however, are those narratives which instead emphasize impersonal structures, chocking mass incarceration up to the sheer inertia of entrenched institutions more concerned with their own self-preservation than with the pursuit of societal betterment. Indeed, it seems that wherever one lands on the structure-agency divide, corruption and crime ultimately appear as the logical outcome of self-interested actions, allowing capitalism itself to pose as nothing less than human nature. In other words, sociopolitical outcomes may appear as fate when we fail to recognize sociological explanations not as authoritative scientific facts but rather as influential cultural narratives.

IF IT’S NOT T V, IS IT SOCIOLOGY? THE WIRE

161

Thus, Dreier and Atlas may have a point, although not simply because The Wire is pessimistic. Remediating sociological diagnoses as televisual critique, yet deeply skeptical of utopian interventions, The Wire can only capture social reality as a kind of serial realism; it (re)produces authoritative, noir-naturalistic accounts of a decidedly corrupt social reality, yet its investments therein depend upon the performance of its own impotence to remedy the various ills plaguing that reality. Trouble therefore may indeed arise when we valorize sociological narratives by doing them, to echo Warren, “the courtesy of taking them seriously.” For many, The Wire appears to vividly dramatize how power dynamics, social structures, and entrenched cultural habits produce character developments and narrative outcomes; yet this in turn conceals how such procedures of power are also storytelling strategies in their own right. When narratives go unrecognized as such and are allowed to masquerade as unqualif ied and impossibly accurate renderings of an external social reality, viewers may in turn feel licensed to read The Wire’s realism all too literally: that is, to treat its aspirations as achievements. The same is true for sociological narratives when their provisional explanations, however credible, are promoted as settled knowledge and thereby attain an otherwise unwarranted degree of power.64 Because it grounds its own aspirations and “quality” claims upon the avowed realism of such narratives, The Wire cannot explicitly name them as such. Unable to dissolve such cultural contradictions in large part due to its own constitutive reliance on them, The Wire instead falls back upon strategies of self-promotion by urging us to “Listen Carefully” to it. Skeptical of drastic social action and utopian schemes perhaps because it is so keenly anxious about its own formidable influence, it can only incessantly instruct us to pay (it) more attention.

Conclusion The Wire’s tendencies to present its critique of the institution dysfunctions of the post-industrial city and its role in (re)producing the crisis of mass incarceration vis-à-vis its ostensibly superior “knowledge” of urban sociology allows us to connect the series to the cultural history of sociological 64 Indeed, insofar as knowledge of social reality is made most readily accessible in the form of sociological descriptions thereof, the discipline’s own reiterative practices and discursive conventions for making that reality known may also be correctly, if somewhat inadequately, described as a kind of serial realism.

162 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

representation from which it draws and to which it contributes. The Wire both evoked and attempted to transcend the generic formula of the police procedural by locating itself within a cultural lineage of sociological representation which is itself entangled with traditions of American literary naturalism, realism, and journalism. In doing so, it differentiated itself while shoring up HBO’s reputation as a go-to place for unconventional storytelling and hardboiled “quality” realism. By remediating sociology as serial TV drama, The Wire not only flatters its viewers into thinking of themselves as armchair sociologists, but also presents the cultural critic with an opportunity to think about sociology not just as a domain of academic knowledge production, but as a key cultural activity through which social reality is (re)produced. Its only partially disavowed identity as “quality” serial television also allows The Wire to critique practices of observation embedded within sociology as distant, indifferent, or perhaps even condescending to the populations it takes as its objects. However, even as The Wire attempts to remediate sociology’s aesthetics and narrative conventions in a more evocative, immersive, and emotionally committed medium, it also reproduces many of the cultural contradictions upon which the social sciences rely; like sociology, The Wire is highly committed to ideologies of visibility and practices of observation which have just as often been used to denigrate and disrupt as illuminate and empower the lives of the populations it claims to represent. Indebted to forms of knowledge which are frequently denied to the racialized, lower-class populations it seeks to represent and embedded within many of the self-same capitalistic commercial structures it aims to critique, The Wire cannot transcend its own cultural history any more than it can wish away its media identity. This culminates in the series’ tendencies to dredge the depths of the deeply perverse institutional assemblage which deterministically reproduces the social conditions upon which racialized mass incarceration relies even as it largely relegates the prison to a sidenote or the background; instead, The Wire renders nearly all aspects of not only urban America, but indeed the entire neoliberal global order in which it is embedded as an almost irredeemably carceral web from which it, too, seems unable to escape. Sources Cited Abrams. M. H. “Naturalism.” A Glossary of Literary Terms. 6th edition. New York: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1993. Agee, James and Walker Evans. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Mariner Books, 2001. Alvarez, Rafael. The Wire: Truth Be Told. Pocket Books, 2004.

IF IT’S NOT T V, IS IT SOCIOLOGY? THE WIRE

163

Atlas, John and Peter Dreier. “A Dystopian Fable about America’s Urban Poor.” The Wire and America’s Dark Corners: Critical Essays. Ed. Arin Keeble and Ivan Stacy. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2015. p. 192–207. Atlas, John and Peter Dreier. “Is The Wire Too Cynical?” Dissent, 25 March 2008. Web. Accessed 5 May 2021. https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/ is-the-wire-too-cynical Atlas, John and Peter Dreier. “Response.” Dissent, vol. 55, No. 3: Summer 2008, p. 86–88. Beer, David and Roger Burrows. “The Sociological Imagination as Popular Culture.” New Social Connections. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. p. 233–252. Boltanski, Luc. Mysteries and Conspiracies. Cambridge: Polity, 2014. Bourdieu, Pierre and Loïc J. D. Wacquant. An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago: The University of Chicago, 1992. Bowden, Mark “The Angriest Man in Television.” The Atlantic. Jan/Feb, 2008. Web. Accessed 30 Aug. 2018. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/01/ the-angriest-man-in-television/306581/ Bramal, Rebecca and Ben Pitcher. “Policing the Crises, or, Why We Love The Wire.” International Journal of Cultural Studies. 13 April 2012. Accessed 24 June 2018. http://ics.sagepub.com /content/early/2012/04/11/1367877912441441.full.pdf Brooks, Ryan. “The Narrative Production of ‘Real Police.’” The Wire: Urban Decay and American Television. ed. Tiffany Potter and C.W. Marshall. Continuum, 2009. Browne, Simone. Dark Matters. Durham: Duke University Press, 2015. Caroili, Carly. “The Wire’s David Simon at Harvard.” The Pholg. 8 April 2008. Web. Accessed 24 June 2016. thephoenix.com/BLOGS/phlog/archive/2008/04/08/ video-the-wire-s-david-simon- at-harvard.aspx Clifford, James. The Predicament of Culture. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988. Chaddha, Anmol and William Julius Wilson. “The Wire’s Impact: A Rejoinder.” Critical Inquiry, vol 38, No 1, Autumn 2011. p. 227–233. Chaddha, Anmol and William Julius Wilson. “‘Way Down in the Hole’: Systematic Urban Inequality and The Wire.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 38, No. 1, Autumn 2011. p. 164–188. Chaddha, Anmol, William Julius Wilson and Sudhir A. Vankatesh. “In Defense of the Wire.” Dissent, vol. 55, no. 3: Summer 2008. p. 83–86. Chappelle, Joe and Nick Griffin. “Inside HBO’s The Wire.” Creative COW. 2001. Web. Accessed 21 Aug. 2018. https://library.creativecow.net/articles/griffin_nick/ hbo_the_wire.php Comaroff, Jean and John Comaroff. The Truth about Crime. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. Corkin, Stanley. Connecting the Wire. Austen: University of Texas Press, 2017.

164 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

The Corner. David Simon and David Mills, crs. HBO, 2000. Flamand, Lee A. The New American Naturalism in the Age of Mass Incarceration. MA Thesis, Freie Universität Berlin, 2013. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality: Volume 1. New York: Vintage Books, 1990. Homicide: Life on the Streets. Attanasio, Paul, cr. Baltimore Pictures, 1993–1999. Hornby, Nick and David Simon. “Interview.” The Believer. Aug. 2007. Web. Accessed 24 June 2013: http://www.believermag.com/issues/200708/?read=interview_simon Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Vintage Books, 1992. Jameson, Fredric. “Realism and Utopia in The Wire.” Criticism, vol. 52, no. 3–4, 2010, p. 359–372. Keeble, Arin and Ivan Stacy. “Preface.” The Wire and America’s Dark Corners: Critical Essays. Ed. Arin Keeble and Ivan Stacy. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2015. p. 1–2. Kelleter, Frank. “Five Ways of Looking at Popular Seriality.” Media of Serial Narrative. Ed. Frank Kelleter. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2017. Kelleter, Frank. Serial Agencies: The Wire and Its Readers. Winchester: Zero Books, 2014. Latour, Bruno. Reassembling the Social. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Lavik, Erlend. “Forward to the Past: The Strange Case of The Wire.” Relocating Television. Ed. Jostein Gripsrud. London: Routledge, 2020. Lavik, Erlend. “Style in The Wire.” Vimeo. Video Essay. 4 April 2012. Web. Accessed 21 Aug. 2018. https://vimeo.com/39768998 Leclair-Paquet, Benjamin. “The Wire as Speculative Research.” Theory, vol. 8, no. 2, 2014, p. 135–144. Lepenies, Wolf. Between Literature and Science: The Rise of Sociology. Tr. R.J. Hollingdale. Cambridge, 1992. Levitas, Ruth. Utopia as Method. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Marcus, George E. Ethnography through Thick & Thin. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998. Miller, D.A. The Novel and the Police. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988. Mills, C. Wright. The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press, 1959. Mitchell, Lee Clark. Determined Fictions: American Literary Naturalism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989. O’Rourke, Meghan and David Simon. Interview: “Behind the Wire.” Slate.com. 1 Dec 2006. Web. Accessed 24 June 2013. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/interrogation/2006/12/behind_the_wire.single.html Parker, Simon. “From Soft Eyes to Street Lives: The Wire and Jargons of Authenticity.” CITY, vol. 14, no. 5: Oct. 2010. p. 545–557.

IF IT’S NOT T V, IS IT SOCIOLOGY? THE WIRE

165

Richards, Stephen C. and Richard S. Jones. “Perpetual Incarceration Machine.” Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, vol. 13, no. 1, 1997, p. 4–19. Salerno, Roger A. Sociology Noir. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2007. Simon, David. Homicide. New York: Picador, 2006. Simon, David. The Wire: A Dramatic Series for HBO (Bible). Proposal. Web. Accessed 21 Aug. 2018. http://kottke.org.s3.amazonaws.com/the-wire/The_Wire_-_Bible. pdf Simon, David and Edward Burns. The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood. New York: Broadway Books, 1997. Simon, David and Nick Hornby. “An Interview with David Simon.” The Believer. 1 Aug. 2007. Web. Accessed 21 Aug. 2018. https://believermag.com/ an-interview-with-david-simon/ Smith, Anthony. Storytelling Industries. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. Vaage, Margrethe Bruun. “From The Corner to The Wire: On Nonficition, Fiction, and Truth.” Journal of Literary Theory, vol. 11, no. 2, 2017, p. 255–271. Vint, Sherryl. The Wire. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2013. Wacquant, Loïc. “Deadly Symbiosis: When Ghetto and Prison Meet and Mesh.” Punishment and Society, vol. 3, no. 1, 2001, p. 95–134. Warren, Kenneth W. “Sociology and The Wire.” Critical Inquiry. The University of Chicago Press, vol. 38, No. 1, Autumn 2011. p. 200–207. Weisberg, Jacob. “The Wire on Fire.” Slate. 13 Sept. 2006. Web. Accessed 1 Dec. 2019. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2006/09/the-wire-the-best-tv-show-everbroadcast-on-american-television.html Williams, Linda. On The Wire. Durham: Duke University Press, 2014. Winant, Howard. “Race, Ethnicity, and Social Science.” Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 38, no. 13, 2015, p. 2176–2185. The Wire. David Simon, cr. HBO, 2002–2008. Zola, Émile. The Experimental Novel. Trans. Belle M. Sherman. New York: Haskell House, 964.

4. Is Entertainment the New Activism? Orange Is the New Black, Women’s Imprisonment, and the Taste for Prisons Abstract Orange Is the New Black’s showrunner Jenji Kohan has indicated that she aspires towards activism through the vehicle of entertainment. And indeed, her series centers the intersectional vulnerabilities of women prisoners, providing a much-needed cultural resource for formerly incarcerated and at-risk women. However, it also generates the unfortunate tendency to commodify their experiences. This is further complicated by Netflix’s commercial practices, which tend to repackage identity positions and political commitments as taste preferences and entertainment experiences. Paired with Netf lix’s global ambitions and its continuing investment in the acquisition and production of prison shows, Orange Is the New Black may therefore be working at cross-purposes with its own aspirations by cultivating an increasingly transnational taste for prisons. Keywords: Orange Is the New Black, women’s imprisonment, intersectionality, queer and trans celebrity activism, Netflix streaming and recommendation, online TV fan cultures

We’re Not in OZ Anymore As the title of Salamishah Tillet’s review of Orange Is the New Black1 puts it: “It’s so not OZ.” OZ first aired in 1997, around the time that premium cable channels like HBO were first exploring the potential of producing their own 1

Hereafter also referred to as simply “Orange” or “OITNB.”

Flamand, Lee A., American Mass Incarceration and Post-Network Quality Television: Captivating Aspirations. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2022 doi 10.5117/9789463725057_ch04

168 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

scripted original dramas. Much about TV had changed by the time Orange premiered as part of Netflix’s own expedition into original programming over a decade later. Unlike OZ or The Wire, which helped to midwife the so-called “New Golden Age” of television, Orange represents one of its more recent and popular exemplars, emerging at a time when streaming upstarts such as Netflix were first becoming heavyweight contenders for market share in TV viewing. Orange also belongs to a recognizably different historical moment than series like OZ or The Wire. Due in large part to a flurry of works published by academics and activists, including Michelle Alexander’s best-selling The New Jim Crow, mass incarceration has become an increasingly urgent topic of public conversation and concern. Even so, Orange remains one of only a few scripted TV dramas which have intimately explored prison life in the contemporary moment of American mass incarceration. Even more remarkably, it chose to focus on women prisoners rather than men. Although men are still many times more likely to find themselves imprisoned over the course of their lifetimes, the incarceration rate of women has also risen drastically in the wake of the War on Drugs, the dismantling of the social welfare state, and the punitive turn in American criminal justice. Whereas OZ is in many ways a product of the punitive turn and the political fearmongering of the late 1990s – a period of moral panic which gave us the so-called “super-predator” scare – Orange draws from, responds to, and helps to inform a noticeably different world, one in which the media landscape is much more fractured and in which images of the bloodthirsty, animalistic criminals associated with what I have called punitive realism have begun to feel dated and largely misleading, especially in the wake of the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement. Generic differences between these shows are not only pronounced but also gendered in important ways. Orange employs heavy doses of situational comedy; compare this to OZ’s tense, nonstop flow of hyper-violent spectacle predicated on a hyper-masculine sense of hardboiled sur/realism. If OZ modelled itself on hyper-masculine precursors such as Jack Abbot’s cynical and paranoid In the Belly of the Beast (1981) or the revolutionary rage of Eldridge Cleaver’s Soul on Ice (1968) to construct its dark prison imaginary, Orange has Piper Kerman’s decidedly less intense 2010 memoir as a direct precursor and namesake. Whereas OZ panders in gruesome images and prison discourses which were highly salient in the wake of the punitive turn and at the height of the America’s prison boom, Orange stages such spectacles within the context of recent social justice discourses. As a series whose showrunner notoriously expressed little interest in monitoring the

Is Entertainment the New Ac tivism?

169

series’ receptions terribly closely, OZ walled itself off from a potential world of inspiration. This is especially problematic since a setting so spatially and discursively confined as that of the prison may inevitably generate an unstable degree of narrative density. Deprived of the rejuvenating input which comes from close attentiveness to feedback channels and unable to simply layer on social environments in order to inject a refreshing shift in emphasis every season as The Wire did, OZ succumbed to the pressure generated by the proliferating narrative sprawl stuffed inside its cramped imaginary story world by constructing evermore absurd plots and bizarre characters who, nevertheless, increasingly failed to resonate as other aspects of the series’ own recycled conventions became trite. Orange on the other hand implicitly responds to its audience’s feedback through the narrative development of each successive season even as it alters thematic focus by ratcheting up the severity of conditions in its prison (going from minimum security to privately operated and finally to maximum security and life under parole over the course of its run). This is somewhat reminiscent of both OZ’s attempts to serially outbid itself in terms of bizarre sex and violence as well as The Wire’s addition of an institutional layer with each new season. Orange thus seems to not only stay relevant by monitoring the controversies it often self-consciously provokes, but also lends continuity to televisual strategies across series by adapting those of its predecessors (as well as certain ideologies of televisual “realism” in which they are invested) in order to both expand its narrative opportunities and establish itself as inheritor of a particular lineage of “quality” television. Thus, while Orange deploys a different combination of generic elements and stylistic choices than its more hard-boiled forerunners, it nevertheless grounds televisual “quality” claims about social justice discourses in notions of superior visibility which it no doubt inherits from series such as The Wire. Series creator and showrunner Jenji Kohan positions Orange within this tradition when she frames Orange as a way of making social justice issues and mass incarceration more visible through the vehicle of popular storytelling: “Our prison-industrial complex is out of control… It’s an embarrassment… It’s something that needs to get talked about, and I’d love to start that conversation. But I can’t be didactic about it. I’m here to entertain. This is my activism” (Kohan in McClelland). However, many critics have found statements like this problematic. Alexis Paige, for example, complains that both the book and the series are simply too light-hearted: “critics called it fresh, pulpy, and political but with a light touch, because god forbid you are political with any heft” (143) and charges that “the show and the book choose narrative largely at the expense of

170 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

social commentary” (146).2 Even so, part of Orange’s commercial success has been precisely based upon its ability to deploy social commentary and intriguing narrative together, as exhibited by the ways in which viewers, far from simply evaluating Orange in terms of TV aesthetics or entertainment, seem invested in the series because it occasions discussion of timely political and social issues. This facilitates what Maria Sulimma calls “think piece seriality”: the ways in which “the show actively offers textual openings for analysis, discussion, and exploration” (41). While many women and former prisoners have found a diverse array of important cultural resources in Orange, others have not been so warmly receptive, and many have voiced their concerns about the series in both online forums and traditional academic journals. This alone, I would argue, qualifies it as what Lotz calls “phenomenal television” for the way in which it “captures the zeitgeist of the moment” and “gains its attention from the way that it resonates with a cultural sentiment or a struggle percolating below the surface of mainstream discourse” and thereby gains what she calls “watercooler status… a certain degree of importance [attained by a TV series] due to [its] ability to break through the cluttered media space” (Revolutionized 40). Such a status reinforces perceptions that if one wants to stay abreast of what’s happening in the culture, one simply must have a Netflix subscription. A streaming service subscription, in this sense, appears not only as a fee, but also as a running investment yielding up high dividends in the form of cultural capital. Kimberlé Crenshaw has argued that the “discursive focus on men and boys” in discussions about mass incarceration “leads to research and intervention that generate increasing knowledge and public awareness about their vulnerability; yet this frame often excludes research on women and girls” (1434). Simply by constructing complicated narratives about incarcerated women, Orange helps to expand discourse about mass incarceration to include them. Of course, it does so not without substantial complication, and Orange’s media identity as commercial entertainment culture is often the source of much anxiety. Such anxieties are productive insofar as they generate much needed discourse about women’s experiences which extend beyond Orange’s story world. However, insofar as contemporary television 2 Paige attempts to legitimate her harsh critique by strategically confessing her own experience in “one of the largest and most fearsome county jail systems in the country” (144), but nevertheless feels the need to admit that she is also writing a memoir and “acknowledge that some of my criticism grows out of my hopes for and anxieties about my own book” (149). While Paige receives her due for sharing her own experiences, she ultimately comes off as a less successful competitor rather than a fair or charitable reviewer.

Is Entertainment the New Ac tivism?

171

remains among “the discursive spaces most vulnerable to neoliberal occupation” (Crenshaw 1452), one should not simply celebrate the production of such discourse, but rather consider the role it plays in the (re)production of television’s own commercial prerogatives. Although Orange’s aspirations towards “activism” may largely allow it to avoid perpetuating simplistic narrative structures which “deemphasize structural and historical cause and elevate individualistic causality” (Crenshaw 1452), Orange nevertheless declines to situate its audiences as purely democratic participants in the production of its own story world; instead it opportunistically provokes controversy in large part to generate and cash in on “quality” claims to social relevance, utilizing the discourse generated in its receptions as both a source of narrative replenishment and as a buzz marketing engine. Analysis of discussions surrounding Orange’s cultural politics thus not only affords the opportunity to “[think] more critically about the intersectional failures of feminism and antiracism” (Crenshaw 1450), but to understand how such failures extend into the sphere of popular culture. In this regard, contemporary commercial practices such as Netflix’s deployment of a “conglomerated niche strategy” (Lotz, Portals) which provides a wide range of content in order to service a diverse range audience segments, surveil and measure their consumption behaviors, and constantly reclassify them vis-à-vis machine learning into statistical clusters before serving them a new menu of algorithmically curated content choices become increasingly important. Netflix is a notoriously data-driven company, and while content production decisions are not made by bloodless data analysis alone, Netflix does try to measure viewer behaviors and generate or license content which will reach across traditional demographic targets and appeal to several different – and increasingly transnational – “taste” groups at once. By attempting to leverage audience viewing data to appeal not to singular demographics-based segments but to a conglomeration of niche “taste-based” ones, Netflix programming is able to generate hits like Orange which draw a wider diversity of viewers to a single show. However, while Netflix’s data-gathering and analysis has the apparent virtue of de-coupling (often dubious) assumptions about taste from static demographic markers, it also has the effect (especially in the case of Orange) of problematically leveraging intersectionality discourses for primarily commercial purposes. Thus, the fact that Orange appeals to a wider variety of identities should not be viewed as a happy accident; it is most assuredly part of a business calculation which got the series commissioned and renewed in the first place. Orange thus occasions the opportunity to re-think the ways in which we theorize TV’s (sub)cultural forum(s) in the post-broadcast age, not the

172 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

least of which is a consideration of how commercial practices which produce such forums may function by decomposing and re-assembling diverse audiences across multiple overlapping “taste” segments. While avoiding simplistic stereotypes linking presumed tastes to pre-defined demographic segmentations, such strategies are also far from properly intersectional.

Scripting Prison Practices Although women’s imprisonment has been increasing at a rate nearly twice that of men since 1985 (ACLU, “Facts”), gendered associations often function to obscure the specific problems which adhere more frequently with regards to women’s than men’s prisons. Thus, the ways in which punitive state policies intersect with patriarchy and racism to disadvantage and punish women and people of color is also often obscured. Additionally, as Kimberlé Crenshaw has argued, activists’ and academics’ discursive focus on Black men largely erased the impact of mass incarceration on women to a great degree for many decades. Indeed, she argues that Black women are often scapegoated for the criminality of Black men while their own predicament is routinely and systematically ignored: Black women remain subject to the twin dimensions of hypervisibility and substantive erasure: they are present in the stereotypical images of Black families at risk, and they are virtually absent as a focal point of the millions of dollars strategically distributed by foundations and local governments under the promise of rescuing Black boys and saving Black families. (Crenshaw 1463)

The “largely marginalized positions that women of color occupy” has had the historical effect of reproducing their “material presence and substantive absence” (Crenshaw 1428). Gender helps to structure the prison system; it also structures the narratives and cultural assumptions which connect to and legitimize that system. The rising rate of women’s imprisonment is perhaps doubly obfuscated not only by the historical failures of scholars and activists to draw attention to the plight of female prisoners, but perhaps even more fundamentally rooted in generic storytelling tendencies which associate women with domestic spaces and men with the more dynamic, and frequently dangerous, spheres of public action. By commonly associating criminality with masculinity, hardboiled American storytelling conventions function to more frequently

Is Entertainment the New Ac tivism?

173

associate prisons with men. The conventions of popular storytelling genres and modes have facilitated the historical hypervisibility of men’s incarceration; in doing so, however, they have also more frequently rendered women as the sentimental victims of deviant male criminals than as the primary targets of criminal justice institutions. Such conventionalized associations have no doubt played a role in drawing attention away from the troubles and vulnerabilities experienced by incarcerated and at-risk women. Gendered attitudes and assumptions inform not only representations of imprisonment and vulnerability but the logics of penal regimes, practices, and policies as well. American history is rife with gendered disparities and differences when it comes to dealing with women’s criminality. While masculine criminality is too often assumed to be a product of men’s ‘natural’ dispositions (not so much the outcome of any psychological aberration but rather their essentialized physiobiological constitution), feminine criminality has often been construed as running against the grain of women’s supposedly ‘natural’ domestic dispositions and roles; in other words, against the ‘nature’ of femininity itself. Thus, women convicts have and continue to be construed as psychologically ill and are therefore more frequently subjected to forms of (grossly substandard) psychological or psychiatric “correctional” treatments, reflected in the higher distribution of psychiatric drugs amongst women when compared to men (Davis 66). Although historically more pronounced and explicit, assumptions of psychological abnormality continue to go hand-in-hand with presumptions of (often racialized) hyper-sexualization, leaving women vulnerable to sexual exploitation, abuse, and even exposure to officially sanctioned forms of psychiatric malpractice. Insofar as gendered assumptions have changed in recent years, they have not always changed to the benefit of women prisoners. Perverse notions of “gender equality” are often used to justify increasing the level of repression in women’s institutions rather than de-escalating it in men’s prisons. This is largely based on the notion that men’s prisons should be considered the ‘punishment norm’ against which women’s prisons are compared (Davis 75–76). More punitive control does not render prisoners, male or female, more docile, but rather further dehumanizes them. As a result, they become more desperate, more tribal, and more violent. Orange tackles this kind of trend in its fourth season, when prison privatization, overcrowding, and the repressive, sadistic regime fostered by the new head guard Desi Piscatella generate more intense and violent conflicts between Litchfield’s women prisoners (not to mention higher levels of predation, abuse, and incompetence by prison staff), culminate in a series of gruesome episodes depicting torture, death, and a prison riot. The implication is that male prisons are not more violent

174 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

simply because they house men, but because those men are presupposed to be, and thus are treated as, a more dangerous class of violent predators. The gendered assumptions which yield differential treatment become self-fulfilling; repressive penal regimes generate reactionary violence, just as over-zealous or careless psychiatric maltreatment may generate mental illness, or assumptions of hyper-sexualization result in endemic leniency towards sexual harassment or abuse. Power differentials – not to mention the codes of solidarity which exist amongst prison guards – leave inmates at a permanent, precarious, and treacherous disadvantage. As Kerman notes, It is hard to conceive of any relationship between two adults in America being less equal than that of prisoner and prison guard. The formal relationship, enforced by the institution, is that one person’s word means everything and the other’s means almost nothing; one person can command the other to do just about anything, and refusal can result in total physical restraint. (129)

Behind prison walls, the right to speak up to the agents of the state “evaporates, and it’s terrifying. And pretty unsurprising when the extreme inequality of the daily relationship between prisoners and their jailers leads very naturally into abuses of many flavors, from small humiliations to hideous crimes” (Kerman 130).

Foregrounding Backstories through the Penological Carousel Referring to the meaningful symbolisms which mediate popular notions of criminal justice, cultural criminologist Philip Smith argues that “punishment is not just about power, control, and reason… It is also about the sacred, about purity and pollution, about evil, and about ritual” (33). Orange tackles these self-same codes head-on in the opening scenes of its pilot episode through a series of flashbacks. With the song “I’ll Take You There” playing in the background, we are introduced to the series’ initial protagonist, Piper Chapman, as she reveals to us her fondness for bathing: “I’ve always loved getting clean. I loved baths; I love showers. It’s my happy place.” This voice over is interspersed with scenes of Piper growing up in bathtubs, until she is a young woman bathing with partners who will later become major characters in the unfolding drama. Finally, as the opening scenes reach the story-world’s present, she revises herself: “Was my happy place.” We hear the jarring sound of a horn and the scene flashes to Piper in a prison

Is Entertainment the New Ac tivism?

175

shower, being pressured by an African American inmate to finish up. The sense of violated privacy is magnified when the inmate, later revealed as a major character herself, Tasha “Taystee” Jefferson, teases Piper about her “TV titties” (a clever jab at anyone who mistakenly expected not to see realistic female bodies like Taystee’s on screen) and her make-shift shower shoes. Piper, visibly embarrassed, exits the scene as Taystee takes her place under the shower and resumes singing “I’ll Take You There” herself.3 In many ways, the scene foreshadows the series’ serial development as other minority characters, and Taystee in particular, to re-focalize away from Piper’s central place in the narrative by turning its attention to the backstory of a different supporting character in each pursuant episode. In this opening scene, rituals of cleansing and purity are juxtaposed with the prison shower, marked as a place of pollution by mildewed walls and dingy, disintegrating shower curtains. The images and slow, soothing tone of “I’ll Take You There” – a soul song invoking an ideal, heavenly place free of racism – are further complicated by the somewhat humorous, but also uncomfortable, standoff between slim, lily-white Piper and full-bodied, Black Taystee. Here, the show infuses religiously inflected codes of moral purity and pollution with distinctly American codes of racial inequality and difference, invoking a set of meanings which are recognizable to audience members and placing them in juxtaposition. Likewise, by setting the flowing, clean, intimate bathing scenes of the flashbacks up against the grimy, communal showers of the prison in present-tense story-time, Orange immediately familiarizes viewers with one of the show’s major storytelling devices. By juxtaposing flashback sequences and present-tense story time in each episode, the series emphasizes the backstories of its diverse cast of characters, thereby challenging audiences to rethink received notions about crime and self-responsibility through an emphasis on the contexts which land its characters behind bars. Jane Caputi reads this scene somewhat differently. She emphasizes not the narrative work performed by these opening scenes, but the way in which, in her reading, these images problematically reinforce conventional codes of racial difference so that “whiteness is associated with innocence” whereas African Americans are marked as “dirty, sick and sinful” (1135). Disagreeing with commentators who argue that such moments add up to “a successful deconstruction of white privilege,” she asserts that “white, class privilege is continually, if subtly, reinforced” (1136). Although she is certainly right, her assertion that the series therefore merely “continues many of the 3

“I Wasn’t Ready.” Season 1, Episode 1: 00:01–02:00.

176 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

stereotypes and canards on which the prison industrial complex rests” (1148), while accurate, has the unfortunate side-effect of hypostatizing this scene as a self-enclosed, finished text and ignoring the processes of seriality it initiates. Caputi is not alone in her damning assessment of Orange’s problematic politics of representation. Christina Belcher, for example, proclaims that Orange works by “denying that the standard operations of incarceration brutalize differently according to an inmates’ race,” a conclusion which she draws from her interpretation of Orange’s casting policy, which eschews blind casting by “calling particularly upon actors of color to fill the roles” that the show requires and thus “making explicit a diversity of representations that retain their difference” (494). Caputi also asserts that Piper’s insistence on her own colorblindness and her claims to being “no different than anybody else in here” (491) reinforce neoliberal notions of individual responsibility – as she puts it “a false promise of a future wherein… ‘being in prison is nobody’s fault but [one’s] own’” (500). Such reading practices tend to clip individual scenes out of the show’s longer serial narrative, treating them as stand-alone statements rather than as moments in a constantly evolving story which functions, largely, to dispel with Piper’s false sense of sameness while still at least ostensibly trying to carve out potential moments of solidarity between women. Something similar occurs when Belcher positions characters not as narrative features, but rather as theoretical interlocutors. For example, when one character, Cindy, articulates a belief in the free market, Belcher does not ask what this means in the context of the larger serial narrative, but rather takes the character to task directly: “Cindy is wrong. The market is not free for illegitimate trade if the trader is not white” (496). Cindy is, to Belcher, “merely a deposit, not a capitalist player” (496) who fails to understand her own role as a mere pawn. However, this is precisely the point the series seems to self-consciously declare through the vehicle of its own unfolding narrative. Interestingly, the series and its spokespersons often defend the narrative decision to center Piper in ways which are intimately entangled with anxieties about procuring Orange’s own initial commission and serial survival. As Jenji Kohan argues, In a lot of ways Piper was my Trojan Horse. You’re not going to go into a network and sell a show on really fascinating tales of black women, and Latina women, and old women and criminals. But if you take this white girl, this sort of fish out of water, and you follow her in, you can then expand your world and tell all of those other stories. (Gross and Kohan)

Is Entertainment the New Ac tivism?

177

While perhaps attempting to earnestly own up to the shortcomings of the contemporary television industry, such self-descriptions also call attention to the complications and contradictions inherent in Orange’s own ambitions to use commercial popular entertainment as a tool for activism. The passage attempts to distance the series from its own milieu by implicitly gesturing towards a larger indictment of contemporary television industry norms; it celebrates its own aspirations to break with industry norms even as it bemoans its reliance upon them. One might reasonably read this as a kind of evasion. Academic critics continue to find fault in the series’ original sin of initiating its narrative through the focalization of Piper’s white, middle-class, yuppie perspective. Aside from hypostatizing select scenes at the expense of attending to the unfolding of long-form serial narrative, readings which center their critique on the centrality of Piper’s focalization are no doubt correct to call out the ways in which this narrative strategy is problematic. However, by centering their critique around the figure of Piper, they curiously reproduce the self-same problematic focalization they denounce. Interestingly, this has the tendency to repeat an effect the series itself produces, as it tends to de-center Piper’s central position to some degree by serially rotating its focalization in each episode to the women who surround Piper to juxtapose their own positions of relative vulnerability; yet, since Piper remains at the core of the narrative, the series perpetually and serially reproduces her white, upper-middle class subject position as a normative center. In other words, the show serially pivots around Piper as a kind of “default” subject position in a way which celebrates a particular kind of “diversity” discourse but which at the same time gestures towards its own inability to transcend assumptions which normalizes whiteness as the default marker of social, racial, and class privilege. Orange thus generates its own unique brand of what Maria Sulimma, in her adept analysis of HBO’s Girls, calls “carousel gendering” (61) as it pivots attention in each episode from Piper to a rotating cast of other characters. As each individual episode of Orange more intimately familiarizes viewers with particular secondary characters largely through an episodic emphasis on their backstories, the series as a whole revolves around the central pivot point of Piper even as it introduces viewers to a quite diverse, ensemble cast of other kinds of women trying to negotiate both their own histories, identities, and roles within the larger prison community. As Sulimma notes, the carousel also allows for a concrete analysis of the ways characters circle around understandings of themselves and their gendered identities,

178 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

understandings which frequently manifest in cultural types and tropes as easily comprehensible popular cultural references. However, instead of merely referencing, serial narration allows for an exploration of these tropes of femininity and masculinity as self-constituting, integral parts of characters’ ongoing gender performances… the carousel here reveals the deep layers of the characters’ gendered identities, which turn around these insufficient types. (61–62)

Remarkably, this carousel structure combines with the cultural affordances of the prison in strange ways. In particular, the convention of carouselling its focalization through the other women surrounding Piper creates a curious panoptic effect, with the viewer situated in the center and the series’ narration presenting different “cases studies” for their examination. This panoptic effect really comes to the fore through Orange’s signature feature: the foregrounding of backstories. Characters do not only rotate around a set of “insufficient types,” but their troubled backstories are episodically singled out for the edification of viewers. These flashbacks thus furnish each character with something akin to a narrative case file or patient history. The juxtaposition of present-tense narrative action with an episode-byepisode foregrounding of secondary characters’ backstories allows Orange to construct itself as something of a penological carousel. Moreover, by placing individual characters under the microscope of their backstories, Orange position is viewers as armchair penologists in much the same way as The Wire positions viewers as amateur sociologists. Backstories in Orange usually construct melodramatic frames which draw attention to the ways in which prisoners are themselves victims of circumstance in a racist, patriarchal world, driven to crime as a last resort in a society which affords them few alternatives. While the series does portray some characters as willful lawbreakers or, in some cases, sociopathic villains, Orange almost never allows audiences to get the sense that its characters are defined exclusively by their crimes, which backstories work hard to contextualize and complicate. Instead, crimes are often portrayed as the outcomes of the vulnerable social positions these women occupy. As Poussey, a character I will return to later, puts it in an early episode, “there’s bitches up in here doing fifteen years for letting their boyfriends do deals in the kitchen because they was afraid of getting beat if they say no.”4 Such statements are confirmed by scholars such as Kimberlé Crenshaw, who point to cases in which the domestic abuse suffered by women at the hands 4

“Fool Me Once.” Season 1, Episode 12: 46:50.

Is Entertainment the New Ac tivism?

179

of their criminally engaged partners did little to shield or mitigate their culpability under conspiracy statutes, exemplifying the ways in which state policies used for fighting the War on Drugs can adversely interface with the domestic abuse faced by women and the historic marginalization of people of color to compound their level of vulnerability (1440). Orange operationalizes the convergences of such intersectional vulnerabilities through the vehicle of dramatic narrative, thus drawing attention to the interlocking mechanisms within which women are often entrapped. In the process, it transforms what are otherwise complex socio-legal arguments into easily digestible narrative patterns. For example, Taystee’s backstory – one which is frequently revisited and expanded as she assumes ever-greater centrality in the narrative – illuminates the structures through which juvenile foster homes may become pipelines into the prison system. Having grown up in the foster care system as a young girl, Taystee’s emotional and structural vulnerability makes her easy prey to Vee, a manipulative and ruthless drug dealer, in part because her status as a ward of the foster care system makes it difficult for her to find and maintain other kinds of meaningful relationships and long-term support systems.5 Her lack of reliable family ties means that she has trouble reintegrating back into society upon an initial release from prison, and she soon finds herself back behind bars.6 Other backstories play out social issues and injustices which highlight the ways in which the vulnerabilities inherent in intersections of class, gender, and race land women behind bars. For example, in Season 4 we learn that Lolly Whitehill, an inmate suffering from schizophrenia, may have been arrested simply for being homeless and panhandling in an increasingly gentrifying neighborhood.7 Her backstory gathers together and deploys many social issues which usually go unexamined in popular entertainment, such as the collateral consequences of gentrification, social and spatial dislocation, and insufficient support for the mentally ill and homeless. Likewise, Suzanne’s frequent manic episodes – one of which, it is revealed in a backstory, is responsible for landing her in prison8 – are contextualized to highlight the often insensitive and frequently inhumane ways in which the mentally ill are treated both inside and outside the prison walls, thus dramatizing both their social marginalization and the particular vulnerabilities they face in penal custody. 5 6 7 8

“Looks Blue, Tastes Red.” Season 2, Episode 2: 01:20–04:19. “Fool Me Once.” Season 1, Episode 12: 45:14–48:57. “It Sounded Nicer in My Head.” Season 4, Episode 7: 40:49–42:46. “People Persons.” Season 4, Episode 11: 47:45–50:03.

180 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

While these backstories may produce the problematic sense that Orange’s female inmates are only melodramatic “victims” of an unequal, unjust, patriarchal, and racist society who find themselves in transgression of the law almost against their own will, the women who populate Orange still retain a fair deal of agency. Lolly, for example, may suffer from severe and often debilitating schizophrenia, but this does not stop her from taking action to foil an assassin’s attempt on another inmate’s life.9 Likewise, while Suzanne suffers some of the worst humiliations, she also exhibits the highest levels of creativity and empathy, frequently using these gifts to bring the prison community together at times of crisis.10 Furthermore, while we may sympathize with these characters, and we may even condone some of their actions in spite of their illegality, we are also forced to recognize the hand they have in their own circumstances – this ambiguity works not by making them the sole agents responsible for their plight, but rather by pointing out how their relative degrees of agency are circumscribed, thus rendering melodramatic action without reducing characters to static, flat, passive caricatures of victimization. Orange again and again reiterates the precedent conditions of social injustice which generate the criminalized acts of its characters in the first place. This allows it to serially accumulate narratives which may be read as social critiques of the pathologizing discourses and neoliberal paradigms of individual responsibility utilized to justify mass incarceration. However, its tendency to supply flashback-driven backstories as explanatory or clinical case histories also risks flattering viewers by allowing them to imagine themselves as privileged social observers even as it recasts TV watching as a form of penological inquiry.

Celebrity and the Politics of Trans-Televisibility There is perhaps no cultural phenomenon more commonly associated with the notion of frivolous entertainment than celebrity. As Diane Negra points out, “Stardom is one of the most devalued forms of social knowledge, yet it is a form of knowledge that we all possess, often with a high degree of expertise” (8). Interest in celebrities and the public consumption of their 9 “Work That Body for Me.” Season 4, Episode 1: 01:30–02:20. 10 For example, in “Tongue Tied” (Season 3, Episode 7) and “Fear, and Other Smells” (Season 3, Episode 8) Suzanne writes a serialized erotic fantasy tale that becomes the talk of the prison. In “Litchfield’s Got Talent” (Season 5, Episode 4) she sets up a shrine to Poussey’s departed spirit and organizes a séance to help facilitate the grieving process.

Is Entertainment the New Ac tivism?

181

(semi-personal, publicly performed) lives – as opposed to a much more culturally distinguished and respectable interest in their creative work and performances – is oftentimes associated with juvenile fans, mass produced popular culture, and vapid tabloid gossip. Interest in celebrity, to pilfer a bit of prose from Henry Jenkins, comes with “lower class taste associations, which do not f it easily into the wine-and-cheese circuit” of academia (xiii). Even so, celebrities nevertheless represent major focal points of cultural discourse, and this discourse is itself revealing about social and cultural values. Richard Dyer argues that celebrities are “embodiments of the social categories in which people are placed and through which they have to make sense of their lives – categories of class, gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and so on” (18). This suggests that they are important sites for the cultural negotiation of identity itself, providing models and scripts for the various identity markers with which they are associated. As Negra puts it: “Discourses on celebrities are capable of carrying a range of signif icant forms of information in regard to what we think we know about the world. What we say about stars is often a displaced form of discourse about our culture at large, and the belief systems that structure it” (8). Much has been said about Laverne Cox, who has tackled issues faced specifically by transgender inmates both in-character and off-screen. Tricia Romano points out that “[f]or many Americans, [Cox’s] character, Sophia Burset… is the first transwoman they’ve ever met either in real life or on TV” (Romano and Cox). In 2014, Cox was featured on a TIME magazine cover declaring “The Transgender Tipping Point.” While the magazine had previously been targeted on social media for overlooking Cox in its annual list of the most influential 100 people, the article, which declared transgender rights the “next civil rights frontier,” proved an important milestone in bringing trans-issues into mainstream society (Steinmetz). Many analysts have credited these developments to a confluence of media factors, including trans-peoples’ use of Internet technologies to both connect with each other and to push for heightened visibility, often focused around charismatic celebrity figures such as Cox. In his preface to Heavenly Bodies, Richard Dyer notes the ways in which certain groups often appropriate the image of a celebrity to produce their own subculture “as a means of speaking to each other about themselves” (x). Cox has often leveraged her own celebrity to petition for awareness and intervene in critical debates surrounding questions of transgender visibility and intersectional vulnerability even as Orange capitalizes on her celebrity in order to legitimate its own serial aspirations as a kind of entertainment-cum-activism.

182 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

Cox’s growing celebrity not only helped propel transgender issues into a wider public consciousness, but also reignited certain debates within feminist circles about whether transgender women born as men can really understand the historical suffering of women. Such positions often seem to sneak gender essentialism in through the back door of a perceived homogeneity of experience regarding male privilege. Indeed, many such arguments rely on reductive, old-fashioned notions of what patriarchy is and how it operates, ignoring the fact that it functions not only to the detriment of those born and living as women but often men as well. Cox’s own response to these critiques is illuminating: I was a very feminine child though I was assigned male at birth. My gender was constantly policed. I was told I acted like a girl and was bullied and shamed for that. My femininity did not make me feel privileged… I would contend that I did not enjoy male privilege prior to my transition. Patriarchy and cissexism punished my femininity and gender nonconformity. The irony of my life is prior to transition I was called a girl and after I am often called a man. (Cox, qtd. in Kiefer)

Cox’s rebuttal draws attention to the ways in which men who fail to conform to hegemonic gender norms inevitably find themselves more frequently the target of violent attack and social exclusion, including higher rates of incarceration.11 Visibility and gender legibility are tied to aspects of bodily appearance based more upon involuntary social projections and pressures as well as self-presentations and elective bodily modification; visible ambiguities on both sides of the transition and gender divide yield social ostracism rather than basic binaries of privilege and vulnerability. Referring to this as a kind of cruel “irony,” Cox uses her own experiences to launch a queer deconstruction of conventionalized (and somewhat outdated) feminist typologies. Cox has been unabashed in addressing urgent issues in the transcommunity during interviews, and she often insists on moving discussions away from sensationalistic topics which position transgender people as deviant bodies and towards the structural vulnerabilities and risks they 11 Indeed, I would go further and venture the assertion that even the most aggressive alphamale suffers under patriarchy to some extent, even if only under the psychological pressure and emotional sense of crisis which inevitably builds up as men try to negotiate the conflicting signals and expectations required by the constant, unrelenting performance of frequently mutually exclusive modes of hegemonic, regressive, and “alternative” masculinities. Patriarchy oppresses women’s bodies, but it also ruins men’s souls.

Is Entertainment the New Ac tivism?

183

face in society more broadly. During an interview with Katie Couric and transgender model Carmen Carrera, Cox brazenly responded to Couric’s invasive questions about transition surgeries by shifting the frame towards the inequalities and vulnerabilities facing the transgender community more broadly: The preoccupation with transition and surgery objectifies trans people. And then we don’t get to really deal with the real lived experiences. The reality of trans people’s lives is that so often we are targets of violence. We experience discrimination disproportionately to the rest of the community. Our unemployment rate is twice the national average; if you are a trans person of color, that rate is four times the national average. The homicide rate is highest among trans women. If we focus on transition, we don’t actually get to talk about those things. (Cox, qtd. in McDonough)

Here, Cox shifts attention away from the kind of body transgender people possess to the physical brutalities and social precarities to which those bodies are far too often exposed. This includes heightened risk of incarceration. Data about transgender people remains woefully scarce – a testament to their continuing marginalization which sits uneasily beside their rising visibility in the field of popular culture.12 However, it has been estimated that nearly half of all transgender people will be sexually assaulted at some point in their lives (Human Rights and POCC 30). Harassment, discrimination, economic marginalization, and violent victimization rates are rampant amongst trans-women, and trans-women of color in particular (James et al). Transgender people are especially vulnerable in prisons, where they are often punished, whether intentionally or not, by the inadequate practices and perverse priorities of prison administrators, who tend to value social control and security over the well-being and health of individual inmates. They may, for example, be denied access to the kinds of transition-related healthcare they need to preserve both their physical appearance and mental health (Lambda Legal). According to a 2015 U.S. Department of Justice report, over 35% of transgender inmates held in prisons or jails reported sexual victimization by other inmates or staff (Beck 2). Such conditions point not only to the bureaucratic failings of the highly gendered penal system, but 12 As one report published by the Williams Institute at UCLA put it: “many aspects of the needs and experiences of transgender people and other gender minorities remain unexplored” (Badgett et al. iv).

184 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

society at large, as transgender people frequently find themselves punished for even the most mundane of activities, such as using the bathroom. Cox’s celebrity and portrayal of Sophia Burset also draws attention to the relative absence of transgendered people, and incarcerated ones in particular, from mainstream gay activist discourses. In her book Criminal Intimacy, Regina Kunzel traces the shift from gay liberationist rhetoric of the 1970s to a “homonormative” respectability politics in the late 20th and 21st century which “ushered in a new understanding of gay identity and new modes of gay self-presentation in which gender-transgressive queers would be increasingly marginalized” (214). Kunzel points out that many gay rights activists promoted normative scripts of gay identity which situated gender-transgressive queers, and so-called “Queens” in particular, within a “narrative of sexual primitivism and modernity which was also deeply racialized” and which “effectively removed [them] from the category of ‘gay’” (215). One result of this was their gradual distancing and eventual abandonment by mainstream gay activists. Another was an abandonment of prison activism. Prison sexual culture fails to recognize strict binaries between heterosexual and homosexual identities. Anxieties surrounding alternative, supposedly retrograde sexual practices and identities increasingly stirred up consternation in the gay rights movement and rendered the prison as a world apart: “The community-building project of gay prison activism… confronted renegade sexual identif ications and codes that mixed awkwardly and sometimes not at all with new visions, norms and understanding of gay identity forged by activists” (223). This was further aggravated by “[a]nxiety about the criminal as well as the sexual status of prisoners” who some viewed as “fake” homosexuals (222). These anxieties helped to foster “the transmutation of a movement for sexual liberation into a movement dedicated to pursuing equal rights” through largely legislative and judicial means (222–223). As David Spade points out, this shift also left many gender-nonconforming people to fend for themselves, since the “individual rights framework” increasingly favored by mainstream gay activists fails to recognize “how administrative norms or regularities create structured insecurity and (mal) distribute life chances across populations” and “[does] nothing to prevent violence like criminalization and immigration enforcement” (29). More to the point, Spade points out that even hate crime laws do nothing to prevent violence against transgender people but instead focus on mobilizing resources for criminal punishment… Because trans people are a frequent target of criminal punishment systems

Is Entertainment the New Ac tivism?

185

and face severe violence at the hands of police and in prison every day, investment in such a system for solving safety issues actually stands to increase harm and violence. (36)

Moreover, “rights frameworks that focus on individual discrimination through the ‘perpetrator perspective’ fail and… they obscure structural racism” (36), exacerbating the situation for queers of color. Together, Spade and Kunzel’s works point out the divisions, cleavages, and maldistribution of racial, class, and gender privilege within the LGBTQ activist community which has led some to elevate themselves into more “respectable” realms of recognition and social inclusion largely by adopting strategies of “normativity” which left other, more socially marginalized and vulnerable groups in their dust. Cox negotiates not only her own persona and identities but perhaps even more importantly her professional roles and artistic performances in relation to critical disputes and discourses in such a way as to draw attention to the compounded vulnerabilities of transgender women who come into contact with the criminal justice system. Indeed, Cox is herself fully aware of the importance of mediating her roles of actor and activist while laying claim to a transgressive artistic sensibility and blending it with an intellectual underpinning informed by academic concepts such as intersectionality and disidentification (Steinmetz and Cox). Serving as a point of focalization and forum for debate, Cox’s celebrity has helped to generate a much-needed flashpoint for discussions about a particularly vulnerable, and too frequently ignored, group of people. Moreover, it has done so in part from within broader activist communities which have long had trouble accepting that group despite their acknowledgement of it as a section of their larger constituencies. The growing celebrity of figures like Laverne Cox helps to generate, focus, and push forward discussions about this difficult integration, assisting in the growing visibility and socio-cultural integration of transgender people more generally. In turn, Cox’s portrayal of transgender inmate Sophia Burset has drawn attention to the particularly heightened vulnerabilities of transgender and gender non-conforming people in American society more broadly, and especially when they are caught up in the American criminal justice system. Since transgender people may find themselves in danger when housed in the prison’s general population, they are often placed in solitary confinement as a “protective custody” measure. This kind of substandard treatment has in fact been especially well documented in the treatment of transgender women, who often find themselves in danger when housed in the prison’s

186 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

general population (Arkles). Solitary confinement is amongst one of the most punitive practices utilized by prison authorities and can result in substantial psychological damage over the long-term (Frost and Monteiro 16–19). Thus, the effect of so-called protective custody, whether intended or not, has not been to protect transgender inmates, but rather to punish them further, exposing them to the emotional, psychological, and somatic torture of solitary confinement. This kind of experience is portrayed in the third and fourth seasons of Orange, in which Sophia is placed in solitary confinement allegedly for her own protection after she is attacked by other inmates. Sophia is the only transwoman incarcerated at Litchfield, and she suffers constantly from transphobic comments and actions directed at her by inmates and staff alike, not to mention her frequently vexed attempts to maintain her relations with her family, who struggle to understand and accept her decision to transition. An altercation in Season 3 – in a bathroom, (in)appropriately enough – instigates the spread of transphobic rumors about her, and soon other inmates are attacking and harassing her. When she complains to the authorities and threatens to sue the prison, MCC, the private company which has just taken over prison operations, orders her sent to solitary against her will, ostensibly for her own safety.13 Over the course of the fourth season, we witness Sophia’s slow psychological decline. Viewers are given a sense of the deep humiliation she undergoes when they see her bereft of her wig and looking the worse for wear presumably because she is denied medications which she needs to maintain her feminine appearance. She begins acting out, at first protesting her confinement by clogging her own toilet with her clothes and then by starting a fire with a toilet roll and a light socket.14 Eventually, Sophia’s psychological health declines to a state in which she attempts suicide.15 It is not until Caputo, now nominally prison director, yet disgusted by the treatment Sophia undergoes at the order of his corporate superiors, takes a photo of her and sends it away as evidence of her confinement in SHU that she is released.16 However, Sophia continues to suffer the transphobic abuse of other inmates and staff and struggles frequently to overcome the psychological effects of the long-term sensory deprivation she has suffered while in solitary. 13 14 15 16

“Don’t Make Me Come Back There” Season 2, Episode 12: 56:39–58:32. “Doctor Psycho” Season 4, Episode 4: 29:25–31:38. “Piece of Shit” Season 4, Episode 6. 41:19–41:45. “Bunny, Skull, Bunny, Skull” Season 4, Episode 10: 34:50–35:11.

Is Entertainment the New Ac tivism?

187

In an interview with Dee Lockett, Laverne Cox discusses the ways in which Orange attempts to represent “the truth of the experience that a lot of transgender folks have in prison every single day”: Far too often, trans people who are incarcerated are placed in solitary confinement allegedly for “our protection.” And sometimes trans women are placed in men’s prisons, where they put us in solitary confinement, which is cruel and unusual punishment allegedly for our protection. So when the writers came up with this, it’s from reality. (Lockett and Cox)

De-emphasizing the comedic elements of the series and drawing instead upon an understanding of realism indebted to traditions of muckraking journalism and documentary, Cox emphasizes the ways in which Orange explores aspects of the social world which often go unrecognized, bringing to light otherwise ignored stories which relate to the lived experiences of many transgender folks. Echoing Kohan’s own statements, Cox insists that “in addition to entertaining the public, [the writers] are interested in shedding a light on the corrupt nature of this system… This is just the reality of what it means to be a trans person incarcerated” (Lockett and Cox). Here, Cox’s celebrity serves to both defend and reaffirm the series’ own aspirations as a kind of activism-entertainment hybrid through a reiteration of the series’ own self-descriptions. At the same time, however, passages such as these highlight a continuing theme in the production of televisual realism – namely, a tendency to link realism to ideologies of visibility. Indeed, Cox’s rhetoric is revealing here: she communicates the activist and muck-racking journalistic qualities of the show (key indicators of its own activist “quality” claims) through rhetoric which positions the show as a kind of beacon or torch; it “sheds light on” the “darkness” of an ostensibly previously “unseen” condition – in this case, solitary confinement – and in the process “uncovers” a heretofore previously unexamined aspect of “reality.” Neither Cox nor Orange are the first to comment on either the brutal treatment of prisoners or the subtle savagery of solitary confinement. Indeed, since its institutionalization in Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary in 1829, reformers and critics alike have denounced the practice. As Charles Dickens, upon touring the facility, famously wrote: “no man has a right to inflict [solitary confinement] upon his fellow creature. I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain, to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body” (68). Interestingly, if Orange vis-à-vis Cox perpetuates televisual ideologies which celebrate visuality as that which surfaces heretofore repressed realities, Dickens argues that the real damage

188 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

inflicted by solitary confinement is so damning precisely because “its ghastly signs and tokens are not so palatable to the eye and sense of touch as scars upon the flesh… its wounds are not upon the surface, and it extorts few cries that human ears can hear; therefore I the more denounce it, as a secret punishment which slumbering humanity is not roused up to stay” (68–69). Realism’s ideologies of visibility, in other words, may prove insufficient for comprehending the “ghastly signs” this “secret punishment” inflicts not upon the visible body, but the interior soul. Thus, the truly nefarious thing about solitary confinement – and, for that matter, the social repression of trans-people – is that absent visibility, “slumbering humanity” cannot be roused; visibility, sentimentality, and the cry for reform seem to be here so inherently linked to markers of corporeal violence as to make both the “secret punishments” solitary confinement and compulsive heteronormativity nearly invisible until they manifest as evident wounds inflicted upon the surface of the body. Since solitary confinement inflicts damages which are neither easily “visible” nor even accessible to the senses, those damages might fully escape realism’s discursive strategies of detection and observation altogether, thereby failing to initiate the sentimental emotions and moral recognition which arise from the sense of having “witnessed” them. The same goes, perhaps, for the social marginalization of trans-people, for whom an overemphasis on the hypothetical “irregularity” of the body may tend to eclipse deeper, more affective, quotidian processes of punitive repression built so deeply into our social structures as to only appear visible when they erupt in physical violence. While accepting, then, the argument that Cox’s celebrity activism has no doubt helped to bring about awareness of these practices, Sophia’s storyline nevertheless reproduces not only the discursive strategies of hardboiled realism but also the ideologies of visibility which are so integral to the ways in which television programs, and “quality” series in particular, stake their claims as crucial purveyors – which also is to say, influential producers – of American “realities.” The troubling implication then is that the “slumbering humanity” of the American public seems to remain either ignorant or uninterested in those “realities” until they are packaged as television, cast in the familiar conventions of realism, branded as activism, and sold as consumable entertainment. Furthermore, since the acts of “witnessing” which television viewing promotes are so intimately caught up in ideologies of visibility, the true devastation wrought by strategies of repression and punishment such as solitary confinement and other practices of socio-cultural, political, or administrative marginalization which resist viewability may commonly escape notice altogether. What remains unseen on television, in this regard,

Is Entertainment the New Ac tivism?

189

may remain virtually incomprehensible to a broader conception of America’s hypermediated sense of its own “reality.” The madness which ruminates under the surface of the solitary penitent, in other words, finds its correlate in a medium which cannot seem to acknowledge pain or sympathize with difference until it has been rendered “palatable to the eye,” etched into the scarred surface of either screen or skin. Meanwhile, the “real” wounds reside perhaps in those less immediately visible, because so pervasively structural conditions which, through sheer virtue of their omnipresence, are not easily grasped by the senses, and which therefore may resist integration into the conventions, affordances, and ideologies of visibility upon which televisual realism relies. In spite of the above concerns, Orange and many of its fans nevertheless position Sophia’s storyline as an ostensible exposé of the inhumane treatment received by transwomen not only inside prisons but across the nation. However, this representation has also been a flashpoint. For example, Samantha Allen complains, If you were to cut out every scene of Orange is the New Black that doesn’t contain Laverne Cox’s character Sophia Burset, you’d be left with a story about a transgender woman of color who is denied healthcare, separated from her family, beaten by her fellow inmates, and transferred to solitary confinement where she attempts suicide. (Allen)

While Allen admits that “prison is humiliating hell for transgender inmates,” in her view the show crosses “the fine line between realism and exploitation… it starts to feel like it’s taking a perverse sort of pleasure in her pain.” It does seem that such exploitation scenarios have become an increasingly conventional strategy associated with the generic production of “realism.” Perhaps the most telling reception of Sophia Burset’s character is penned by Teagen Widmer: It’s not that OITNB isn’t a step in the right direction for how trans women are depicted; it is. But it’s a small step. And I expect better. As a trans woman myself, I’m tired of sitting below the giant dinner table that is media depictions of queer people and constantly being told “wait your turn.”

In particular, Widmer finds troubling “how the show seems to take every chance they can to remind you that Sophia is different than the other inmates.” In her view, the “constant fixation on genitalia” expressed by

190 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

other characters “serves as a reminder that the trans woman is not a ‘real woman.’” Widmer’s argument is not, it seems, that the series’ depictions are inaccurate, but is rather rooted in her concern that its depictions might reinforce transgender peoples’ sense of their own differences, vulnerabilities, and struggles. The series may educate one audience segment, but at the cost of possibly triggering another. For example, she notes that many transgender people “gave up everything for the chance to start the hormones that allowed them to live authentically. The reminder that it could be taken away was also a little hard to stomach” (Widmer). Here, televisual depictions seem threatening since they make visible the degree to which the hormone therapies which allow for “authentic living” as a trans-person appear as highly controlled and heavily regulated facets of a medico-juridical regime of administration which could ostensibly revoke them at any moment. Here, notions of “authenticity” are rooted not only in the emotional threats posed by tele-visuality but are deeply connected to the precarities of a bureaucratic apparatus capable of revoking its legitimating support, or worse. Even though Widmer takes the Orange writers to task, her major concern rests ultimately not with them so much as with popular culture at large. She admits as much when she writes: “It’s not that the show’s portrayals aren’t realistic. They are… These things are part of reality, but in a scripted TV show, it would be nice to go without seeing them in every scene that Sophia is in.” Ultimately, Widmer’s critique is better leveraged at a larger culture that far too often leaves transgender experiences out of the picture altogether: “the depictions we have of trans women are incredibly rare: maybe 2 or 3 a year in television and film. When we do see trans women in the media, we are still depicted in ways that are incredibly problematic.” Moreover, it is a culture which seems only able to present its most vulnerable members in a primarily melodramatic mode: It sucks that we can’t watch our own stories on TV without being exposed to the same frustrating, and harmful, things we experience on a day-to-day basis. I don’t want to watch a trans woman face transphobia on TV. I want to see a trans woman succeed in life and go on to live a life that is about more than just being transgender.

The desire for diversity in trans-visibility is understandable. As Widmer acknowledges, the series does indeed take a step in that direction, reorienting depictions of transgender folks away from “previous depictions… of serial killers in ‘Silence of the Lambs’ and ‘Dressed to Kill’.” In this sense, the kinds of characters television churns out is deeply implicated in how these

Is Entertainment the New Ac tivism?

191

“realities” are both offered up to transgender people as potential models for the construction of one’s own identity and behavior, as well as for how they are imagined by wider audiences. In an interview with journalist Erik Piepenburg, transgender actress Alexandra Billings echoes Widmer’s concerns: There are more opportunities [for transgender performers], but look carefully. They’re very specific. We’re either in the hospital or visiting someone in the hospital or in jail or some kind of cage. God forbid you put us in charge of children or in the corporate world, where we have power. We’re having specific conversations, but it’s difficult to say it’s getting better.

Billings points out that transgender representation in popular culture still tends to be relegated to settings which are far away from the “respectable” worlds familiar to mainstream audiences and often depict transgender people exclusively in traumatic or exceptional situations – that is, under the generic markers of melodrama and realism. Such concerns reflect a very real problem of typecasting which tends to occur in popular culture, reinforcing associations of marginalized groups with deviancy via their repetitive placement in spaces of exclusion, such as prisons. In one sense, these critiques highlight the impoverished history of minority representations in popular culture. In another, they falter between two sets of genre conventions from which the series attempts to generate its unique sense of realism: hardboiled social realism on the one hand, and a focus on the daily, mundane, and domestic which is the hallmark of TV sit-coms on the other. If arguments in favor of Orange’s “realism” fear that normalizing such lives on TV when they are so often decidedly not treated as such in real life would merely violate the series’ own commitments while counterproductively working to reaffirm neoliberal fantasies of post-civil rights inclusion (effectively rewriting The Cosby Show for transgender people), then what they perhaps miss are the ways in which TV itself is an influential co-producer of “real life,” and thus instrumental in changing its terms. Whether the circulation of alternative, more light-hearted representations more generally would ultimately best serve the transgender community at large, it would perhaps do much less to render the vulnerabilities faced by transgender prisoners any more visible. The risk here is that as TV production gradually normalizes formerly marginalized identity positions, it may assist in the consolidation of a respectability politics of trans-representation which does not

192 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

adequately address the continuing oppression under which transgender folks (and transgender women of color in particular) continue to suffer in contemporary American society. Ignoring these aspects risks shoring up standards of respectability at the expense of politically isolating the most at-risk transgender people and effacing the fact of their continued criminalization; at the same time, reproducing them may also reproduce or harden their association with criminalization. Television’s perverse normative abilities to either whitewash difference or reproduce it as deviancy produce a Catch-22 effect, functioning to either generate a sphere of respectability and normative conformity or else to generate a sense of exoticism and exposure; transgender people, especially those who adopt non-conventional gender appearances, often f ind themselves trapped between these impoverished poles of possibility. If the current increase in trans-visibility is a narrative paradoxically troubled by the concurrent increase in violence against transgender people, and transgender women of color in particular, it has nevertheless opened opportunities insofar as it has generated a still inadequate, but nevertheless growing, set of models and scripts with whom they may identify in the popular culture, then the opportunities this has afforded bear examination. During a live audience interview with Erik Piepenburg in 2015, Cox glosses José Esteban Muñoz’s book Disidentifications: “because so much representation is not culturally coded for us to identify with, [queer folks] often disidentify with [it]” (Piepenburg and Cox 01:17:55). In Muñoz’s own words, “To disidentify is to read oneself and one’s own life narrative in a moment, object, or subject that is not culturally coded to ‘connect’ with the disidentifying subject” (12): Disidentification is about recycling and rethinking encoded meaning. The process of disidentification scrambles and reconstructs the encoded message of a cultural text in a fashion that exposes the encoded message’s universalizing and exclusionary machinations and recircuits its workings to account for, include, and empower minority identities and identifications. (Muñoz 31)

Disidentification, in other words, refers to the ways in which marginalized subjects try to negotiate their identity within a cultural context which is not only not fashioned for them, but may actively seek to exclude or oppress them. Cox points out that the increase of trans-visibility in popular culture since the publication of Muñoz’s work has led her to more frequently experience moments of identification; moreover, she seems to be aware of

Is Entertainment the New Ac tivism?

193

her own role as an actress in broadening the cultural landscape of possible codes which others might be able to more directly identify with: …when I saw [Candice Cane’s performance in Dirty Sexy Money] it wasn’t a moment of disidentification, it was a moment of identification… being a trans-actress playing a trans-character on Orange is the New Black… I have gone to meet trans people all over the country and in Canada who said that they’ve been inspired to transition… to come out to their friends or family… to pursue their dreams of being actors and performers because of this character. A world of possibility has opened up to them that they did not imagine before because of this character. (Piepenburg and Cox 01:18:40)

Cox’s growing celebrity profile provides her not only with a platform to speak out about issues beyond those addressed in the series and to elevate the discussion about trans-rights while broadcasting trans-visibility through interviews, side projects, magazine modelling, and the like; it also changes the fabric of popular culture itself, generating moments wherein mainstream audiences may encounter transgender people not as deviant strangers but as ever more recognizable scripts, and wherein transgender folks searching for ways of being-in-the-world may also encounter those models and scripts through channels of identification which allow them to render themselves as more self-identifiable subjects deserving of recognition and belonging. By enabling opportunities for identification, however fraught, incomplete, and problematic such moments may be, the increase in trans-visibility and trans-diversity in which Cox participates helps to render transgender folks as increasingly recognizable, and therefore “real,” if still marginalized, subjects within the ever-expanding universe of American culture. Given the heavy stigma faced by transgender people, we cannot discount the importance of Cox’s brand of celebrity self-management, which utilizes popularity and public interest to educate and model as well as entertain and promote. Cox’s management of her own image self-consciously engages the co-construction of televisual visuality and identity in a highly mediated social reality. This allows her at least some degree of ability to strategically draw attention to trans-vulnerabilities while, at the same time, shifting attention away from the “exotic” otherness which TV still so frequently projects upon the bodies of transgender people. At the same time, Cox’s celebrity provides an important point of conflict and controversy where the transgender community and other activist communities overlapping with or running parallel to it, such as various shades of feminism, can

194 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

convene to work through their own internal conundrums, sets of demands, and agendas. This is not in spite of her roles as celebrity and entertainer; rather, these facets of her identity extend her reach and expand her ability to broadcast these issues. Even so, if Cox is able to exert some degree of agency and choice about where, when, and how to address and thoughtfully articulate these issues, her character, Sophia, often appears to remain at the mercy of television’s typical storytelling routines. Even as Cox leverages her own celebrity to broadcast trans-activism, Orange and Netflix each in turn re-appropriate her activities in problematic ways. Often, they tend to reproduce the selfsame ideologies of visibility about which Cox herself expresses so much consternation. Orange in particular tends to leverage trans-vulnerability in order to (re)produce generic markers of heightened realism predicated upon notions of exhibitionism, exertion, and social distance; Cox’s character Sophia is often depicted in the midst of melodramatic struggles to negotiate her own “exotic” otherness and exert a distinct identity in relation to both the prison milieu and her own family. Similarly, her heightened exposure to practices of brutality such as solitary confinement function to connote the series’ particularly gendered commitments, associating her “masculinized” femininity with the conventions of hardboiled realism even as it sentimentalizes (and thus, typically feminizes) her predicament. All of this is constructed to provide audiences with the sense that they are being offered a voyeuristic peak into an otherwise “hidden” world. If Cox works hard in interviews and elsewhere to shift discourses away from the exoticized spectacle of trans-bodies and towards the structural vulnerabilities they face, then Orange re-appropriates such vulnerabilities for the purposes of producing commercial entertainment. The result is a televisual strategy which re-packages identity politics and trans-activism as melodramatic spectacles of recognition and exposure while celebrating visibility not as a means but an end in itself. In presenting such spectacles as a kind of enhanced realism, Orange also participates in a wider game of “serial outbidding” (Jahn-Sudmann and Kelleter 205) initiated by OZ. In particular, the portrayal of brutalities waged against Sophia allows the series to differentiate itself from other series, such as Amazon’s Transparent (2014–2019), which offer “quality” claims based upon discourses of transvisibility but which largely refrain from routinely exposing characters to heightened levels of violence. Thus, Orange renders its scenes of prison brutality in order to indicate its supposedly more sophisticated ability to expose the “reality” of trans-gender experience even as it subtracts its own agency as an influential participant in the perpetuation of the distinctly

Is Entertainment the New Ac tivism?

195

generic representational conventions which (re)produce ideologies of “realism” (punitive or otherwise) and connect them to marginalized identities and spaces of insecurity. The result is a tendency to both celebrate its own activist potential vis-à-vis its ability to raise awareness about identity-based marginalization even as it disowns its own formidable agency in rendering marginalized populations legible as exotic others. Perhaps even more problematic is the way in which Netflix’s conglomerated niche strategy appropriates and translates the intersectionality discourses championed by Cox into markers of representational sophistication intended to draw a “diverse” audience. Since Netflix at least nominally claims to utilize a segmentation strategy which disarticulates tastes from demographic markers, the effect of such a strategy is largely to de-couple identity positions from political commitments by re-articulating the latter as indicators of consumption preferences. Thus, representations of the compounded vulnerabilities experienced by transwomen which result from their especially marginalized intersectional identity positions become legible as part of a larger viewership diversification strategy. In this sense, then, whether visibility discourses are utilized to normalize otherwise marginalized identity positions or to “expose” them to the more hardboiled “realities” of trans-vulnerability becomes problematically enmeshed not only in ideologies which conflate tele-visibility with “reality,” but commercial practices which appropriate processes of identity-based marginalization and political identity activism for the purposes of brand-building. Such strategies not only problematically subjugate political discourses for commercial goals, but furthermore do so in ways which, more than simply reflecting pre-existing activist concerns, actively mediate political agendas and identities in ways which cannot help but shape the self-comprehensions and (dis)identifications of audience members.

Articulating Communities of Concern By proffering representations of identity-based sub-groups and speaking to their concerns more broadly, Orange not only actively publicizes its representation of under-served, under-seen, and marginalized groups in American society, but also generates opportunities for audiences to speak back to the series in ways which position them within what I call communities of concern: groups who share not only certain cultural preferences but also social and political concerns as well, and who frequently explore these via online discussions about, for example, television series. For these

196 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

groups, popular culture and TV are vehicles to speak with others about issues that matter to them. In this sense, Orange provides what Lotz calls “a subcultural forum” insofar as it “reproduces a similar experience as the electronic public sphere, but among a more narrow [sic] group that share particular cultural affinities or tastes” (Revolutionized 47). Communities of concern further constitute a distinct sub-species of fan communities insofar as they convene not over issues of clear consensus, such as appreciation, but of shared dispute. They are committed viewers who use television to mediate their thinking about the political and social questions which matter to them. Orange manages to prompt a wide range of audiences to discuss topics including (but not limited to) the growing social awareness and concern with issues surrounding contemporary mass incarceration. Moreover, Orange’s semi-episodic structure, molded around the reiterative foregrounding of backstories and encapsulated within longer, season-length story arcs, encourages shifting routines and practices, such as binge watching, which are currently restructuring television viewing.17 Through the utilization of the full season drop, Orange increases the sheer amount of content available for audiences to binge, including a wide-range of topics for audiences to engage with all at once. Even though fans continue to produce episode re-caps of the series, the binge viewing behavior which Netflix’s full-season drop model seeks to optimize also seems to lead audience discussants to more quickly converge on season-wide issues, events, and controversial narrative choices. Moreover, not only is quick convergence on certain controversies no doubt facilitated in large part by Orange’s own narrative impetus, but the controversies it evokes also frequently seem shrewdly crafted to provoke audiences in ways which not only signal the series’ social relevance as a marker of “quality,” but seem furthermore designed to instigate sharp disagreement rather than lead to shared consensus. In this sense, the complex identities of viewers and their various political commitments are not only on display in the kinds of “buzz” which the series generates but 17 Whereas creative staff working on both network and cable channels may have time to plan entire seasons, they often still find themselves writing and filming individual episodes in overlapping cycles of production and release; in comparison, Netflix’s full season drop model allows showrunner Jenji Kohan and her creative team to not only plan but also produce entire seasons before release. Bringing individual episodes to some form of recognizable closure by tying up either a backstory or minor storyline, Orange simultaneously encourages binge viewing of its season-length storylines by allowing other storylines to dangle as cliff-hangers or by couching them within season-length plot arcs. This gives single episodes a degree of internal, episodic coherence while at the same time allowing the series to build longer season-length narrative arcs which both promote and reward binge-viewing.

Is Entertainment the New Ac tivism?

197

are also a part of the business calculus by which Netflix executives decide which kinds of content to commission and renew. Thus, Orange’s incursions into timely issues not only “enables cultures of attachment – imagined communities – that are all the more powerful for being held together by shared communications – shared conflicts and anxieties, too – rather than shared opinions” (Kelleter, “Seriality” 29), but also ensures that these communities produce large amounts of online commentary which serve as buzz marketing while helping to bolster the senses of timeliness and relevance which are so integral to Orange’s “activist” aspirations. Of all the gendered troubles faced by women prisoners, one of the most urgent and disturbing is their heightened vulnerability to sexual abuse and rape. Orange frequently highlights the potential for such abuses and injustices built into the structural imbalances in status, mobility, and power endemic to the design of prison structures. When Dayanara, a young Latina inmate, gets pregnant after initiating a consensual sexual relationship with one of the Correctional Officers, John Bennet, she tries to cover it up by taking advantage of CO George “Pornstache” Mendez’s sexual predations to make it seem as if the baby is his.18 However, this does not prevent Bennet from getting cold feet and running off after seeing the dire circumstance of Dayanara’s home life, thus highlighting the fact that, in spite of the war injury which took his leg, he can still choose to run from his problems; Dayanara cannot.19 Likewise, in the series’ third season, the character of Tiffany “Pennsatucky” Doggett befriends the novice prison guard Charlie Coates, by whom she is eventually raped. The series uses its signature flashbacks to fill in a backstory in which we learn that Doggett has experienced a string of such transgressions throughout her life, while at the same time alerting viewers to the disturbing pervasiveness of sexual violence committed against women both behind bars and on the outside.20 In her commentary on the episode, Danielle Compoamer remarks that she “had to turn away” during Doggett’s rape: I couldn’t help but see the reality I live with every day morphed into a story line on a show I admire. I couldn’t help but see myself in Pennsatucky, which is what Orange is the New Black as a whole does to its viewers: it creates characters who mimic the lives we’ve already lived, and it’s why I both love and hate the show. (Campoamor) 18 “Fool Me Once.” Season 1, Episode 12: 17:40–18:40. 19 “Bed Bugs and Beyond.” Season 3, Episode 2: 55:19–55:55. 20 “A Tittin’ and a Hairin’.” Season 3, Episode 10: 56:25–57:13.

198 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

One of the most controversial moves made by Orange in relation to such narratives is Doggett’s forgiveness of Coates and his subsequent attempts to redeem himself even as he admits to struggling to contain his sexual impulses.21 Many commentators have voiced consternation about this move. Erin Nichols argues that “the show has gone too far: it introduces the idea of rape forgiveness”: Most viewers are likely outraged because by the end of the plot line, the guard is never punished, Pennsatucky still blames herself for the rape, and no justice is ever served in the prison… While it is an unfortunate truth that these situations happen in real life, the representation of this in a popular television show is detrimental; it glorifies rape culture.

Other commentators have reacted more ambiguously. Amy Roberts argues that although the series should be applauded for exploring the fallout of rape for victims, it problematically draws a moral equivalence between victims and offenders: Too many TV shows want to show the act but not the consequences, and OITNB should be applauded for daring to portray both in such a way that is anything but simple. With such trauma can come a false sense of sympathy, because we all want to believe the best about humanity. Rapists are “regular” people, make no mistake. But offering them the same standards of humanity which they refused to give to the person they assaulted isn’t just irregular; it’s monstrous. (Roberts)

Whether they arrive as fictional drama or non-fictional reportage, sex crimes are not only deeply entangled with social issues of sexual vulnerability and gender but are also frequently framed by narrative structures which emphasize retribution. Loïc Wacquant argues that the dehumanization of sex offenders serves to propagate and justify the punitive impulses behind mass incarceration: “the current portrayal of sex offenders as amoral and asocial beings, beastlike and subhuman… provides the symbolic oil that lubricates the wheels of the runaway train of penalization” (Punishing 215). Mark Seltzer likewise notes that sex offending serves as a site for “the permanent branding of potentially dangerous people: the formation of a permanent class of the stigmatized person… The very category of the ‘potentially dangerous individual’ – here, the notion of the sex criminal as 21 “Toast Can’t Never Be Bread Again.” Season 4, Episode 13: 47:08–48:30.

Is Entertainment the New Ac tivism?

199

a kind of person” (Serial 4). Seltzer argues that this coincides with “a radical shift in the understanding of crime, a shift in focus from the criminal act to the character of the actor… a species of person… called the sex-criminal” (Serial 4). Functioning no longer as a marker of actions but as a category of persons, sex crime provides the justification for generating a new class of stigmatized people, relegated to a lower rung of humanity, treated at best as perverse psychoanalytic case studies and, at worst, as irredeemable moral monsters. These cultural attitudes and constructions yield legal practices which relegate sex offenders to a lifetime of surveillance by both public authorities as well as other private citizens vis-à-vis public databases of registry and neighborhood notification laws. When sex offenders are treated as irredeemable monsters and relegated to a lower rung of humanity, the hierarchies and punitive discourses upon which mass incarceration depends are legitimized. Many have compared Orange’s take on rape to its televisual contemporaries, such as the fantasy series Game of Thrones (2011–2019), which has featured several much more brutal episodes of sexual assault and rape. However, whereas Orange spends episodes exploring the aftermath of Doggett’s rape, other depictions of rape, such as those frequently offered on Game of Thrones, tend to either ignore the psychological fallout for survivors or digress into sensationalistic revenge fantasies. Some feminist critics have even elevated such revenge fantasies to central tropes in their theoretical discourses, reconstituting them as sites of resistance against hegemonic patriarchy and rape culture. Perhaps most notably, Sharon Marcus has advocated “a politics of fantasy” (400) that privileges “fighting back” physically against rape, thus making women “less legible as rape targets” (396). Megan Sweeney, however, points out that Marcus’ argument “insufficiently accounts for the ways in which women’s agency may be limited, given the multiple forms of victimization they may be negotiating” (110), in part because she implicitly assumes a white middle-class positionality which does not jibe with that of many women of color, prisoners, ex-convicts, and other stigmatized groups who are already marked as, in Marcus’s own words, “objects of fear and agents of violence” (Marcus 400; Sweeney 111). Likewise, Sweeney reminds us that “women of color, lower-class women, and lesbians face disproportionate punishment for aggressive behavior” (111), pointing out in the process that many women already find themselves paying a high price for aggressively protecting themselves. Indeed, for many women prisoners “fighting back” may lead to even more aggressive punishment, an outcome which emphasizes “the inextricable links between interpersonal and state violence” with which they must contend (Sweeney 111).

200 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

In an outstanding rumination on the treatment of rape in popular culture, Miranda Wojciechowski notes that such discourses have themselves become reified into a predictable set of genre conventions: This eye-for-an-eye, rape-for-a-rape narrative that haunts fictionalized sexual assault survivors has become so recognizable that a mere reference suffices to convey the entire weight of its cultural legacy. From television shows like Orange Is the New Black, Jessica Jones, and Game of Thrones, to the novels of Stieg Larsson and Margaret Atwood, the rape survivor’s recourse to vigilante methods of justice and revenge varies widely in circumstantial particularity and execution.

Wojciechowski notes that Orange also momentarily entertains this possible narrative when Dogget and Big Boo scheme to drug Coates and sodomize him with a broomstick handle in the laundry room.22 She points out that by ultimately rejecting this outcome, Orange “turns an entire tradition that conflates vengeance and justice on its head.” Even so, Doggett remains at the mercy of not only a guard who, however purportedly reformed he may be, has violated her, but also a system which makes her vulnerable to such violations in the first place. As Big Boo tells Doggett, even if she reports Coates and seeks justice through the criminal justice system, “Who’s going to believe you? We’re liars and degenerates and we deserve everything that happens to us.”23 Orange highlights again and again the differential power relations and cultural logics which create and sustain the vulnerabilities and attitudes which generate the preconditions for prison rape and rape culture more broadly; however, it rarely does so without self-consciously creating both controversy and thus the kind of moral ambiguity in which TV realism often roots its “quality” claims. At least insofar as Doggett serves, whether intended or not, as a site for the cultural negotiation of how American society treats not only rapists, but rape victims as well, the ways in which viewers respond to Doggett and Coates is itself instructive. Iman Hasan, identifying a didactic impulse behind the plotline, asks whether educating men about rape is worth potentially triggering female audience members: it makes sense that television writers include [rape] in stories about women. What’s rarely considered, however, is who benefits from or is 22 “Don’t Make Me Come Back There.” Season 3, Episode 12: 7:45–09:10. 23 “Don’t Make Me Come Back There.” Season 3, Episode 12: 08:07.

Is Entertainment the New Ac tivism?

201

hurt by depictions of rape. It’s been argued that not depicting rape erases violence that women (and people of other genders) live in constant fear of, but do women want to be exposed to that violence in the media they peruse? And if done correctly, showing rape from a victim’s perspective could even be used as an educational tool for men; but is it worth traumatizing a female audience in the hope that a man might benefit? (Hasan)

Hasan both implicitly posits and at the same time interrogates television’s implicit role as a didactic tool for “educating” a diverse viewing audience, including potential aggressors. When it comes to the ethics of rape forgiveness, Chandler Moxley has suggested that perhaps the last word should go to the victim herself: The most striking similarity between the story of Pennsatucky [aka Doggett] and Officer Coates and rape culture in society is that everyone else had an opinion about how Pennsatucky should feel… Everyone has their own journey and healing process, and that has to be enough. No one gets to tell a survivor how to feel, that’s up to them.

All in all, outrage over Doggett and Coates reflects cultural tendencies to both read and receive moral and political opinions through the prism of televisual texts, making them not only influential agenda setters which filter, remediate, and therefore exert the power to frame timely discussions, but also communal sites (however fragmented or compromised) for moral reflection and political deliberation. If we react with outrage or judge Doggett harshly for forgiving Coates, are we also implicitly judging real victims of rape by the same standards? When popular media does manage to offer narrative reactions to such egregious offenses which do not re-enact conventional and sensationalized revenge fantasies or capitulate to rhetoric which legitimates punitive realisms, what makes them appear as legitimate or not? In a media ecosystem in which both TV series and influential – oftentimes professional – TV critics and bloggers exert an outsized influenced over what gets seen in the first place, whose ideals of justice are actually getting voiced, let alone pursued? Perhaps most relevant here are the points of contention which arise between prison activists who would seek to de-escalate punitive responses to crime in preference of pro-social models of restorative justice and others who would seek to protect women through the escalation of punitive and retributive responses to sex offenses. Such arguments pit questions about the morality of policies which produce permanently disgraced classes of

202 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

people against the need to protect socially vulnerable women and girls. Tracing out positions surrounding these points of contention as they play out in the sphere of popular culture and public reception allows us to open up a discursive space in which to explore the cultural complexities and conundrums which they yield; and yet, the considerable gravity exerted by media on the expansion of that space raises important questions about how such discussions are initiated, legitimated, and circumscribed in the first place. There is no question of the need to produce a culture which promotes and protects the inviolability of one’s person and body against sexual assault and renounces violations thereof in the strongest terms. However, media texts and controversies designed to provoke moral outrage quite justly directed at individual sex offenders may nevertheless paper over or leave undisturbed the broader arrangements of patriarchal power-relations which produce such behavior in the first place. Indeed, in a society where one out of every five American women will be raped in her lifetime (National Sexual Violence Resource Center: 2015) serious questions need to be raised about whether current political and media arrangements are serving us very well at all. It is instructive to compare this controversy to another one which erupted after the release of Orange’s fourth season, which takes a dark turn into contemporary political issues surrounding prison privatization, punitive prison practices, and police brutality. The climax of that season was the death of fan favorite Poussey Washington at the hands of an undertrained prison guard. It instigated a huge (and no doubt calculated) audience reaction. The death represents the dramatic culmination of several storylines which began as early as Orange’s third season, in which Caputo, eager to save Litchfield from closing, invites MCC, a private prison corporation, to take over operations.24 MCC, eager to maximize return on investment, accepts transfers which not only double the prison’s population, but shake up the settled Litchfield community.25 In season 4 Caputo hires new staff, most of whom are untrained and inexperienced due to MCC’s efforts to cut costs. A particularly sadistic veteran guard named Piscatella is also hired and is eventually made captain.26 Over the course of the fourth season, conditions in the prison deteriorate, due in part to Piscatella’s efforts to govern through brute force and terror. Fed up, the prison families come together to orchestrate a protest. Piscatella responds by ordering his men 24 “Finder in the Dyke.” Season 3, Episode 4. 54:45–56:20. 25 “Trust No Bitch.” Season 3, Episode 13: 01:27:15–01:28:15. 26 “Work That Body for Me.” Season 4, Episode 1: 16:45–18:03.

Is Entertainment the New Ac tivism?

203

to remove them forcibly. In the resulting melee, a young, rather naïve, and woefully undertrained CO named Bayley improperly restrains Poussey and she dies from suffocation.27 Poussey’s death, modelled on a host of others foregrounded by the Movement for Black Lives, thus becomes what Linda Williams, referring to the racial melodrama of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), calls a sympathy-inducing “Tom” figure who is rendered “virtuous” through the sentiments evoked as we witness her horrible death (Playing xv). When Caputo refuses to scapegoat Bayley for the incident and defends him during a TV interview, Taystee, Poussey’s best friend and Caputo’s secretary, overhears. Taystee incites the others to riot, incensed not only at the defense of Bayley, but the fact that Caputo “didn’t even say her name” – a direct reference to the “Say Her Name” campaign which sought to highlight the victimization of women and girls at the hands of police and other state actors.28 As such, the series, in the words of Andrea Ritchie, attempts to clear representational space for “black women who are profiled, beaten, sexually assaulted, and killed by law enforcement officials” but are often left “conspicuously absent from [the male endangerment] frame” (Crenshaw et al. 1). Incorporating this critique into its own text, the series pursues its aspiration towards a high degree of activist relevance. Other commentators, however, reacted with much more skepticism. Many of the more aggressive critiques of the fourth season made a point of calling out the perceived racial homogeneity of the writing team. Pointing in part to the perceived racial homogeneity of the show’s writing team, Ashleigh Shackelford argued, as her provocatively titled review puts it, that “‘Orange is the New Black’ is Trauma Porn Written for White People.” Shackelford effectively accused the show of exploiting the deaths of Black people for profit.29 She writes: “Poussey’s death was intentionally trauma porn and intentionally meant to captivate the white gaze through Black pain…. using every trick in the white supremacist handbook to exploit and gain attention with the pain of our bodies and experiences.” Shamira 27 “The Animals.” Season 4, Episode 12: 56:00–58:50. 28 “Toast Can’t Never Be Bread Again.” Season 4, Episode 13: 1:11:40. This is a nod to the #SayHerName campaign, an effort within the Black Lives Matter movement which “sheds light on Black women’s experiences of police violence in an effort to support a gender-inclusive approach to racial justice that centers all Black lives equally” (Crenshaw et al. 2) as I discuss below. 29 More problematic by far are the marketing campaigns Netflix initiated in the wake of the character’s death, including a series of commissioned murals of the deceased character. Whereas the artists, Netflix spokespersons, and Samira Wiley herself have all attempted to associate the murals with notions of social justice and empowerment, others have accused Netflix of commercially exploiting the Black Lives Matter movement.

204 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

Ibrahim, following Shackelford, describes Orange as “wave of insulting narrative after insulting narrative packaged under the happy-go-lucky theme of ‘prison life is complicated, guys!’” and argued that it forced black viewers “to relive a facsimile of tragic real-life events under the most infantilizing and insulting context possible,” insisting that “black grief isn’t a trope you can pull for shock value.” One can read the very potent outrage, grief and other emotions engendered by Poussey’s death as testimony to the series’ success; part of TV melodrama’s work, after all, is to engender exactly such emotion. At the same time, commentators who reacted to Poussey’s death with outrage draw on a cognizance of the ways in which American media, literary, and cultural history has subjected Black bodies to gruesome forms of violence, ostensibly to generate political critique of that which, it is assumed, should be self-evidently wrong. Read in the most theoretically elaborated sense, these critics accuse Orange of exploiting what Hortense Spillers calls “a potential for pornotroping” which has haunted the representation of Black bodies – and Black women in particular – throughout American cultural history (Spillers 67). Saidiya Hartman has argued that the sheer volume of tropes which operationalize Black death has rendered us numb to it: Rather than inciting indignation, too often they immure us to pain by virtue of their familiarity… they reinforce the spectacular character of black suffering… In light of this, how does one give expression to these outrages without exacerbating the indifference to suffering that is the consequence of the benumbing spectacle or contend with the narcissistic identification that obliterates the other or the prurience that too often is the response to such displays?” (Scenes 3–4)30

As Frank Kelleter reminds us, “Series observe their own effects – they watch their audiences watching them – and react accordingly. They can adapt to their own consequences, to the changes they provoke in their cultural environment” (“Seriality” 14). Orange’s fifth season, which chronicles a prison riot over the three days following Poussey’s death, reacts to 30 In addressing this self-imposed challenge in her own research, Hartman takes an unconventional route, in effect addressing the problem by focusing attention away from the most direct and obvious scenes of subjection: “rather than try to convey the routinized violence of slavery and its aftermath through invocations of the shocking and the terrible, I have chosen to look elsewhere and consider those scenes in which terror can hardly be discerned… By defamiliarizing the familiar, I hope to illuminate the terror of the mundane and quotidian rather than exploit the shocking spectacle” (Scenes 4).

Is Entertainment the New Ac tivism?

205

these debates by reincorporating them in subtle ways back into its own narrative development. For example, Orange registers complaints about the racial makeup of its writing team by confronting the question of who gets to speak for whom in the fifth episode of the season, “Sing it, White Effie.” This episode devotes its flashbacks to Watson, an African American inmate, who as a promising teenage high schooler from the inner-city tours another predominantly white elite prep school. Along the way, she watches the prep school theatre program’s rehearsal of an all-white production of Dreamgirls. Shocked into tears by a white girl in an Afro wig performing a rather uninspiring rendition of “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going,” she becomes demoralized and discouraged at both the unreflective spectacle of cultural appropriation paired with the huge, yawning gap in material resources and opportunities which separate the luxurious conditions of the prep school and her own struggling public school. Meanwhile, in the narrative present, the inmates plan to have the white celebrity inmate Judy King read off their demands; however, Taystee interrupts her last minute with an inspiring, emotional speech, asserting that “Judy can’t speak for us.”31 A series’ response to its audience reactions need not result in narrative developments which cater to or placate injured fans’ sensibilities; indeed, a series may strategically opt instead to raise the stakes of controversy by doubling down on or standing up for its own narrative decisions. For example, in the sixth episode of the f ifth season, Doggett is placed on mock trial by other inmates for helping Coates escape after being taken hostage during a prison uprising. As another character serving as a mock jury member puts it, echoing Jen Chaney, “one crime should not define a life.”32 In one sense, this is the series putting itself on trial, pleading to its audience not to abandon it for its past offenses. At the same time, it demonstrates a refusal to placate audiences. In this sense, the series registers its critics by taking a stand on its own narrative decisions and arguing back. Like Doggett, who refuses to let others witness for her during her mock trial, it insists on speaking for itself; and given its considerable agency in the matter, 31 “Sing It, White Effie.” Season 5, Episode 5: 54:45. While some may see this as a democratizing instance of how audiences influence television writers, one can also read this moment as an example of how the TV industry paints over or short-circuits critique by appropriating and domesticating critical discourses about its own failings back into its own discourses. Such an argument might present, for example, a cynical spin on the lyrics of Effie’s song, re-motivating the famous refrain “I’m staying and you… you’re gonna love me” both as a self-conscious play on television’s “captivating” allure and as a (re)colonizing declaration of racial and industrial hegemony. 32 “Flaming Hot Cheetos, Literally.” Season 5, Episode 6: 50:40.

206 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

audiences cannot really stop it. Indeed, it is telling that Doggett is herself not only a former villain in the show, but also one who has, as discussed previously, stirred up her fair share of audience outrage by forgiving her own victimizer. In this sense, the series not only reproduces a recognizable pattern inherited from soap operas by rotating characters between roles of victim and villain, but thematically roots such patterns in perverse institutional contexts. Indeed, it even furnishes the brutal and sadistic Piscatella with a backstory about how he was morally warped by the very institution he serves. As he puts it while brutalizing Red, “Look long and hard at what prison does to a person” – a statement which ironically better describes his own moral deformation than her degradation.33 Moral outrage is thereby deflected away from both individual characters and the series itself and instead directed towards larger institutional systems such as the prisonindustrial complex and hetero-patriarchy, producing a version of what Linda Williams calls “the serial melodrama of institutional connections” (On The Wire 45) which, intentionally or not, may also function to distract attention from popular storytelling’s own status as one of the institutions at play.

Finding Oneself There: Inmate Receptions “Realistic storytelling,” writes Frank Kelleter, “invites people not only to lose themselves in the story but also – perhaps even more so – to find themselves there” (Serial 74). Orange is perhaps ultimately so commercially successful for the degree to which its viewers time and again seem to find aspects of themselves and their experiences amongst the prisoners who populate its televisual world. Even when viewers question or critique the series, they nevertheless routinely find treatment of issues which are pertinent and urgent in their own lives, even though most of those lives have never passed through a prison cell. As Shonda Rhimes wrote in her Times top 100 profile of showrunner Jenji Kohan in 2014: “She’s turned criminals into women we know, women we care about, women we root for.” Similarly, as 33 “The Reverse Midas Touch.” Season 4, Episode 10: 19:55. Interestingly, Piscatella’s backstory involves taking revenge for the brutal rape of a prison inmate with whom he had initiated a rather adorable jail-yard romance. The irony, of course, is that Piscatella becomes a creature of the same repressive, violent masculinity he sets out to take his revenge upon. Equally ironic is his demise at the hands of a particularly hyper-macho and sadistic member of the SWAT team as it storms the prison.

Is Entertainment the New Ac tivism?

207

former female inmate put it, “I think one thing Orange Is the New Black has done, is that it has opened up women’s prison to a bigger audience… And I think it’s opened up some eyes to what happens in women’s prisons” (Pehanick). Even when Orange’s harshest critics accuse the show of brutality or banality, they often do so on grounds of identification and recognition: seeing or not seeing themselves, their communities, or some aspect of their identity reflected back at them. But does this, in turn, risk eclipsing the experiences or drowning out the voices of those who are or have been actually imprisoned? There is a substantial cottage industry of online commentary in which prisoners or ex-prisoners, often at the request and under the editorial control of activists, scholars, or interviewers, are asked to debunk or confirm aspects of Orange’s fictional representations by pointing out supposed inaccuracies or incongruences with their own experiences – thus positioning them as more authentic first-person bearers of knowledge. Such discourses use the series to extend the scope of voices, experiences, and stories circulated by prisoners or ex-prisoners; even contestations occasion the proliferation of discourses about life in prison with the goal of raising awareness of the conditions under which prisoners live. However, they also filter such testimony through simplistic frames which draw somewhat under-theorized distinctions between “popular culture” and “reality.” This frequently happens when an interviewer, activist, or authority figure assumes an editorial voice over the reactions of prisoners. For example, in a series of online articles, activist Mary Colurso gathers together a small group of women at an Alabama maximum security women’s prison to watch the episode “Tit Punch.”34 Whether the responses of the women serve to confirm or discredit the series’ ostensible realism is, however, a pretext; their responses are meant first and foremost to address the inhuman conditions in prisons, and their concerns range in scope from inadequate healthcare to poor living conditions.35 Such 34 Season 1, Episode 2. 35 Colurso often seems to exhibit the editorial urge to elevate the discourse of her subjects by discrediting Orange, and therefore sometimes directs inmates’ responses through some very outlandish questions. Often this is done by focusing on obviously fictitious elements of the series, such a scene in which a cockroach is trained to carry cigarettes. Not surprisingly, such questions seem at times to perplex her interviewees, who respond, “It’s a TV show. It’s not like it’s a documentary… Some parts of the show is [sic] realistic, some of it wasn’t.” Colurso nevertheless seems intent on highlighting such details, creating in the process the distracting sense that she is accusing fiction, somewhat tautologically, of being fictitious. While the goal of such writing seems to be to dispel common myths rather than to judge the verisimilitude of individual fictional representations, such debunking strategies, judging from reader commentary, tend to distract from the real intent behind the exercise.

208 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

activities seem to be undertaken in the hopes that dispelling myths will help in and of itself to foster readers’ sympathies and alleviate the suffering of prisoners; they seek, in other words, to displace or overwhelm pre-existing mediations by offering up ostensibly more legitimate ones grounded in the authority claims of those who are currently experiencing prison firsthand. Other such debunking exercises are penned directly by formerly incarcerated individuals. Commenting on early seasons, Chandra Bozelko points out an array of details which are, in her estimation, inauthentic. Having spent time in a high-security institution, she worries that “Orange sanitizes prison in very subtle ways. Sometimes the difference between Orange and a real prison is the difference between life and death. Orange is a terrific show and very funny, but real prison is no joke.” Likewise, Beatrice Codianni, a former inmate at the same prison as Piper Kerman, asserts that “prison life isn’t funny. Nor is it anything like the comic-book portrayal of prison as exemplified in the Netflix rendition.” Thus, she worries that “[t]he media and public… fascination with this comic-book prison ignores the real women whose lives are inaccurately, and insensitively, portrayed” and compares it to her own activist efforts in creating a group called “Real women, Real voices.” Codianni implicitly asserts her own voice as more real, perhaps because less mediated by a “cartoonish” fictional medium. Here, denunciation of Orange occasions a counter-narrative which roots its authority claims in phono-centric ideologies (“real voices”) as well as the epistemological primacy of direct witness, over other mediums. In doing so, it risks ignoring the larger complex of archives, contexts, and mediations in which speech and experience are themselves always already embedded. Aside from such debunking exercises, there are those viewers who affirm the verisimilitude of the series. Interestingly, some of these accounts have been penned by men. For example, a former inmate writing under the pseudonym Bert Burykill notes that prison-centric entertainment usually ratchets up the absurd and outlandish aspects to the point where I can’t even relate… Luckily, there’s Netflix’s new show, Orange Is the New Black… so not only do we get the ridiculous entertainment that we all crave, we also get some very realistic characters going through tribulations that I can relate to as an ex-con. Shame on me for stereotyping the sexes, but the fact that this show was created by a woman and is based on the experiences of a woman means we get a lot more feelings than we usually do with prison stories. This is a good thing, though, ’cause dudes go through the same emotions in jail.

Is Entertainment the New Ac tivism?

209

Interestingly, gender seems to be read here as a way to ostensibly sidestep the hyper-masculine spectacles most commonly associated with prison genres. At the same time, Burykill reads Orange’s comparative lack of spectacle as a marker of superior realism which uses humor and emotions in order to facilitate identification in ways which seem precluded in entertainment ostensibly produced for and by men. (OZ seems to be an unspoken point of comparison.) Burykill locates the difficulties or inhibitions men experience around speaking through certain emotional registers in the expectations and taboos surrounding the generic codes of masculinity which structure and dictate the “proper” performance of hegemonic masculinities; here, authentic masculine “speech” seems to route itself through feminine “emotions” supplied by the series. Thus, Orange provides Burykill with what he perceives to be an alternative and distinctly gendered mode of address. Identification takes place across, or perhaps even because of the ways in which generic conventions police the gender divide, causing Burykill to reach out for alternative cultural resources, scripts, and registers through which to access otherwise silenced emotions. Other men who identify with the series also appreciate the way in which it utilizes modes and conventions not usually associated with hyper-masculine prison genres. Joe Loya, a formerly incarcerated writing teacher, appreciates the series because it “captures truthfully the zaniness of prison. And the sex agonies. The fortunate camaraderie. The hidden likenesses between the guards and prisoners. The collaborations. The antagonisms. The pain of family visits.” For Loya the series’ comedy is, in a sense, its greatest claim to realism, insofar as it manages to “humanize” prisoners: “You can see how these prisoners are still gloriously like you in all their pettiness or splendor. Except they’re now experiencing the human condition thing dressed in orange and khaki.” Orange’s comedic elements seem to accommodate the complexities and contradictions of Loya’s own experiences while simultaneously, in his view, allowing prisoners to appear not as hyper-masculinized predators but as complex, multifaceted, and flawed people. In contrast, some former prisoners have argued that the series is dehumanizing. Keri Blakinger, for example, calls “bullshit” on the claim that Orange is “a humanizing portrait of female inmates… It’s not humanizing, it’s not realistic, and it’s not a step forward.” While she finally concedes that “[Orange] has done some really good things; it’s drawn more attention to prisons and made people more willing to talk about them… that’s huge,” she still insists that it “doesn’t mean it’s doing anything good in terms of humanizing inmates. So let’s just stop telling ourselves that lie.” Blakinger’s concerns about the series seem to be largely tied to the performance of

210 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

gender roles. In particular, she complains that Orange depicts the women of Litchfield as bad mothers: here are women who have committed unspeakable crimes in which their own children were the victims. That happens, and I’m not saying it doesn’t. However, it’s not realistic to paint all prison moms with the same brush, because they’re not all horrible mothers.

Without speculating about Blakinger’s parental status, her intense focus on mothers is itself interesting for the way in which it reveals deep-seated anxieties around gendered roles such as motherhood. These anxieties seem to drive her desire to distance herself from the perceived maternal failures of the fictional women of Litchfield: “Some women were bad mothers while they were using drugs, but once they sober up they no longer resembled the incompetent, mean, and uncaring parents shown” supposedly depicted in Orange (Blakinger). Megan Sweeney notes that engaging in dialogue about literature “opens up possibilities” for female prisoners “to bestow and receive recognition – a form of affirmation… asking others to reflect back to them a sense of their humanity and capacity for change” (123). Ideals of virtuous motherhood become a mediating prism through which Blakinger activates her plea for recognition and in which she locates her claim to redemption. Interestingly, Blakinger aligns herself in terms of social and identity position with Piper Chapman: “I’d grown up in an upper-middle class family and, as of the day I got arrested, I knew nothing about the prison system.” However, intense demographic similarities seem not to generate identification, but rather rejection: “the problem begins with Piper… she’s a pretty horrible person.” Blakinger also seems to view other characters as “hate-able… caricatures” who are “not real, not realistic and it makes a mockery of the idea that the show humanizes its inmates. Yes, there are some really horrible, nasty people in prison, but there are also some absolutely wonderful women there.” Blakinger’s negative reception seems predicated on anxieties about the influence of mediations on how others will perceive her, evincing the desire that she and her friends not be misidentified as characters in a fiction and thereby marked as undeserving; this feeling is itself related to the attendant desire that they instead be seen as respectable. In doing so, Blakinger evinces a desire for social recognition and acceptance which the social banishment of imprisonment and the stigma of a criminal record deny. Thus, the refusal to identify functions as a classed and classifying distinction similar to a Madonna/whore binary. It therefore regrettably

Is Entertainment the New Ac tivism?

211

reinforces scripts which position women in an undeserving or deserving binary; her desire to be recognized as deserving therefore implicitly rides on the backs of those other “really horrible, nasty people” the culture more commonly denigrates for being less respectable: that is to say, implicitly less white, less wealthy, and less educated. Whether they love or hate it, Orange clearly serves as a cultural resource and influential mediator for prisoners and ex-prisoners in a variety of complex and complicated ways. Megan Sweeney argues that f ictional engagements provide important cultural and personal resources for women struggling with incarceration: Women who are reckoning with the weight of particularly difficult experiences can feel a pressing need to engage in… an ‘efferent transaction’ with a book – a search for something useful to ‘carry away.’ Identifying with a character featured in a book enables some prisoners… to recognize their experiences as legitimate and to situate them within a wider context. Moreover, encountering a character who inspires them, serves as a model to emulate, or demonstrates a capacity for change can seem vitally important to women who feel an urgent desire to change but a deep uncertainty about their ability to do so. (7)

Sweeney emphasizes that engagement with fictional narratives – in this case, books – are vital personal resources for women struggling to make sense of their lives in the wake of incarceration, crime, or other traumatic experiences. The above discussions seem to indicate that TV drama can play a similar role. Engagements with Orange, even (and perhaps especially) intensely critical ones, can help fill cultural gaps and bridge discursive silences; however, they can also open lines of dispute and facilitate perceptions of difference. As Eve Sedgewick puts it, there are “many ways selves and communities succeed in extracting sustenance from the objects of culture – even of a culture whose avowed desire has often been not to sustain them” (151). Orange provides ex-prisoners with a pop cultural object which can be utilized as a platform from which to speak about their experiences, even if only by providing them with an opportunity for critique. Even when critiques are framed as debunking exercises, Orange nevertheless serves an important functional role as an opportune competitor against which to launch one’s own claims. Moreover, such competitions seem to produce “serial outbidding” as a primary motive and drive towards authorship. The result is narrative proliferation – more women telling more

212 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

stories and generating more discourse about prisons. However, Orange also serves as an influential mediator, not only determining what gets packaged into narrative, but also determining the ways in which issues already floating around get framed and, therefore, exerting considerable pressure on the trajectories which discussions take. While both Orange and the narrative proliferation it fosters helps to provide the culture at large with the much-needed narrative resources required to facilitate communication and interpretation when prisoners and ex-prisoners attempt to articulate their experiences, it also cannot do so without drawing from pre-existing archives and thus perpetuating gendered and genre-inflected lines of cultural continuity. Even more concerning, however, is that even if Orange instigates a much-needed proliferation of mediations which may serve as enabling narrative resources, its outsized influence might also from time to time prove so formidable that it stops discourse dead in its tracks. As one former prisoner puts it in an early post on Netflix’s comments section: “I have been out of a Woman’s State Prison facility for 1 year, no one understands what I have seen or been through. I have attempted to talk about my experience with my friends [and] my husband… I do not have to explain any longer” (Reported in Cecil 136). Megan Sweeney points out that “the U.S. justice system leaves little room for accommodating complex and partial notions of agency, responsibility and guilt” (105) and therefore emphasizes the “ongoing need as a society, to expand the available frameworks for narrating… the complex ways in which experiences of victimization shape the parameters of women’s choices and actions” (105–106). As a long-running and influential serial narrative, Orange contributed one such framework to assist with the proliferation of available narratives; it serves as an occasion for others to tell their own narratives and to craft their own arguments, thus amplifying its effects through the discursive proliferation these engagements engender. “Because the law revolves around ritualized battles over competing narratives and cultural stories, women’s engagements with narratives of victimization can also serve as a resource for challenging the law’s prevailing stories about victimization and agency” (Sweeney 128). Beyond potentially challenging such hegemonic narratives itself, Orange actively facilitates controversy in such a way as to produce viewer receptions which may offer alternative narratives to challenge “the law’s prevailing stories” about crime and victimization. That these potentially virtuous effects are ultimately secondary or even put to the service of primarily business dealings does not make them any less “real” for those who participate in them.

Is Entertainment the New Ac tivism?

213

Feedback Loops, Recommendation Engines, and the Taste for Prisons In their often-argumentative dealings with each other and with the series itself, both academic and lay critics have helped to constitute the communities of concern outlined above and, therefore, served as contributing participants in the constant re-negotiation of Orange’s own serial aspirations. Indeed, the series has often courted the controversies to which critics react; consider the sixth season’s finale, which ends with Piper’s surprising release – a narrative decision almost certainly made in order to not only highlight her relative privilege, but to spark discussion. Why, one is urged to ask, does Piper get to go home while Taystee faces the possibility of a life sentence and several Latina inmates get shipped off to an Immigrant and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center? It is an outcome as concocted to highlight the uneven, racialized treatment of the justice system as it is to generate online chatter.36 Moreover, by integrating recent debates about immigration and ICE detention practices, Orange was able to not only refresh itself by yet again shifting the focus of its institutional melodrama into yet another wing of the American corrections apparatus, but in doing so already began determining the trajectory of future receptions and debates. It is precisely because it generated disagreement, dispute, and critique about its own operations that Orange managed to maintain, renegotiate, and thus continuously renew its activist aspirations – it thrived on the self-same disputes it helped to generate. Controversy, in other words, can drive seriality. Even when critics attempted to discredit the series’ narratives or representations, they did so within the terms set by the series itself, and were thus easily contained within the series’ feedback loop. In the process, critics also surfaced concerns which expanded the scope of discourses which the series reincorporated as resources for serial expansion, thus rejuvenating its narrative in ways which invited still other disputes. The result was the perpetuation of feedback loops which continually sustained the salience of Orange’s cultural politics, as critical challenges to Orange’s activist aspirations expanded outwards through ever-widening field of exploitable concerns. As self-confessed entertainment, Orange generates a productive tension as both viewers and the series itself try to make sense of the contradictions which inevitably arise from using activist themes for commercial gain. Indeed, the need to service its own commercial obligations means that Orange’s activist aspirations are 36 “Be Free.” Season 6, Episode 13: 01:17:15–01:22:40.

214 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

frequently tempered by other considerations, making the series seem often agnostic and at times even adversarial towards its own audience’s most activist-minded responses; TV is often receptive to audience feedback, but rarely is it simply democratic. Orange’s selective appropriation of criticism into its own serial development highlights its agency not simply as a passive forum but rather as an influential agenda setter. Even after its finale, it continues to command an outsized ability to shape its own critical sphere. The series brought and no doubt continues to bring together a diverse viewership who follow and respond to each other’s thoughts on the series, but it nevertheless also exerts an outsized influence over what issues get discussed and how they get framed, thereby circumscribing and directing possible trajectories of debate. The result, for Netflix, is increased commercial visibility, drawing new subscribers while appearing increasingly indispensable to the savvy connoisseur of popular culture. At the same time, by using its recommendation engine to gather together a diverse audience composed of overlapping taste-based niche segments which are all but certain to bring different perspectives to the table, Netflix ensured maximum fallout from the controversies Orange sparked in such a way as to extend its buzz exponentially further than would have been the case if it had only appealed to any single segment. Netflix’s algorithmic recommendation system assembles audiences neither on the basis of inclusion in traditional demographic segments nor even upon their location within national or regional borders, but instead by leveraging user-generated data to target potential viewers globally based upon shared tastes and viewing behaviors (Gomez-Uribe). Eli Pariser has proposed the notion of the “filter bubble” to describe the social implications of algorithmic personalization; the algorithm “looks at the things you seem to like – the actual things you’ve done, or the things people like you like – and tries to extrapolate” in order to “create a unique universe of information for each of us” (9). Marrying this notion with terminology proposed by Amanda D. Lotz, we might say that Netflix tends to produce and silo viewers into partially overlapping clusters of conglomerated filter bubbles. This becomes crucial when algorithmically tailored taste-based segmentations include not only televisual genres, but when those genres and algorithms start to service political predilections as well. Netflix not only uses series like Orange to sell a particular set of political preferences back to viewers, but also seeks to pile those preferences back on to other “niche” groups defined by all kinds of other preferences and behaviors. In this sense, Netflix’s strategies for gathering its audiences may tend to

Is Entertainment the New Ac tivism?

215

dis-articulate traditional identity positions from associated political commitments, identities, or social positionalities so as to re-articulate them as commercially legible consumer experiences. It may also use data exhaust culled from users’ behavior to make decisions about the production and licensing of new content. The resulting content may depict the intersectional vulnerabilities of marginalized groups, but only so as to appeal to a “diverse” audience which can be de- and re-composed not only around demographic indicators such as gender, race, sexual identity, and so forth, but even more fundamentally into categorizations based upon the mere preference to see such positions represented on screen. This results not only in a tendency to de-couple marketing and consumption from identity markers, but also to quite problematically repackage the political interests of certain precarious identity groups as consumable media experiences. Thus, the representational and commercial strategies Orange and Netflix deploy to appeal to a diverse audience may prove problematic insofar as they redefine intersectionality discourses as statistical correlations generated by the behaviors of various and at times overlapping niche consumer groups. The result is a strategy which, far from being properly “intersectional (e.g., Black Lesbian Woman)” is not only instead merely “additive (e.g. Black + Lesbian + Women)” (Bowleg, qtd. in Sulimma 5), but may even go so far as to do away with the whole notion of social difference altogether, replacing it with an emphasis on the similarities implied by shared tastes and common viewing behaviors. In other words, constructing audiences – even what I have herein called communities of concern – from the overlapping conglomeration of taste-based statistical clusters depends upon, if not a total displacement, then at least a certain dilution of intersectional identity politics. Netflix markets identity positions and intersectionality discourses as entertainment content even as its commercial practices render its audiences visible and measurable only insofar as their consumption behaviors serve, not necessarily as indicators of their own intersectional identity positions, but rather of the pleasure they get out of viewing characters situated in various states of social precarity. Such information inevitably feeds back into business decisions which drive the presumed profitability of particular production decisions. This may prove socially beneficial insofar as it assembles communities of concern amongst audience members who may not have otherwise ever had a reason to commune together; it may also, however, result in hiding that content, and thus those discussions, from other audiences altogether. In creating personalized, algorithmically curated libraries, and thus experiences, for overlapping groups of consumers, taste-based algorithmic recommendations may produce bridges connecting

216 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

some otherwise far-flung audience members together, but those self-same bridges may also serve as invisible walls between those clusters and others produced on the basis of completely different sets of shared tastes, viewing habits, and perhaps even political predilections. Ultimately, we cannot disarticulate Orange from Netflix’s commercial practices and strategies. Orange’s ambitions are intimately entangled with Netflix’s attempts to establish a sense of commercial distinction and capture market share in an increasingly crowded attention economy and globalizing media ecosystem. In this sense, Terry Shauer’s contention that “[p]rison visibility… is at the present time intimately tied to the spectacular politics of popular culture” (214) needs to be understood as including behind-the-scenes commercial strategies and technology-enabled practices. Indeed, there is no doubt that Orange’s success is one of the main drivers for Netflix’s further investments in prison shows. This includes not only Netflix’s purchase of licensed offerings such as The CW’s The 100 (2014–2020), Fox’s Prison Break (2005–2017), or National Geographic’s Hard Time (2009–2013) for inclusion in its catalogue, but also Netflix originals such as the reality-TV docuseries Girls Incarcerated (2018), Jailbirds (2019), I Am a Killer (2018), Inside the World’s Toughest Prisons (2016–2018), and First and Last (2018), as well as international dramatic offerings such as Locked Up (2015–2019), Prison Playbook (2012), and The Inmate (2018) which reflect its increasingly global ambitions. This explosion of prison-themed content not only implicates Netflix in the promotion of what Michelle Brown calls “penal spectatorship” (9), but also points to the streaming platform’s ability to build brand equity upon the commercialization of what Gresham Sykes called “the pains of imprisonment” (11).37 Netflix increasingly positions itself as a major delivery vehicle for an assortment of prison genres catering to an ostensibly diverse array of audience segments and viewing preferences. But in doing so it actively fosters an increasingly global taste for prisons.

Conclusion Much like OZ in relation to HBO, Orange is the New Black holds a special place in contemporary TV lore insofar as it marks one of Netflix’s earliest and most successful forays into original programming. In many ways, Orange both builds upon and innovates on traditions of “quality” realism inherited from the likes of OZ, The Wire, and their network forebearers. 37 I discuss these notions in greater depth in Chapter 1.

Is Entertainment the New Ac tivism?

217

It also departed from the poses struck by earlier programs by explicitly – and problematically – touting its own ostensibly activist ambitions as a cornerstone of its claims to “quality” status. It struggled mightily to make good on this claim in various overlapping dimensions: it drew upon an apparent knowledge of the social struggles faced by incarcerated women as it foregrounded their backstories to add depth and relevance to its drama-comedic take on prison melodrama; it tied itself to the celebrity activism of its most (hyper)visible actors and appropriated – or at times even blatantly exploited – the aesthetics, rhetoric, and political stances of social justice movements like Black Lives Matter; and it courted controversy while nourishing itself from the constant stream of feedback and critique offered up by its highly committed and diverse fan base. At the same time, the series could not help but operate within the confines of the business strategies and technological structures erected by its industry sponsor, Netflix. Whether its self-proclaimed activism constituted a cynical bid for relevance, arose from sincere aspirations to intervene in broader social debates about mass incarceration’s toll on a diverse assortment of women, or some mixture of both, it ultimately served Netflix’s commercial interests quite well. Orange had a big hand in propelling Netflix’s rising star as the go-to venue for the savvy consumer of popular culture, even as it whets a growing appetite for prison-themed programming amongst an increasingly diverse array of Netflix’s international audiences. Sources Cited ACLU. “Facts about the Over-Incarceration of Women in the United States.” ACLU. Accessed 1 Aug. 2017. https://www.aclu.org/other/facts-about-over-incarcerationwomen-united-states?redirect=facts-about-over-incarceration-women-unitedstates Allen, Samantha. “Why Can’t ‘Orange Is the New Black’ Stop Torturing Its Transgender Character?” Daily Beast. 7 May 2016. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. http://www.thedailybeast. com/why-cant-orange-is-the-new-black-stop-torturing-its-transgender-character Arkles, Gabriel. “Safety and Solidarity across Gender Lines: Rethinking Segregation of Transgender People in Detention.” Temple Political & Civil Rights Law Review, vol. 18, no. 2, 2009, p. 515–560. Badgett, M.V. Lee et al. “Best Practices for Asking Questions to Identify Transgender and Other Gender Minority Respondents on Population-Based Surveys.” The Williams Institute: UCLA School of Law, Sept. 2014. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/geniuss-reportsep-2014.pdf

218 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

Beck, Allen J. “PREA Data Collection Activities.” U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics. June 2015. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. https://www.bjs.gov/ content/pub/pdf/pdca15.pdf Blakinger, Keri. “Don’t Believe the “Orange is the New Black” Hype: How the Netflix Series Misrepresents Life Behind Bars.” 12 July 2015. Web. Accessed 15 July 2017. http://www.salon.com/2015/07/11/dont_believe_the_orange_is_the_new_black_ hype_how_the_netflix_series_misrepresents_life_behind_bars/ Bozelko, Chandra. “10 Things ‘Orange Is The New Black’ Gets Wrong about Prison (According to an Inmate).” Listverse. 29 Sept. 2014. Web. Accessed 15 July 2017. http://listverse.com/2014/09/29/10-things-orange-is-the-new-black-getswrong-about-prison-according-to-an-inmate/ Brown, Julie K. “Battered Sex, Corruption and Cover-ups Behind Bars in Nation’s Largest Women’s Prison.” Miami Herald. 12 Dec. 2015. Web. Accessed 1 June 2017. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/special-reports/florida-prisons/ article49175685.html Brown, Michelle. The Culture of Punishment. New York: New York University Press, 2009. Brucculieri, Julia and Samira Wiley. Interview: “Samira Wiley on the Real-Life Inspiration Behind Poussey’s Big ‘Orange Is The New Black’ Moment.” Huffington Post. 27 June 2016. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ samira-wiley-poussey-orange-is-the-new-black_us_57712b44e4b0f168323a0b6c Burykill, Bert. “‘Orange Is the New Black’ through the Eyes of an Ex-Con.” Vice. 6 Aug. 2013. Web. Accessed 15 July 2017. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ xd4ee4/pen-pals-orange-is-the-new-black-through-the-eyes-of-an-ex-con Campoamor, Danielle. “Why Penssatucky’s Rape on ‘Orange is the New Black’ Hits So Close to Home for Me.” Romper. 19 June 2016. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. https://www.romper.com/p/why-pennsatuckys-rape-on-orange-is-the-newblack-hits-so-close-to-home-for-me-12750 Caputi, Jane. “The Color Orange? Social Justice Issues in the First Season of Orange is the New Black.” The Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 28, no. 6, 2015, p. 1130–1150. Cecil, Dawn K. Prison Life in Popular Culture: From the Big House to Orange is the New Black. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2015. Chaney, Jen. “Orange Is the New Black Challenges Us to Sympathize with Aggressors in Season 4.” Vulture. 20 June 2016. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. http://www.vulture. com/2016/06/orange-is-the-new-black-sympathy-aggressors-season-four.html Codianni, Beatrice. “Former Prisoner: ‘Orange Is The New Black’ is Not Funny.” truthout. 3 Sept. 2014. Web. Accessed 15 July 2016. http://www.truth-out.org/ news/item/25957-former-inmate-orange-is-the-new-black-is-not-funny Collis, Clark. “Interview with Jenji Kohan.” Entertainment Weekly. 13 July 2013. Web. Accessed 1 Aug. 2016. http://www.ew.com/article/2013/07/12/orange-isthe-new-black-jenji-kohan-talks

Is Entertainment the New Ac tivism?

219

Colurso, Mary. “How Real is ‘Orange is the New Black’? Former Tutwiler Inmates Compare Experiences to TV, Movies.” Alabama Entertainment. 15 June 2016. Web. Accessed 1 Aug. 2017. http://www.al.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2014/08/ do_tv_and_movies_reflect_reali.html Crenshaw, Kimberlé W. “From Private Violence to Mass Incarceration: Thinking Intersectionally about Women, Race, and Social Control.” UCLA Law Review, vol. 59, No 6, 2012, p. 1418–1472. Crenshaw, Kimberlé, Andrea J. Ritchie et al. “Say Her Name: Resisting Police Violence against Black Women.” Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies, 2015. Web. Accessed 1 Dec. 2019. https://ncvc.dspacedirect.org/ handle/20.500.11990/1926 Davis, Angela. Are Prisons Obsolete? New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003. Dickens, Charles. American Notes. London: Chapman and Hall, 1850. Dyer, Richard. Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2004. Frost, Natasha A. and Carlos E. Monteiro. “Administrative Segregation in U.S. Prisons.” National Institute of Justice. March 2016. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/249749.pdf Gomez-Uribe, Carlos. “A Global Approach to Recommendations.” Netflix. 17 Feb. 2016. Web. Accessed 1 Dec. 2018. https://about.netflix.com/en/news/a-globalapproach-to-recommendations Gross, Terry and Jenji Kohan. “‘Orange’ Creator Jenji Kohan: ‘Piper Was My Trojan Horse.’” NPR. 12 Aug. 2013. Web. Accessed 1 Aug. 2017. http://www.npr. org/2013/08/13/211639989/orange-creator-jenji-kohan-piper-was-my-trojan-horse Hartman, Saidiya. Scenes of Subjection. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Hasan, Iman. “If There’s a Right Way to Depict Rape on TV, I Think Orange is the New Black Just Did It.” xoJane.com. 6 July 2015. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. http:// www.xojane.com/issues/orange-is-the-new-black-rape-scene Human Rights Campaign and POCC. “Addressing Anti-Transgender Violence.” 2015. Web. Accessed 1 July 2015. http://hrc-assets.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws. com//files/assets/resources/HRC-AntiTransgenderViolence-0519.pdf Ibrahim, Shamira. “Yeah, I’m Finished with the Black Suffering Trauma Porn of Orange is the New Black.” VSB. 23 June 2016. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. http:// verysmartbrothas.com/yeah-im-finished-with-the-black-suffering-traumaporn-of-orange-is-the-new-black/ Jahn-Sudmann, Andreas and Frank Kelleter. “Die Dynamik serieller Überbietung: Zeitgenössische amerikanische Fernsehserien und das Konzept des Quality TV.” Populäre Serialität: Narration – Evolution – Distinktion. Ed. Frank Kelleter. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2012. p. 205–224. James, S. E. et al. The Report of the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey. Washington, DC: National Center for Transgender Equality, 2016. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017.

220 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

http://www.transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/usts/USTS%20Full%20 Report%20-%20FINAL%201.6.17.pdf Jenkins, Henry. Textual Poachers. New York: Routledge, 2013. Kelleter, Frank. “Five Ways of Looking at Popular Seriality.” Media of Serial Narrative. Ed. Frank Kelleter. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2017. Kelleter, Frank. Serial Agencies: The Wire and Its Readers. Winchester: Zero Books, 2014. Kerman, Piper. Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison. New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2011. Kiefer, Halle. “Laverne Cox Responds to Chimamanda Adichie’s Comments about Trans Women and Male Privilege.” Vulture. 13 March 2017. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. http://www.vulture.com/2017/03/laverne-cox-chimamanda-adichietrans-women-privilege.html Kunzel, Regina. Criminal Intimacy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Lambda Legal. “Transgender Rights Toolkit.” 2016. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. https:// www.lambdalegal.org/publications/trans-toolkit Lockett, Dee and Laverne Cox. Interview: “Orange Is the New Black’s Laverne Cox on Why Playing Sophia’s Shocking Punishment Was an Out-of-Body Experience.” Vulture. 24 June 2015. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. http://www.vulture.com/2015/06/ laverne-cox-orange-is-the-new-black-sophias-shocking-punishment.html Lotz, Amanda D. Portals: A Treatise on Internet-Distributed Television. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, 2017. Web. Accessed 12 Dec. 2018. https://quod.lib.umich. edu/m/maize/mpub9699689/ Lotz, Amanda D. The Television Will Be Revolutionized. 2nd Edition. New York: New York University Press, 2014. Loya, Joe. “‘Orange Is The New Black’: The New Way to See Prisoners.” Medium. 22 July 2013. Web. Accessed 15 July 2017. https://medium.com/straight-crooked-orsideways/orange-is-the-new-black-the-new-way-to-see-prisoners-9d3b2c9f06e5 Marcus, Sharon. “Fighting Bodies, Fighting Words: A Theory and Politics of Rape Prevention.” Feminists Theorize the Political. Ed. Judith Butler, Joan Scott. New York: Routledge, 2002. McClelland, Mac. “‘Orange is the New Black’: Caged Heat.” Rolling Stone. 12 June 2015. Web. Accessed 1 Aug. 2017. http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/features/ orange-is-the-new-black-cover-story-caged-heat-20150612 McDonough, Katie. “Laverne Cox Flawlessly Shuts Down Katie Couric’s Invasive Questions about Transgender People.” Salon. 8 Jan. 2014. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. http://www.salon.com/2014/01/07/laverne_cox_artfully_shuts_down_katie_courics_invasive_questions_about_transgender_people/ Moxley, Chandler. “How ‘Orange is the New Black’ Reflects Rape Culture.” Odyssey. 27 June 2016. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. https://www.theodysseyonline.com/ how-orange-is-the-new-black-reflects-rape-culture

Is Entertainment the New Ac tivism?

221

Muñoz, José Esteban. Disidentifications. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999. National Sexual Violence Resource Center. “Statistics about Sexual Violence.” nsvrc. org. 2015. Accessed 1 Aug. 2017. http://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/publications_nsvrc_factsheet_media-packet_statistics-about-sexual-violence_0.pdf Negra, Diane. Off-white Hollywood. London: Routledge, 2001. Nichols, Erin. “What ‘Orange is the New Black’ Got Wrong about Rape Forgiveness.” Pashionistas. 28 June 2016. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. http://pashionistas.com/ post/146602409771/what-orange-is-the-new-black-got-wrong-about Orange is the New Black. Jenji Kohan, cr. Netflix, 2013–2019. Paige, Alexis. “Seeing Orange.” Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction, vol. 16. No. 1, Spring 2014, p. 143–151. Pariser, Eli. The Filter Bubble. London: Penguin Books, 2011. Pehanick, Maggie. “Is Orange is the New Black Accurate? An Anonymous Former Inmate Weights In.” Popsugar. 17 June 2017.Web. Accessed 15 July 2017. https:// www.popsugar.com/entertainment/How-True-Orange-New-Black-38278777 Piepenburg, Erik. “Broadening a Trangender Tale That Has Only Just Begun.” New York Times. 19 June 2015. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/21/ movies/broadening-a-transgender-tale-that-has-only-just-begun.html Piepenburg, Erik and Laverne Cox. Interview: “Laverne Cox.” Times Talks. 25 Aug. 2015. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. https://livestream.com/nytimes/events/4219193/ videos/97245965 Rhimes, Shonda. “Jenji Kohan.” TIME. 23 April 2014. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. http://time.com/70867/jenji-kohan-2014-time-100/ Roberts, Amy. “Pennsatucky’s Sympathy for Her Rapist in ‘Orange is the New Black’ was an Uncomfortable Reminder of My Own Rape.” Bustle. 27 June 2016. Web. Accessed 1 July 2016. https://www.bustle.com/articles/167886-pennsatuckyssympathy-for-her-rapist-in-orange-is-the-new-black-was-an-uncomfortablereminder-of Romano, Tricia and Laverne Cox. “I Absolutely Consider Myself to be a Feminist.” Dame. 1 June 2014. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. https://www.damemagazine. com/2014/06/01/laverne-cox-i-absolutely-consider-myself-feminist Sedgewick, Eve. “Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading, or, You’re So Paranoid, You Probably Think This Essay is about You.” Touching Feeling. Durham: Duke University Press, 2002. Seltzer, Mark. Serial Killers. New York: Routledge, 1998. Shackelford, Ashleigh. “Orange is the New Black is Trauma Porn Written for White People.” Wear Your Voice. 20 June 2016. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. https:// wearyourvoicemag.com/more/entertainment/orange-is-the-new-black-traumaporn-written-white-people

222 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

Shauer, Terrie. Spectacles of Prison: Masculinities, Punishment and Social Order in US Screen Prison Drama 1995–2005. Ph.D. Dissertation. Simon Fraser University, 2007. Smith, Philip. Punishment and Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Spade, David. Normal Life. Brooklynn: South End Press, 2011. Spillers, Hortense J. “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book.” Diacritics, vol. 17, mo. 2: Summer 1987. p. 64–81. Steinmetz, Katy. “The Transgender Tipping Point.” TIME. 29 May 2014. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. http://time.com/magazine/us/135460/june-9th-2014-vol-183-no-22-u-s/ Steinmetz, Katy and Laverne Cox. Interview: “Laverne Cox Talks to TIME about the Transgender Movement.” Time. 29 May 2014. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. http:// time.com/132769/transgender-orange-is-the-new-black-laverne-cox-interview/ Sulimma, Maria. Serial Gender, Gendered Serialities: Practices of US-American Television Narratives in the 21st Century. Ph.D. Dissertation. Freie Universität Berlin, 2018. Sweeney, Megan. Reading is My Window. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010. Sykes, Gresham M. The Society of Captives. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007. Tillet, Salamishah. “It’s So Not ‘Oz’: Netflix’s ‘Orange is the New Black’.” The Nation. 23 July 2013. Web. Accessed 1 Aug. 2016. https://www.thenation.com/article/ its-so-not-oz-netflixs-orange-new-black/ Wacquant, Loïc. Punishing the Poor. Durham: Duke University Press, 2009. Widmer, Teagan. “Representations of Trans Women in A Post-Orange Is The New Black World.” {young}ist. 2 Aug. 2013. Web. Accessed 1 Dec. 2018. https://youngist. github.io/clean-blog/representations-of-trans-women-in-a-post-orange-is-the#. YLXvfagzZPY Williams, Linda. On The Wire. Durham: Duke University Press, 2014. Williams, Linda. Playing the Race Card. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. Wojciechowski, Miranda. “Vigilantism and Orange is the New Black: The Anxiety of Injustice.” The Rumpus. 4 Aug. 2016. Web. Accessed 15 July 2016. http://therumpus. net/2016/08/vigilantism-and-orange-is-the-new-black-the-anxiety-of-injustice/

5.

Can Melodrama Redeem American History?Ava DuVernay’s 13th and Queen Sugar Abstract This chapter considers two projects headed by Ava DuVernay: the Netflix documentary 13th and OWN’s drama series Queen Sugar. Although they approach the topic of mass incarceration through drastically different genres, each seek to incorporate aspects of Black studies scholarship into their respective brands of advocacy documentary and serial TV melodrama. Together they historicize mass incarceration’s roots in slavery in ways which prove conducive to the exploration of the changing contours of Black representation across media forms. However, these treatments nevertheless remain largely entangled with problematic traditions of American melodramatic storytelling.1 Keywords: 13th, Queen Sugar, Ava DuVernay, African American history, documentary, Black feminism, Black family melodrama

Publicizing Ava DuVernay as Black Feminist Auteur In September of 2016, VaintyFair.com posted an article by Yohana Desta entitled “Ava DuVernay and Queen Sugar Look Like the Future of Television.” Indeed, since the success of her 2014 feature film Selma, DuVernay has been both rightfully celebrated and aggressively marketed as a rising star in an industry and profession dominated by white men, quickly becoming an icon of Black feminism in popular culture. In an entertainment industry which 1 Portions of this chapter are adapted from “Articulating Counter/Publics and Re-Assembling History: Ava DuVernay’s 13th.” American Counter/Publics. Ed. Haselstein, Ulla et al. Winter Verlag Heidelberg, 2019.

Flamand, Lee A., American Mass Incarceration and Post-Network Quality Television: Captivating Aspirations. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2022 doi 10.5117/9789463725057_ch05

224 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

has generally diversified the opportunities it offers to Black acting talent, Ava DuVernay occupies space not in front of the lens, but behind it; she has achieved the status of auteur in the most culturally distinguished sense of the term. DuVernay’s name has become so synonymous not only with Black and female directorial excellence, but with the politics of inclusion in Hollywood representation, that in 2016 New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis, riffing on the notion of the Bechdel test, coined the notion of “the DuVernay test, in which African-Americans and other minorities have fully realized lives rather than serve as scenery in white stories.” DuVernay’s Netflix documentary 13th was released just a few weeks after Desta’s article to almost immediate acclaim. Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers included it in his list of “20 Best Movies of 2016” – the only documentary on a list which also tellingly included Denzel Washington’s cinematic adaptation of August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning film of the same name, Fences (2016), Nate Parker’s “incendiary telling of the 1831 slave rebellion led by Nat Turner” evocatively titled The Birth of a Nation (2016), and Barry Jenkins’s Academy Award-winning, arthouse queering of the ‘hood film, Moonlight (2016). 13th won several awards, including several Primetime Emmy Awards and the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Documentary.2 In a year in which several Black male directors were recognized for their great cinematic achievements in culturally distinguished registers, DuVernay’s 13th stands out not only for the gender of its filmmaker, but for its ability to pull its genre, so frequently (and often unfairly) associated with dry and somber didacticism, into the upper-echelons of both popular consciousness and cultural distinction. 13th takes its title from the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, which forbids slavery except as punishment for a crime, and under the aegis of which slavery has found its various afterlives. Starting from the historical abandonment of postbellum Reconstruction and ending with a discussion of the Black Lives Matter movement, it develops a historically informed, multi-dimensional critique of American mass incarceration, showing how, in the words of interviewee Michelle Alexander, “in America, we haven’t so much ended racial caste, but simply redesigned it” (1:17:45). By embedding contemporary racialized mass incarceration in a distinctly historical and political context, the film seeks to not only bring attention to the issue of prison reform or the cause of prison abolition but to challenge 2 As Michael T. Martin observes: “It’s fair to say that Ava DuVernay is among the vanguard of a new generation of African American filmmakers who are the busily undeterred catalyst for what may very well be a black film renaissance in the making” (DuVernay and Martin 36).

Can Melodr ama Redeem American History?

225

widespread misconceptions about crime, race, and criminal justice in the United States.3 Interestingly, Desta chose to omit 13th from her list of DuVernay’s achievements only weeks before its release. I am inclined to chalk this up to the likely dissonance of evoking documentary’s lackluster cultural connotations in a publication dedicated to the allure of the elegant and glamourous. 13th, however, is anything but lackluster. To be sure, the documentary utilizes several fairly standard documentary conventions: it is narrated almost entirely through interspliced clips of interviews with academic experts, journalists, and activists such as Angela Davis, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and Van Jones, whose commentary is supported by traditional documentary sources such as photographs and news footage. However, it infuses this otherwise conventional formula with a sense of cinematographic pastiche. The fact that Desta’s Vanity Fair article should ignore 13th while setting Queen Sugar center stage speaks to both the perceived overlap in audience between the glossy magazine and Oprah Winfrey’s OWN cable network as well as the heights of cultural distinction which “quality” serial TV drama has achieved since the dawn of the 21 st century; however, it may also be a consequence of editorial practices which increasingly conflate cultural journalism and native advertisement, thus indicating a calculated omission to avoid providing press for one of OWN’s competitors. In any case, the omission produces an oeuvre conditioned by distinctly commercial parameters even as it indicates the growing competitive disconnect between the business strategies pursued by streaming platforms like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon on the one hand and those of cable television networks on the other. Indeed, if Netflix’s business strategy revolves around licensing and producing a wide-ranging library of content in order to cater to an extensive variety of niche interests and tastes, then OWN’s strategy is much more in-line with that of other advertiser-sponsored cable channels, which tend to cultivate distinctive brands geared towards traditional demographic segments. Insofar as the programming OWN produces is geared primarily towards women, and African American women in particular, it is not unlikely that Desta’s decision to omit 13th from the list of DuVernay’s achievements is itself a symptom of industry biases which continue to position women as more likely consumers of

3 Notably, 13th is not DuVernay’s film about incarceration; her second feature, Middle of Nowhere (2012), was about a woman who struggles to come to grips with her husband’s incarceration.

226 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

pre-scheduled, long-form dramas rather than documentaries. 4 While Netflix’s behavior-driven “recommendation” algorithm ostensibly has the virtue of decoupling presumed tastes and viewing habits from predetermined demographic markers such as race, income level, or gender, OWN’s own brand coherence relies primarily upon the perpetuation of common industry scripts about the consumption patterns of women, and women of color in particular, even as it seeks to raise the visibility and support the representational diversity those self-same demographics on television and in media more broadly. Indeed, Desta’s focus on Queen Sugar also likely emanates from its associations with what Annette Kuhn calls “Women’s Genres” such as the so-called “women’s picture” or the soap opera, both of which appeal to female audiences through the “construction of narratives motivated by female desire and processes of spectator identif ication governed by female point-of-view” (225). Such associations are in turn underscored by DuVernay’s decision to recruit only women directors, in part to protest the exclusion of female directors in a male-dominated industry (Rearick). Queen Sugar is in many ways a perfect fit with OWN’s brand aspirations. Based on a novel of the same name by Natalie Baszile, Queen Sugar was one of the cable network’s first forays into long-form, scripted original drama. With an almost entirely black cast, Queen Sugar chronicles the struggles of the Bordelon siblings – Nova, Charley, and Ralph Angel – as they cope with family tragedy. After losing their father, a Louisiana farmer, in the first episode of the series, the siblings inherit his 800-acre sugarcane farm, which they must learn how to operate in order to save it from the powerful Landry family, whose ancestors, we eventually learn, once owned the Bordelons.5 Queen Sugar largely adopts many of the conventional themes of the family melodrama, with much of the drama centering around the Bordelon siblings’ attempts to rekindle family ties in the wake of several family tragedies and personal differences. Ralph Angel, the wayward youngest sibling only recently released on parole from a Louisiana prison, attempts to reconnect with and care for his six-year-old son, Blue. His half-sister Charley, a savvy sports manager, flees her marriage to basketball star Davis West after learning that he may have raped an escort. Their third sibling, Nova, tries to negotiate the conflicts between her romantic desires and political commitments as 4 Aside from syndicated content, other common original programming on OWN includes daytime talk shows, soap operas, reality TV series, and made-for-TV movies. 5 The plot, in many ways, is a recasting of Dust Bowl era rural melodrama in the Black Lives Matter moment.

Can Melodr ama Redeem American History?

227

she is torn between her affair with a married police detective and her own journalism and activism against police corruption in Louisiana. Much of the internal drama which revolves within the relationships between the three siblings reflects differences in terms of their varying class positions and lifestyle choices; as a business woman who yearns for both success and respectability, Charley, for example, finds it hard to trust Ralph Angel’s judgement due to his past deeds and dishonored status as an ex-convict. Likewise, Ralph Angel struggles to trust Blue’s mother, Darla, a former drug addict who attempts to put her life back together, while simultaneously working hard to not only manage the day-to-day business of the farm but win back Charley’s respect. Queen Sugar spends great amounts of time both exploring and exploiting the often tearful and heartfelt emotional excess generated by these family struggles, its camera frequently lingering on long moments of intense anguish, deep yearning, or joy, thereby deploying common conventions of the soap opera and activating time-tested structures of sentimentality long associated with genres of American melodrama. If Desta fails to make the connections between 13th’s critique of racialized mass incarceration and Queen Sugar’s melodramatic explorations of the Black family, others have highlighted it as one of the series’ stand-out features. Bethonie Butler of The Washington Post notes that “[t]he effects of incarceration had long been a topic of interest for the director and have been a recurring theme in her work.” As Michael Arceneaux favorably contrasts Queen Sugar’s racial politics to its TV forebearers: “The Cosby Show was an indirect rejection of the caricatures Ronald Reagan made of Black people, and the 1990s sitcoms more or less comic relief in the wake of President Clinton taking those caricatures and using them to further break up the Black family through mass incarceration, a show like Queen Sugar is an honest look at where many of us stand now.” Inkoo Kang mentions the series’ investments in mass incarceration while simultaneously locating the series’ “heart” in its ruminations on the intersections of family, geography, and race: “the series touches on black issues like media underrepresentation, racially discriminatory financial predation, biases in the criminal justice system, and the difficulties of post-prison rehabilitation. But at its broken but hopeful heart, Queen Sugar is a fascinatingly knotty family drama and a half-lovely, half-searing portrait of blackness in the rural South.” This chapter aims to understand not only how Queen Sugar attempts to remediate the issues treated in 13th as serial TV drama in a way which explores their impact on everyday life, but also explores the ways in which Queen Sugar seeks to utilize family melodrama in order to remediate (or “redeem”) the history of oppression depicted by 13th. As Charley puts it in

228 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

Queen Sugar’s first season’s finale as she attempts to convince her fellow Black farmers to assist her in founding a sugarcane mill to compete with the Landry’s local monopoly, “we want to win for all those who lost. For all the people who came before us, who struggled and strained so that we can be here right now.”6 As I will later demonstrate in greater detail, this simple phrase carries with it a whole genealogy of Black radical thought, evoking ideas and intellectual intellectual histories which DuVernay likely became acquainted with during her oft-advertised education in African American Studies at UCLA. By activating not only pop-cultural narratives of personal redemption but also theories of historical racial oppression, Queen Sugar utilizes melodramatic mode to develop a depiction of mass incarceration as not only a residual reincarnation of slavery, but as a structuring force in the everyday lives of its characters. Furthermore, by exploring the idea that fiction may recover the lost causes of history’s defeated and forgotten, Queen Sugar not quite successfully pursues through televisual melodrama the messianic possibilities which documentary and academic scholarship can only diagnose.

“The Story Never Changes”? Desmond Bell has noted that many professional historians tend to be skeptical of documentary film, viewing it as the “dissemination of previously accredited historical knowledge via an untrustworthy mass medium” (8). And indeed, insofar as 13th’s narration relies almost exclusively on the testimony of expert interviewees, many of whom are professional historians, it would seem to fit this bill. Although 13th has been frequently lauded for its aesthetic excellence, rhetorical eloquence, and argumentative persuasiveness, it may seem to more “in-the-know” audiences to marshal relatively conventional modes, sources, and techniques of documentary filmmaking to generate a high-level primer on mass incarceration. However, 13th harbors a parallel set of aspirations drawn from academic modes of historical and humanistic investigation. It spends substantial screen time tracing slavery’s persistent afterlives though its various institutional permutations since the abandonment of Reconstruction, from postbellum convict leasing, through Jim Crow, and up to our present moment of mass incarceration, thereby rehearsing a growing scholarly consensus regarding racism’s perpetual reproduction across historical periods and 6 “Give Us This Day.” Season 1, Episode 13: 22:40–23:10.

Can Melodr ama Redeem American History?

229

shifting institutional contexts. Moreover, it seeks not merely to document but also perform the recovery of this counter-history. As historian and interviewee Kevin Gannon puts it early on in the film: History is not just stuff that happens by accident. We are the products of the history that our ancestors chose, if we’re white. If we are black, we are products of the history that our ancestors most likely did not choose. Yet here we all are together, the products of that set of choices. And we have to understand that in order to escape from it. (01:35)

Gannon’s commentary functions as a thesis statement, rooting our political present in the choices and struggles of the past, specifically the slave trade and its aftermath. Historical agency, itself connected with the political present, is ascribed along racialized lines of power and privilege, namely the color line which most often demarcated masters from slaves. As Angela Davis states in the film, “The prison industrial complex relies historically on the inheritances of slavery” (1:25:38). Slavery’s cultural, social and historical legacies, in other words, continues to live on and in the outcomes of the present. As Michelle Alexander sums it up near the end of the film, “systems of racial and social control that appear to die…. are reborn in new form tailored to the needs and constraints of the time” (01:24.30). By tracing the genealogy of slavery’s afterlives from the vantage point of contemporary mass incarceration, 13th aspires to trace out, in Foucault’s terms, a “history of the present” (D&P 31).7 As David Garland puts it, this genealogical approach neither indicates a tendency towards historical presentism nor is it merely a matter of “using a contemporary interest as the spur to question the past in new ways” (“What” 367). Rather, Foucault sought “to problematize the present by revealing the power relations upon which it depends and the contingent processes that have brought it into being” (Garland, “What” 376). More than simply seeking “to disturb our present-day conceptions,” the Foucauldian “genealogical approach” aims “to reveal something important – but hidden – in our contemporary experience; something about our relation to technologies of power–knowledge” 7 The notion of “the history of the present” first appears in the opening chapter of Foucault’s Discipline and Punish, in which he writes: “That punishment in general and the prison in particular belong to a political technology of the body is a lesson that I have learned not so much from history as from the present… I would like to write the history of this prison, with all the political investments of the body that it gathers together in its closed architecture. Why? Simply because I am interested in the past? No, if one means by that writing a history of the past in terms of the present. Yes, if one means writing the history of the present” (D&P 30–31).

230 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

(Garland, “What” 368). To achieve this, “Genealogical analysis traces… a series of troublesome associations and lineages” and often reveals that the “institutions and practices we value and take for granted today are actually more problematic or more ‘‘dangerous’’ than they otherwise appear” (Garland, “What” 376). The idea that institutional arrangements have a tendency to reproduce themselves over time, or that path-dependency tends to constrict available choices and outcomes, is not in itself a terribly controversial idea. However, when the subject of race and racism are involved, there is a popular tendency to treat the not-so-distant past as if it were downright ancient. As Kevin Gannon puts it: There has never been a period in our history where the law-and-order branch of the state has not operated against the freedoms, the liberties, the options, the choices that have been available for the black community, generally speaking. And to ignore that racial heritage, to ignore that historical context, means that you can’t have an informed debate about the current state of blacks and police relationship today, ‘cause this didn’t just appear out of nothing. This is the product of a centuries-long historical process. And to not reckon with that is to shut off solutions. (13th 1:27:45)

13th makes similar assertions and aspirations evident not only throughout its text, but also in its paratextual self-descriptions. As DuVernay herself puts it in an interview, “All this stuff is happening under the mask of time”: When I line up all of these instances on a timeline, I can see the continuum, the momentum that it has gained, how it’s blossomed, or rather festered. So often, as human beings, we live fully in the present moment and we feel like it is all happening now and it’s never happened before. But this has been happening and will continue to do so unless we break this continuum, unless we shatter the timeline. (DuVernay and Clark)

Here, historical storytelling is conceptualized as a process which disrupts the stultifying effects of quotidian existence and unmasks the mystifying novelty of the present which ostensibly render the public politically inert. The documentary seems to offer itself up as a kind of antidote to this deadened passivity. By offering itself up as a first step in “shattering” history’s hold on the present, many of 13th’s spokespersons and interviewees suggest an optimism about the ability to shake off the chains of the past. However, this strain is

Can Melodr ama Redeem American History?

231

both complemented and complicated by 13th’s other intellectual investments. As Van Jones puts it, “we don’t know what the next iteration of this will be, but it will be. It will be. And we will have to be vigilant” (13th, 1:22:30). Jones’s prediction echoes to some degree Afro-pessimist premises which assert, as Frank B. Wilderson III puts it, that “[a] Black radical agenda… emanates from a condition of suffering for which there is no imaginable strategy for redress – no narrative of redemption.” What this in turn suggests, in the words of Saidiya Hartman, is “a sense of temporal entanglement, where the past, present and the future, are not discrete and cut off from one another, but rather that we live the simultaneity of that entanglement” (Hartman and Siemsen). Or, as one of 13th’s marketing posters rather directly puts it: “The Story Never Changes” (Netflix). Hartman’s notion of “temporal entanglement” presents us with certain aesthetic problems, such as the reproduction of narrative conventions and other “representational structures” which “continue to produce black death… as the only horizon for black life” (Hartman and Sieman). 13th is from the get-go deeply invested in exploring the consequences of such observations, and a substantial part of its self-assigned work is to draw out the mutual entanglements of political and social histories of black oppression within spheres of American cultural production. For example, the film kicks off with a discussion of what Jelani Cobb calls “the mythology of black criminality” (00:04:10). Briefly touching on early melodrama and folk tales, 13th traces a post-Reconstruction cultural shift away from the antebellum slave stereotypes most commonly found in early melodramas and minstrelsy shows towards tropes of menacing, hypersexualized Black masculinity. Placing D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915) at the center of this analysis, the documentary periodically revisits the trope of Black criminality, identifying it as an anchor point for post-Reconstruction systems of racial control, and thereby suggests a deep and abiding historical complicity between popular representations of Blackness and enduring systems of racialized oppression. Meanwhile, it traces that trope all the way up to late 20th- and early 21st-century permutations, for example in the form of the so-called super-predator which to a large degree became the icon of Black menace driving the tough-on-crime policies of the Clinton administration. As Bryan Stevenson points out, this figure and the violence against Black men and women it authorizes is in many cases a product of the failure to address prior representations which rendered Black people as less than human: “we never dealt with it, so it turned into this presumption of dangerousness and guilt that follows every black and brown person wherever they are” (13th 01:25:28).

232 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

If the permanent stigma of criminalized Blackness animates the social pressures and practices which authorize both the social banishment and premature biological death of Black people as somehow inevitable, this also raises questions about how to represent Black death in ways which do not merely feed back into or naturalize it. Here, a tension arises between the desire to display Black death in order to rouse the sentiment and outrage of the nation and move people to action, and the fear that such displays will only provide a kind of perverse pleasure or re-inscribe violent death as a highly generic narrative outcome, an almost pre-determined vista of Black life. Calling attention from the opening pages of Scenes of Subjection to “the ease with which such scenes are usually reiterated, the casualness with which they are circulated,” Hartman worries about “the consequences of this routine display” (3). She asks, “how does one give expression to these outrages without exacerbating the indifference to suffering that is the consequence of the benumbing spectacle or contend with the narcissistic identification that obliterates the other or the prurience that too often is the response to such displays?” (4) 13th is also sensitive to these issues. DuVernay has frequently discussed her choice to include images not only of historical suffering and harm, but also contemporary footage of police shootings – with permission of victims’ families – as a conflicted one. She ultimately cites Mamie Till’s decision to hold an open casket funeral for the brutally disfigured body of her 14-year-old son, Emmett Till, the boy whose slaying at the hands of white racists for supposedly offending a white woman in 1955 helped galvanize the civil rights movement, as her guide (Traister and DuVernay). However, 13th nevertheless very explicitly and self-consciously thematizes this decision. While DuVernay’s directorial prerogative means that her own discretion ultimately wins out, the documentary actively questions the ethics of the decision through the voices of its interviewees. Cory Greene, for example, openly worries about desensitizing or normalizing such violence: “For many of us, whose families lived through this, we don’t need to see pictures to understand what’s going on. It’s really to speak to the masses who have been ignoring this for the majority of their life. But I also think there’s trouble just showing Black bodies as dead bodies, too. Too much of anything becomes unhealthy, un-useful” (01:28:33–1:29:00). Others, such as Van Jones, demur, arguing, “You have to shock people into paying attention” (01:29:15). By incorporating these debates into its own narration, the film ponders the risk that it may inadvertently perpetuate what Hortense Spillers has called “a potential for pornotroping” (67) or, as Saidiya Hartman puts it, “reinforce the spectacular character of black suffering” by repeatedly exposing us to

Can Melodr ama Redeem American History?

233

scenes of violence which “too often… immure us to pain by virtue of their familiarity” (Scenes 3–4). By self-consciously wrestling with the implications of these critiques, the film actively acknowledges the ethical risks involved in its own archival choices and strategies. While 13th does not shy away from deploying images of state-sanctioned brutality against Black bodies, it does so without situating them at the end of its diegesis, thereby avoiding cultural habits which situate Black death as the narrative horizon of Black life. Instead, 13th attempts to mitigate images of Black trauma and suffering by interweaving them with images of not only protest, but celebration as well. As the credit sequence roles, we are treated to snapshots of what DuVernay herself has called “Black joy” (qtd. in Laudo). Self-consciously aware of the power of images, including its own, in shaping attitudes, the documentary opts to close with images of affirmation. Near the end of the credit sequence, however, the film resorts back to images of protest, suggesting an inherent affinity between practices of celebration and protest, with each dissolving into the other. Protest becomes, in other words, an act of affirmation, while quotidian moments of celebration, hope, and happiness are themselves rendered as pregnant with political consequence. 13th’s credit sequence thus tempers its genealogies of deprivation and degradation with an insistence on moments of affirmation. Furthermore, the documentary runs these images of affirmation during its credit sequence, in a post-diegetic moment occurring only after its story has been told. It therefore also raises questions about where these images actually belong in relation to the larger historical questions the documentary evokes. Insofar as 13th borrows from discourses of Afro-pessimism, themselves indebted to Foucauldian notions regarding genealogy and “the history of the present,” its historical perspective is very much informed by radical intellectual traditions which staunchly critique more mainstream liberal or even traditional leftist projects which seek, in an integrationist fashion, to assimilate the banished, Black, socially dead into progressive narratives of history. In the words of Hartman: I think there’s a certain integrationist rights agenda that subjects who are variously positioned on the color line can take up. And that project is something I consider obscene: the attempt to make the narrative of defeat into an opportunity for celebration, the desire to look at the ravages and the brutality of the last few centuries, but to still find a way to feel good about ourselves… Unfortunately, the kind of social revisionist history undertaken by many leftists in the 1970s… resulted in celebratory narratives of the oppressed. (Hartman and Wilderson 185)

234 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

Although largely unstated, this passage suggests the degree to which Afro-pessimist projects are indebted not only to Foucault, but also take up questions posed in the works of Walter Benjamin. In his influential essay “On the Concept of History” Benjamin articulates a conception of history which resists both liberal and Marxist conceptions of teleological, progressive “History,” instead struggling with the question of how history, conceived not in the mode of civilizing progress but rather as “one single catastrophe, which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage” (392) might be redeemed. Positing “a weak messianic power” (390) which is the legacy passed on to each successive generation from the “defeated” of the past, Benjamin proscribes the “historical materialist” with the all-but-impossible task of realizing the lost causes of history’s defeated: Every age must strive anew to wrest tradition away from the conformism that is working to overpower it. The Messiah comes not only as the redeemer; he comes as the victor over the Antichrist. The only historian capable of fanning the spark of hope in the past is the one who is firmly convinced that even the dead will not be safe from the enemy if he is victorious. And this enemy has never ceased to be victorious. (391)

While Benjamin’s theorizing illustrates a major set of questions with which Afro-pessimism and similar scholarly projects frequently wrestle, his notion of “weak messianic power” is best understood not in the terms of Jewish mysticism or Christian teleology, but rather as a revolutionary drive which conflates the mystic’s yearning for messianic redemption with the historical materialist’s desire for revolutionary social justice. Whether the advent of this messianic moment can indeed result in the arrest of the “homogenous, empty time” (395) which characterizes the unrelenting march of modernity is questionable. Indeed, Benjamin’s figure of the helpless “angel of history” who desires to “awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed” yet is helpless to resist the raging storm of “progress” which unrelentingly blows him forward into the future symbolizes the radical historian’s own sense of powerlessness in the face of history’s brutal onslaught (392). If 13th insists upon the incorporation of an ethos of hope in our historical projects of recovery, then there arises a question about how far that ethos can or should ultimately be articulated in the mode of pessimistic critique rather than that of aspirational redemption. Should we, in other words, emphasize the messianic desire of the angel or the bleak calamity of the storm? If, as Wilderson has argued, Blackness is the onto-epistemological

Can Melodr ama Redeem American History?

235

condition which grounds the social by establishing a foundational divide between the eternally banished Black body and the redeemable white soul, then “we must come to grips with how the redemption of the subaltern… is made possible by the (re)instantiation of a regime of violence that bars Black people from the imaginary of redemption” (Wilderson). Thus, “Historicity and redemption are inextricably bound. Both are inherently anti-Black… redemption requires not degraded humanity but abject inhumanity” (Wilderson). If Blackness, in other words, appears as always having been the historical premise upon which this oppressive social order has been founded, is history destined to remain “the endlessly repeated play of dominations” (Foucault, “Nietzsche” 85)? And must we therefore, as Stephen Best has suggested, “resist the impulse to redeem the past and instead rest content with the fact that our orientation toward it remains forever perverse, queer, askew” (456)?

History: Assembly Required As Bruce Jackson has noted: “the key fact missed most often by social scientists utilizing documentary f ilms for data, is [that] documentary films are not found or reported things, they’re made things.” Or, as Bill Nichols puts it, “a documentary is a creative treatment of actuality, not a faithful transcription of it” (38). We cannot, in other words, forget the issue of media specificity: 13th after all is neither speculative, universal, or even radical historiography – it is a documentary, and we must account for its particularities in terms of genre, media identity, and cultural practice. Which brings us to our next question: how might the practice of documentary storytelling, as distinct from that of academic historiography, navigate the troubled waters of narrative, Blackness, and representation addressed above? As a media text comprised primarily of other discrete media texts organized into a coherent whole, documentaries such as 13th exist at and as the intersection of various archives. In this way documentary activity is similar to the work performed by historians, who likewise must craft original accounts of historical events from documents drawn from various inter-related archives. However, in finished product if not in practice, the crucial role media plays in the construction of historical narratives is not infrequently suppressed; with a few important exceptions, the main texts of history monographs often, although not always, appear as pure narrative or omniscient discourse. Messy issues such as media specificity, interpretation, source selectivity, exclusion, and editing are frequently banished

236 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

to the footnotes. 13th, however, shrewdly foregrounds its arrangement of documentary sources, and even ruminates on their importance as agents in struggles over the meaning of history. Near the end of the film, interviewee Jelani Cobb takes note of “a historical trajectory we can trace…” in the African American community’s search for “the medium of technology which will confirm your experience so that your basic humanity will be recognized.” (1:29:30) In these cases, media texts are credited with encoding and disseminating ignored experiences and repressed histories; while some preserve experiences which may have otherwise remained fundamentally obscure, others circulate injurious and racist images (and some do both at once). Media thus appears in 13th not only in the guise of documentary sources, but also as a distinct thematic concern in and of itself. Media is therefore rendered not only as a battleground of competing representations, but as the process by which disparate publics and counter-publics are conjured into being. This last observation is a point dramatized by the documentary’s own compositional efforts. The film charts not only the distortions, clichés, and demonizing tropes commonly found in popular culture, but also ostensibly more liberationist uses of media through 19th-century slave narratives, Reconstruction-era photographs, civil-rights era television broadcasts, and present-day deployments of cell phone cameras to document and disseminate practices of racial oppression, thus tracing out the crucial entanglements of media development and the history of Black dissent. By incorporating, commenting on, and juxtaposing such disparate sources as the slave narrative, popular music, film, photography, news footage, and even data visualizations, the film draws explicit attention to their importance in facilitating oppositional movements and helping them to not only disseminate, but even prior to this, to craft their messages in the first place. For example, 13th both deploys archival TV news footage of nonviolent activism during the civil rights era and dwells on the importance of television as a medium for disseminating this footage to a wider public, generating support for a nation-wide movement. Similarly, the documentary often uses data visualizations to introduce key facts, and it intersplices its various segments with “chapter breaks” consisting of musical interludes. The resulting soundtrack effectively compiles a mixtape of resistance across different genres – including, for example, Nina Simone’s rendition of “Work Song,” Public Enemy’s “Don’t Believe the Hype,” and an operatic arrangement by Jason Moran of Lead Belly’s folk traditional “There’s a Man Going ‘Round Taking Names” – which comprises a distinct musicological tradition of Black protest music.

Can Melodr ama Redeem American History?

237

In other words, 13th takes seriously the ways in which our media ecology, in terms both historical and contemporary, helps to pattern our social and political world. The kinds of media at our disposal and the affordances they offer are of key importance to the long march of history. For example, Van Jones notes the key role most recently played by camera phones and the Internet: The difference now is where someone can hold up one of these [smartphones], get what’s going on, they can put it on YouTube, and the whole world has to deal with it. That’s what’s new. It’s not the protests. It’s not the brutality. It’s the fact that we can force a conversation about it. (13th 1:30:10)

Media here are not only means of communication, but also the points at which we assemble, with evolutions in our media ecology allowing for novel means in which counter-publics may intervene in the wider public sphere, enabling public outreach and bypassing traditional media gatekeepers in order to have an impact on what appears on the national political agenda. Perhaps most interesting of all is the way in which 13th self-consciously situates itself as an acting participant on this battleground. While simultaneously functioning as an archive, artifact, participant, and organizing impulse, the film draws upon and produces itself as inheritance and inheritor of a history of Black dissent both through and as various forms of media and technology. In affirming its own dependence on media precursors, 13th draws attention to the dependency of historical storytelling and political activism on practices of media assemblage. As our inter-mediated point of access with both the past and contemporary reality, historical storytelling emerges not so much from an unmediated confrontation with history’s record as it is inscribed in our material culture but is rather generated in the process of its artful re-assembly. Documentary practice – that is, the reorganization of distinct media fragments into a coherent set of political claims – is celebrated not only as a labor of illumination, but also celebrates itself as a struggle for liberation. Insofar as 13th thematizes assemblage, the f ilm aspires to trace out the historical articulation of what we might call, drawing on the work of Alexander Weheliye, “racializing assemblages” (4). In Habeas Viscus, Weheliye critiques the ways in which Agamben’s notion of bare life and Foucault’s notion of biopolitics have come to dominate questions related to racialization, violence, and human vulnerability. Weheliye finds these discourses objectionable because “these concepts… neglect and/or actively dispute the existence of alternative modes of life alongside the violence,

238 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

subjection, exploitation, and racialization that define the modern human” (2). Drawing instead on the work of Hortense Spillers, and in particular the notion of “the flesh… that zero degree of social conceptualization that does not escape concealment under the brush of discourse, or the reflexes of iconography” (Spillers 67) – from the body, which is fully integrated and recognized as human, Weheliye proposes the concept of habeas viscus – ‘you shall have the flesh’ – on the one hand, to signal how violent political domination activates a fleshly surplus that simultaneously sustains and disfigures said brutality, and, on the other hand, to reclaim the atrocity of flesh as a pivotal arena for the politics emanating from different traditions for the oppressed. The flesh… represents racializing assemblages of subjection that can never annihilate the lines of flight, freedom dreams, practices of liberation, and possibilities of other worlds. (2)

Central to this account is the notion of “racializing assemblages” which “construes race not as a biological or cultural classification, but as a set of sociopolitical processes that discipline humanity into full humans, notquite-humans, and nonhumans” (4). While “race… appears as an objective character stamped upon the human… as hierarchically structured races” (Weheliye 51) it nevertheless inheres in neither culture nor biology. Instead “assemblages such as racialization materialize as sets of complex relations of articulations… structured in political, economic, social, racial, and heteropatriarchal dominance” (Weheliye 49). The complexity of these racializing assemblages, in turn, recede into the background, allowing race to appear as naturalized categories of either biological or cultural determination. As a practice of assemblage itself, documentary turns out to be a productive vehicle to trace out racializing assemblages. Documentary practice, in other words, appears in 13th as a process of tracing out racializing assemblages through practices of media assemblage which thereby reconstruct the relationality of mass incarceration and its institutional ancestors. In doing so, it “reveals the global and systemic dimensions of racialized, sexualized, and gendered subjugation while not losing sight of the main ways political violence has given rise to ongoing practices of freedom” (Weheliye 13). Constructing itself both in and as the locus which connects these interlocking dimensions, the film is able to link together historical patterns of racial and racializing oppression throughout American history, allowing racial victimization to appear as the product not of individual actions, but of iterative, temporally entangled assemblages of institutions and practices at work in world historical events as well as in individual acts of violence.

Can Melodr ama Redeem American History?

239

Returning, then, to the question of pornotroping and the spectacle of the killed Black body introduced above, I would like to suggest that 13th largely manages to avoid or at least short-circuit the process of pornotroping precisely because it spends so much time detailing the various machinations and structures which surround and produce the defeated, maimed, captive, or killed Black body in the age of mass incarceration. In other words, it gestures incessantly to the whole structural assemblage by which the Black body is objectivized, banished, or killed without concern for its humanity. In positioning these deaths not as tragedies in the narrative sense, but rather as the result of a complex of socially and historically constituted systems – that is, racializing assemblages – it avoids attributing their deaths to the discrete actions of individual choices by either victims or offenders. Nor does it situate tragic death as the naturalized narrative “horizon” of an ostensible fate. In other words, the documentary is able to largely avoid the destructive, perverse emplotment of the Black subject in generic or conventional narratives of depravation. Instead, 13th’s emphasis on practices of assemblage both analytically describe and systematically perform rather than relate in purely narrative terms the ways in which Black vulnerability is not merely the product of discrete choices or individual racist intentions but instead arises from a constellation of various inter-articulated systems. Or, as Michelle Alexander puts it in the film: “Police violence, that isn’t the problem in and of itself. It’s a reflection of a much larger, brutal system of racial and social control known as mass incarceration, which authorizes this kind of police violence” (01:33:15).

Homecomings: Melodrama and the State of Innocence Although 13th anchors its critique of “the myth of black criminality” in a reading of Griffith’s The Birth of the Nation, it is curiously silent when it comes to that film’s operative mode: melodrama. In its American strains, melodrama has been and remains a key mode through which the culture has approached issues of race: “Racial melodrama takes on enormous importance as the engine for the generation of legitimacy for racially constituted groups whose very claim to citizenship lies in these spectacles of pathos and action” (Williams, Playing 44). At its most basic level, melodrama divides characters into categories of virtuous beset victimhood and leering villainy. American racial melodrama regularly overwrites these Manichaean divisions of good and evil over those of Black and white in order to produce “a peculiarly American form of melodrama in which virtue becomes inextricably linked

240 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

to forms of racial victimization” (Williams, Playing 45). At the same time, however, the self-same Manichaean tendencies which produce racial virtue also produce, when wielded by different hands, racialized villainy. This has an impact not only on American storytelling, but American policies. As Ta-Nehisi Coates reminds us: “The American response to crime [which results in mass incarceration] cannot be divorced from a history of equating black struggle – individual and collective – with black villainy” (Coates). In championing victimhood as a source of virtue and suffering as the license of citizenship, melodramatic mode provides a logic whereby the downtrodden may make claims to moral legitimacy; one product of this are political identities whose legitimacy claims are scripted vis-à-vis claims to victimhood and suffering. When the suffering of one group can be laid at the feat of a group of oppressors, melodramatic mode is triggered in order to appeal to the sympathies of onlookers. Manichaean antagonisms thus often structure political dramas of recognition and redress. At the same time, melodramas’ narrative formulas are ideologically agnostic; thus, Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation and its cultural inheritors deploy melodrama to render the defeated Confederate South as the “victim” beset by the threat of Black criminals and Northern carpetbaggers. If 13th and its commentators tend to repress the implicit historical role melodrama has played in American racial politics, Queen Sugar’s commentators rarely fail to make note of it. However, they often paint melodrama in a typically pejorative, not to mention highly gendered, fashion. As Linda Williams points out, “We bring to the word ‘melodrama’ a great many negative clichés: pounding music, pathetic victims, leering villains, florid acting, and the triumph of virtue in badly motivated happy endings. All of these clichés seem to point to forms of ‘excess’ measured against more ‘realistic’ or ‘modern’ norms” (On The Wire 106). It is perhaps because of this that many cultural theorists have attempted to avoid registers of melodramatic sentimentalism and narratives of redemption which accompany it, often by turning instead to modes of the abject and the gothic.8 Weheliye’s desire to decenter the domination of “Man” and the paradigm of “fallen flesh/redeemed spirit” (103) is similarly achieved through an exploration of the abject. The denial of sentimental redemption narratives 8 Most notably are those who elaborate upon Agamben’s notion of bare life or Mbembe’s critique of necropolitics. Caleb Smith, for example, argues that rather than relying upon sentimental ideologies and melodramatic narratives of redemption which draw beset victims into the fold of humanity by virtue of their suffer, “The circle of humanity must be resisted, as it were, from within… The death of sentimental humanity is the occasion of cadaverous triumph” (76).

Can Melodr ama Redeem American History?

241

this suggests may seem to dissolve the need for melodramatic mode to render categories of abjection and redemption morally legible. And yet, even if only by evoking gothic or abject figures in order to advocate for the dispossessed, such accounts may ultimately rely, however implicitly, upon the self-same ideologies of sentimentality they seek to evade. As Paul Gilroy has noted, the Black radical tradition often evokes biblical narratives which exhibit an “identification with the Exodus” and preoccupies itself with a “notion of a return to the point of origin” to assert that “the suffering of both blacks and Jews has a special redemptive power, not for themselves alone but for humanity as a whole” (208). These rhetorical patterns suggest that a redemptive, even virtuous power lurks in the dark heart of an abject, victimized Blackness. As Gilroy puts it, “The capacity of blacks to redeem and transform the modern world through the truth and clarity of perception that emerge from their pain… argues not only that black suffering has a meaning but that its meaning could be externalized and amplified so that it could be of benefit to the moral status of the whole world” (216). This description of the messianic potential resting at the heart of Black radical theorizing is, it would seem, deeply entangled with the symbolic (and not infrequently biblical) conceits which structure narratives of American melodrama. Whether figured as a return to a state of innocence, an escape from bondage, or as the messianic advent of a new world, such aspirations are often figured under the same sign: home. Indeed, melodrama often tends to thematize the loss, yearning, and return to a prior state of innocence, often symbolized through “the icon of the good home” (Williams, Playing 7). The loss or despoilment of an idealized, prelapsarian “home” is an important motivating feature of melodrama – it is a trope which is itself intimately tied up with the loss of the pre-Enlightenment moral universe in which both a cohesive social order and a clear demarcation between the sacred and the profane were easily identified with Christian mythology, the institutions of Church and Monarchy, and the literary forms of tragedy and comedy which arose to legitimize them (Brooks 14–15). In the wake of the secular American and French revolutions which shattered this order, melodrama arises as a reaction to and a yearning for the lost prelapsarian “home” of a morally legible universe; yet this yearning is itself embedded in a desacralized world, and must therefore serially defer its relief through an “incessant struggle against enemies, without and within, branded as villains, suborners of morality, who must be confronted and expunged, over and over, to assure the triumph of virtue” (Brooks 15). The result is a continual deferral of a return “home” as the relentless pursuit of this irrevocably lost state of innocence.

242 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

As Williams reminds us, American melodrama often figures the space of innocence as “the rural southern home” (Playing 187) including, crucially, the plantation. And indeed, Queen Sugar’s pilot episode “First Things First” is in many ways the story of this return to the rural southern home as the lost space of innocence, as the Bordelon siblings find themselves gathering together on their father’s sugar cane farm for the first time in years, only for their homecoming to culminate in his death. The family is only more devastated when they learn that a spate of hardships had led their father to secretly stop planting crops and instead take a wage job (we later learn as a janitor) to support himself. The episode ends with Charley walking the untended fields of the farm at the light of daybreak; “I’m sorry daddy; I’ll fix it,” she promises.9 When we meet them, the Bordelon family is in many ways already shattered; Ralph Angel’s incarceration, Charley’s wealth and separate upbringing, and Nova’s alternative lifestyle choices have driven them apart. The “good home” that had held their relationships, however tenuously maintained, together – their father’s farm – has meanwhile and unbeknownst to them fallen on harsh times and, as we later learn, has become the prey of the powerful Landry family. The death of the goodly patriarch and the revelation of his fall serve as the catalyst which both reunites the Bordelon family and motivates the series’ main narrative trajectory as they thereafter band together, with no small degree of tension, to save their family farm. Over the course of their efforts, however, they learn that the Landry’s are not only attempting to undermine their efforts, in part by charging exorbitant prices for access to the sugar cane mills over which they hold a regional monopoly, but that the Landry family were actually at one point not only the previous owners of their father’s land, but had also owned the Bordelon’s ancestors as slaves. Adding injury to insult, they eventually learn that the Landry’s postbellum ancestors had even tried to scare the Bordelons off the land by lynching several family members. Indeed, throughout the series both the Landrys and their kin, the Boudreauxs, make several underhanded attempts to undermine the Bordelon siblings’ efforts. These revelations, however, only serve to steel the Bordelon’s resolve.10 Here, family melodrama roots itself in the racialized history of American slavery and post-emancipation white supremacist terror; in this sense, Queen Sugar belongs to a long lineage of American racial melodrama, perhaps the most famous of which is the TV adaptation of Alex Haley’s Roots (1976), as 9 “First Things First.” Season 1, Episode 1: 58:00. 10 “So Far.” Season 1, Episode 10: 36:55–42:50.

Can Melodr ama Redeem American History?

243

well as the plantation melodrama, as perhaps best epitomized by Victor Fleming’s film adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s novel, Gone with the Wind (1939).11 This is, of course, a genealogical combination which produces no small amount of tension. If Roots was, in the words of Linda Williams, an attempt “to redeem the very crime of history” by tracing (or rather, fabricating) Alex Haley’s ancestral lineage back through slavery to the originating “good home” of Africa (Playing 237), it sits very uncomfortably alongside Gone with the Wind’s “indefensible racial politics” (Playing 190). Indeed, part of Queen Sugar’s cultural work may be read as an attempt to critically bridge the gap between the legacies of these two trajectories, marrying Gone with the Wind’s deeply naive antebellum nostalgia with Haley’s Afrocentric refusal, in William’s words, “to succumb to a sentimental attachment to any of the various ‘homes’ of enslavement” (Playing 232).12 Key to all of these texts is the interrogation of “the plantation legend” which, as Grace Elizabeth Hale argues, imagines the South as a “space of safety and mooring for whatever we imagine we have lost” (qtd. in Williams, Playing 187). Queen Sugar would seem to deal uneasily in this myth, as the farm which is their father’s inheritance, the symbol of their familial bond, is also sullied by its history as the location of their ancestral bondage and, by extension, as a resource for capitalistic exploitation. As Ralph Angel’s parole officer warns him: “Land may look like dirt, but really, it’s just brown money.”13 The enduring shame of American history is that this description applies not only to land, but to the enslaved bodies of the people most frequently forced to work it. The series deals with this ambivalence towards land through the vehicle of family melodrama; at f irst, only Ralph Angel feels any deep abiding sense of connection to their father’s farm; Charley, in contrast, is open to selling it. It is only after they learn about both its history and the Landrys’ scheming to reclaim it that Charley and Nova fully commit to holding on to it. Relatedly, the family’s ties with the land are deeply intertwined with 11 Indeed, many of Queen Sugar’s shots of the sugar farm cannot help but evoke similar landscape compositions which found their place as central visual topoi in both Gone with the Wind and Roots. 12 Add to this the issue of racially inflected gender differences, wherein Gone with the Wind’s proto-feminist depiction of the “rebellious, father-identified Irish girl who flouts all tradition” (Williams, Playing 191) inflects Roots’ attempts to generate/retrieve an unbroken, distinctly patriarchic line of succession of fathers and sons, and Queen Sugar makes for not only an interesting study in the blending of melodramatic genres and iconographies, but a critique of Black cultural production which has historically celebrated Black masculinity while marginalizing the voices and experiences of women. 13 “What Do I Care for Morning?” Season 2, Episode 3: 07:25.

244 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

issues surrounding Black gender politics; in a plot twist near the end of the first season, Ralph Angel finds a letter in which his late father revises his last will and testament, bequeathing the entirety of the farm to “the child of mine who needs it and loves it the most, Ralph Angel”: Whatever has happened, whatever you’ve done in the past, never forget that you are better than you think… Take this land. Build a home here. Build a family for you and Blue here. Build our cane here, stalk by stalk. Build a good life here, Ralph Angel, so when you get to the end, you can look back and be proud of your days on this earth, on this land.14

Here, home is not figured as a simple place of ancestral origin; rather, it must be actively built. At the same time, however, the bequeathing of the land to Ralph Angel is framed as offering both a path on which to redeem past sins and as an opportunity to assert his manhood. The cultivation of land becomes a vehicle for both historical and personal redemption; the redemption of the Bordelon family’s downtrodden and enslaved ancestors on the one hand and Ralph Angel’s own rehabilitation and rise to patriarchal inheritance on the other. Such a “home” promises “remediation” in the reparative sense of making things whole again.

The Black Family in American History It is not a return from exile, but the desire to “build” a future “home” which underwrites the significance of Queen Sugar’s dramatic narrative; one which, consequentially, is intended to run, as in the case of Roots, through the distinctly patriarchal lineage of grandfathers, fathers, and sons. Although Ralph Angel holds off on informing his sisters about the discovery of the letter, its mode of address, directed primarily at Ralph Angel, serves to reinforce a universe of masculine scripts and patriarchic roles. Embedded here are normative imperatives which at once evoke and challenge stereotypes which depict poor, young Black fathers as absentee, negligent, or unreliable; a depiction which is in turned flipped upon the axis of class by the revelation of Davis’s infidelity to Charley and the moral fall from grace it incites in spite of the image of Black masculine respectability 14 “Give Us This Day.” Season 1, Episode 13: 40:00–42:00. There seems to be a slight discretion in the exact wordings of the letter in this episode and those in Season 2, Episode 7. This is the more fully complete composite of both.

Can Melodr ama Redeem American History?

245

and success he embodies. The contrast between these three men (Davis, Ralph Angel, and Ernest) in turn reproduces a matrix of key (Black) male stereotypes (philandering celebrity athlete, working-class ex-con, and wizened rural patriarch, respectively). The point of intersection at which these various juxtapositions meet, however, is none other than that of the father, and indeed, Queen Sugar is interested in nothing quite so much as the issue of Black fatherhood as a particular variant of the so-called crisis of Black masculinity, an interest which brings us to our next point of concern: the structure and function of the Black family in American culture and history. There is little use in denying the normative hegemony of the so-called nuclear family in American culture. The notion of the nuclear family as a coherent social unit buttressed by a reproducible narrative structure is perhaps the f irst story many Americans are told, as well as the f irst one they learn to tell about themselves. This institution is, from a very young age, presented as the original point of departure for one’s own story; it establishes origins and, in doing so, fixes both identity and social status, rendering coherent one’s place in the world and fixing the place of others in relation to it. It is therefore the basis for many aspects of one’s most intimate senses of identity and belonging. American anxieties surrounding the preservation of the “sanctity” of this family structure often generate melodramatic stories which enact processes of familial sunder and suture; even when families arise, phoenix-like, radically transformed or reconfigured from the ashes of catastrophe, they tend to reproduce the spirit and the form, if not the precise constellation, of the basic nuclear family unit. As a narrative resource for asserting one’s belonging, a legal concept for determining properties and rights, and a practical strategy for survival under brutal conditions of unrestrained free-market competition, the American nuclear family, with its essentially hetero-normative and patriarchic hierarchies of domination, offers itself up as the only ostensibly legitimate model for sanctuary and security from the dangers of a threatening, hazardous, and even malevolent social environment. Under the ruthless conditions of American capitalism, a system whose ideology would seek to render it as inevitable as the laws of nature and under which nearly all social relations are mediated by the detachment of contractual obligations and the perversions of competition, the family declares itself the ostensible last bastion of unadulterated support and security, supposedly exempt from the polluting imperatives of the profit motive. The persistence and perceived universality of the nuclear family’s patterns of hierarchy and

246 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

constellations of sociality make it almost impossible to imagine a person existing without a family. Indeed, those who seem to appear without parentage, or whose parentage is a mystery, are often imagined as shadowy, shiftless, and dangerous. In American storytelling, the quest to learn the secret of one’s parentage, and thus to discover and assume one’s true place in the world, is a common theme. Likewise, those most fearful images of villainy in American storytelling would seem to arise from stories of broken homes, corrupted familial relations, and questionable lineages: the homeless drifter, the sexual pervert, the patricidal or matricidal murderer all function to shore up the legitimacy of the family as the “pure” and legitimate foundation of moral authority. To lack a family, or to not know one’s parentage, is commonly imagined as marking one out as a deviant; illegitimacy in the form of bastardy, abandonment, or orphanage are all forms of social pariahdom. The orphan, the runaway, or even the wayward child is almost a priori rendered as a “problem.” And yet, for all that, the biologically traceable nuclear family cannot be said to provide, at all times and in all places, the only, nor even the primary, and certainly not the necessary condition upon which families have been constructed. Cultural customs, family structures, roles, and so forth take on very different forms in different cultures, moments, and locations in history. The very notions of who, how, and what constitutes a family have always been more fluid than they appear. Under slavery, the sundering of familial bonds was a crucial strategy for producing a condition of “natal alienation” in which the enslaved person is denied “all claims on, and obligations to, his parents and living blood relations” (Patterson 5). As Saidiya Hartman reminds us, the severing of parental roots, the forgetting of lineage, and removal from the “good space of home” prior to bondage is a common strategy for turning people into slaves: “A slave without a past had no life to avenge. No time was wasted yearning for home, no recollections of a distant country slowed her down as she tilled the soil, no image of her mother came to mind when she looked into the face of her child. The pain of all she had lost did not rattle in her chest and make it feel tight. The absentminded posed no menace” (Lose 155). Deprived of the memory of family and home, the slave loses the narrative resources needed to evoke a lost place of innocence and, thus, to produce melodramatic outrage while securing the process of ontological reduction necessary to recast people as property. Under these conditions, the severing of the enslaved subject from his or her family tree did not serve to evoke the sense of a social problem, but rather functioned as a strategy to reinforce and justify the system of slavery: “‘kinship’ loses meaning,

Can Melodr ama Redeem American History?

247

since it can be invaded at any given and arbitrary moment by the property relations” (Spillers 74). The practices of the interstate slave trade, the degraded status of the slave, and the nature of slave work ensured that any variation on family structure remained provisional and precarious. Slave families were routinely dissolved and individual members sold off, shoring up structures of natal alienation through the denial and destruction of the nuclear family unit. Slave holders often viewed marriages as vehicles to encourage reproduction rather than as institutions of mutual support. The historical denial of nuclear family structures to slaves and their descendants is a common theme running throughout both the social history and theorization of African American life in the United States. Yet, as Spillers reminds us, it would be wrong to assume that “African people in the New World did not maintain the powerful ties of sympathy that bind blood-relations in a network of feeling, of continuity” (74). The families which formed under the conditions of antebellum American slavery took on alternative structures and patterns, forming around extended kin relations, single-parents, or even same-sex groupings. However, they remained perpetually precarious, susceptible at any moment to violent dissolution. Even after abolition, the Black family has been burdened by various forms of cultural, social, and legal interference. While the figure of the Black matriarch has often come to play the dominant role in Black families as a result, in part, of the historical fallout of antebellum matrifocality laws which dictated that offspring inherit the social status of their mother, this configuration has been routinely and wrongheadedly figured as socioeconomically debilitating and even “pathological.” However well-intentioned Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s now infamous 1965 report The Negro Family: The Case for National Action may have been, his decision to focus on the lack of a “stable Negro family structure” rather than what he himself referred to as “three centuries of sometimes unimaginable mistreatment” and “the racist virus in the American blood stream” as the “the fundamental problem” confronting poverty-stricken African Americans (Moynihan i) continues to have damaging resonances in American political culture. By framing the level of childhood poverty, increases in out-of-wedlock births, single-parent households, and the dependency of single mothers on welfare benefits as evidence of a “tangle of pathology” within Black urban communities, Moynihan sidelines the white supremacism which generated those conditions in the first place, opting instead to scapegoat “a matriarchal structure which, because it is so out of line with the rest of the

248 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

American society, seriously retards the progress of the group as a whole” (29). By claiming that this “pathological” culture was alien to America and self-perpetuating (47), Moynihan effectively allowed white America to wash its hands of Black suffering.15 Whatever his intent, the reception of Moynihan’s report reinforced the notion that non-nuclear, non-patriarchic, and especially matrifocal family structures are somehow perverse. As Spillers argues, he represents “the African-American female’s ‘dominance’ and ‘strength’… as an instrument of castration” (74). Indeed, this logical and metaphorical slippage renders Black matriarchy as neither a survival strategy under conditions of racialized pater-capitalism nor a legitimate familial conf iguration in its own right, but rather as the vehicle by which the Black “underclass” and its supposed cultural “pathologies” are reproduced. Popular reception of the report perpetuated these tendencies. America’s response was not to shore up the social safety net, but to roll out the carceral dragnet; as Ta-Nehisi Coates writes, “Moynihan looked out and saw a black population reeling under the effects of 350 years of bondage and plunder. He believed that these effects could be addressed through state action. They were – through the mass incarceration of millions of black people” (Coates). More than f ifty years after the Moynihan report and over 150 years since the abolition of slavery, America has not ceased its assault on the Black family.

Black Family Melodrama in the Age of Mass Incarceration In his introduction to an interview with Ava DuVernay, Michael T. Martin notes the centrality of family to much of DuVernay’s work: Two core themes distinguish her creative work. First… DuVernay’s sustained interrogation engages with black women’s agency and subjectivity. Second, she foregrounds the family as site and source of resilience, 15 It is interesting to note that Moynihan’s childhood was itself, as Ta-Nehisi Coates writes, “the product of a broken home and a pathological family… a tangle of poverty, remarriage, relocation, and single motherhood” which “contrasted starkly with the idyllic American family life he would later extol.” Coates, by way of historian James Patterson’s Freedom is Not Enough (2010), suggests that Moynihan’s feelings towards his own broken home may have influenced his own approach to the condition of the black family, and particular the belief that Johnson’s War on Poverty “should be run through an established societal institution: the patriarchal family” (Coates).

Can Melodr ama Redeem American History?

249

memory, cultural transmission, generational continuity and dissonance, and as purveyor of all things affirming of black identity. (58)

Indeed, Queen Sugar is so intent on exploring the conditions of the modern Black family under the historical burdens of slavery and contemporary mass incarceration that it invents a third Bordelon sibling not originally featured in Baszile’s novel, Nova, while appending a criminal record to the character of Ralph Angel. Mass incarceration, as a system which, like slavery before it, routinely disrupts Black families, shatters their plans, pollutes community interests, severs relationships, banishes men and women from their homes, and denies them any presumption of innocence, instead ejecting them into a state perpetual dishonor, would seem to perform the core narrative work of melodramatic villainy rather well. As with capitalism, family melodrama tends to denounce mass incarceration not so much in the name of the powerless, but more often for its encroachments upon the assumed purity of the private sphere of family life. Much of melodrama’s poignancy relies upon the disruption, destruction, or perversion of this “foundational” institution in order to stage its recovery, however imperfect, as a return to the lost “home” or a prior state of innocence. Mass incarceration becomes the fallen, postlapsarian condition under which Queen Sugar’s characters strive to (re)attain the innocent space of the “good home” through their attempts to negotiate a coherent sense of family. Aside from disappearing family members behind bars, mass incarceration undermines the stable bonds and perverts the emotional sympathies necessary for the construction of family units. Queen Sugar addresses this through the character of Nova as she struggles to establish meaningful and lasting romantic partnerships. The most recurrent character in this regard is Calvin, who significantly appears with Nova in the opening scenes of the series’ pilot episode. Aside from being married with children, Calvin is a white detective on the New Orleans Police Department, one of the most controversial police departments in a state which until only recently bragged a reputation as the nation’s biggest jailer. These facts sit uneasily with Nova, whose activism and journalism are unappreciated to say the least by Calvin’s fellow officers: in the first season’s finale, Calvin introduces Nova to one of his co-workers. Although initially friendly, the co-worker, upon realizing who she is, proceeds to hurl expletives and grope her, instigating a fight with Calvin before he spits in her face and accuses Calvin of betraying the police force.16 The next time the lovers meet in an episode somewhat appropriately 16 “Give Us this Day.” Season 1, Episode 13: 35:35–37:50.

250 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

entitled “Heritage” late in Season 2, a palpable desire fills the atmosphere, at least until the following discussion ensures: calvin: I promised myself, if I ever had another chance, I wouldn’t let you go, not until you knew how I felt about you… I felt like a fraud my whole life. I didn’t care much about sports, but I played because my Daddy wanted me to. Didn’t want to join the force, but I did because my family expected me to. I didn’t want to get married, but I did because everyone thought I should. I didn’t want kids, but she did, so we had kids. I did, my whole life, what everybody else wanted me to do, until you. Being with you, it was the first time I was able to be me. You are my choice. You’re so free. You are so, you’re so brave. And just being around you made me want to be brave, too. I love you. I love you so much, more than anything or anyone. nova: I love you, too. Hear me. No. For you, I’m freedom. For me you’re prison. calvin: What happened at that bar was horrible. It was beyond horrible. I took care of him. I made him pay for what he did. I did everything I could. You know that. nova: I don’t care about that night. I’m talking everything. calvin: What is everything? I’m a prison? How can you look at me and say that? nova: I can’t be all of myself when I’m with you. I can’t. I can’t fight for my people every day and come home and have to explain it. I can’t cry over a brother slayed by cops in the streets and no one ever pays, and then come home to a cop. Come on. This is crazy. I was going crazy. I can’t want to share everything with you knowing there are parts of me you really don’t want to know, the part of me that loves my people more than anything that will make me set that aside. calvin: I never asked you to set it aside. nova: You never asked about it at all. And just because you wish something is meant to be doesn’t mean it is.17

The aborted love affair between Nova and Calvin is a study on the polluting effects of structural racism on attempts to build authentic emotional and social bonds. This exchange, which starts out as a discourse on the oppressiveness of both masculine gender roles and familial pressures, ends in rejection when Nova decides that she can’t bring herself to artificially cleave her personal life from her political commitments. Calvin’s romantic overtures 17 “Heritage.” Season 2, episode 13: 26:52–31:20.

Can Melodr ama Redeem American History?

251

are over-ruled by the political exigencies of history and social reality. Even if Calvin has suffered, as indeed all men do, under the oppressive expectations of patriarchy, his ability to claim Nova as “his choice” – the emblem of his own freedom – is an indicator of his racial and gender privileges relative to her own. Nova experiences this privilege as a form of imprisonment; an entire history of racialized oppression bars her from accepting Calvin’s overtures, as she cannot accommodate his plea for freedom without compromising her own; the specter of the white slave-holding patriarch haunts the entire affair. Mass incarceration not only troubles Nora’s attempts to build lasting emotional bonds, but also threatens the safety and security of her male family members. This is perhaps most directly thematized in the first episode of Queen Sugar’s second season, in which her nephew, Micah, is pulled over while driving a brand-new sports car gifted him by his father. Micah is visibly annoyed, perhaps because his upper-class upbringing has not (yet) conditioned him to fear the police, but he nevertheless obeys the officer’s requests to reach over the dashboard and retrieve the car’s insurance papers and registration. However, as he does so the officer unholsters his weapon and points it into the car at a visibly confused and frightened Micah.18 This incident immediately invokes recent attention in the media given to the killing of unarmed Black men by police. By some estimates, young Black males are nine times more likely to die at the hands of law enforcement than other Americans (Swaine and McCarthy) and Black Americans overall are more than twice as likely to have been unarmed when killed by police (Nix et al. 325). While such statistics corroborate the claims of Black Lives Matter activists, they also point to the continuity of a history of Black oppression and racial control at the hands of law enforcement dating back to colonial era slave patrols and culminating in the over-policing of Black communities. Although this incident, to the great credit of Queen Sugar’s writing staff, does not culminate in the spectacle of Micah’s death, it does position him in a space of vulnerability on the basis of race; although Micah comes from a rich family, he is not seen as a protected class by the officer who stops, pulls his gun, and later arrests him. Instead, he falls prey to the officer’s resentment (for his wealth) and derogation (for his race). Queen Sugar refuses, in other words, to submerge America’s history of racism under those of class conflict. Although Micah survives the incident, it leaves him traumatized; when his family retrieves him from the station – an activity which requires a bit of minstrel-like showmanship on the part of his celebrity father, Davis –, 18 “After the Winter.” Season 2, Episode1. 23:50–25:35.

252 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

Nova notices that Micah has soiled himself.19 As Carmen Phillips writes, the episode “effectively demonstrates that there are all types of ways for the police to steal black humanity; some are too subtle for twitter trends and social media shares. But, they are no less suffocating or brutal.” Indeed, throughout later episodes Micah begins to act out, yet refuses to discuss what happened to him after he was arrested; it is only later that he confesses that the officers also subjected him to psychological torture, going so far as to put a gun in his mouth.20 This testimony emphasizes the deranging effects this vulnerability has on the mental health of Black men subjected to racist harassment. At the same time, the series sidesteps subjecting Micah to the pornotropic spectacle of death for the sentimental edification of audiences, as the incident instead turns him towards activism. Queen Sugar thus deconstructs some of American culture’s most pernicious representational habits by replotting a moment of trauma in a narrative of political awakening; as the title of Phillips’ recap of the second season approvingly proclaims, “‘Queen Sugar’ Does Black Lives Matter Storytelling Right.”21 Micah is not the only character to find himself under the thumb of the carceral state. The third Bordelon sibling, Ralph Angel, is a young, single father on parole for, as we later learn, boosting shops and committing credit card fraud to help support his son, Blue. When we first meet Ralph Angel, he is with Blue on a playground. Instructing Blue to stay put, he walks several blocks away and robs a convenient shop before returning to collect his son.22 We soon learn that Ralph Angel committed the theft in order to help his father pay to repair equipment on his farm. In this sense, Queen Sugar activates, but also contextualizes, familiar tropes of struggling Black men locked in perpetual cycles of crime and familial negligence. However, the series very quickly begins expending substantial energy to fill out and complicate this picture over the course of its first season. Dan Canfield writes: “Queen Sugar has reworked the trope as a rigorous character study, a search for the soul of a man boxed into an ugly stereotype by outside forces. His fight to escape the cycle makes for one of Queen Sugar’s most meticulously delinated [sic] character arcs.” As the season progresses, we witness Ralph Angel as he attempts to fill his deceased father’s shoes on 19 “After the Winter.” Season 2, Episode 1: 32:50–36:40. 20 “Freedom’s Plow.” Season 2, Episode 8: 29:30–33:15. 21 Compare this to the death of Poussey in Orange is the New Black as discussed in the previous chapter. 22 “First Things First.” Season 1, Episode 1: 03:00–06:47.

Can Melodr ama Redeem American History?

253

the farm and redeem his image in the eyes of his sisters. He reunites with his son’s wife, a recovering drug addict named Darla, and begins to build a family with her and Blue. In this way, Queen Sugar instigates the trope of Black criminality only to reject the narratives of hyper-masculine power and violence so commonly deployed to produce melodramatic pathos. As Canfield puts it: “[Queen Sugar] builds to a stinging rebuke of toxic masculinity… Violence and guns aren’t used to get the point across here. Instead of shooting guns, the men of Queen Sugar shed tears.” Although he works relentlessly to redeem himself in the eyes of his family, Ralph Angel seems patently unable to manage the various, frequently contradictory expectations which are placed upon him as an ex-felon, a brother, a man, a father, and a partner. Indeed, Queen Sugar’s the second season turns to Ralph Angel’s struggles as he tries to rebuild his own nuclear family and his relationship with Blue’s mother, Darla, takes center stage. Due to her history of drug addiction and prostitution, Darla has fallen out of favor with the Bordelon family members, who try to keep her at a distance from Blue. Darla eventually manages to win back Ralph Angel’s trust and challenges damaging stereotypes of drug addicts in the process. Even so, the extended Bordelon family continue to submit her to no small degree of verbal abuse and never seem to quite let go of their skepticism. Their reticent behavior in many ways mirrors the expectations of audiences conditioned by racist, prejudiced, and sexist stereotypes which demonize Black women addicts as irredeemable villains and blame them for the destruction of the Black family. By the end of Queen Sugar’s second season, Darla manages to redeem herself in the Bordelon’s eyes to a great degree, even taking a job as a secretary at Charley’s new sugar mill, and eventually Ralph Angel asks her to marry him. However, things fall apart when she reveals a stunning secret to Ralph Angel at the behest of her parents: Blue might not be his.23 As a result, Ralph Angel and Darla, each of whom are struggling to escape the stigma imposed by two of America’s most common, demeaning, and damaging racialized stereotypes – the Black male criminal and the addicted Black mother – find themselves trapped, to evoke the title of Hortense Spiller’s celebrated essay, in a game of “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe.” Although Darla tries to explain the precarity of her position at the time to Ralph Angel – she was after all quite possibly, and perhaps even by virtue of her severe inebriation at the time, the victim of rape – he refuses to hear her. The result is the reproduction of a familiar gender hierarchy: whatever Ralph Angel’s own failures, Darla’s lies upset clear lines of patrilineage, the 23 “Heritage.” Season 2, Episode 13: 39:50–42:20.

254 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

bedrock of both hegemonic masculinity and the patriarchal family, and for this reason he finds his sense of identity in too much a state of disarray to hear her story on its own terms. If Ralph Angel rejects Daria, he nevertheless heeds her call when she pleads with him not to abandon their son, Blue: “Blue is the blood in my veins,” he replies, “even if mine ain’t in his.”24 In a discussion of her oeuvre, DuVernay highlights her recurrent concern with “complexity within the Black family dynamic” and her desire to speak to the complex ways black families function where your mother might not be your biological mother, and someone who you think of as your child might not be your biological child…. we know why someone’s living in someone’s house, and why everybody’s with Big Mama, right? And so, we start from that place of understanding of how black families are constructed in ways that may be different. (DuVernay and Martin 76)

In many ways we might view Ralph Angel’s proclamation of devotion to Blue in spite of his questionable biological parentage as a celebration and continuation of the alternative arrangements which have composed the Black family since slavery, displacing an emphasis on bloodlines. Even so, it is notable that this same sympathy and unwavering devotion is not extended to Darla; she is at least provisionally banished from Ralph Angel’s sympathies, her bond to him sacrificed to maintain Blue’s. In the symbolic economy of this exchange, we might say that the Black woman is sacrificed to maintain the primacy of patrilineal succession. Even so, this reading is somewhat complicated when juxtaposed against the second season’s finale. In a final scene, Ralph Angel picks up Blue after his breakup with Darla. As he straps Blue’s seatbelt, he tells his son the story of his rather unconventional name: So, dig this. I’m in the kitchen with Aunt Vi[olet], right? She… tells me a story about the first time she realized her name was a color. A little girl saw her name on a crayon at school. Said that she felt special her name could make something so pretty, the color violet. And it rhymes with my mama’s name, True. So, I could name you after the two ladies in my life who always believed in me no matter what.25 24 “Dream Variations.” Season 2, Episode 16: 51:55–54:20. 25 “Dream Variations.” Season 2, Episode 16: 1:00:35–1:04:31.

Can Melodr ama Redeem American History?

255

The scene ends as Ralph Angel closes the door and Blue stares up at the moon in the night sky, likely a homage to Tarell Alvin McCraney’s play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue (2003), the inspiration for Barry Jenkin’s academy award-winning film Moonlight.26 Altogether, this monologue seems to attempt to complicate the lines of hetero-normative patriarchy discussed above. Ralph Angel rejects standard masculine names in favor of an original composite which situates Blue in a symbolic economy of matrifocal care. This scene works hard to upset the pater-centric assumptions upon which the standard nuclear family is generally founded, and thereby attempts to redeem the cultural value and legitimacy of alternative Black family structures. Queen Sugar attempts to reconfigure the cultural coordinates around which lines of legitimate family relations can be and are constructed under the conditions of American racism. It does so not only by generating representational challenges to well-worn assumptions about gender and race, but also through a deployment and, to a certain degree, a re-scripting of racialized melodramatic modes, strategies, and conventions. By allowing its male characters to respond to emotional and physical wounds not through a recourse to a wrathful vengeance, but rather through a sentimental flood of tears, it not only undermines assumptions about the inherent femininity of melodramatic forms in American culture, but likewise short-circuits the reliance of racialized American melodrama on the physical wounding of the body. Men do not set melodramatic victimhood to right through the deployment of retributive violence, nor is sympathy invoked by the maiming or killing of the body. Rather, lines of sympathetic identification are erected and managed through an economy of tears shed equally by characters of both genders. Queen Sugar attempts, time and time again, to turn to questions of family which extend beyond the production and maintenance of heteronormative, patriarchic family structures in order to treat the wounds of history. It does not heal the Black family through the return to a stable, normalized, and normalizing standard of the (white) nuclear family, but rather constructs the family as a constant, serial renegotiation. It therefore suggests that it is not the fluid, unorthodox model of the Black family but rather the oppressive, 26 Interestingly, the monologue may also be trying to evoke a reference to Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Color Purple (1982) by way of a play on Aunt Violet’s name. The focus in Walker’s influential novel on the sexual abuse, exploitation, and mistreatment of young black women has the effect of redirecting our attention in this monologue back to the case of Darla, thereby further troubling neat lines of patricentric identification.

256 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

homogenizing, liberal-bourgeoise model of the white one which must be re-constructed in order to be redeemed.

The Possibilities and Perils of Popularizing Radical Epistemologies In an interview with Adrienne Green, Ava DuVernay expresses her delight with the new sense of flexibility experienced by commercial media creators at our contemporary moment: Twenty years ago, you couldn’t do that. Documentarians made docs, and TV people made TV, film people did film, and it was all segregated. People looked down on you when you crossed. Now, what a blessing that we’re in a world where literally I can make a movie of a certain price point at Disney and then my next project, Central Park Five, is for a streaming platform and it’s in five parts. A lot of the black women who came before me did not enjoy that flexibility.

The deterritorialization of professional specializations across media domains is here associated with an expansion of opportunities for women of color. At the same time, this openness also allows for the exploration of a wider sphere of political concerns and aesthetic tastes. One consequence of this, DuVernay argues in a separate interview, is that otherwise academic ideas are able to filter into the popular consciousness: folks are leaning in and listening and maybe consuming it in a way that feels emotional to them. I think a lot of the time we talk about these things in a very unemotional, clinical way… it feels like study… the great thing is, I think, that this artwork allows people to investigate the academic renderings of these ideas more fully with a good base of knowledge… They’re all just entryways to get people more interested about these things and more passionate about them in their own heart. (DuVernay and Martin)

If, as DuVernay claims, the deterritorialization of professional media production has afforded both a wider circulation of and a more “emotional” reception of otherwise “academic” knowledge, the question arises: what has changed to create these conditions? No doubt, technological developments and the shifting industry standards they have occasioned must top the list.

Can Melodr ama Redeem American History?

257

The explosion in “quality” content these have enabled have also resulted in a widespread fragmentation of audiences vis-à-vis subscription-based service, “buzz” branding, and targeted narrowcasting. The resulting seismic shifts in our media and informational ecologies amount to a transformative restructuring of the public sphere itself. What does this mean for TV in particular? Can it continue to serve as a cultural forum in a media ecology designed around the production of content for increasingly segmented, if often overlapping, niche audiences? Productions like Queen Sugar and 13th are indeed remarkable perhaps above all else for marrying “quality” entertainment with candid efforts at public pedagogy. But in the last analysis, do they merely end up preaching to the choir? DuVernay’s work has successfully translated ideas gleaned from traditions of Black feminism and prison abolitionism into the vernacular of American popular culture. But what happens to these ideas in the process? Does their translation into media commodities degrade, water down, or domesticate them? Does the evocation of a heightened degree of emotional resonance afforded by the semiotics of popular melodrama short-circuit the critical thinking they seek to facilitate? In repackaging and selling these radical epistemologies as commercial entertainment, are they in turn rendered toothless or even complicit in the self-same structures of racial capitalism they seek to critique? Remarkably, Queen Sugar seems to frequently address such perils from within its own diegesis. In the twelfth episode of Queen Sugar’s second season, for example, Nova is invited to a TV news interview along with her current love interest, Black epidemiologist Dr. Robert Dubois, to speak about the threat of a Zika virus outbreak in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward. Although the couple had previously aligned their talking points prior to the interview, Robert goes off-script and challenges Nova’s invocation of terminologies which are more frequently used in university classrooms or activist rallies than on the evening news.27 This scene interests me for the way in which it inserts itself into discussions between the preferred rhetorical strategies of the moderate liberal establishment and the more radical intersectional left. Ultimately, however, it is the program host who problematically wraps up the conversation by pointing out that Zika is not only a threat to vulnerable lives in the Ninth Ward but rather affects all classes, thus seeking to manage consensus through liberal-universal and colorblind terms while muting the heightened vulnerabilities and risks faced by marginalized populations. In the wake of this scene, Nova is 27 “Live in the All Along.” Season 2, Episode 12: 05:50–08:00.

258 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

furious with Robert; she views his disagreement as an attack and accuses him of “ambushing [her] on national TV.” He, however, tries to frame it as a strategic move: “We were having a conversation that was polite, it was informative, and boring. Nova, I took a bullet for us. I’m the guy who called you hysterical, and now we’re trending.” Lying underneath this dispute, however, are two diametrically opposed views. Robert, a veteran in these kind of media debates, chooses to go off-script when he sees the opportunity to create a controversy which will make a stir and get their message noticed as a result. Nova, however, views it otherwise: “You just trivialized how I’m trying to help the people in my community. I don’t want you around any of us.”28 The tables are turned, however, when Nova is later accused of doing something similar when a fellow activist accuses her of peddling “alternative facts” and sowing the seeds of panic. When Nova counters that her media appearance secured a block grant to help clean up the Lower Ninth Ward, she is accused of asking for handouts rather than getting her own hands dirty working in the community. Nova in turn responds: “You know, you sound like a broken record. In 30 years, you’ll be at the same parties, spouting the same party language and using day-old methods for what has become a new day. Mother Brown always said that change requires that we change, too.” However, this answer is met with incredulity: “Nova, you can name-drop as much as you want to, but know that working for her still means that you’re sitting at a table somewhere. And you’re making decisions that affect the rest of us. You can be in the community, or you can be in a boardroom, but you can’t be in two places at once.”29 Nova f inds herself in a position not unlike Robert’s, defending the usage of ideologically impure means in terms of their ultimately positive results. Even Charley catches Nova off-guard by congratulating her for the manufactured argument: charley: You were great. A little dry in the beginning, but you two drove it on home. nova: You didn’t think he was dismissive and disrespectful? charley: I thought it was good TV, and it was right for the setting. I mean, people don’t tune in to see a bunch of talking heads agreeing with each other. And I was actually impressed that you knew to play it that way.30 28 “Live in the All Along.” Season 2, Episode 12: 08:00–09:00. 29 “On These I Stand.” Season 2, Episode 14: 17:38–19:20. 30 “Live in the All Along.” Season 2, Episode 12: 20:00–20:50.

Can Melodr ama Redeem American History?

259

Charley is impressed about the way Robert orchestrated the tiff in a way that makes for “good TV.” Indeed, Charley does something quite similar when she opts, during an interview with a magazine journalist, to hold off on publicly announcing her impending divorce. When her new love interest, Remy, feels jilted and asks her why, she responds: “Micah. Asset protection. But mostly because one of the most important things a woman can control is her own story.”31 Charley justifies her calculated decision to withhold information by claiming agency over her own story; Remy, however, sees it as a cover-up. As Darren Franich puts it, “The man sees a lie; she has already predicted how the world will lie about her, and so has set about constructing her own truth.” Queen Sugar furnishes both Nova and Charley with a degree of media celebrity in order to repeatedly draw attention to the practical tensions and issues of authenticity which arise when activism, self-presentation, and commercial complicity collide. In doing so, is it actively engaging with its own critique, or furnishing a diversion? How far is one justified in “playing” the ratings game to achieve socially and politically beneficial ends? At which point do commercial incentives and structures begin to not only dilute the immediate message but perhaps even pervert the whole program? Such questions are especially thematized through Charley’s socio-economic positionality as a capitalistic businesswoman attempting to carve out space for herself in the good ol’ boys’ club of sugarcane farming. On the one hand, Charley sets to work rebuilding the family business as an exercise in redemption. She purchases a sugar mill in large part to resist the encroachments of the devious Landry family. She hopes, in the process, “to win for all those who lost” before her. However, Charley’s thirst for success quite literally leaves casualties in its wake when she demands that a group of migrant laborers continue working the fields even as a hurricane bears down on the farm. When the storm has cleared, two of the migrants are discovered dead and half buried in the mud, having been apparently robbed and killed while left vulnerable in the storm.32 Even though Charley, after telling their co-workers about their deaths, asks for their stories, cries, and prays alongside the bereaved migrants, the long, drawn out scene feels more like a hollow spectacle of tears and impotent sentimentality than a ritual of witnessing for the dead; Charley’s capitalistic ambitions have not redeemed the defeated or relieved

31 “Freedom’s Plow.” Season 2, Episode 8: 35:55–36:40. 32 “Next to Nothing.” Season 1, Episode 9: 06:00–06:40.

260 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

atrocities of the past. Instead, they have placed her in the uncomfortable position of the oppressor.33 While I do not intend to draw any clear allegories or launch any form of assault on the character, person, nor even the intentions of TV producers like Ava DuVernay or co-producer, OWN founder, and media mogul Oprah Winfrey, it is worth noting communications scholar Jared Ball’s argument that media product [sic] like 13th are dangerous. They are well-crafted ideological weaponry developed, distributed and promoted to serve the commercial, social, political and ideological goals of ownership. This process is not overt, nor is it necessarily conscious. It is the result of a process, one that involves decisions as to what products will be developed and purchased, who will be interviewed or made legitimate and what solutions are included explicitly or implicitly.

This is a strange and fairly unnuanced position to hold in relation to a work like 13th, whose politics are perhaps not radical, but are also anything but mainstream; and indeed, we need to temper Ball’s comments with his own unstated interests, given that he, as a self-declared former candidate for the American Green Party’s Presidential nomination, seems to view Netflix primarily as an organ of Democratic Party interests. Even so, and whatever their political aspirations, media products like 13th and Queen Sugar are indeed produced, marketed, and consumed in an undeniably capitalist context; they would not be purchased or produced if they did not fit into some form of commercial strategy. It is therefore quite remarkable the degree to which Queen Sugar actually ruminates on similar critiques. It brings to the fore questions of how far those media producers who must make recourse to the resources made available within a totalizing system of fundamentally unequal economic relations should go to get a message across. As Walter Benjamin famously put it, every “document of culture” is always also a “document of barbarism” (392). Given this constraint, what are the limits of commercial television in the service of progressive politics, resistance, or liberation? Can it remediate in the sense of redeem the sins of American history? In Cultural Moves: African Americans and the Politics of Representation, Herman Gray discusses the TV industry’s cooptation of the politics of representation as a way for TV to disavow its own complicity in the continuing 33 “Next to Nothing.” Season 1, Episode 9: 23:45–29:05.

Can Melodr ama Redeem American History?

261

atrocities perpetuated in the name of the American nation. This allows American society to gesture towards media diversity as evidence of social justice. However, such commercial strategies are ultimately crafted to accommodate changing market conditions: “Global media companies, including network television, face a new set of symbolic and managerial challenges. The drive is not just to control the global proliferation of difference, but also to exploit it” (Gray 110). Although he was writing in 2005, Gray’s diagnosis of the politics of media diversity remains relevant: These and similar “representations” of black achievement do recognize and effectively make visible black presence and accomplishment in the national culture. But they are no guarantors of progressive projects for racial justice… black visibility is often the basis for claims to racial equality, the elimination of social and economic injustice, and the arrival of the time for racial invisibility. So, liberals use media representation of black achievement (rather than images of, say, criminality) to persuade constituents of the importance of diversity, while conservatives use the same representations to celebrate the virtues of color blindness and individual achievement. (Gray 186)

Media products like 13th and Queen Sugar are embedded in this cultural and commercial context; as such, there is a risk that their mere popularity may be mistaken for a political achievement in and of itself. However, visibility is not coterminous with social justice. When it comes to TV, there is no pure position, no original “state of innocence” from which one can disaggregate or disentangle issues of representation, politics, and capitalism. It remains a fairly good wager that any “good home” found on TV is anything but so in real life. Interestingly, even Queen Sugar’s own title evokes such problematic entanglements. On the one hand, it refers to the name Charley dubs her sugar mill. By purchasing this mill, Charley pursues ownership of the means of production by which the sugar crop is converted into a commodity. This allows her to undercut the extortionary price gutting of the Landry family’s regional monopoly and offer fairer pricing to the previously exploited Black sugarcane farmers. At the same time, the title evokes the brutal history of slavery on sugar plantations as well as gesturing towards the famous expression “king cotton,” a reference to the economic centrality of cotton to the slave economy of the antebellum South. Thus, the very title of Queen Sugar emphasizes Charley’s entanglements in the historical systems of economic exploitation upon which she intends to redeem her family and

262 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

build their future; she is fully vested in economic systems and industries for which commercial media is often accused of persistently providing ideological cover and support. Queen Sugar in this sense seeks to actively thematize these concerns through the vehicle of television melodrama while at the same time deferring their resolution in ways which keep them serially productive. Its narrative intrigues and moral conundrums keep political storytelling, its modes of transmission, and its routines of circulation entwined with regimes of commercial continuity. Queen Sugar would therefore seem to perform a cultural function perhaps best described by Frank Kelleter: popular seriality, understood as a larger historical phenomenon that has accompanied Western modernity since the mid-nineteenth century, supports a practical regime of continuation… the contingent, but historically powerful, partnership between democratic ideologies and a particular system of cultural production… that, for want of a better term – and without need for revelatory pathos – is still best described by the name it has chosen to describe itself: capitalism. (“Seriality” 29)

Is not the particularly prof itable achievement of popular seriality its ability to maintain a sense of relevance by constantly deferring both the achievement of social justice and the demands of democratic recognition, holding them instead in a state of perpetually productive tension? And what of capitalism’s ability to assimilate and, through the operations of narrative reproduction, openly circulate and ultimately bank on its own critique: might not this be one possible definition of melodrama? If so, is melodrama’s pervasive and persistent endurance in the history of American storytelling a direct consequence of its dialectical, perhaps even indissoluble entanglements with America’s most interminable, deeply entrenched, and perversely venerated system of inequality? And given that system’s foundational and inalienable entanglements with histories of colonialism, slavery, dispossession, and exploitation, can Queen Sugar escape the charge that for all its sentimentalism, activist posturing, and investments in Black storytelling, its undeniable status as a work of commercial entertainment ultimately means that it remains trapped within, dependent upon, and even an agent, however unwilling, of the serialized routines which perpetuate racial capitalism? Endlessly spinning out harrowing stories of wounding and redemption, generating a world of ever-proliferating and increasingly complex identities, and even changing the ways in which we conceptualize the nation,

Can Melodr ama Redeem American History?

263

melodrama seems capable of extending our sympathies to an ever-widening circle of (liberal, enlightenment, bourgeois) humanity. Melodrama has at various points in history been credited with signaling socio-epistemic revolution, winning humanitarian reforms, and even rousing entire nations to action – even unto civil war.34 It remains evidently popular in best-sellers across virtually all genres and media, and it is perhaps due to the patent recognizability this affords that it lends itself so well to the articulation of political demands seeking justice for historical injuries and relief from structural oppression. And yet, it is perhaps for these very same reasons that melodrama cannot redeem history. The visceral rage it summons forth and the relentless tug it exerts on our heartstrings are instead the very proof that we continue to live out that ongoing nightmare from which history cannot seem to rouse itself.

Conclusion Ava DuVernay’s rising start as a black feminist auteur with a reputation for masterly work spanning the media landscape is no doubt well deserved. Nevertheless, we would be remiss to ignore the media effects and cultural contradictions which inhere in the attempt to remediate the sins of history by repackaging radical epistemologies of critique as commercial media products. There is no use denying 13th’s considerable influence; it has been an invaluable contribution to public pedagogy insofar as it disseminated awareness of a growing scholarly consensus which situates mass incarceration as an institutional manifestation of slavery’s afterlives. Works like this are no doubt instrumental in repudiating punitive realism and dislodging the mythologies of Black criminality upon which it relies. Nevertheless, 13th largely sidesteps investigations into issues surrounding the melodramatic modes within which the United States has long embedded fictional treatments and public discussions of race, crime, and (re)enslavement. Instead, melodrama appears as a formative ingredient in DuVernay’s work with her stewardship of Queen Sugar. Whereas the practices of media assemblage which characterize the documentary mode lend themselves well to tracing 34 According to legend, President Abraham Lincoln, upon f irst making the acquaintance of Harriet Beecher Stowe, greeted her by saying, in reference to the popularity of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, “So you’re the little lady who wrote the book that started this great big war!” Whether or not the statement was ever uttered, it has proven remarkably durable, suggesting that at least some historians and critics find it to be a plausible influence upon the advent of the Civil War.

264 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

out what I, borrowing from Alexander Weheliye, have referred to as the “racializing assemblages” of American history, Queen Sugar’s attempts to utilize the codes of American racial and family melodrama to redeem that history ultimately cannot succeed. This is because both melodrama, as perhaps the dominant mode of popular American storytelling, and “quality” serial television as an inalienably commercial undertaking are themselves indissolubly embedded within and even reliant upon the ongoing routines of capital accumulation. As a vehicle for the perpetuation of racial capitalism, melodramatic commercial television takes as its business the task, whether by virtue of circumstance or design, of assisting in the (re) production, sorting, and exploitation of human identities for the primary purposes of extracting profits and accumulating wealth. As perhaps the key storytelling tradition which has historically mediated and structurally articulated the liberal-democratic demand for rights and recognition to the extractive enterprises of American capitalism, melodrama cannot transcend, and therefore cannot redeem, the sins of American history. Sources Cited 13th. Ava DuVernay, dir. Netflix, 2016. Arceneaux, Michael. “The Complexities of The Black Family: How Queen Sugar is an Honest Look at Our Current State.” Essence. 30 Nov. 2016. Web. Accessed 21 Aug. 2018. https://www.essence.com/entertainment/queen-sugar-black-familystructure-finale/ Ball, Jared. “The Unlucky 13th: Liberalizing the Extreme.” IMWIL! 25 Oct. 2016. Web. Accessed 22 Aug. 2018. https://imixwhatilike.org/2016/10/25/the-unlucky-13thliberalizing-the-extreme/ Baszille, Natalie. Queen Sugar. New York: Penguin Books, 2014. Belcher, Christina. “There is No Such Thing as a Post-racial Prison: Neoliberal Multiculturalism and the White Savior Complex on Orange is the New Black.” Television & New Media, vol. 17, No. 6, 2016, p. 491–503. Bell, Desmond. “Documentary Film and the Poetics of History.” Journal of Media Practice, vol. 12, no 1, 2011. Benjamin, Walter. “On the Concept of History.” Selected Writings, Vol. 4. Tr. Edmund Jepphcott. Ed. Howard Eiland And Michael W. Jennings. Harvard University Press, 2006. Best, Stephen. “On Failing to Make the Past Present.” Modern Language Quarterly, vol. 73, no. 3, 2012, p. 453–474. Brooks, Peter. The Melodramatic Imagination. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976.

Can Melodr ama Redeem American History?

265

Butler, Bethonie. “Ava DuVernay’s Netflix Film ‘13th’ Reveals How Mass Incarceration is an Extension of Slavery.” The Washington Post. 6 Oct. 2016. Web. Accessed 21 Aug. 2018. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/ wp/2016/10/06/ava-duvernays-netflix-film-13th-reveals-how-mass-incarcerationis-an-extension-of-slavery/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.dde2cff1de30 Canfield, Dan. “Made by Women, Queen Sugar is TV’s Best Show about Masculinity.” Slate. 12 July 2017. Web. Accessed 22 Aug. 2017. http://www.slate.com/blogs/ browbeat/2017/07/12/ava_duvernay_s_queen_sugar_is_tv_s_best_show_about_ masculinity.html?via=gdpr-consent Coates, Ta-Nehisi. “The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration.” The Atlantic. Oct. Issue, 2015. Web. Accessed 15 Aug. 2018. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ archive/2015/10/the-black-family-in-the-age-of-mass-incarceration/403246/ Dargis, Manohla. “Sundance Fights Tide with Films Like ‘The Birth of a Nation.’” The New York Times. 29 Jan. 2016. Web. Accessed 21 Aug. 2018. https://www. nytimes.com/2016/01/30/movies/sundance-f ights-tide-with-f ilms-like-thebirth-of-a-nation.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share&_r=2 Desta, Yohana. “Ava DuVernay and Queen Sugar Look Like the Future of Television.” Vanity Fair. 13 Sept. 2016. Web. Accessed 21 Aug. 2018. https://www.vanityfair. com/hollywood/2016/09/ava-duvernay-queen-sugar-interview DuVernay, Ava and Adrienne Green. “Ava DuVernay on Queen Sugar and Her Hollywood Journey.” The Atlantic. 3 Aug. 2017. Web. Accessed 22 Aug. 2018. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/08/ava-duvernayqueen-sugar-midseason-finale/535710/ DuVernay, Ava and Ashely Clark. “Constitutional Crisis: Ava DuVernay Previews Her Comprehensive Documentary on the Damning History of Mass Incarceration of Blacks in the United States.” Film Comment. Sept./Oct. Issue, 2016. Web. Accessed 22 Aug. 2018. https://www.f ilmcomment.com/article/ ava-duvernay-interview-the-13th/ DuVernay, Ava and Michael T. Martin. “Conversations with Ava DuVernay – ‘A Call to Action’: Organizing Principles of an Activist Cinematic Practice.” Black Camera, vol. 1, no. 1, 2014, p. 57–91. DuVernay, Ava and Michael T. Martin. “Documentary ‘13TH’ Argues Mass Incarceration is an Extension of Slavery.” NPR. 17 Dec. 2016. Web. Accessed 22 Aug. 2017. https://www.npr.org/2016/12/17/505996792/documentary-13th-argues-massincarceration-is-an-extension-of-slavery Flamand, Lee A. “Articulating Counter/Publics and Re-Assembling History: Ava DuVernay’s 13th.” American Counter/Publics. Ed. Birte Wege and Alexander Starre. Heidelberg: Winter Verlag, 2019. Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Penguin Books, 1991.

266 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

Foucault, Michel. “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History.” The Foucault Reader. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984. Franich, Darren. “The Elemental American Power of Queen Sugar.” Entertainment Weekly. 3 Oct. 2017. Web. Accessed 1 Dec. 2018. https://ew.com/tv/2017/10/03/ queen-sugar-appreciation/ Garland, David. “What is a ‘History of the Present’? On Foucault’s Genealogies and Their Critical Preconditions.” Punishment & Society, vol. 16, no. 4. 2004, p. 365–384. Gilroy, Paul. The Black Atlantic. London: Verso, 2002. Gray, Herman. Cultural Moves: African Americans and the Politics of Representation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Hartman, Saidiya. Lose Your Mother. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. Hartman, Saidiya. Scenes of Subjection. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Hartman, Saidiya and Frank B. Wilderson III. “The Position of the Unthought.” Qui Parle, vol. 13, no. 2, 2003, p. 183–201. Hartman, Saidiya and Thora Siemsen. “On Working with Archives.” The Creative Independent. 18 April 2018. Web. Accessed 30 Aug. 2018. https://thecreativeindependent.com/people/saidiya-hartman-on-working-with-archives/ Jackson, Bruce. “Editing Reality: New Social History and Documentary.” Visual Sociology, vol. 9, no. 1, 1994. p. 62–74. Kang, Inkoo. “The Broken but Hopeful Heart of Ava DuVernay’s Queen Sugar.” MTV News. 6 Sept. 2016. Web. Accessed 21 Aug. 2018. http://www.mtv.com/ news/2928434/queen-sugar-ava-duvernay-own-review/ Kuhn, Annette. “Women’s Genres: Melodrama, Soap Opera, and Theory.” Feminist Television Criticism: A Reader. 2nd Edition. Ed. Charlotte Brunsdon and Lynn Spigel. Open University Press, 2008. Laudo, Phillip. “Ava DuVernay Talks New Doc ‘13TH’ At NYFF Press Conference.” 2 Oct. 2016. Web. Accessed 12 Sept. 2018. https://theknockturnal.com/ ava-duvernay-talks-nyff-13th-netflix/ Moynihan, Daniel P. The Negro Family: The Case for National Action. U.S. Dept. of Labor, 1965. Netflix. “The Story Never Changes: 13th.” Promotional Material. Web. Accessed 30 Aug. 2018. https://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/ OCT17-13th-Story-Never-Changes.jpg Nichols, Bill. Introduction to Documentary. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001. Nix, Justin and Bradley A. Campbell, Edward H. Byers, Geoffrey P. Alpert. “A Bird’s Eye View of Civilians Killed by Police in 2015.” Criminology & Public Policy, vol. 16, no. 1, 2016, p. 309–340.

Can Melodr ama Redeem American History?

267

Patterson, Orlando. Slavery and Social Death. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982. Phillips, Carmen. “‘Queen Sugar’ Does Black Lives Matter Storytelling Right.” Autostraddle. 27 June 2017. Web. Accessed 22 Aug. 2018. https://www.autostraddle.com/queen-sugar-gets-its-black-lives-matter-storytelling-right-384286/ Queen Sugar. Ava DuVernay, cr. OWN, 2016–. “Queen Sugar: Season 1” Rotten Tomatoes. 2016. Web. Accessed 22 Aug. 2018. https:// www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/queen_sugar/s01/ Rearick, Lauren. “Ava DuVernay on the Importance of Hiring Female Directors.” Teen Vogue. 6 May 2018. Web. Accessed 21 Aug. 2018. https://www.teenvogue. com/story/ava-duvernay-importance-hiring-female-directors Smith, Caleb. The Prison and the American Imagination. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. Spillers, Hortense J. “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book.” Diacritics, vol. 17, no. 2, Summer 1987, p. 64–81. Swaine, Jon and Ciara McCarthy. “Young Black Men Again Faced Highest Rate of US Police Killings in 2016.” The Guardian. 8 Jan. 2017. Web. Accessed 1 Dec. 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/08/ the-counted-police-killings-2016-young-black-men Traister, Rebecca and Ava DuVernay. “In Conversation with Ava Duvernay.” New York Magazine. 19 Sept. 2016. Web. Accessed 12 Sept. 2018. https://www.thecut. com/2016/09/ava-duvernay-the-13th-queen-sugar-c-v-r.html Travers, Peter. “20 Best Mov ies of 2016.” Rolling Stone. 5 Dec. 2016. Web. Accessed 21 Aug. 2018. https://w w w.rollingstone.com/movies/ movie-lists/20-best-movies-of-2016-128807/zootopia-115716/ Weheliye, Alexander G. Habeus Viscus. Durham: Duke University Press, 2014. Wilderson, Frank B. III. “Afro-Pessimism and the End of Redemption.” Humanities Futures. 10 Oct. 2015. Web. Accessed 22 Aug. 2018. https://humanitiesfutures. org/papers/afro-pessimism-end-redemption/ Williams, Linda. Playing the Race Card. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001.



Conclusion: American Politics and Prison Reform after TV’s Digital Turn Abstract The business strategies of brand differentiation, narrowcasting, vertical integration, digital distribution, and audience surveillance which made the post-network era’s creative revolution commercially viable have also helped to drive the progressive fragmentation of the public sphere, undermining television’s role as communal cultural forum and exacerbating trends such as political polarization. In this conclusion, I ruminate on the cultural, social, and political implications of a media landscape which is simultaneously subject to increasing corporate consolidation on the one hand and oversaturated with content, channels, and platforms on the other. Can our increasingly hysterical attention economy cultivate the communal structures of democratic deliberation necessary to end mass incarceration? Or will we find ourselves subtly yet increasingly captivated by a hyperactive media ecology which is itself curiously carceral? Keywords: American media studies, political economy of streaming TV, digital public sphere, prison reform, narrowcasting and microtargeting, political polarization

In his influential study Inside Prime Time, Todd Gitlin follows a paragraph on the then nascent industry strategy of narrowcasting with a prediction which has not quite stood the test of time: “the brave new cornucopia is likely to create only minor, marginal chances for a diversity of substance – and fewer and fewer as time goes on” (332). Today, an unprecedented number of TV shows self-proclaim their “quality” aspirations even as an increasing array of channels and platforms cater to the tastes of evermore finely grained audience segments. Narrowcasting, media convergence, and multichannel proliferation have fostered an explosion of televisual diversity even as they have at the same time increasingly fragmented audiences, unsettling TV’s

Flamand, Lee A., American Mass Incarceration and Post-Network Quality Television: Captivating Aspirations. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2022 doi 10.5117/9789463725057_conc

270 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

prior roles as both consensus medium and communal cultural forum. However, Gitlin’s book seems to have been prescient in other ways; even though a greater number of programs are now produced for a wider range of niche audiences across a multitude of channels and platforms than ever before, “Conglomeration proceeds apace. Homogeneity at the cultural center is complemented by consumer fragmentation on the margins. Technology opens doors, and oligopoly marches in just behind, slamming them. There can be no technological fix for what is, after all, a social problem” (Gitlin 332). This still reads like an essentially correct diagnosis of television’s political economy, except that the homogenous center is itself increasingly cracked apart and siloed; slowly but surely, fragmentation is becoming not the stand-out exception but the paradoxically homogenizing rule. For Gitlin, the primary problem of television was not the medium itself, but rather the ways in which it allowed Americans to live in a state of bad faith regarding their devotion, always half-hearted, to their own communal duties and democratic investments: The problem is the texture of American life. Despite the lip service Americans pay to civic virtue, most of us believe that real life is private life, real ambition private ambition. The public world is a corrupt necessity… As good democrats, we flatter ourselves that we live in the forum, but we can’t wait to get home… Having dropped out of the public realm, because there are few institutions that might provide the arena for rich and informed public speech, we rely on television to stay ‘in touch.’ (332)

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, we now live online to a greater degree than at any prior point in the Internet age. We stay virtually connected and are always available, our relationships increasingly mediated through a number of platforms, gadgets, and screens to which we devote increasing portions of our scarce time and attention. And yet, we still seem far from having achieved the kind of public forum Gitlin would like us to have; the more chances we have to connect, it seems, the more we pull apart, preferring to spend increasing amounts of time lost in our own screens and frequenting increasingly distant corners of the web, some of which are very dark indeed. Television is no longer, as Gitlin wrote, “the collective, secondhand dream of American society” (333); on the contrary, American society seems to find collective dreaming progressively more difficult. However much the highly televised liberalism of the 20th century may have in fact have only been a smokescreen papering over the harsh, persistent realities of racism, sexism, and entrenched inequality, it at least provided some sense that America was

Conclusion: American Politics and Prison Reform af ter T V’s Digital Turn

271

a communal project; liberalism’s fantasies fostered at least some degree of fellow-feeling, while broadcast television provided at least some sense, however filtered and limited, of a shared reality. Nowadays, by contrast, Americans no longer seem to dream the same dreams. When I began this project, I was impatient with those who approached both television and its audiences with an overbearing, self-righteous, at times patronizing skepticism. This was especially because serial television drama, I was convinced, was indeed experiencing a renaissance. Far from resembling the monolithic “Culture Industry” model of Horkheimer and Adorno, television seemed increasingly invested in storytelling practices which demanded more from viewers, proliferating difference and challenging hegemonic ideologies in the process. Likewise, the fact that this kind of TV was getting made at all seemed to me proof that viewers were far from the kinds of unsophisticated cultural dupes too many critics seemed to make them out to be. TV, I thought, was registering, or perhaps even driving, cultural and perhaps even political reform by bringing the long-invisible scourge of mass incarceration to public attention. I was dazzled by the discussion between David Simon and Barak Obama which opens this book, captivated by the aspirational scope and complexity of series like The Wire, drawn to the moral ambiguity and dark charisma of OZ’s characters, and excited about the popular success of Orange Is the New Black, 13th, and Queen Sugar. I imagined media spaces where TV drama might prompt audiences to question their social and political arrangements, including the judiciousness and ethics of mass incarceration. It is a narrative which seemed to be increasingly seconded by television’s own insiders. As TV writer and famed showrunner Ryan Murphy put it in a roundtable discussion for The Hollywood Reporter, even “the executive suite… has changed”: If you do a piece of material that doesn’t dig into [pertinent social themes], the executives tell you you’re failing, you’re not doing enough. Whereas when I started, you couldn’t do anything. A gay person trying to write a gay character in 1998 – it was so difficult. There has been a generational shift in people coming up who are more socially [conscious], liberal, more interested in leaning into that. There’s an enlightenment going on in every arena of television now. (Murphy in Rose et al.)

In the last few years, however, the “creative revolution” story peddled by TV executives and creatives alike has largely lost its sheen. The threat of monopoly power looms as telecommunication conglomerates like Comcast and AT&T have continued to gobble up smaller production and distribution

272 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

assets, even as content-production mammoths like Disney and 21st Century Fox merge into mega-conglomerates, threatening to crush more worthy upstart competitors through nothing other than their sheer size. Meanwhile, the entry of corporation-owned platforms such as Disney+ and HBO Max into the streaming wars has only elevated the stakes and sped up the pace of the original content arms race. This seems to have driven home both the cultural and commercial value of featuring a wider color-palette of faces than ever before both on set and behind the scenes, but many have begun to worry that the over-saturation of the market for “quality” content will ultimately leave us awash in a tidal wave of glittering mediocrity. Questions abound: what kind of creative revolution can thrive in the grip of monopolized interests? What kind of a cultural forum can cohere if the TV landscape shatters into a host of service providers all producing their own content and competing for consumers’ loyalty? Will the digital shift culminate in a continuing proliferation of high-quality, digitally available, culturally salient content at increasingly lower prices? Or will businesses attempt to shift the rising costs of the “quality” arms race upon consumers, pushing us towards a future where original content is increasingly owned by a few monopolistic players, affordable to a shrinking group of premium viewers, and protected by heightened digital surveillance? There will, of course, always be great TV, but if you want to stay up-todate with what’s what on television nowadays you are probably juggling subscriptions to several different streaming platforms at once. While it still remains possible to subscribe and cancel to many of them on a monthby-month basis, it is only a matter of time before they begin demanding consumer fealty. Meanwhile, the sheer amount of content, paired with the “nonlinear” viewing experiences offered by the affordances of streaming technology, has undermined many of the communal rituals and shared sources of common interest which decades of broadcast network dominance facilitated. Even as TV journalists and industry insiders alike continue, Nostradamus-like, to predict our impending fall over the cliff of what FX CEO John Landgraf notoriously called “Peak TV,” the content arms race shows no sign of abating. Perhaps this should be no surprise; if the build up to the Great Recession and the flurry of speculative activity during the COVID-19 pandemic should have taught us anything, it is that economic fundamentals are no real impediment to irrational exuberance, and the “Golden Age” narrative has proven itself nothing if not exuberant. Indeed, Landgraf has gone so far as to opine that “the number of series… makes me suspect that the ‘Golden Age of Television’ has become the ‘Gilded Age of Television’” (qtd. in Schneider).

Conclusion: American Politics and Prison Reform af ter T V’s Digital Turn

273

It was perhaps my own initial exuberance during the Obama years which drove my enthusiasm for these series. It has become difficult if not impossible to remain so optimistic in the wake of the Trump administration, the Capitol Hill riot in January of 2021, continuing mass shootings, a continuing stream of blue-on-Black killings, and a pandemic which has ravaged vulnerable communities of color and prisoners to a far higher degree than the population at large. Even if the new Biden administration has shown some surprising appetite for progressive policy reform, the U.S. electorate remains riven in terms of its cultural and political identities. TV has indeed to some degree begun to open up in terms of who gets seen and which issues get addressed; even so, if electoral politics is any indicator, a great deal of those narratives seem to either not appeal or perhaps have not found their way to the screens of large swaths of the American viewing public. Or perhaps Americans are only fond of serious political themes when they take the form of entertainment, yet all too willingly forget those issues in the privacy of the ballot box. Maybe these “quality” narratives are altogether too complex for a public cultivated by 24-hour cable news, sound-bite journalism, meme-based politics, and rampant neoliberalism to view politics as some kind of sports rivalry – or worse, as a game show. There have been moments when mass American political culture has seemed less like the stuff of serious democratic deliberation and increasingly more akin to our most egregious, distracting, and mind-polluting forms of so-called reality-TV. Even as I pondered popular culture’s increasingly complex investments in the political, others seemed more enthralled by the mediatization of politics. The most binge-worthy media spectacle of the past twenty years may indeed have been The Apprentice, White House Edition. The American electorate may have voted to cancel that particular program for now, but there is no doubt that it made for great ratings; many fans refuse to accept its cancellation and are already agitating for a renewal. Indeed, a new cohort of Republicans in Congress seem intent on continuing the franchise at all costs. Donald Trump appears to many as the leering monstrosity of white upper-class privilege, xenophobia, and toxic masculinity run amok – the real-life equivalent of such TV villains as Vern Schillinger, Desi Piscatella, or Sam Landry. And indeed, even those who initially elected him seem to see him less as an unconventional (and woefully unprepared) politician and more in the mold of a particularly intriguing TV character: the Tony Soprano of Manhattan, the firebrand from Queens, the lone-wolf, rogue defender of a threatened social order perhaps most prominently found in the nostalgia-inducing illusions of classic network television. Still others, it seems, could just simply no longer tolerate the boredom of

274 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

politics-as-usual; they craved a “shake-up,” as if what the nation needed most was a new twist to spice up the formula of an otherwise exhausted television genre. At still other times it seems to me that the processes of popular deliberation which are the core of democratic politics, the very means by which decisions as important as who gets to live and who is left to die are made, have deteriorated to the tenor of an increasingly shrill bar fight over the outcome of a particularly questionable call made during the final minutes of a Sunday Night Football game. No matter how egregiously inaccurate the call, the ideology of the two-party system seems to stubbornly sort Americans by little more than team aff iliation; increasingly what matters most in public life boils down to little more than whether your jersey is red or blue. No matter that gerrymandering of both the electoral redistricting and digital microtargeting variety have made it increasingly easy for the teams to pick their fans rather than the other way around; it is the thrill of negative partisanship and spite voting, of seeing the other guys get bashed in the press and at the polls, which increasingly seems to fill the stands. When serial TV fictions would seem to take political issues more seriously than their audiences, it cannot bode well for American democracy. Few issues today are more urgently in need of real deliberation than mass incarceration. However, neither heightened media attention, increased public awareness, nor even widespread demonstrations against mass incarceration have seemed to engender much in terms of substantial change, as slight declines in the total prison population in the past few years must be balanced by a resurgence in punitive criminal justice rhetoric on the right and political infighting on the left. Having dubbed himself the “law-and-order” candidate, Trump reignited the War on Drugs and doubled-down on punitive populism. He instructed ICE to prosecute undocumented border crossers, many of them refugees, as criminals, separating them from their children and locking both up in cages. Add to this his expressed wish to “lock up” his opponents and critics (a proposition which was not without consequential support among his followers) while pardoning his criminally prosecuted allies, and it would seem that American justice has become little more than a tool for riling up the voter base – or, what might be the same, shoring up the ratings. For a substantial percentage of the American public, nearly half of whom voted to continue that course in 2020, authoritarian notions of “law-and-order” still seem to resonate. Although politicians from across the spectrum have felt compelled to renounce mass incarceration in recent years, little has been done to address it in a systematic fashion. While the 2018 First Step Act would seem to indicate growing bipartisan will to relieve some of the outsized punitive burdens

Conclusion: American Politics and Prison Reform af ter T V’s Digital Turn

275

created by legislation and policy dictates over the course of the last several decades, it addresses only a limited number of issues. It is therefore hard not to view politicians’ renunciations of mass incarceration as hollow lip service paid to one part of the electorate even as they simultaneously take actions which serve competing interests created by the system itself. As Marc Mauer points out, “the institutionalization of the system of mass incarceration makes it very difficult to change course. With police, prosecutors, judges, prison guards, and entire communities often dependent on the wages and presumed economic benefits of a vast criminal justice apparatus, there is great resistance to any proposed shift in course” (ix). Indeed, if there is any source of sustained resistance to mass incarceration today, it would seem to originate not from the top-down channels of politicians and an increasingly fractured, profit-hungry media industry, but rather the bottom-up efforts of activists, reformers, and prisoners themselves. Even so, the elevated percentage of prisoners for whom incarceration has become a death sentence due to their heightened state of vulnerability during the COVID-19 pandemic is a testament to a continuing and urgent need for action. It was my hope that as more American television programs aspired to take on the cultural work of social and political critique, public support for punitive rhetoric and repressive criminal justice policies would wane; and to be sure, there are now more calls to dismantle mass incarceration than ever before. In November of 2017, the topline report of a survey commissioned by the ACLU reported that that 71% of Americans agree that reducing the prison population is important, while “[t]he bulk of concerns are focused on the need to reduce the prison population and reinvest those resources in addressing mental health and drug addiction issues” (Benenson Strategy Group 1). In 2018, Florida voters approved an amendment to the State Constitution which would have restored voting rights to 1.4 million previously disenfranchised former felons; however, this victory was short-lived, as the Republican-dominated Florida legislature soon passed legislation curbing the effect of the law by requiring that former felons also pay outstanding fines, essentially a modern-day version of the Jim Crow-era poll tax. There are, it must be admitted, signs of reform; yet, as Angela Davis reminds us near the end of 13th: “Historically, when one looks at efforts to create reforms, they inevitably lead to more repression” (01:19:34). It is yet to be seen if this history will repeat itself again. If the fight over the contours of the digital public sphere which arose in the wake of the electoral debacle of 2016, stewed over the course of the COVID-19 “Infodemic,” and culminated in the emergence of the “stop-thesteal” Capitol Hill riot of 2021 should have taught us anything, it is that the

276 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

increasing fragmentation of our media landscape has been anything other than a process of simple democratization. While it may have produced room for a greater diversity of viewpoints to find their way to our screens than ever before, it has also generated the opportunity for social media users and TV viewers alike to self-police their own media consumption, box themselves within algorithmically facilitated filter bubbles, and even create their own alternative realities as they barricade themselves inside of digital echo-chambers which ensure only limited exposure to credible information and well-reasoned external viewpoints. It is hard to wonder whether the increasing proliferation of socially relevant TV has not also helped to cement those trends. As Herman Gray notes, On the one hand, there is the constant reminder from cultural conservatives (on both the left and the right) about the exaggerated role of identity politics in the erosion of national unity and national identity. On the other hand, under the banner of unlimited capitalist growth and new technologies, media companies continue to generate new and more precise means of identifying audiences and delivering programming services to them, to the point that we are capable of disaggregating the nation into all sorts of categories. (118)

While I am skeptical of painting all forms of identity-based politics with the same brush, one wonders to what degree the increased targeting of particular niche markets has not had the effect of fortifying the walls erected between demographic and interest-based groups rather than breaking them down. And if these processes of fragmentation continue apace, is there a point at which media companies begin reifying them to an even more dangerous degree? It now seems unlikely that platforms such as Netflix or YouTube will find it profitable to introduce tags like “because you are interested in: white supremacy” to their recommendation engines, if only because of the PR disaster which would ensue. And yet, this is in many cases precisely the effect which their reliance on algorithmic governance has already engineered; in spite of redoubled efforts at platform moderation, one need only view a few conspiracy videos on YouTube to find oneself plunged into a rabbit hole by the platform’s recommendation engine. While platforms may not themselves have the explicit commercial will (or, what might amount to the same, bad business judgement) to actively produce such silos, recent years have proven that nothing stops bad actors, whether driven by profit-motive, power, or ideology, from exploiting such affordances for their own purposes. The result has not only been a marked increase in political

Conclusion: American Politics and Prison Reform af ter T V’s Digital Turn

277

polarization, but a growing sense that we no longer even seem to inhabit the same epistemological universes. In light of these mixed signals, it may be that the emergence of the series investigated herein is perhaps less a matter of a more cultivated, thoughtful, and sophisticated viewing public and is more directly the result of business strategies which seek to profit from the proliferation of targetable consumer segments – which is also to say, to monetize the increasing disintegration of the American public sphere. As Lotz reminds us, channel proliferation and narrowcasting have proven to be a double-edged sword for decades now, as “the explosion of content providers throughout the multi-channel transition enabled viewers to increasingly isolate themselves in enclaves of special interest” (Revolutionized 26). In this environment, it would seem that the same media trends which unlocked the political potential of “quality” TV have at the same time also helped to exacerbate political polarization in the United States, and perhaps abroad as well, by chopping the common viewership up into tiny bite-sized morsels of consumer desire. To be sure, television series, and especially the “quality” dramas which are the focus of this book, are but one limited part of this picture; but insofar as televisual forms, if not the box itself, remain the pre-eminent cultural system through which Americans consume stories about themselves and learn about their wider world, it would seem that America is more riven by media than ever before. Narrowcasting, including the “conglomerated niche” and “taste-based cluster” strategies used by Netflix and its increasingly crowded field of streaming competitors, has indeed allowed for the production of a greater diversity of stories tackling a variety of previously taboo themes addressed, it seems, with a greater degree of nuance by virtue of the narrative complexity afforded by long-form serial drama. I now wonder, however, if a great deal of my exaggerated optimism about these series was not simply the result of my own position within those niches – which is also to say, their tendency to play to my own ideological predilections, aesthetic preferences, and membership in an overlapping set of potentially lucrative audience segmentations. The best aspects of the television shows discussed herein were made possible because showrunners and creatives were given ample room to pursue their artistic visions and made the effort to do so in ways which were well-informed and sought to do more than simply entertain, advertise, or build brand equity. On the surface, one has a rather large menu of offerings to point to if one wants to argue that the trails they blazed have been paved over by their followers. Sundance’s beautifully wrought Rectify (2013–2016) sought to explore the lasting effects of solitary confinement, wrongful conviction, post-release reintegration, and the death penalty by painting a

278 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

nuanced psychological portrait of a former inmate as he attempts to rebuild his shattered life after serving two decades wrongfully imprisoned on death row. Referred to by Emily VanDerWerff as “The Wire for small-town America” for its slow pacing but lacking the HBO series’ narrative complexity and ensemble cast, Rectify no doubt set the stage for other slow-paced and thoughtful melodramas like Queen Sugar. ABC’s anthology drama American Crime (2015–2017), helmed by John Ridley, has also been called a “worthy, Trump-Era successor to The Wire” for the way in which it, in the words of David Canfield, “balances the rigor of reporting with the vibrancy of art” during the three seasons it spent tackling the kinds of heady, ripped-fromthe-headlines issues which rarely receive serious sustained attention in network television dramas, only to be unceremoniously discontinued when its critically acclaimed third season failed to garner adequate ratings. But perhaps no industry player has carried this torch more than Netflix. The popularity of Netflix’s documentary series Making a Murderer (2015–2018) entrenched the true crime genre in the premium viewership segment even as it drew attention to the specters of wrongful conviction, local corruption, and the demonization of the lower classes, prompting many of its viewers to question the impartiality and efficacy of the criminal justice system. This was followed by Ava DuVernay’s Netflix miniseries When They See Us (2019), a critically acclaimed re-enactment of the racism-warped chain of events leading up to and following upon the false conviction of the Central Park Five. Recently, Netflix released Amend (2021), a documentary mini-series narrated by Will Smith (and featuring a host of mostly Netflix-associated actors as well as activists and academics), which serves as a kind of unofficial sequel to 13th by following the jurisprudential career of the 14th Amendment across various social movements. Finally, there are a host of original dramatic series dealing with themes ranging from police corruption, as in the case of Seven Seconds (2018), to syndicated offerings purchased to serve Netflix’s “Glocalization” strategy, such as the Spanish-language take on Orange Is the New Black entitled Vis a vis and which bears the English title Locked Up (2015–2019) in the Netflix catalogue. In spite of their critical acclaim, almost none of these series have gained the kind of mass viewership enjoyed by Orange Is the New Black, nor the kind of long-lasting, resonant afterlife of a series like The Wire. And while true crime docuseries like Making a Murderer seem to have emerged as a popular, winning formula, this genre rarely aspires to assert fully-fledged critiques of systemic oppression; instead, they content themselves with artful, cinematic portrayals of individuals caught in the grips of either local corruption or their own darkest impulses. They repeat, in the last analysis,

Conclusion: American Politics and Prison Reform af ter T V’s Digital Turn

279

typically American preoccupations with issues such as personal redemption and melodramatic struggle against villainy. Rarely are their objections extended to diagnoses of American institutions, social arrangements, or cultural habits more broadly; in television fiction and non-fiction alike, portrayals of bad apples and tough situations still exponentially outnumber attempts at serious social critique. In this sense, these series feel more like missed opportunities than the legitimate heirs of such path-breaking series as The Wire. Indeed, even as critics continue to sound accolades for deep character studies of those at society’s margins, the figure of the morally ambiguous anti-hero has tarnished, appearing less like an innovation and more like an already worn-out convention. The sociological and activist ambitions which helped to birth shows like The Wire and Orange Is the New Black have begun to feel less like transformative interventions into televisual storytelling and more like prime examples of passing trends. Maintaining the call for better, more socially engaged television will take more than the financial support of individual audience members, whether they understand themselves as passive consumer segments, loyal subscribers, demanding customers, or avid and engaged fans. Indeed, it may very well require reconsideration of what it means to engage in the activities of citizenship in an increasingly pervasive yet evermore fragmented, complex, and hyperactive media ecology. This means broad, serious thinking about popular culture, media, and television not as entertaining private pastimes, but as public and therefore distinctly political forums. Americans will need to demand something beyond “quality” entertainment programming if they want to foster the critical thinking which facilitates and enriches democratic deliberation. For this, we cannot rely on technological advances and emergent business models alone; what is required is a sea-change in terms of public ethos – a drastic, wide-ranging, popular shift in terms of how both television and its increasingly fragmented publics imagine their roles. The same is true for addressing systemic social injustices such as those wrought by mass incarceration; no amount of “quality” TV drama can dismantle or remediate (in the sense of heal) the damage done by mass incarceration, and any awareness it fosters is impotent absent widespread political will, organization, action, and legislation. Both the provision of social justice and the provision of good television require that we develop high standards and hold ourselves, our political representatives, and our cultural storytellers accountable to them. As Todd Gitlin writes in the closing pages of Inside Prime Time, If there is ever to be an American television industry that aims to do something different, to challenge us rather than hook us and fawn on us

280 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

and condescend to us, it would have to come because publics organize to insist on it, in part at least out of a felt need and desire to create a public domain where citizens can feel empowered to transact public affairs. (334)

In other words, both American television and its audiences will have to aspire to be something else entirely. Sources Cited 13th. Ava DuVernay, dir. Netflix, 2016. Amend. Robe Imbriano and Tom Yellin, crs. Netflix, 2021. American Crime. John Ridly, cr. Disney-ABC, 2015–2017. Benenson Strategy Group. “Smart Justice Campaign Polling on Americans’ Attitudes on Criminal Justice: Topline Memo.” 13 Nov. 2017. Web. Accessed 1 Nov. 2018. https://www.aclu.org/report/smart-justice-campaign-polling-americansattitudes-criminal-justice-topline-memo Canfield, David. “A Worthy, Trump-Era Successor to The Wire, American Crime Dares Us to See the Real America.” Slate. 24 March 2018. Web. Accessed 15 Sept. 2018. http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2017/03/24/american_crime_s_third_season_is_the_wire_for_the_trump_era.html?via=gdpr-consent Gitlin, Todd. Inside Prime Time. Revised Edition. New York: Routledge, 1994. Gray, Herman. Cultural Moves: African Americans and the Politics of Representation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Locked Up. Iván Escobar, Esther Martínez Lobato, Álex Pina and Daniel Écija, crs. Globomedia, Netflix, 2015–2019. Lotz, Amanda, D. The Television Will Be Revolutionized. 2nd Edition. New York: New York University Press, 2014. Making a Murderer. Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos, crs. Netflix, 2015–2018. Mauer, Marc. “Forward: Challenging Mass Incarceration.” The Punitive Turn. Ed. Deborah E. McDowell, Claudrena N. Harold, and Juan Battle. Charlottesville, University of Virginia Press, 2013. p. vii–xiii. Orange is the New Black. Jenji Kohan, cr. Netflix, 2013–2019. Rectify. Ray McKinnon, cr. SundanceTV, 2013–2016. Rose, Lacey et al. “Drama Showrunner Roundtable: Ryan Murphy, Jenji Kohan, Ava DuVernay on Killing Off Characters, the Downside of Binge TV.” The Hollywood Reporter. 5 June 2017. Web. Accessed 22 Aug. 2018. https://www. hollywoodreporter.com/features/drama-showrunner-roundtable-ryan-murphyjenji-kohan-ava-duvernay-killing-characters-downside-binge-t-1009555 Schneider, Michael. “Peak TV Update: Scripted Fare up 5 Percent So Far This Year, as FX’s John Landgraf Laments ‘Too Much Narrative’.” IndieWire. 3

Conclusion: American Politics and Prison Reform af ter T V’s Digital Turn

281

Aug. 2018. Web. Accessed 25 Sept. 2018. https://www.indiewire.com/2018/08/ peak-tv-update-fx-john-landgraf-scripted-1201990829/ Seven Seconds. Veena Sud, cr. Netflix, 2018. VanDerWerff, Emily. “Sundance’s Rectify Could Be The Wire for Small-town America.” Vox. 26 Oct. 2016. Web. Accessed 1 Dec. 2019. https://www.vox.com/ culture/2016/10/26/13399188/rectify-review-final-season-4-sundance-netflix When They See Us. Ava DuVernay, cr. Netflix, 2019. The Wire. David Simon, cr. HBO, 2002–2008. Television.

Bibliography 13th. Dir. Ava DuVernay. Netflix, 2016. Abbot, Jack Henry. In the Belly of the Beast. New York: Vintage Books, 1981. Abrams. M. H. “Naturalism.” A Glossary of Literary Terms. 6th edition. New York: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1993. ACLU. “Facts about the Over-Incarceration of Women in the United States.” ACLU. Web. Accessed 1 Aug. 2017. https://www.aclu.org/other/facts-about-overincarceration-women-united-states?redirect=facts-about-over-incarcerationwomen-united-states ACLU. “Written Submission of the American Civil Liberties Union on Racial Disparities in Sentencing.” 153rd Session of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Submitted 27 Oct. 2014. Web. Accessed 12 Sept. 2018. https://www.aclu. org/sites/default/files/assets/141027_iachr_racial _disparities_aclu_submission_0. pdf Adorno, Theodor and Max Horkheimer. Dialectic of Enlightenment. New York: Continuum, 1993. Agee, James and Walker Evans. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Mariner Books, 2001. Albernethy, Michael. “Oz.” popmatters. 9 Feb. 2003. Web. Accessed 20 Aug. 2018. https://www.popmatters.com/oz2-2496225834.html Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: The New Press, 2010. Allen, Francis A. “The Decline of the Rehabilitative Ideal in American Criminal Justice.” Cleveland State Law Review, vol. 27, no. 2, 1978, p. 1–56 Allen, Samantha. “Why Can’t ‘Orange Is the New Black’ Stop Torturing Its Transgender Character?” Daily Beast. 7 May 2016. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. http:// www.thedailybeast.com/why-cant-orange-is-the-new-black-stop-torturing-itstransgender-character Alvarez, Rafael. The Wire: Truth Be Told. Pocket Books, 2004. Amend. Robe Imbriano and Tom Yellin, crs. Netflix, 2021. American Crime. John Ridley, cr. ABC Studies, 2015–2017. TV. Arceneaux, Michael. “The Complexities of The Black Family: How Queen Sugar is an Honest Look at Our Current State.” Essence. 30 Nov. 2016. Web. Accessed 21 Aug. 2018. https://www.essence.com/entertainment/queen-sugar-black-familystructure-finale/ Arkles, Gabriel. “Safety and Solidarity across Gender Lines: Rethinking Segregation of Transgender People in Detention.” Temple Political & Civil Rights Law Review, vol. 18, no. 2, 2009, p. 515–560.

284 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

Atkinson, Rowland and David Beer. “The Ivorine Tower in the City: Engaging Urban Studies after The Wire.” CITY, vol. 14, no. 4, 2010, p. 529–544. Atlas, John and Peter Dreier. “A Dystopian Fable about America’s Urban Poor.” The Wire and America’s Dark Corners: Critical Essays. Ed. Arin Keeble and Ivan Stacy. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2015, p. 192–207. Atlas, John and Peter Dreier. “Is The Wire Too Cynical?” Dissent, 25 March 2008. Web. Accessed 5 May 2021. https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/ is-the-wire-too-cynical Atlas, John and Peter Dreier. “Response.” Dissent, vol. 55, no. 3: Summer 2008, p. 86–88. Axmaker, Sean. “Amazon Product Review for Oz: The Complete Seasons.” Amazon.com. Web. Accessed 31 Aug. 2018. https://www.amazon.com/ Oz-Complete-Seasons-1-6-Six-Pack/dp/B000G6BL42 Badgett, M.V. Lee et al. “Best Practices for Asking Questions to Identify Transgender and Other Gender Minority Respondents on Population-Based Surveys.” The Williams Institute: UCLA School of Law, Sept. 2014. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/geniuss-reportsep-2014.pdf Ball, Jared. “The Unlucky 13 th : Liberalizing the Extreme.” IMWIL! 25 Oct. 2016. Web. Accessed 22 Aug. 2018. https://imixwhatilike.org/2016/10/25/ the-unlucky-13th-liberalizing-the-extreme/ Barron, Laignee. “Here’s Why Inmates in the U.S. Prison System Have Launched a Nationwide Strike.” Time. 22 Aug. 2018. Web. Accessed 23 Aug. 2018. http:// time.com/5374133/prison-strike-labor-conditions/ Baszille, Natalie. Queen Sugar. New York: Penguin Books, 2014. Baudrillard, Jean. Selected Writings. Ed. Mark Poster. Stanford University Press, 2001. Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation. Tr. Sheila Faria Glaser. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1994. Beck, Allen J. “PREA Data Collection Activities.” U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics. June 2015. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. https://www.bjs.gov/ content/pub/pdf/pdca15.pdf Beckett, Katherine and Theodore Sasson. The Politics of Injustice. 2nd Ed. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2004. Beer, David and Roger Burrows. “The Sociological Imagination as Popular Culture.” New Social Connections. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. p. 233–252. Belcher, Christina. “There is No Such Thing as a Post-racial Prison: Neoliberal Multiculturalism and the White Savior Complex on Orange is the New Black.” Television & New Media. vol. 17, No. 6, 2016, p. 491–503. Bell, Desmond. “Documentary Film and the Poetics of History.” Journal of Media Practice, vol. 12, no. 1, 2011.

Bibliogr aphy

285

Bender, John. Imagining the Penitentiary. Chicago: The University of Chicago, 1987. Benenson Strategy Group. “Smart Justice Campaign Polling on Americans’ Attitudes on Criminal Justice: Topline Memo.” 13 Nov. 2017. Web. Accessed 1 Nov. 2018. https://www.aclu.org/report/smart-justice-campaign-polling-americansattitudes-criminal-justice-topline-memo Benjamin, Walter. “On the Concept of History.” Selected Writings, Vol. 4. Tr. Edmund Jepphcott. Ed. Howard Eiland And Michael W. Jennings. Harvard University Press, 2006. Bennett, William J., John J. DiIulio, Jr. and John P. Walters. Body Count. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996. Best, Stephen. “On Failing to Make the Past Present.” Modern Language Quarterly, vol. 73, no. 3, 2012, p. 453–474. Bish, Joe. “20 Years of ‘OZ’: The Show That Changed TV Forever.” Vice. 6 June 2017. Web. Accessed 20 Aug. 2018. https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/3kzzaj/20years-of-oz-the-show-that-changed-tv-forever Blakinger, Keri. “Don’t Believe the “Orange is the New Black” Hype: How the Netflix Series Misrepresents Life Behind Bars.” 12 July 2015. Web. Accessed 15 July 2017. http://www.salon.com/2015/07/11/dont_believe_the_orange_is_the_new_black_ hype_how_the_netflix_series_misrepresents_life_behind_bars/ Boltanski, Luc. Mysteries and Conspiracies. Cambridge: Polity, 2014. Bolter, David J. and Richard Grusin. Remediation. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000. Bonczar, Thomas. P. “Prevalence of Imprisonment in the U.S. Population, 1974–2001.” Bureau of Justice Statistics. U.S. Department of Justice, Aug. 2003. Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Tr. Richard Nice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996. Bourdieu, Pierre. On Television. Tr. Priscilla Parkhusrst Ferguson. New York: The New Press, 1996. Bourdieu, Pierre and Loïc J. D. Wacquant. An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago: The University of Chicago, 1992. Bowden, Mark “The Angriest Man in Television.” The Atlantic. Jan./Feb. 2008. Web. Accessed 30 Aug. 2018. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/01/ the-angriest-man-in-television/306581/ Bozelko, Chandra. “10 Things ‘Orange Is The New Black’ Gets Wrong about Prison (According to an Inmate).” Listverse. 29 Sept. 2014. Web. Accessed 15 July 2017. http://listverse.com/2014/09/29/10-things-orange-is-the-new-black-getswrong-about-prison-according-to-an-inmate/ Bramal, Rebecca and Ben Pitcher. “Policing the Crises, or, Why We Love The Wire.” International Journal of Cultural Studies. 13 April 2012. Web. Accessed 24 June 2013. http://ics.sagepub.com /content/early/2012/04/11/1367877912441441. full.pdf

286 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

Brecht, Berthold. Brecht on Theatre. Tr. John Willett. New York: Hill and Wang, 1992. Brooks, Peter. The Melodramatic Imagination. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976. Brooks, Ryan. “The Narrative Production of ‘Real Police.’” The Wire: Urban Decay and American Television. ed. Tiffany Potter and C.W. Marshall. Continuum, 2009. Brown, Julie K. “Batered Sex, Corruption and Cover-ups Behind Bars in Nation’s Largest Women’s Prison.” Miami Herald. 12 Dec. 2015. Web. Accessed 1 June 2017. http:// www.miamiherald.com/news/special-reports/florida-prisons/article49175685. html Brown, Michelle. The Culture of Punishment. New York: New York University Press, 2009. Browne, Simone. Dark Matters. Durham: Duke University Press, 2015. Brucculieri, Julia and Samira Wiley. Interview: “Samira Wiley on the Real-Life Inspiration Behind Poussey’s Big ‘Orange Is The New Black’ Moment.” Huffington Post. 27 June 2016. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ samira-wiley-poussey-orange-is-the-new-black_us_57712b44e4b0f168323a0b6c Burykill, Bert. “‘Orange Is the New Black’ through the Eyes of an Ex-Con.” Vice. 6 Aug. 2013. Web. Accessed 15 July 2017. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ xd4ee4/pen-pals-orange-is-the-new-black-through-the-eyes-of-an-ex-con Butler, Bethonie. “Ava DuVernay’s Netflix Film ‘13th’ Reveals How Mass Incarceration is an Extension of Slavery.” The Washington Post. 6 Oct. 2016. Web. Accessed 21 Aug. 2018. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/ wp/2016/10/06/ava-duvernays-netflix-film-13th-reveals-how-mass-incarcerationis-an-extension-of-slavery/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.dde2cff1de30 Campoamor, Danielle. “Why Penssatucky’s Rape on ‘Orange is the New Black’ Hits So Close to Home for Me.” Romper. 19 June 2016. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. https://www.romper.com/p/why-pennsatuckys-rape-on-orange-is-the-newblack-hits-so-close-to-home-for-me-12750 Canfield, Dan. “Made by Women, Queen Sugar is TV’s Best Show about Masculinity.” Slate. 12 July 2017. Web. Accessed 22 Aug. 2017. http://www.slate.com/blogs/ browbeat/2017/07/12/ava_duvernay_s_queen_sugar_is_tv_s_best_show_about_ masculinity.html?via=gdpr-consent Canfield, David. “A Worthy, Trump-Era Successor to The Wire, American Crime Dares Us to See the Real America. Slate. 24 March 2018. Web. Accessed 15 Sept. 2018. http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2017/03/24/american_crime_s_third_season_is_the_wire_for_the_trump_era.html?via=gdpr-consent Caroili, Carly. “The Wire’s David Simon at Harvard.” The Pholg. 8 April 2008. Web. Accessed 24 June 2016. thephoenix.com/BLOGS/phlog/archive/2008/04/08/ video-the-wire-s-david-simon- at-harvard.aspx

Bibliogr aphy

287

Carson, Ann E. “Prisoners in 2018.” Bureau of Justice Statistics. U.S. Department of Justice, April 2020. Caputi, Jane. “The Color Orange? Social Justice Issues in the First Season of Orange is the New Black.” The Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 28, no. 6, 2015, p. 1130–1150. Cecil, Dawn K. Prison Life in Popular Culture: From the Big House to Orange is the New Black. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2015. Clifford, James. The Predicament of Culture. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988. Chaney, Jen. “Orange Is the New Black Challenges Us to Sympathize with Aggressors in Season 4.” Vulture. 20 June 2016. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. http://www.vulture. com/2016/06/orange-is-the-new-black-sympathy-aggressors-season-four.html Chaddha, Anmol and William Julius Wilson. “The Wire’s Impact: A Rejoinder.” Critical Inquiry, vol 38, No 1, Autumn 2011. p. 227–233. Chaddha, Anmol and William Julius Wilson. “‘Way Down in the Hole’: Systematic Urban Inequality and The Wire.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 38, No. 1, Autumn 2011. p. 164–188. Chaddha, Anmol, William Julius Wilson and Sudhir A. Vankatesh. “In Defense of the Wire.” Dissent, vol. 55, no. 3: Summer 2008, p. 83–86. Chappelle, Joe and Nick Griffin. “Inside HBO’s The Wire.” Creative COW. 2001. Web. Accessed 21 Aug. 2018. https://library.creativecow.net/articles/griffin_nick/ hbo_the_wire.php Coates, Ta-Nehisi. “The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration.” The Atlantic. Oct. Issue, 2015. Web. Accessed 15 Aug. 2018. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ archive/2015/10/the-black-family-in-the-age-of-mass-incarceration/403246/ Codianni, Beatrice. “Former Prisoner: ‘Orange Is The New Black’ is Not Funny.” truthout. 3 Sept. 2014. Web. Accessed 15 July 2016. http://www.truth-out.org/ news/item/25957-former-inmate-orange-is-the-new-black-is-not-funny Collis, Clark. “Interview with Jenji Kohan.” Entertainment Weekly. 13 July 2013. Web. Accessed 1 Aug. 2016. http://www.ew.com/article/2013/07/12/orange-isthe-new-black-jenji-kohan-talks Colors. Dennis Hopper, dir. Orion Pictures, 1988. Colurso, Mary. “How Real is ‘Orange is the New Black’? Former Tutwiler Inmates Compare Experiences to TV, Movies.” Alabama Entertainment. 15 June 2016. Web. Accessed 1 Aug. 2017. http://www.al.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2014/08/ do_tv_and_movies_reflect_reali.html Comaroff, Jean and John Comaroff. The Truth about Crime. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. Connover, Ted. Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing. New York: Vintage, 2001. COPS. John Langley and Malcolm Barbour, crs. 1989–2020. Corkin, Stanley. Connecting the Wire. Austen: University of Texas Press, 2017.

288 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

The Corner. David Simon and David Mills, crs. HBO, 2000. Crenshaw, Kimberlé W. “From Private Violence to Mass Incarceration: Thinking Intersectionally about Women, Race, and Social Control.” UCLA Law Review, vol. 59, No. 6, 2012, p. 1418–1472. Crenshaw, Kimberlé, Andrea J. Ritchie et al. “Say Her Name: Resisting Police Violence against Black Women.” Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies, 2015. Accessed 1 Dec. 2020. https://ncvc.dspacedirect.org/handle/20.500.11990/1926 Crouch, Stanley. “My Favorite Show; Stanley Crouch on ‘Oz’.” The New York Times. 20 Sept. 1998. Web. Accessed 20 Aug. 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/1998/09/20/ magazine/my-favorite-show-stanley-crouch-on-oz.html CSI. Anthony E. Zuiker, cr. CBS, 2000–2015. Cullen, Francis T. et al. “Seven Ways to Make Prisons Work.” What is to Be Done about Crime and Punishment? Towards a ‘Public Criminology.’ Ed. Roger Matthews. Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Dangerous Minds. John N. Smith, dir. Buena Vista Pictures, 1995. Dargis, Manohla. “Sundance Fights Tide with Films Like ‘The Birth of a Nation.’” The New York Times. 29 Jan. 2016. Web. Accessed 21 Aug. 2018. https://www. nytimes.com/2016/01/30/movies/sundance-f ights-tide-with-f ilms-like-thebirth-of-a-nation.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share&_r=2 Davis, Angela. Are Prisons Obsolete? New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003. Death Wish. Eli Roth, dir. Paramount Pictures, 1974. Desta, Yohana. “Ava DuVernay and Queen Sugar Look Like the Future of Television.” Vanity Fair. 13 Sept. 2016. Web. Accessed 21 Aug. 2018. https://www.vanityfair. com/hollywood/2016/09/ava-duvernay-queen-sugar-interview DiCesare, Erin. “Reality TV: Instilling Fear to Avoid Prison.” The Palgrave Handbook of Incarceration in Popular Culture. Ed, Marcus Harmes et al. Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. p. 425–436. Dickens, Charles. American Notes. London: Chapman and Hall, 1850. Dobrynina, Margarita. “The Roots of ‘Penal Populism’: The Role of Media and Politics.” Kriminologijos studios, vol. 4, 2016, p. 98–124. DuVernay, Ava and Adrienne Green. “Ava DuVernay on Queen Sugar and Her Hollywood Journey.” The Atlantic. 3 Aug. 2017. Web. Accessed 22 Aug. 2018. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/08/ava-duvernayqueen-sugar-midseason-finale/535710/ DuVernay, Ava and Ashely Clark. “Constitutional Crisis: Ava DuVernay Previews Her Comprehensive Documentary on the Damning History of Mass Incarceration of Blacks in the United States.” Film Comment. Sept./Oct. Issue, 2016. Web. Accessed 22 Aug. 2018. https://www.f ilmcomment.com/article/ ava-duvernay-interview-the-13th/

Bibliogr aphy

289

DuVernay, Ava and Michael T. Martin. “Conversations with Ava DuVernay – ‘A Call to Action’: Organizing Principles of an Activist Cinematic Practice.” Black Camera, vol. 1, no. 1, 2014, p. 57–91. DuVernay, Ava and Michael T. Martin. “Documentary ‘13TH’ Argues Mass Incarceration is an Extension of Slavery.” NPR. 17 Dec. 2016. Web. Accessed 22 Aug. 2017. https://www.npr.org/2016/12/17/505996792/documentary-13th-argues-massincarceration-is-an-extension-of-slavery Dyer, Richard. Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2004. End of Watch. David Ayer, dir. Open Road Films, 2012. Erll, Astrid. “Media and the Dynamics of Memory.” Handbook of Culture and Memory. Ed. Brady Wagoner, Oxford Scholarship Online, Oct. 2017. Web. Accessed 27 May 2021. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190230814.001.0001 Falling Down. Joel Schumacher, dir. Warner Bros. Pictures, 1993. Fiske, John. Television Culture. 2nd Ed. New York: Routledge, 2010. Flamand, Lee A. “Articulating Counter/Publics and Re-Assembling History: Ava DuVernay’s 13th.” American Counter/Publics. Ed. Birte Wege and Alexander Starre. Heidelberg: Winter Verlag, 2019. Flamand, Lee A. The New American Naturalism in the Age of Mass Incarceration. MA Thesis, Freie Universität Berlin, 2013. Fontana, Tom. “Epilogue.” Oz, Behind These Walls. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. Fontana, Tom and Elon Green. “The Legacy of Oz. A Chat with Toma Fontana.” The Toast. 11 Aug. 2015. Web. Accessed 20 Aug. 2018. http://the-toast.net/2015/08/11/ the-legacy-of-oz-chat-with-tom-fontana/ Fontana, Tom and Sir Peter Jonas. “The Birth and Rise of Epic TV Series.” WZB. Video Interview. 20 Nov. 2014. Web. Accessed 20 Aug. 2018. https://www.wzb. eu/en/node/33049 Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Penguin Books, 1991. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality: Volume 1. New York: Vintage Books, 1990. Foucault, Michel. “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History.” The Foucault Reader. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984. Foucault, Michel and John K. Simon. “Michel Foucault on Attica: An Interview.” Social Justice, vol. 8, no. 3, 1991, p. 26–34. Franich, Darren. “The Elemental American Power of Queen Sugar.” Entertainment Weekly. 3 Oct. 2017. Web. Accessed 1 Dec. 2018. https://ew.com/tv/2017/10/03/ queen-sugar-appreciation/ Fricker, Karen. “‘Quality TV’ on Show.” Quality TV. Ed. Janet McCabe and Kim Akass. London: I.B. Tauris, 2007. Friedlander, Jennifer. Real Deceptions. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.

290 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

Frost, Natasha A. and Carlos E. Monteiro. “Administrative Segregation in U.S. Prisons.” National Institute of Justice. March 2016. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/249749.pdf Gagne, Renaud and Marianne Govers Hopman. “Introduction: The Chorus in the Middle.” Choral Mediations in Greek Tragedy. Ed. Gagne and Hopman. Cambridge University Press, 2013. Garland, David. The Culture of Control. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2001. Garland, David. “What is a ‘History of the Present’? On Foucault’s Genealogies and Their Critical Preconditions.” Punishment & Society, vol. 16, no. 4. 2004, p. 365–384. Ghandnoosh, Nazgol. “U.S. Prison Decline: Insufficient to Undo Mass Incarceration.” The Sentencing Project, May 2020. Web. Accessed 1 Dec. 2020. https:// www.sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/U.S.-Prison-DeclineInsufficient-to-Undo-Mass-Incarceration.pdf Gilroy, Paul. The Black Atlantic. London: Verso, 2002. Gitlin, Todd. Inside Prime Time. Revised Edition. New York: Routledge, 1994. Gomez-Uribe, Carlos. “A Global Approach to Recommendations.” Netflix. 17 Feb. 2016. Web. Accessed 1 Dec. 2018. https://about.netf lix.com/en/ news/a-global-approach-to-recommendations Goode, Erica. “Stronger Hand for Judges in the ‘Bazaar’ of Plea Deals.” The New York Times. 22 March 2012. Web. Accessed 19 Nov. 2018. https://www.nytimes. com/2012/03/23/us/stronger-hand-for-judges-after-rulings-on-plea-deals.html Goodfellas. Dir. Martin Scorsese. St. Robert De Niro. Warner Bros. Pictures, 1990. Goffman, Erving. Asylums. New York: Anchor Books, 1961. Gordon, Avery F. Ghostly Matters. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008. Graeber, David. “After the Pandemic, We Can’t Go Back to Sleep.” Jacobin. 4 March 2021. Web. Accessed 17 Dec. 2021. https://jacobinmag.com/2021/03/ david-graeber-posthumous-essay-pandemic?fbclid=IwAR3zGBgQKwhIqq1fu oqRbK2oLPQ1 TasphzyVRhm OrvC6cSe SVp6xKLRGHV0 Gramlich, John. “What the Data Says (and Doesn’t Say) about Crime in the United States.” Pew Research Center. 20 Nov. 2020. Web. Accessed 1 Dec. 2020. https:// www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/20/facts-about-crime-in-the-u-s/ Gray, Herman. Cultural Moves: African Americans and the Politics of Representation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Gross, Terry and Jenji Kohan. “‘Orange’ Creator Jenji Kohan: ‘Piper Was My Trojan Horse.’” NPR. 12 Aug. 2013. Accessed 1 Aug. 2017. http://www.npr. org/2013/08/13/211639989/orange-creator-jenji-kohan-piper-was-my-trojan-horse Hagan, John and Ronit Dinovitzer. “Collateral Consequences of Imprisonment for Children, Communities, and Prisoners.” Crime and Justice, vol. 26, 1999, p. 121–162.

Bibliogr aphy

291

Haggins, Bambi L. “Homicide: Realism.” How to Watch Television. ed. Ethan Thompson and Jason Mittell. New York: New York University Press, 2013. Hall, Stuart. “Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse.” Writings on Media. Ed. Charlotte Brunsdon. Duke University Press, 2021, p. 247–266. Hartman, Saidiya. Lose Your Mother. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. Hartman, Saidiya. Scenes of Subjection. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Hartman, Saidiya and Frank B. Wilderson III. “The Position of the Unthought.” Qui Parle, vol. 13, no. 2, 2003, p. 183–201. Hartman, Saidiya and Thora Siemsen. “On Working with Archives.” The Creative Independent. 18 April 2018. Web. Accessed 30 Aug. 2018. https://thecreativeindependent.com/people/saidiya-hartman-on-working-with-archives/ Hasan, Iman. “If There’s a Right Way to Depict Rape on TV, I Think Orange is the New Black Just Did It.” xoJane.com 6 July 2015. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. http:// www.xojane.com/issues/orange-is-the-new-black-rape-scene HBO. Oz, Behind These Walls: The Journals of Augustus Hill. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. HBO. OZ: The Violence. Promotional Video. Web. Accessed 30 Aug. 2018. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=dllKFoLmtU4 Hill Street Blues. Steven Bochco and Michael Kozoll, crs. NBC, 1981–1987. Homicide: Life on the Streets. Attanasio, Paul, cr. Baltimore Pictures, 1993–1999. Hornby, Nick and David Simon. “Interview.” The Believer. Aug. 2007. Web. Accessed 24 June 2013. http://www.believermag.com/issues/200708/?read=interview_simon Human Rights Campaign and POCC. “Addressing Anti-Transgender Violence.” 2015. Web. Accessed 1 July 2015. http://hrc-assets.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws. com//files/assets/resources/HRC-AntiTransgenderViolence-0519.pdf Humphrey, Robert. “‘Oz’ as a Play: The Show’s Implicit Fight against Strict Realism.” The Artifice. 11 Aug. 2013. Web. Accessed 20 Aug. 2018. https://the-artifice.com/ oz-as-a-play-realism/ Ibrahim, Shamira. “Yeah, I’m Finished with the Black Suffering Trauma Porn of Orange is the New Black.” VSB. 23 June 2016. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. http:// verysmartbrothas.com/yeah-im-finished-with-the-black-suffering-traumaporn-of-orange-is-the-new-black/ Irwin, John. The Felon. Englewood: Prentice-Hall, 1970. Jackson, Bruce. “Editing Reality: New Social History and Documentary.” Visual Sociology, vol. 9, no. 1, 1994. p. 62–74. Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Vintage Books, 1992. Jahn-Sudmann, Andreas and Frank Kelleter. “Die Dynamik serieller Überbietung: Zeitgenössische amerikanische Fernsehserien und das Konzept des Quality TV.” Populäre Serialität: Narration – Evolution – Distinktion. Ed. Frank Kelleter. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2012. p. 205–224.

292 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

James, Caryn. “High-Tech Prison and the Face of Horror.” The New York Times. 12 July 97. Web. Accessed 20 Aug. 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/1997/07/12/ arts/high-tech-prison-and-the-face-of-horror.html James, S. E. et al. The Report of the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey. Washington, DC: National Center for Transgender Equality, 2016. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. http://www.transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/usts/USTS%20Full%20 Report%20-%20FINAL%201.6.17.pdf Jameson, Fredric. “Realism and Utopia in The Wire.” Criticism, vol. 52, no. 3–4, 2010, p. 359–372. Jancovich, Mark and James Lyons. “Introduction.” Popular Quality Television. London: British Film Institute, 2003. Jarvis, Brian. “The Violence of Images: Inside the Prison TV Drama Oz.” Captured by the Media. Ed. Paul Mason. Routledge, 2006, p. 154–171. Jenkins, Henry. Textual Poachers. New York: Routledge, 2013. Kang, Inkoo. “The Broken but Hopeful Heart of Ava DuVernay’s Queen Sugar.” MTV News. 6 Sept. 2016. Web. Accessed 21 Aug. 2018. http://www.mtv.com/ news/2928434/queen-sugar-ava-duvernay-own-review/ Kaplan-Lyman, Jeremy. “A Punitive Bind: Policing, Poverty, and Neoliberalism in New York City.” Yale Human Rights and Development Journal, vol. 15, no. 1, 2012, p. 177–222. Katzenstein, Mary Fainsod and Maureen R. Waller. “Taxing the Poor: Incarceration, Poverty Governance, and the Seizure of Family Resources.” Perspectives on Politics, vol. 3, no. 3, 2015, p. 638–656. Keeble, Arin and Ivan Stacy. “Preface.” The Wire and America’s Dark Corners: Critical Essays. Ed. Arin Keeble and Ivan Stacy. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2015. p. 1–2. Kelleter, Frank. “Five Ways of Looking at Popular Seriality.” Media of Serial Narrative. Ed. Frank Kelleter. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2017. Kelleter, Frank. Serial Agencies: The Wire and Its Readers. Winchester: Zero Books, 2014. Kelly, Robin D. G. “Thug Nation: On State Violence and Disposability.” Policing the Planet. ed. Jordan T. Camp and Christina Heatherton. Verso: 2016. Kerman, Piper. Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison. New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2011. Kiefer, Halle. “Laverne Cox Responds to Chimamanda Adichie’s Comments about Trans Women and Male Privilege.” Vulture. 13 March 2017. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. http://www.vulture.com/2017/03/laverne-cox-chimamanda-adichietrans-women-privilege.html Klein, Paul. “The Men Who Run TV Know Us Better Than You Think.” The Mass Media Book. Ed. Rod Holmgren and William Norton. Prentice Hall, 1972.

Bibliogr aphy

293

Kuhn, Annette. “Women’s Genres: Melodrama, Soap Opera, and Theory.” Feminist Television Criticism: A Reader. 2nd Edition. Ed. Charlotte Brunsdon and Lynn Spigel. Open University Press, 2008. Kunzel, Regina. Criminal Intimacy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Lachance, Daniel. “Rehabilitating Violence: White Masculinity and Harsh Punishment in 1990s Popular Culture.” Punishment in Popular Culture. Ed. Ogletree and Sarat. New York: New York University Press, 2015. Lambda Legal. “Transgender Rights Toolkit.” 2016. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. https:// www.lambdalegal.org/publications/trans-toolkit Latour, Bruno. Reassembling the Social. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Laudo, Phillip. “Ava DuVernay Talks New Doc ‘13TH’ At NYFF Press Conference.” 2 Oct. 2016. Web. Accessed 12 Sept. 2018. https://theknockturnal.com/ ava-duvernay-talks-nyff-13th-netflix/ Lavik, Erlend. “Forward to the Past: The Strange Case of The Wire.” Relocating Television. Ed. Jostein Gripsrud. London: Routledge, 2020. Lavik, Erlend. “Style in The Wire.” Vimeo. Video Essay. 4 April 2012. Web. Accessed 21 Aug. 2018. https://vimeo.com/39768998 Leclair-Paquet, Benjamin. “The Wire as Speculative Research.” Theory, vol. 8, no. 2, 2014, p. 135–144. Leonard, David. J and Lisa A. Guerrero. “Introduction: Our Regularly Scheduled Program.” African Americans on Television. Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2013. Lepenies, Wolf. Between Literature and Science: The Rise of Sociology. Tr. R.J. Hollingdale. Cambridge, 1992. Levin, Charles. Jean Baudrillard: A Study in Cultural Metaphysics. London: Prentice Hall, 1996. Levitas, Ruth. Utopia as Method. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Lockett, Dee and Laverne Cox. Interview: “Orange Is the New Black’s Laverne Cox on Why Playing Sophia’s Shocking Punishment Was an Out-of-Body Experience.” Vulture. 24 June 2015. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. http://www.vulture.com/2015/06/ laverne-cox-orange-is-the-new-black-sophias-shocking-punishment.html Lockup. Rasha Drachkovitch, cr. MSNBC, 2005–2017. Lotz, Amanda D. Portals: A Treatise on Internet-Distributed Television. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, 2017. Open Access. Web. Accessed 12 Dec. 2018. https:// quod.lib.umich.edu/m/maize/mpub9699689/ Lotz, Amanda D. The Television Will Be Revolutionized. 2nd Edition. New York: New York University Press, 2014. Lotz, Amanda D. We Now Disrupt This Broadcast. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2018. Loury, Glenn C. Race, Incarceration and American Values. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008.

294 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

Loya, Joe. “‘Orange Is The New Black’: The New Way to See Prisoners.” Medium. 22 July 2013. Accessed 15 July 2017. https://medium.com/straight-crooked-orsideways/orange-is-the-new-black-the-new-way-to-see-prisoners-9d3b2c9f06e5 Lugo-Ocando, Jairo. Crime Statistics in the News. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Making a Murderer. Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos, crs. Netflix, 2015–2018. Marable, Manning. “Introduction.” Racializing Justice, Disenfranchising Lives. Ed. Manning Marable, Ian Stenberg, and Keesha Middlemass. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Marcus, George E. Ethnography through Thick & Thin. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998. Marcus, Sharon. “Fighting Bodies, Fighting Words: A Theory and Politics of Rape Prevention.” Feminists Theorize the Political. Ed. Judith Butler, Joan Scott. New York: Routledge, 2002. Markowitz, Jonathan. Racial Spectacles: Explorations in Media, Race, and Justice. New York: Routledge, 2011. Martin, Brett. Difficult Men. New York: Faber and Faber, 2013. Martinson, Robert. “What Works? – Questions and Answers about Prison Reform.” The Public Interest, vol. 35, p. 22–54. Mason, Paul. “Relocating Hollywood’s Prison Film Discourse.” Captured by the Media. Ed. Paul Mason. London: Routledge, 2006. p. 191–209. Mason, Paul. “Turn on, Tune in, Slop out.” Captured by the Media. Ed. Paul Mason. London: Routledge, 2006. p. 1–15. Mauer, Marc. “Forward: Challenging Mass Incarceration.” The Punitive Turn. Ed. Deborah E. McDowell, Claudrena N. Harold, and Juan Battle. Charlottesville, University of Virginia Press, 2013. p. vii–xiii. McClelland, Mac. “‘Orange is the New Black’: Caged Heat.” Rolling Stone. Published 12 June 2015. Web. Accessed 1 Aug. 2017. http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/features/ orange-is-the-new-black-cover-story-caged-heat-20150612 McCraney, Tarell Alvin. In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, 2003. Unpublished. McDonough, Katie. “Laverne Cox Flawlessly Shuts Down Katie Couric’s Invasive Questions about Transgender People.” Salon. 8 Jan. 2014. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. http://www.salon.com/2014/01/07/laverne_cox_artfully_shuts_down_katie_courics_invasive_questions_about_transgender_people/ Menace II Society. Allen and Albert Hughes, dirs. New Line Cinema, 1993. Miller, D.A. The Novel and the Police. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988. Mills, C. Wright. The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press, 1959. Mitchell, Lee Clark. Determined Fictions: American Literary Naturalism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989. Mittell, Jason. Complex TV. New York: New York University Press, 2015.

Bibliogr aphy

295

Moynihan, Daniel P. The Negro Family: The Case for National Action. U.S. Dept. of Labor, 1965. Moxley, Chandler. “How ‘Orange is the New Black’ Reflects Rape Culture.” Odyssey. 27 June 2016. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. https://www.theodysseyonline.com/ how-orange-is-the-new-black-reflects-rape-culture Muñiz, Ana. Police, Power, and the Production of Racial Boundaries. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2015. Muñoz, José Esteban. Disidentifications. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999. NAACP. “Criminal Justice Fact Sheet.” NAACP.org. Web. Accessed 1 June 2021. https://naacp.org/resources/criminal-justice-fact-sheet National Research Council. The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences. Ed. Jeremy Travis, Bruce Western, and Steven Redburn. Washington DC: The National Academies Press, 2014. National Sexual Violence Resource Center. “Statistics about Sexual Violence.” nsvrc. org. 2015. Web. Accessed 1 Aug. 2017. http://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/ publications_nsvrc_factsheet_media-packet_statistics-about-sexual-violence_0. pdf Negra, Diane. Off-white Hollywood. London: Routledge, 2001. Netflix. “The Story Never Changes: 13th.” Promotional Material. Web. Accessed 30 Aug. 2018. https://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/ OCT17-13th-Story-Never-Changes.jpg New Jack City. Mario Van Peebles, dir. Warner Bros. Pictures, 1991. Newman, Michael Z. And Elana Levine. Legitimating Television: Media Convergence and Cultural Status. New York: Routledge, 2012. The New York State Special Commission on Attica. Attica: The Official Report of the Special Commission on Attica. New York: Bantam Books, 1972. Nichols, Bill. Introduction to Documentary. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001. Nichols, Erin. “What ‘Orange is the New Black’ Got Wrong about Rape Forgiveness.” Pashionistas. 28 June 2016. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. http://pashionistas.com/ post/146602409771/what-orange-is-the-new-black-got-wrong-about Nielsen Research. “On-Demand Demographics: VOD Viewing Across Generations.” 22 March 2016. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. http://www.nielsen.com/eu/en/insights/ news/2016/on-demand-demographics-vod-viewing-across-generations.html Nisbet, Robert A. “Sociology as an Art Form.” The Pacific Sociological Review, vol. 5, no. 2, 1962, p. 67–74. Nix, Justin and Bradley A. Campbell, Edward H. Byers, Geoffrey P. Alpert. “A Bird’s Eye View of Civilians Killed by Police in 2015.” Criminology & Public Policy, vol. 16, no. 1, 2016, p. 309–340.

296 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

NYPD Blue. Steven Bochco and David Milch, crs. ABC, 1993–2005. Ogletree, Charles J. Jr. and Austin Sarat. “Imaging Punishment.” Punishment in Popular Culture. Ed. Ogletree and Sarat. New York University Press, 2015. Orange is the New Black. Jenji Kohan, cr. Netflix, 2013–2019. O’Rourke, Meghan and David Simon. Interview: “Behind the Wire.” Slate.com. 1 Dec. 2006. Web. Accessed 24 June 2013. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/interrogation/2006/12/behind_the_wire.single.html OZ. Tom Fontana, cr. HBO, 1997–2003. Television. Pager, Devah and Hana Shepherd. “The Sociology of Discrimination: Racial Discrimination in Employment, Housing, Credit, and Consumer Markets.” Annual Review of Sociology, vol. 34, 2008, p. 181–209. Paige, Alexis. “Seeing Orange.” Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction, vol. 16, no. 1, Spring 2014, p. 143–151. Pariser, Eli. The Filter Bubble. London: Penguin Books, 2011. Parker, Simon. “From Soft Eyes to Street Lives: The Wire and Jargons of Authenticity.” CITY, vol. 14, no. 5: Oct. 2010, p. 545–557. Pasquino, Pasquale. “Criminology: The Birth of a Special Knowledge.” The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality. Ed. Burchell et al. The University of Chicago Press, 1991. Patterson, Orlando. Slavery and Social Death. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982. Pehanick, Maggie. “Is Orange is the New Black Accurate? An Anonymous Former Inmate Weights In.” Popsugar. 17 June 2017. Web. Accessed 15 July 2017. https:// www.popsugar.com/entertainment/How-True-Orange-New-Black-38278777 Pfaff, John F. Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration. New York: Basic Books, 2017. Phillips, Carmen. “‘Queen Sugar’ Does Black Lives Matter Storytelling Right.” Autostraddle. 27 June 2017. Web. Accessed 22 Aug. 2018. https://www.autostraddle.com/queen-sugar-gets-its-black-lives-matter-storytelling-right-384286/ Piepenburg, Erik. “Broadening a Trangender Tale That Has Only Just Begun.” New York Times. 19 June 2015. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. https://www.nytimes. com/2015/06/21/movies/broadening-a-transgender-tale-that-has-only-just-begun. html Piepenburg, Erik and Laverne Cox. Interview: “Laverne Cox.” Times Talks. 25 Aug. 2015. Accessed 1 July 2017. https://livestream.com/nytimes/events/4219193/ videos/97245965 Pierce, Matt. “What It’s Like to Live under North Carolina’s Bathroom Law if You’re Transgender.” Los Angeles Times. 12 June 2016. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. http:// www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-north-carolina-bathrooms-20160601-snap-story. html

Bibliogr aphy

297

Prison Break. Paul Scheuring, cr. 20th Century Fox Television, 2005–2017. Queen Sugar. Ava DuVernay, cr. OWN, 2016–. “Queen Sugar: Season 1” Rotten Tomatoes. 2016. Web. Accessed 22 Aug. 2018. https:// www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/queen_sugar/s01/ Rafter, Nicole and Per Ystehede. “Here Be Dragons: Lombroso, The Gothic, and Social Control.” Popular Culture, Crime and Social Control. Ed. Methieu Deflem. Emerald Group Publishing, 2010. Rearick, Lauren. “Ava DuVernay on the Importance of Hiring Female Directors.” Teen Vogue. 6 May 2018. Web. Accessed 21 Aug. 2018. https://www.teenvogue. com/story/ava-duvernay-importance-hiring-female-directors Rectify. Ray McKinnon, cr. SundanceTV, 2013–2016. Renton5555. “New Perspective on Oz.” Reddit. 29 April 2015. Web. Accessed 20 Aug. 2018. https://w w w.reddit.com/r/ozshow/comments/34bp1g/ new_perspective_on_oz/ Rhimes, Shonda. “Jenji Kohan.” TIME. 23 April 2014. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. http://time.com/70867/jenji-kohan-2014-time-100/ Richards, Stephen C. and Richard S. Jones. “Beating the Perpetual Incarceration Machine.” After Crime and Punishment. Ed. Shadd Murana and Russ Immarigeon. Willan Publishing, 2004. Richards, Stephen C. and Richard S. Jones. “Perpetual Incarceration Machine.” Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice. vol. 13, no. 1 1997, p. 4–19. Rios, Victor M. Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys. New York: New York University Press, 2011. Roberts, Amy. “Pennsatucky’s Sympathy for Her Rapist in ‘Orange is the New Black’ was an Uncomfortable Reminder of My Own Rape.” Bustle. 27 June 2016. Web. Accessed 1 July 2016. https://www.bustle.com/articles/167886-pennsatuckys-sympathyfor-her-rapist-in-orange-is-the-new-black-was-an-uncomfortable-reminder-of Romano, Tricia and Laverne Cox. “I Absolutely Consider Myself to be a Feminist.” Dame. 1 June 2014. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. https://www.damemagazine. com/2014/06/01/laverne-cox-i-absolutely-consider-myself-feminist Rose, Lacey et al. “Drama Showrunner Roundtable: Ryan Murphy, Jenji Kohan, Ava DuVernay on Killing Off Characters, the Downside of Binge TV.” The Hollywood Reporter. 5 June 2017. Web. Accessed 22 Aug. 2018. https://www. hollywoodreporter.com/features/drama-showrunner-roundtable-ryan-murphyjenji-kohan-ava-duvernay-killing-characters-downside-binge-t-1009555 Rothman, David. “Prisons: The Failure Model.” The Nation, Collected Volumes. 21 Dec. 1974. Rush, Benjamin. “An Inquiry into the Effects of Public Punishments upon Criminals, and upon Society.” Essays, Literary, Moral and Philosophical. 2nd Ed. Philadelphia: Thomas and William Bradford, 1806. p. 136–163.

298 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

Salerno, Roger A. Sociology Noir. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2007. Sargent, Andrew. “Representing Prison Rape: Race, Masculinity, and Incarceration in Donald Goines’s White Man’s Justice, Black Man’s Grief.” MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the U.S., vol. 35, no. 3, Fall 2010. p. 131–155. Schneider, Michael. “Peak TV Update: Scripted Fare up 5 Percent So Far This Year, as FX’s John Landgraf Laments ‘Too Much Narrative’.” IndieWire. 3 Aug. 2018. Web. Accessed 25 Sept. 2018. https://www.indiewire.com/2018/08/ peak-tv-update-fx-john-landgraf-scripted-1201990829/ Sedgewick, Eve. “Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading, or, You’re So Paranoid, You Probably Think This Essay is about You.” Touching Feeling. Durham: Duke University Press, 2002. Seltzer, Mark. Bodies and Machines. New York: Routledge, 1992. Seltzer, Mark. Serial Killers. New York: Routledge, 1998. Sepinwall, Alan. The Revolution Was Televised. Touchstone, 2012. Seven Seconds. Veena Sud, cr. Netflix, 2018. Shackelford, Ashleigh. “Orange is the New Black is Trauma Porn Written for White People.” Wear Your Voice. 20 June 2016. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. https:// wearyourvoicemag.com/more/entertainment/orange-is-the-new-black-traumaporn-written-white-people Shales, Tom. “HBO’s Brutal ‘OZ’ Not Entirely Captivating.” LA Times. 13 July 1998. Web. Accessed 20 Aug. 2018. http://articles.latimes.com/1998/jul/13/entertainment/ ca-3214 Shapiro, Bruce. “The Ghosts of Attica.” The Nation. 31 Jan 2000. Web. Accessed 30 Aug. 2018. http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A59676317/AONE?u=fub&sid= AONE&xid=3f5e24fc Shauer, Terrie. Spectacles of Prison: Masculinities, Punishment and Social Order in US Screen Prison Drama 1995–2005. Ph.D. Dissertation. Simon Fraser University, 2007. The Shawshank Redemption. Frank Darapont, dir. Columbia Pictures, 1994. Simon, David. Homicide. New York: Picador, 2006. Simon, David. The Wire: A Dramatic Series for HBO (Bible). Proposal. Web. Accessed 21 Aug. 2018. http://kottke.org.s3.amazonaws.com/the-wire/The_Wire_-_Bible.pdf Simon, David and Barack Obama. “President Obama Interview the Creator of ‘The Wire’ David Simon.” Medium. 27 March 2015. Web. Accessed 20 Aug. 2018. https:// medium.com/@ObamaWhiteHouse/president-obama-interviews-the-creatorof-the-wire-david-simon-40fb7bd29b18 Simon, David and Edward Burns. The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood. New York: Broadway Books, 1997. Simon, David and Nick Hornby. “An Interview with David Simon.” The Believer. 1 Aug. 2007. Web. Accessed 21 Aug. 2018. https://believermag.com/ an-interview-with-david-simon/

Bibliogr aphy

299

Simon, Jonathan. Governing through Crime. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Simon, Jonathan. Mass Incarceration on Trial. New York: The New Press, 2014. Slotkin, Richard. Regeneration through Violence. University of Oklahoma Press, 1973. Smith, Anthony. Storytelling Industries. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. Smith, Caleb. The Prison and the American Imagination. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. Smith, Dinitia. “Prison Series Seeks to Shatter Expectations.” The New York Times. 12 July 1999. Web. Accessed 20 Aug. 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/12/ arts/prison-series-seeks-to-shatter-expectations.html Smith, Philip. Punishment and Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Spade, David. Normal Life. Brooklynn: South End Press, 2011. Spillers, Hortense J. “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book.” Diacritics, vol. 17, no. 2: Summer 1987, p. 64–81. Steinmetz, Katy. “The Transgender Tipping Point.” TIME. 29 May 2014. http://time. com/magazine/us/135460/june-9th-2014-vol-183-no-22-u-s/ Steinmetz, Katy and Laverne Cox. Interview: “Laverne Cox Talks to TIME about the Transgender Movement.” Time. 29 May 2014. Web. Accessed 1 July 2017. http:// time.com/132769/transgender-orange-is-the-new-black-laverne-cox-interview/ Sulimma, Maria. Serial Gender, Gendered Serialities: Practices of US-American Television Narratives in the 21st Century. Ph.D. Dissertation. Freie Universität Berlin, 2018. Swaine, Jon and Ciara McCarthy. “Young Black Men Again Faced Highest Rate of US Police Killings in 2016.” The Guardian. 8 Jan. 2017. Web. Accessed 1 Dec. 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/08/ the-counted-police-killings-2016-young-black-men Sweeney, Megan. Reading is My Window. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010. Sykes, Gresham M. The Society of Captives. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007. Taberski, Dan. “Is the Show ‘Cops’ Committing Crimes Itself?” The New York Times. 8 June 2019. Web. Accessed 1 Dec. 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/18/ opinion/cops-podcast-investigation-abuse.html Tandt, Christopher Den. The Urban Sublime in American Literary Naturalism. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1998. Taxi Driver. Martin Scorsese, dir. Columbia Pictures, 1976. Thompson, Heather Ann. Blood in the Water. New York: Vintage Books, 2017. Tillet, Salamishah. “It’s So Not ‘Oz’: Netflix’s ‘Orange is the New Black’.” The Nation. 23 July 2013. Web. Accessed 1 Aug. 2016. https://www.thenation.com/article/ its-so-not-oz-netflixs-orange-new-black/ Training Day. Antoine Fuqua, dir. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2001.

300 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

Traister, Rebecca and Ava DuVernay. “In Conversation with Ava Duvernay.” New York Magazine. 19 Sept. 2016. Web. Accessed 12 Sept. 2018. https://www.thecut. com/2016/09/ava-duvernay-the-13th-queen-sugar-c-v-r.html Travers, Peter. “20 Best Mov ies of 2016.” Rolling Stone. 5 Dec. 2016. Web. Accessed 21 Aug. 2018. https://w w w.rollingstone.com/movies/ movie-lists/20-best-movies-of-2016-128807/zootopia-115716/ Travis, Jeremy. “Invisible Punishment: An Instrument of Social Exclusion.” Invisible Punishment: The Collateral Consequences of Mass Imprisonment. Ed. Marc Mauer and Meda Chesney-Lind. New York: The New York Press, 2013. Useem, Bert and Anne Morrison Pehl. Prison State: The Challenge of Mass Incarceration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Vaage, Margrethe Bruun. “From The Corner to The Wire: On Nonficition, Fiction, and Truth.” Journal of Literary Theory, vol. 11, no. 2, 2017, p. 255–271. VanDerWerff, Emily. “Sundance’s Rectify Could Be The Wire for Small-town America.” Vox. 26 Oct. 2016. Web. Accessed 1 Dec. 2019. https://www.vox.com/ culture/2016/10/26/13399188/rectify-review-final-season-4-sundance-netflix Vint, Sherryl. The Wire. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2013. Wacquant, Loïc. “The Curious Eclipse of Prison Ethnography in the Age of Mass Incarceration.” Ethnography. vol. 3, no. 4, 2002, p. 371–397. Wacquant, Loïc. “Deadly Symbiosis: When Ghetto and Prison Meet and Mesh.” Punishment and Society. Vol. 3, no. 1, 2001, p. 95–134. Wacquant, Loïc. Punishing the Poor. Durham: Duke University Press, 2009. Wagner, Peter and Wendy Sawyer. “Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2018.” Prison Policy Initiative. 14 March 2018. Web. Accessed 20 Aug. 2018. https://www. prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2018.html Wang, Hansi Lo and Kumari Devarajan. “‘Your Body Being Used’: Where Prisoners Who Can’t Vote Fill Voting Districts.” Code Switch. Dec. 31, 2019. Accessed 1 Dec. 2020. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/12/31/761932806/ your-body-being-used-where-prisoners-who-can-t-vote-fill-voting-districts Warren, Kenneth W. “Sociology and The Wire.” Critical Inquiry. The University of Chicago Press, vol. 38, No. 1, Autumn 2011, p. 200–207. Weheliye, Alexander G. Habeus Viscus. Durham: Duke University Press, 2014. Weisberg, Jacob. “The Wire on Fire.” Slate. 13 Sept. 2006. Web. Accessed 1 Dec. 2019. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2006/09/the-wire-the-best-tv-show-everbroadcast-on-american-television.html When They See Us. Ava DuVernay, cr. Netflix, 2019. Widmer, Teagan. “Representations of Trans Women in A Post-Orange Is The New Black World.” {young}ist. 2 Aug. 2013. Web. Accessed 1 Dec. 2018. https://youngist. github.io/clean-blog/representations-of-trans-women-in-a-post-orange-is-the#. YLXvfagzZPY

Bibliogr aphy

301

Wilderson, Frank B. III. “Afro-Pessimism and the End of Redemption.” Humanities Futures. 20 Oct. 2015. Web. Accessed 22 Aug. 2018. https://humanitiesfutures. org/papers/afro-pessimism-end-redemption/ Williams, Linda. On The Wire. Durham: Duke University Press, 2014. Williams, Linda. Playing the Race Card. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. Wilson, David and Sean O’Sullivan. Images of Incarceration. Winchester: Waterside Press, 2004. Winant, Howard. “Race, Ethnicity, and Social Science.” Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 38, mo. 13, 2015, p. 2176–2185. The Wire. David Simon, cr. HBO, 2002–2008. Television. Wlodarz, Joe. “Maximum Insecurity: Genre Trouble and Closet Erotics in and out of HBO’s Oz.” Camera Obscura 58, vol. 20, no. 1, 2005. p. 59–105. Wojciechowski, Miranda. “Vigilantism and Orange is the New Black: The Anxiety of Injustice.” The Rumpus. 4 Aug. 2016. Web. Accessed 15 July 2016. http://therumpus. net/2016/08/vigilantism-and-orange-is-the-new-black-the-anxiety-of-injustice/ Wright, Paul. “The Cultural Commodification of Prisons.” Social Justice, vol. 27, no. 3, 2000, p. 15–21. Yousman, Bill. Prime Time Prisons on U.S. TV. New York: Peter Lang, 2009. Yousman, Bill. “Revisiting Hall’s Encoding/Decoding Model: Ex-Prisoners Respond to Television Representations of Incarceration.” Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, vol. 35, no. 3, 2013, p. 197–216. Zola, Émile. The Experimental Novel. Trans. Belle M. Sherman. New York: Haskell House, 1964.

Acknowledgements If my experience is any indication, then the kind of village it takes to write a book in the 21st century is nothing less than global. This work germinated over the spring of 2013 at the John F. Kennedy Institute in Berlin under the tutelage of Laura Bieger and Frank Kelleter. Happily, when I entered the Graduate School of North America Studies two years later, Frank again agreed to take on the oversight of a somewhat confused and anxious young scholar with a project which was at once too ambitious and too vague for its own good. He patiently helped me guide it towards coherence. Similarly, Martin Lüthe and Markus Kienscherf not only routinely gave helpful advice and let me crash their courses as I fished for insight, but also provided much-needed reassurance on more than one occasion. David Bosold and Gabi Bodmeier both provided patient assistance in helping me to maneuver the at times Kafkaesque administrative procedures of the otherwise fantastic Freie Universität Berlin. Indeed, I owe a debt of gratitude to the entire community of the John F. Kennedy Institute, students, staff, and faculty alike, who from my arrival in Berlin in 2011 and until my departure in 2019 never failed to make a foreigner feel at home. I also want to thank my colleagues in the 2015 cohort of the GSNAS: Kira Alverez, Freddy Bockmann, Sarah Epping, Jie Feng, Helen Gibson, Christian Güse, Rene Kreichauf, Betsy Leimbigler, and Sören Schoppmeier. If you guys are what interdisciplinarity is all about, then I’ll take that ride any time. A special shout out is due to Freddy and Christian, both of whom befriended me shortly after my arrival in Berlin and with whom I have shared large parts of the academic journey ever since. On that note, this book would never have happened had it not been for the support, emotional and otherwise, of the great many amazing friends I have made during these years in Berlin. I want to especially thank Teressa Ciuffoletti, Chris Hoffman, Nadia Nejjar, Claudia Schuhknecht, Timo Dins, Phillip Walz, Bernd Louis, Nick Flamang, Jael Adrienna, Flavia Fratelli, Niklas Pavlina, Chiara Losavio, Lara Von Staa, Maria von Staa, Abhi Argarwal, Sophie Le Roy, Benjamin Bradtke, Lola Lucchini, Silvia Schiaroli, Philipp Moeller, Shawn Fok, David Klemme, Ronald Latuff, Katharina Metz, and Talel Ben Jamia, although the list could go on and on. Old friends should be mentioned here too, and word goes out to Roxanne Barthel, Erik Nielsen, Christian Calderon, Kelly Lovejoy, and Taylor Fife not only for their longstanding friendships, but for letting me crash their couches while on research trips or just visiting stateside. Finally, a very special mention is due to the incomparable Ksenija Perović,

304 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

who more than anyone else is to thank for keeping me sane through the final years of this effort. This work also benefited from feedback given by a host of individuals, too many to name here. Of special mention should be the organizers and participants of the 2016 Futures of American Studies at Dartmouth College, the 2016 Maurice Halbwachs Summer Institute at the University of Gottingen, and the 2018 OASIS Summer Institute of the L’Orientale University of Naples, during which I received guidance and encouragement from Donald Pease, Jean and John Comaroff, Regina Bendix, Jane Desmond, Girogio Mariani, and Brian T. Edwards, all of whom helped me to shore up my confidence in this project. But even more importantly, these events introduced me to other early career scholars, thereby furnishing me with a truly global network of friends who have proved invaluable in helping me to make sense of my own project. Which, of course, brings me to the real heroes. An especially wonderful group of colleagues, all young or early-career scholars from various corners of the world, graciously donated their valuable time to read drafts of this work and helped me to sharpen both my prose and my arguments: Helen Gibson, Freddy Bockmann, Sören Schoppmeier, Owen R. Horton, Tala Makhoul, Iman Abdulmoneim, Sandra Becker, Cristina Di Maio, Betsy Leimbigler, and Sanne van Zuilekom, this book would not be what it is without you. The research for this project was generously sponsored by a stipend provided through the Graduate School of North American Studies of the Freie Universität Berlin and funded by the “Excellence Initiative” of the German Research Foundation. A lectureship at the University of Groningen kept my finances shored up long enough to work it into a publishable monograph. I dedicate this work with love to my far-flung siblings Kayla, Kara, Megan, and Caden, as well as my little niece, Claire. Demand the world you deserve.

Index 13th 14, 25, 223–24, 231 233, 235–38, 239, 240, 257, 260, 261, 263, 271, 275, 278 and Ava Duvernay 224, 225, 225 n. 3, 232, 257, 260, 263 and history 224, 227, 228–31, 233, 234, 235–38, 275 and Netflix 231, 278 and Queen Sugar 25, 223, 225, 227, 240, 257, 260, 261 13th Amendment 224 Abbot, Jack Henry 73 abolition 16, (25), 63, 81, 224, 247, 248, 257 activism 14, 15, 24–25, 63, 81, 82, 167, 169, 171, 177, 181, 184, 187, 188, 194, 195, 217, 224, 227, 236, 237, 249, 252, 259 and prison abolition 63, 81, 224 in 13th 236, 237 in Orange is the New Black 15, 24–25, 167, 169, 171, 177, 181, 187, 188, 194, 217 in Queen Sugar 227, 249, 252, 259 Actor–network–theory 119 n. 12, 140 actors 65, 65 n. 6, 113, 115, 138, 140, 153, 154, 176, 193, 203, 217, 276, 278 Adorno & Horkheimer 271 Afro–pessimism 233–34 Alexander, Michelle 31, 45, 168, 224, 229, 239 alienation 59, 68, 73, 124, 246–47 Allen, Francis 40 Amend 278 American Crime 278, assemblage 237–38 and Habeas Viscus 237–38 as documentary practice 237, 238 racializing assemblages 237 Asylums 74 Attica and OZ 38 n. 4, 54 n. 2 in the media 38, 40 on TV 38 n. 4 reception 38, 39, 90 uprising 23, 37–38, 48, 54 n. 2 audiences 15, 16, 17–19, 40, 43, 44, 45, 46, 46 n.9, 48, 58, 59–60, 62, 64, 66, 67, 73, 86, 92–93, 119, 171, 172, 175, 178, 191, 193, 194, 195, 196, 204–05, 205 n. 31, 214–15, 217, 226, 228, 252, 253, 257, 269–70, 271, 274, 276, 280 reception 40, 46 n. 9, 48, 64, 195, 204–05, 205 n. 31, 217 segmentation 17–19, 44, 172, 214–15, 226, 257, 269–70, 276 Baudrillard, Jean 74 Behind These Walls 85-87, 99 Benjamin, Walter 234, 260

binge watching 196 Birth of a Nation 224, 231, 240 Black feminism 14, 25, 223, 257, 263 and Ava Duvernay 25, 223, 257, 263 and Queen Sugar 25, 257 Black joy 233 Black Lives Matter 15, 168, 203 n. 28, 203 n. 29, 217, 224, 226 n. 5, 251–52 and mass incarceration 251 in 13th 224 in Orange is the New Black 168, 203 n. 28, 203 n. 29, 217 in Queen Sugar 15, 226 n. 5, 251–52 Blackness 227, 231, 232, 234–35, 241 and Black Studies 234–35 and criminalization 227, 232 Boltanksi, Luc 139, 140, 151–52 Bourdieu, Pierre 119 Brecht, Berthold 66,67, 68 broadcast 9, 12, 18, 20, 37, 54, 69, 171, 193–94, 236, 271, 272 Broken windows 33 zero tolerance 8, 33 Brooks, Peter 241 Brown, Michelle 45, 216 Browne, Simone 131 business models advertising 18, 113, 225 glocalization and global 20, 25, 214, 216, 261, 278 personalization 214 streaming 17, 18, 21, 24, 168, 170, 216, 225, 256, 272, 277 subscription–based 17–18, 54, 106, 170, 257, 272, 279 cable 9, 9 n.1, 11, 17–18, 54, 76, 167, 196 n. 17, 225, 226, 273 capitalism 16, 112, 139, 141, 142, 151, 160, 245, 248, 249, 257, 261, 262, 264 as racial capitalism 16, 248, 257, 262, 264 seriality 16, 160, 262 TV industry 112, 261, 264 captivating aspirations 7 carceral state 17, 36 n. 2, 142, 252 celebrity 25, 138, 167, 180–82, 184, 185, 187, 188, 193–94, 205, 217, 245, 251, 259 channels 9, 9 n. 1, 11, 12, 17, 18, 21, 22, 24, 45, 53 n. 1, 54, 115–16, 138, 159, 162, 167, 196 n. 17, 216, 225, 269–70, 272, 278 big three (ABC, CBS, NBC): 9, 9 n. 1, 53 n. 1, 115, 278 HBO 12, 17, 21, 22, 24, 45, 53 n. 1, 54, 115–16, 138, 153, 159, 162, 167, 216, 272, 278 FX 17

306 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

chorus 64, 66 Cleaver, Eldridge 168 Coates, Ta–Nehisi 240, 248, 248 n. 15 collateral consequences 8, 32, 179; see also invisible punishment Colors 42, 77 Comaroff, Jean and John 124–25 commercial strategies 12 n. 5, 215–16, 261 Complex TV 13; see also quality TV Connover, Ted 47 Conspiracy 132, 139–40, 150–52, 152 n. 58, 179, 276 Cool Hand Luke 77 COPS 43, 43 n. 8 Corner, The 115, 123 n. 20, 124 n. 20 Couric, Katie 183 Cox, Laverne 181–82, 183, 184, 185, 187, 188, 189, 192–93, 194, 195 and celebrity activism 181–82, 183, 184, 185, 187, 188, 192–93, 194, 195 as Sophia Burset 181, 184, 185, 189, 194 Crenshaw, Kimberlé 24, 170–71, 172, 178, 203, 203 n. 28 crime films 47, 278 criminal justice instituions 10, 35, 39, 59, 173, 275 front–end institutions 59 back–end institutions 59 criminalization and criminality 23, 32, 35, 39, 42, 46, 56, 82, 114, 125, 125 n. 21, 146, 172–73, 184, 192, 231, 239, 253, 261, 263 critique 13, 16, 21, 24, 47, 80, 96, 99, 107 n. 2, 110, 126 n 22, 129, 131, 132, 139, 142, 152–53, 153 n. 59, 154, 156, 157, 160–61, 162, 170 n. 2, 177, 180, 190, 191, 203, 204, 205 n. 31, 211, 213, 217, 224, 227, 233, 234, 239, 240 n. 8, 243 n. 12, 259, 260, 262, 263, 275, 278–79 Crouch, Stanley 76 dangerous classes 29, 37-38, 44, 59, 67, 174, 198, 231 as “problem populations”: 37-38, 67 racialized 29, 37-38, 232 vs. respectable classes 44 Dangerous minds 42 Davis, Angela 24, 56, 63, 69, 225, 229, 275 Death Wish 42 decoding 19 defamiliarize 16, 53, 56, 60–61, 65, 66, 67, 68, 74, 98, 100, 114, 192–95, 204 n. 30 and TV realism 53, 56, 60–61, 65, 68, 74, 98 bizarre realism in OZ 97 V–Effekt 66, 67 detectives 42, 130, 132, 134–35 determinism 41, 91, 117, 117 n. 8, 118, 139, 148, 162 Dickens, Charles 116, 116 n. 7, 121 n. 15, 133, 187 digital distribution 16, 22, 25, 269

Discipline and Punish 56, 70, 71, 75, 229, 229 n. 7 documentary 14, 25, 43–44, 61, 106, 111, 128, 187, 207 n. 35, 223–24, 225, 228, 230, 231, 232, 233, 235–39, 263, 278 DuVernay, Ava 25, 223, 224, 224 n. 2, 225–26, 225 n. 3, 228, 230, 232, 233, 248, 254, 256, 257, 260, 263, 278 and 13th 224, 225, 225 n. 3, 232, 257, 260, 263 and Queen Sugar 25, 223, 263 as feminist auteur 223, 263 Dyer, Richard 181 End of Watch 42 ethnography 14, 70, 70 n. 10, 77, 101, 108, 111, 123–24 n. 19, 129, 140–41, 153 decline of prison 70, 70 n. 10 multi–sited 140–41, 153 of prisons 14, 70 n. 10, 77, 101 as sociological method 111, 123–24 n. 19 Falling Down 42 fandom 7, 8, 83 n. 21, 85 n. 23, 113, 133 n. 31, 181, 189, 195–96, 202, 205, 206, 213, 215, 273, 274, 279 as communities of concern 195–96, 213, 215 inmate receptions 206-213 file–sharing 19 filter bubbles 21, 214, 276; see also personalization Fiske, John 57, 58 focalization 133, 177–78, 185 Fontana, Tom 38 n. 4, 55, 57, 59, 61, 66, 72, 73, 77, 85 n. 23, 92, 94 Foucault, Michel 56, 70–71, 75, 90, 91, 146, 229, 229 n. 7, 234–35, 237 Friedlander, Jennifer 62, 63, 99 n. 40 full season drop 196, 196 n. 17 FX 16, 17, 272 Garland, David 39, 40, 41, 229–30 gender 18, 20, 124, 168, 173–74 177–78, 185, 186, 187, 208–10, 212, 224, 226, 238, 240, 243 n. 12, 244, 250–51, 253, 255 and incarceration 168, 238 and prisons 168, 172–73, 187, 194, 197, 208–10, 212 and punishment 173–74, 183, 186 and vulnerability 174, 179, 181–83, 185, 190, 194, 197, 198, 215 ghetto 16, 32, 34, 44, 114, 155 carceral mesh 155 hyperghetto 155 Gilroy, Paul 241 Gitlin, Todd 269, 270, 279 Goffman, Erving 70 n. 10, 74, 78, 95, 120, 124 n. 20, 158

Index

307

Golden Age of Television 7, 11, 11 n. 3, 12, 17, 18, 168, 272 and business strategies: and prestige or premium branding 17, 18, 168, 272 as creative revolution 11, 11 n. 3, 12, 17 as legitimizing discourse 18 and Gilded Age of Television 272 Gone with the Wind 243, 243 n. 11, 243 n. 12 Goodfellas 77 Gordon, Avery 99 gothic 24, 41 n. 6, 43 n. 7, 53, 88–89, 88 n. 25, 91, 91 n. 26, 95, 96, 97, 98–99, 99 n. 40, 101, 240–41 Gray, Herman 13, 20, 260–61, 276 greek tragedy 113, 116, 138

intersectionality 8, 24, 82, 106, 124–25, 154, 167, 171–72, 179, 181, 185, 195, 215, 227, 235, 245, 257 invisibility 30, 31, 32, 33, 38, 47, 61, 70–71, 72,73, 84, 132, 134, 139, 140, 151, 185–86, 187–88, 194 242, 246, 261, 271 and solitary confinement 61, 185–86, 187–89, 194 hidden and invisible punishments 30, 32, 38, 188 institutional opacity of prisons 47, 70, 72 of prisoners 31, 33, 271 secrecy 70–71, 72, 73, 134, 139, 140, 188, 242, 246 invisible punishment 30, 32; see also collateral consequences Irwin, John 70 n. 10, 78, 93

Haggins, Bambi 57 Hartman, Saidiya 204, 204 n. 30, 231, 232, 233, 246 Hate that Hate Produced, The 77 haunting 24, 46, 84–86, 89 94, 98, 99, 99 n. 40, 101, 204 HBO 12, 17, 21, 22, 24 38 n. 4, 45, 53 n. 1, 54, 56, 59, 60, 62, 65, 66, 72, 85, 85 n. 23, 92, 99, 105, 106, 108, 112, 113–14, 115, 116, 138, 153, 159, 162, 167, 216, 272, 278 Hill Street Blues 42, 57, 118 history 11, 23, 25, 37, 47–48, 72, 80, 81, 105, 118, 119, 154, 161, 162, 173, 178, 191, 204, 223, 227, 228, 229, 229 n. 7, 230, 233, 234–35, 236, 237, 238, 240, 242, 243, 245, 246, 247, 251, 255, 260, 261, 262–64 275 and 13th 223, 227, 229, 230, 233, 237, 238, 275 and genealogical analysis 230, 243 and storytelling 118, 154, 178, 228, 260, 262–64 historiography 235 of the present 25, 229, 229 n. 7, 233 home 18, 44, 46, 60, 61, 67, 100, 239, 241–42, 243, 244, 246, 248, 248 n. 15, 249, 261 and black family melodrama 239, 248 prelapsarian 241 space of innocence 239, 241–42, 246, 249 Homicide: Life on the Killing Streets 115 Homicide: Life on the Streets 42, 57, 112, 118 hood film 42, 43 n. 7, 82, 224 housing 8, 31, 32, 87, 142, 143–44, 145 n. 47 affordable 143 architecture 143 projects 142, 143, 145 n. 47 hyperreality 74–75, 97, 101, 153–54, 156, 189 and the prison 74–75, 101 in OZ 69, 74, 97, 101 in The Wire 153–54, 156

Jacobs, Jane 145, 147 Jarvis, Bryan 55, 66, 69 Jenkins, Henry 181 journalism 7, 9, 37–38, 41, 42, 45, 47, 48, 69, 113, 115, 123 n. 20, 125, 133, 154, 156 n. 61, 162, 187, 225, 227, 236, 249, 273 and The Wire 113, 115, 125, 133, 154, 156 n. 61 on mass incarceration 9, 38, 45, 48, 69

identity politics 14, 194, 215, 276 industry consolidation 17, 21, 269

Kelleter, Frank 15, 17, 56, 59, 60, 62, 100, 108, 111, 112, 115, 117 n. 8, 138, 156, 194, 197, 204, 206, 262, Kerman, Piper 168, 208 Klein, Paul 9 Kohan, Jenji 167, 169, 176, 187, 196 n. 17, 206 Kunzel, Regina 184-185 Lachance, Daniel 83 Landgraf, John 272 Latour, Bruno 119 n 12, 140 Lavik, Erlend 112, 128, 129, 129 n. 26, 133 Law–and–order 80, 230, 274 least objectionable programming 9 Levitas, Ruth 144, 147 Lockup 43 Lombroso, Cesare 41, 82 Lotz, Amanda 9 n. 1, 11 n. 3, 12, 18, 21, 170, 171, 196, 214, 277 Making a Murderer 278 Malcolm X 77 Marcus, George E.: 140 Marcus, Sharon 199 marketing 14, 17, 19, 108, 133, 138, 171, 197, 203 n. 29, 215, 231 Martin, Brett 11 n. 3, 65 Martinson, Robert 39–40, 158 masculinity 83, 84, 100, 139, 155, 168, 172–73, 178, 182 n.11, 194, 206 n. 33, 209, 231, 243 n. 12, 244–45, 255, 273 and criminalization 83, 172–73, 182 n. 11

308 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

in Orange is the New Black 178, 194, 206 n. 33, 209 in OZ 83, 84, 100, 168 in Queen Sugar 243 n. 12, 244–45, 250, 253–54, 255 in The Wire 139, 155 Mason, Paul 45, 89 mass incarceration 7–9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 21, 23, 24, 29–31, 33, 34–36, 38, 40, 41, 42, 45, 46–47, 67, 84, 90, 91 n. 26, 158, 158, 176, 223, 224-25, 227, 228–29, 238–39, 249, 263, 271 and 13th 223, 224, 227, 228–29, 238–39, 263 and overpolicing 8, 33, 130 and OZ 67, 84 and post–release 277 and Queen Sugar 25, 223, 227, 228, 249, 271 and slavery 8, 17, 30, 223, 228–29, 249, 263 race and racial disparities 30–31, 45, 46–47, 159, 176, 224–25, 227 statistics 29–30, 31, 67 warehousing 40, 67, 92 n. 26, 158 melodrama 25, 42, 43 n. 7, 45, 76, 116, 141, 148, 149, 149 n. 51, 153, 154, 156 n. 61, 160, 178, 180, 190, 191, 194, 203, 204, 213, 217, 223, 226–27, 226 n. 5, 228, 231, 239–42, 243, 243 n. 12, 245–46, 248–49, 253, 255, 257, 262–64, 278, 279 and family 25, 194, 226–27, 242, 243, 245–46, 248–49, 264 in film history 42, 43 n. 7, 45, 76, 116, 242–43 innocence 203, 239, 242 of institutions 117, 149, 149 n. 51, 153, 213, 249 villainy and victimhood 47, 80, 180, 190, 191, 194, 203, 239–40, 249, 255, 279 Menace II Society 42, 77, 82 mental illness 174, 179 Miller, D.A.: 126, 127, 146 Mills, C. Wright 135–36 Mittell, Jason 12, 12 n. 5, 56–57 Moonlight 224, 255 Moynihan, Daniel Patrick 158, 247–48 Murphy, Ryan 271 Muslims 81 narration 47, 68, 94, 98, 120, 126–27, 127 n. 23, 128, 130, 132, 146, 152, 178, 228, 232 narrowcasting 20, 21, 257, 269, 277 conglomerated niche strategy 21, 171, 195, 214, 277 niche marketing 17, 22, 276 targeting 20, 274, 276 naturalism 24, 41 n. 6, 43 n. 7, 87-88, 88 n. 25, 89–90, 91, 97, 116 n. 7, 117, 117 n. 8, 117 n. 9, 123 n. 20, 124, 146–47, 149, 154, 161, 162 neoliberalism 8, 10, 17, 25, 32, 34, 111, 120 n. 19, 155, 162, 171, 176, 180, 191, 273

Netflix 17, 19, 21, 24–25, 45, 167, 168, 170, 171, 194, 195, 196–97, 196 n. 17, 203 n. 29, 208, 212, 214–17, 223, 224, 225–26, 260, 276, 277, 278 Network TV 112, 113–15, 115 n. 5, 116, 261, 273, 278 New Jack City 42 NYPD Blue 42, 57, 112, 118 Obama, Barack 7–8, 10, 271, 273 Orange is the New Black 14, 15, 24–25, 45, 167, 189, 193, 197, 199 200, 202, 203, 204, 207, 271 and activism 15, 24–25, 187, 188, 194–95, 197, 279 and backstories 175, 177–80, 196 and celebrity 181 and fandom 196, 204 and feedback 167, 189, 203–04, 278 and Netflix 24–25, 217 and online discourses 195–97, 198, 202, 203–04 and prison 25, 167, 168, 173, 207, 208, 209, 211 and recommendation engines 25, 213–14, 215 and transgender issues 185–87, 189–91, 193, 194–95 and women’s imprisonment 197, 207, 208 vs OZ 24, 167, 216 vs. The Wire 24, 216 vs. Queen Sugar 252 OWN 17, 25, 223, 225–26, 226 n. 4, 260 OZ 12, 14, 22, 24, 38 n. 4, 41 n. 6, 53–56, 58, 59–62, 64–65, 65 n. 6, 66, 67–68, 69, 72–73, 74, 75, 76–77, 77 n. 13, 78–80, 81 n. 19, 82–85, 83 n. 21, 84 n. 22, 85 n. 23, 86, 87, 88, 88 n. 24, 92, 93–95, 93 n. 30, 94 n. 35, 96–97, 98, 99–101, 113–14, 167, 168–69, 194, 209, 216, 271 and gothic 88–89, 95–96, 97, 98, 99, 101 and HBO 54, 56 65, 72, 85 n. 23, 92, 167, 216 and naturalism 87-88, 88 n. 25, 89–90, 91, 97 and realism 24, 53, 54, 55, 56, 58–59, 60–62, 64, 65, 65 n.5, 66, 68, 97–98, 100–01 and sentimentalism 76, 89, 91, 94–95, 97 spectacle 53, 54, 55, 56, 60, 61, 62, 65 n. 5, 68, 69, 74, 97, 98 violence and sex 12, 62, 113, 169 panopticon 75, 126, 127, 178 panoptic omniscience 126 panoptic surveillance 127 panoptic effect 178 paratexts 85, 85 n. 23, 133, 133 n. 31, 138, 141, 156, 230 penal modernism 39, 70 n. 10, 79 penal spectator 46, 216 personalization 19, 25, 90, 214, 215; see also filter bubbles

Index

pipeline foster home–to–prison 179 and mass incarceration 33, 129, 155 edges in The Wire 155 school–to–prison 35, 131 platforms Amazon 194, 225 Disney+: 21, 272 Netflix 17, 19, 21, 24–25, 45, 167, 168, 170, 171, 194, 195, 196, 196 n. 17, 197, 203 n. 29, 208, 212, 214–16, 217, 223, 224, 225–26, 231, 260, 276, 277, 278 polarization 269, 277 police & policing 29, 31, 32, 33, 35, 43, 48, 57, 80, 114, 118, 122, 122 n. 17, 127 n. 23, 129 n. 26, 130, 133, 134, 135 n. 36, 142, 147–48, 150–51, 154, 227, 230, 232, 249, 251, 252, 275 and mass incarceration 32, 35, 48, 275 in 13th 230, 232 in The Wire 114, 118, 122, 122 n. 17, 127 n. 23, 129 n. 26, 130, 133, 134, 135 n 36, 142, 147–48, 150–51, 154 in Queen Sugar 227, 249, 251, 252 police procedural 10, 42, 43 n. 7, 47, 57, 112, 114, 118, 122, 162 popular culture 13, 24, 29, 30, 45, 58, 69–70, 71, 72, 76, 78, 84, 93, 97, 101, 111, 118 n. 11, 124, 154, 171, 181, 183, 190, 191, 192, 193, 196, 200, 202, 207, 214, 216, 217, 223, 236, 257, 273, 279 postmodern institutions 116, 138 Post–network era 7, 12, 14, 23, 24, 48, 171, 269 Power–knowledge 229 Prestige TV: see Quality TV prison 12, 24, 33, 37–38, 45, 47–48, 53–54, 55–56, 58, 59, 63, 65, 67, 68, 69–76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 83, 84, 86, 87, 88, 88 n. 24, 90–91, 95, 97, 98–99, 100–01, 143, 154–56, 162, 168–69, 173–74, 177–78, 179, 184, 197, 202, 206–07, 208, 209, 226, 229 n. 7 and opacity 47, 70, 72 as hyper–real institution 69–76 Attica 37–38, 90 in Orange is the New Black 168–69, 173–74, 177–78, 179, 197, 202, 208 in OZ 12, 24, 53–54,55–56, 59, 61, 65, 68, 72–73, 74, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 83, 84, 87, 88, 88 n. 24, 95, 97, 98–99, 100–01, 169 in The Wire 143, 154–56, 162 of women 167, 168, 172–73, 207, 217 Prison Break 45, 216 prison gerrymandering 35 prison guards 75, 174, 197, 202, 275 prisoners 8, 24, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 37 n. 3, 38, 41, 43, 44, 46, 47, 66, 70, 71, 72–73, 75, 76, 78–81, 82, 83, 86, 89, 90–91, 92, 94, 95–96, 100, 101, 170, 172–74, 184, 187, 191, 197, 199, 207–08, 273, 278 as characters in Orange is the New Black 167, 168, 178, 206, 209, 213

309 as characters in OZ 54, 56, 60, 67, 69, 72–73, 76, 78, 79, 80, 81, 83, 86, 88, 94, 95–96 receptions 73, 206–10, 212 prison–industrial complex 36, 69, 169 probation and parole 29, 33, 36 n. 2, 90, 93, 169, 226, 243, 252 profit 17, 18, 21, 48, 115, 139, 203, 245, 275, 276, 277 programming 9, 11, 18, 20, 22, 54, 62, 100, 113, 168, 171, 216, 217, 225, 226 n. 4, 276, 279 prosecutors 31, 32, 34–35, 275 public sphere 25, 196, 237, 257. 269, 275, 277 fragmentation of 25, 257, 269, 277 punishment 29, 30, 32, 35, 38, 39, 40, 46, 47, 48, 63, 70–72, 75, 79, 88, 89, 90, 96, 173, 174, 184, 187, 188, 199, 224, 229 n. 7 punitive turn 8, 29, 40, 63, 168 and decline of rehabilitative ideal 40 and punitive populism 274 and punitive realism 29, 40, 168 Quality TV 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, 20, 22, 24, 54, 62, 64, 65, 109, 113, 116 n. 6, 117, 133, 167, 168, 169, 277, 278, 279 and business strategies 272 and Golden Age of TV 11–12, 11 n.3, 17, 18, 22, 24, 168, 272 and Orange is the New Black 169 and OZ 22, 54, 59, 62, 64 and The Wire 109, 113, 116 n. 6, 117, 278 and prestige or premium branding 17, 18, 54, 167–68, 272, 278 and Queen Sugar 278 as creative revolution 11–12, 11 n. 3, 17, 169, 271–72 as legitimizing discourse 18 Queen Sugar 14, 15, 25, 223, 225, 226–28, 240, 242, 243, 243 n. 11, 243 n. 12, 244–45, 249, 251–52, 257, 259–60, 261, 262, 263–64, 271 and 13th 25, 223, 225, 227, 257, 260 and Ava Duvernay 25, 223, 263 and mass incarceration 227, 251 and melodrama 227–28, 240, 242, 253, 262, 264 and radical epistemologies 226–27, 228 and the Black family 226–27, 244–45, 249, 251–53, 255, 264 rape and sexual violence 65, 65 n. 5, 77 n. 13, 83–84, 84 n. 22, 93, 183, 197–202, 206 n. 33, 226, 253, 255 in OZ 65, 83–84, 93 in Orange is the New Black 197–201, 206 n. 33 realism 23, 24, 29, 40–41, 40, 40 n. 5, 41 n. 6, 44, 46, 48, 53, 54, 55, 56, 53, 54, 55, 56, 58–59, 60–63, 64, 65, 65 n.5, 66, 67–69, 74, 76, 80, 85 n. 23, 86, 94,97–98, 99, 100, 105–06, 108,

310 

American Mass Incarcer ation and Post-Ne t work Qualit y Television

110, 114–15, 117, 121, 122 n. 17, 123, 123 n. 19, 129, 133–34, 137, 148, 154, 155, 161, 162, 168, 169, 187–89, 191, 194–95, 200, 207, 207 n. 35, 208, 209, 216 and ideology 40, 40 n. 5, 46, 48, 58, 62–63, 68, 100, 169, 187–89, 195, 208 and social distance 67–68, 99, 100, 194 as punitive realism 23, 29, 40–41, 40 n. 5, 41 n. 6, 43 n. 7, 44, 46, 48, 60, 68–69, 80, 100–01, 168, 201, 263 as social realism 110, 121, 122 n. 17, 123, 123 n. 19, 191 as sur/realism and bizarre realism 64, 68, 69, 74, 94, 97, 99, 168 authenticity 24, 57, 68, 76, 85 n. 23, 86, 108, 115, 121, 135, 190, 259 in Orange is the New Black 168, 187, 191, 194–95, 200, 207, 209, 216 in OZ 24, 53, 54, 55, 56, 58–59, 60–62, 64, 65, 65 n.5, 66, 68, 97–98, 100–01 in The Wire 66, 108, 110, 114–15, 117, 129, 133–34, 137, 148, 154, 155, 161, 162 verisimilitude 24, 58, 64, 68, 105, 106, 207 n. 35, 208 Reality TV 10, 18, 43, 44, 45, 47, 216, 226 n. 4, 273 reception 15, 46, 86, 139, 147, 169, 171, 189, 202, 206, 210, 212, 213, 248, 256 recidivism 33, 40, 90 perpetual incarceration machine 33, 90, 155 revolving doors 33, 48, 147 recommendation engines 213, 214, 276 Rectify 277–78 redemption narratives 44, 79, 84 n.22, 89, 91–92, 94,95–96,97, 125, 142 n. 45, 160, 210, 228, 240–41, 240 n. 8 in Orange is the New Black 210 in OZ 79, 84 n. 22, 91–92, 94, 95, 96, 97 in Queen Sugar 228, 240–41, 244, 259, 262 in The Wire 125, 142 n. 45, 160 reform as sociological aspiration 142–43, 142 n. 45, 145–47, 152–53, 159 in The Wire 24, 125, 142–44, 149–50, 152–53, 154, 157, 160 politics 32, 271, 273, 275 prisons 37, 38, 39, 45, 55, 63, 89, 96, 187–88, 224, 269, 275 regeneration through violence 62 rehabilitation 39–40, 53, 63, 75, 79, 89, 93, 96, 138, 158, 227, 244 remediation 11, 14, 14 n. 6, 21, 65, 91, 98, 154, 161, 162, 201, 227, 244, 260, 263, 279 respectability 46, 93, 184, 191–92, 227, 244 Ritchie, Andrea J.: 24, 203 Roots 242–43, 243 n. 11, 243 n. 12, 244 rural 34, 35, 36, 226 n. 5, 227, 242, 245 Rush, Benjamin 71

Seltzer, Mark 88 n. 25, 89–90, 91, 198–99 Sepinwall, Allen 11 n. 3, 12 n. 4, 54, 66, 92 serial aspirations 15, 17, 21, 22, 23, 61, 68, 112, 181, 213 serial outbidding 62, 64, 101, 194, 211 seriality 15, 138, 170, 176, 197, 204, 213, 262 Seven Seconds 278 Shawshank Redemption, The 45, 69, 77 showrunner 7, 17, 55, 115, 138, 167, 168, 169, 196 n. 17, 206, 271, 277, Simon, David 7, 10, 113, 114, 115, 115 n. 5, 123 n. 20, 138, 271, Simon, Johnathon 38 Smith, Caleb 86, 88, 88 n. 24, 89, 96, 98, 240 n. 8 Smith, Philip 47, 174 social death 32, 95, 233 social media 181, 252, 276 and communities of concern 276 social pathologies 24, 107 social reality 40, 74, 110–11, 120, 123, 129, 136, 139–140, 152–53, 161, 161 n. 64, 162, 193, 251 socialized precarity 33, 36, 183, 215 Sociology 105–11, 117–19, 123–24, 123 n. 20, 125–26, 129 n. 26, 132, 133, 135, 136–38, 141–42, 144, 148, 151, 152–54, 156–57, 158, 159–60, 161–62, 178, 279 and race 131, 159 and soft eyes 132, 135, 136, 137 and The Wire 105–11, 117–19, 123, 124, 125, 126, 129 n. 26, 132, 133, 135, 136–38, 141–42, 144, 148, 151, 152–54, 156–57, 158, 159–60, 161–62, 178, 279 as imaginary 132, 135–37, 139, 141, 142 as media–traversing mode 125–26 Chicago School 123–24, 123 n. 20 history of 119–21, 161 urban 14, 124, 138, 156, 161 as noir 123, 124–25, 126 as new noir 125, 126 solitary conf inement 61, 93, 185–89, 194, 277 Sons of Anarchy 16 Spade, David 184, 185 spectacle 16, 17, 22, 29, 36, 40, 42, 46, 46 n. 9, 47, 53, 54, 55, 56, 60, 61, 62, 65 n. 5, 68, 69, 71, 74, 83, 97, 98, 99, 101, 115, 116 n. 7, 127, 129, 168, 194, 204, 204 n. 30, 205, 209, 232, 239, 251, 252, 259, 273 Spillers, Hortense 204, 232, 238, 253 stereotypes 24, 33, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 48, 76–77, 80, 82, 84, 98, 172, 176, 208, 231, 244–45, 252, 253 stigma 9, 15, 32, 33, 87, 144, 193, 198–99, 210, 232, 253 streaming platforms 21, 216, 225, 256, 272 style 14, 21, 43, 57, 61, 67, 106, 112, 118, 123, 124, 126, 128–29, 158, 160 Sulimma, Maria 170, 177

311

Index

surveillance 16, 19, 21, 24, 25, 71, 105, 126, 127, 128–30, 128 n. 5, 131–32, 131 n. 29, 134, 150–51, 157, 199, 269, 272 Sweeney, Megan 199, 210, 211, 212 Sykes, Gresham M.: 45, 70, 70 n. 10, 77–78, 80, 80 n. 16, 216 taste 25, 44, 141 and acculturation 25, 215, 216, 256 and preferences 19, 133 n. 31, 167, 216 and segmentation 17–18, 19, 20, 21, 171–72, 181, 195, 196, 214, 225–26, 269, 277 Taxi Driver 42 technology 8, 22, 130, 216, 229 n. 7, 236, 237, 270, 272 time–shifting 22 smartphones 237 Television studies 12–13, 14, 109 torture 173, 186, 187, 252 Training Day 42, transgender 181–82, 183, 184, 185–86, 187, 188, 189, 190, 193–95 activism 181–82, 184, 185, 187, 188, 193–195 and solitary confinement 185–186, 187, 188, 189 healthcare 183, 186, 189, 190 surgery 183 violence against 182, 183, 184–85, 186, 188, 194 visibility 181, 182, 187, 188, 189, 190, 192, 193, 194, 195 vulnerability 181, 185, 190, 191, 193, 195 Travis, Jeremy 8, 32 Trump, Donald 273 underclass 34, 43 n. 7, 44, 59. 93, 140, 248 urban 8, 10, 11, 14, 16, 20, 23, 24, 32, 34, 35, 36, 42, 44, 45, 59, 60, 82, 88, 105, 106, 107, 118 n. 11, 124, 129, 130, 136, 138, 144, 145, 145 n. 47, 148, 154, 155, 156, 158, 160, 161, 162, 247 Utopia 63, 75, 144–45, 145 n. 47, 146, 147, 148, 149, 152–53, 152 n. 58, 161 vertical integration 21, 269 victims 47, 48, 122, 144, 149 n. 51, 173, 178, 180, 183, 198, 199, 200, 201, 203, 206, 210, 212, 232, 238, 239, 240, 240 n. 8, 241, 253, 255 viewers 9, 16, 18, 21, 22, 43, 43 n. 8, 45, 46, 54, 56, 58, 60, 62, 65, 68, 73, 74, 95, 96, 100, 107, 114, 115, 117, 133, 135, 136, 138, 141, 148, 156, 161, 162, 170, 171, 175, 177, 178, 180, 186, 196, 197, 198, 200, 204, 206, 208, 213, 214, 271, 272, 276, 277, 278 as amateur sociologists 133, 162, 178 as armchair penologists 178, 180 as average reader 133

lower–income and minoritized 19 middle class 16, 22, 44, 60 penal spectatorship 46 white 16, 44 vigilantes 29, 42, 137, 200 Vint, Sherryl 118 visibility 12, 13, 24, 69, 105, 155, 162, 169, 181, 182, 183, 185, 194, 214, 216, 226, 261 and or as ideology 24, 105, 162, 187, 188–89, 194, 195 and TV 12, 13, 24, 132, 155, 162, 169, 180, 187, 188, 189, 194, 195, 226, 261 hypervisibility 172, 173 invisibility 132, 188, 261 trans–visibility 180, 181, 190, 192–93, 194 voyeurism 44, 128, 194 Wacquant, Loic 34, 70, 70 n. 10, 87, 88 n. 24, 119, 155, 198 War on Drugs 8, 11, 16, 32, 45, 107, 130, 168, 179, 274 and mass incarceration 8, 11, 45, 168, 274 in The Wire 16, 107 Warren, Kenneth W.: 157 Weheliye, Alexander 237, 264 When They See Us 278 whiteness 83–84, 175, 177 Wilderson III, Frank B.: 231, 133, 134–35 Wiley, Samira As self 203 n. 29 As Poussey Washington 178, 202–04, 252 n. 21 Williams, Linda 115, 116 n. 6, 117, 127 n 24, 140, 149, 153, 203, 206, 240, 243 Wilson, William Julius 105-107, 110, 123 n. 19, 136-137, 147, 157-158 Winfrey, Oprah 225, 260 Wire, The 7–8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16, 24, 56, 66, 105–09, 110–18, 119, 122, 123 124–26, 127, 128, 129–30, 131–32, 133, 135, 136–38, 140–43, 144, 145, 147, 148–51, 152–53, 154, 156–57, 158, 160, 161–62, 168, 169, 178, 216, 271, 278, 279 and HBO 24, 66, 109, 216, 278 and institutions 112, 131–32, 149, 153–54, 157, 161 and mass incarceration 8, 10, 11, 14, 16, 24, 105 and police procedurals 10, 112, 114, 118, 122, 162 and sociology 24, 105, 106, 108–11, 119, 123, 124, 126, 136–38, 141, 144, 148, 152–53, 154, 156–57, 158, 159, 161–62, 178 Yousman, Bill 58, 69, 73 Zola, Emile 116 n. 7, 146–47, 148