Emmy Nominations 2015

Posted on July 20, 2015 by Gar Tate

The nominations for the 67th Emmy Awards were just announced. The winners won’t be announced until September, but I’ve decided to announce my very biased opinion now. So feel free to read my opinion on who should win certain awards.

Outstanding Drama Series – “Orange Is The New Black” (Netflix). It’s the only option. I’m also glad that it was moved from being classified as a comedy series to a drama. It is funny, but not “ha ha” funny.

Outstanding Comedy Series – “Parks And Recreation” (NBC). It deserves this for the final season. I will be very upset if it loses. If “Parks And Recreation” doesn’t win, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” better win.

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series – Kevin Spacey, “House of Cards”

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series – Viola Davis, “How to Get Away With Murder” & Taraji P. Henson, “Empire”. I can’t decide so I hope they both win. I’m upset that Kerry Washington wasn’t nominated for “Scandal” but that is a different debate.

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series – Jeffrey Tambor, “Transparent”. I’ve never watched this show, but I’ve heard nothing but good things about it and I feel like it deserves something just for it’s content.

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series – Amy Poehler, “Parks and Recreation”. Amy Poehler has yet to win an Emmy which is a complete tragedy. I refuse to accept any other person for this award. This award is the one I care the most about.

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series – Peter Dinklage, “Game of Thrones”. Just because I like Peter Dinklage. I’ve never actually seen “Game of Thrones.”

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series – Uzo Aduba, “Orange Is the New Black”. Uzo is an amazing actress and she deserves another Emmy for this role.

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series – Kate McKinnon, “Saturday Night Live” & Jane Krakowski, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”. I cannot decide so I hope they both win.

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series – Tituss Burgess, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”. Tituss deserves to win, but I think he should have been nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor, but this nomination is still good. (My second choice is for Andre Braugher)

Outstanding Miniseries – “American Horror Story: Freak Show” (FX). It’s the only Miniseries that matter.

Outstanding Television Movie – I’ve heard of none of these, so I have no opinion.

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie – No opinion

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie – Jessica Lange, “American Horror Story: Freak Show”. She deserves it as it was her last season on the show.

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie – Finn Wittrock, “American Horror Story: Freak Show”. He just did creepy so well.

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie – Sarah Paulson, “American Horror Story: Freak Show”. I feel like Sarah Paulson did the best in a season that was not the best. She was a shining star. Angela Bassett is my second choice. I wanna say Kathy Bates is my third choice, but I couldn’t stand her accent.

Outstanding Variety Talk Series – “The Colbert Report” (Comedy Central) & “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” (NBC). I want “The Colbert Report” to win for Stephen’s last season, but I also just love Jimmy Fallon.

Outstanding Variety Sketch Series – “Saturday Night Live” (NBC). A great show. Great cast. But “Inside Amy Schumer” (Comedy Central) is my number two.

Outstanding Reality-Competition Program – “The Amazing Race” (CBS)

Outstanding Structured Reality Program – “Shark Tank” (ABC)

Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program – “Wahlburgers” (A&E)

Outstanding Host For A Reality Or Reality-Competition Program – Jane Lynch, “Hollywood Game Night”. Jane Lynch is just a national treasure.

Outstanding Variety Special – “The Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary Special” (NBC). SNL is already one of the most iconic shows of all time, and this was one of their best shows. It deserves awards.

Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series – Pablo Schreiber, “Orange Is The New Black”. Pablo really stepped up his game as Pornstache this season. I was surprised, and he deserves to win.

Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series – Cicely Tyson, “How To Get Away With Murder” & Khandi Alexander, “Scandal”. It’s a tie. Interesting on how they both played the mothers of the main characters.

Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series – Bill Hader, “Saturday Night Live” & Jon Hamm, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”. It’s a tie once again. If neither of them win, I’ll riot.

Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series – Tina Fey, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”. Tina Fey, always.

Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series – No opinion

Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series – “Veep” — “Election Night” (Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci and Tony Roche). I say “Veep” will win, but I’m bitter that “Parks and Recreation” wasn’t nominated for it’s series finale. C’mon Emmys. Do better.

Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series – No opinion, but I bet “Game of Thrones” is gonna win.

Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series – “Veep” — “Testimony” (Armando Iannucci)

Moral of the Story – I think “Orange is the New Black” and “Parks And Recreation” need to win for every award they were nominated for. I’m also glad “The Big Bang Theory” didn’t get that many nominations especially Outstanding Lead Actor as the show and Jim Parsons are both overrated.

So let’s see on September 20th how many of my predictions are actually right.

Digital Literacy & Me

Posted on December 11, 2014 by Gar Tate

Final Reflective Blog Post

Photo by Gallery Hip

As the world becomes more and more digital, digital literacy becomes more and more important. It has come to the point where certain skills cannot be ignored or underutilized anymore. In my opinion, these skills that everyone should know how to do are Microsoft Word, Microsoft Powerpoint, E-Mail, Google, and Facebook. These skills are not especially hard to learn or that unique, but I believe that they are important and NECESSARY for people to communicate in their personal life as well as succeed in business. One of my personal pet peeves is when people say that they are “not technologically smart” and use it as an excuse not to do simple digital tasks. Clearly, the world is moving in a direction that makes the digital world vitally important to success and society.

But this class focused more on the slightly more technical side of digital literacy. In order to be truly successful in today’s field of digital communications just a basic knowledge of Word isn’t going to cut it anymore. In my opinion, there are three things that will truly prove your digital literacy: your personal website, formatting, and your personal brand.

Look at my personal website. This is a good example of a personal website (in my opinion), as well as a shameless plug for my website. So go check it out if you want.

A personal website isn’t even going to make you stand out that much anymore, but it has become a vital necessity to market yourself as an unique individual and show that you are digitally savvy. How this website is set up will truly show digitally literate you are. Link to your past work. Show your digital resume in a visually appealing and unique way, but you should also have a link to a traditional PDF printable copy. Based on this, my digital resume could use some work as it really isn’t anything spectacular or memorable. Then in my personal opinion as I tried to do on my own website, I think you need to make your personal business website a reflection of you. You should show things that show who you really are that would not show up on a traditional resume like facts about you and your interests.

The formatting of your digital media is VITAL. The design of the website makes or breaks the website. It shows the level of professionalism that you plan to show off. I feel like the formatting of this blog and my personal website is something that is very professional, easily read, and appealing to the eye. One complaint is that this blog doesn’t utilize colors that much as it is mostly neutral colors with some splashes of blue for links.

The logo I made for my personal website

You need to brand yourself. You need to market yourself consistently (with some deviation) across your different social medias. I feel like I branded myself as laid-back, confident, easy going, and TV-loving. Clearly, my website has 14 pictures of me that can come across as narcissistic which could be fixed by adding more pictures of my work to replace them, but any future employers who look at it won’t forget my face. During my live tweet, I feel like I allowed the readers to make their own opinions on the governor’s debate, so I didn’t brand myself well then. If I could go back, I would add more of my personality into my tweets. Then I originally made my logo (pictured to the right) for my personal website, but I have since added it to this blog and my twitter. I would like to add it to my video as to add more consistency of my brand across my different mediums.

Of all the skills I learned in this class, there are a handful that I would love to improve upon. Improving these skills would help make me more marketable in the future. I would like to improve upon

My Editing
- I feel like there is a lot of improvement to be made in my editing. Specifically how to fix the mistakes I make while filming. In my video, the interview with Dr. Radel has sound issues that I made while filming that I couldn’t figure out how to fix in editing. This is something I should learn how to improve upon as mistakes are inevitable.
- I feel like this skill will be specifically useful as I would love to work in television after I graduate. This skill will help give me knowledge on every part of the television production process.
Photography
- As clear in my Flickr, my photographs weren’t the best. I feel like improving my photography skills will help my work in the future as it will allow me to not rely on others to provide photographs for any work.
- Also just my Photoshop skills, as shown in my blog post on corruption in prison.
My Voice in Writing
- As shown in this blog, I feel like my voice and personality in writing can be a little inconsistent. I would love to firm my voice while making it informative and opinionated.
Practice, Practice, Practice
- I feel like the most important thing for me to do is to practice. Without practice, I will not improve in anything. So I would love to practice videoing, storytelling in podcasts, branding myself, and many more areas.

Students’ Opinions on CLPs

Posted on December 3, 2014 by Gar Tate

Multimedia Group Project with Sam Can and Hedley Jones

Group Video:

The Cultural Life Program at Furman sponsors events that promote a variety of subjects and cultures. Attendance to CLPs is required for graduation for all Furman students. Students must attend at least 32 CLPs by the time they graduate. This video focuses on the students’ opinion on the program.

CLPs at Furman Podcast

Posted on November 18, 2014 by Gar Tate

Multimedia Group Podcast with Sam Can and Hedley Jones

Group Podcast:

The Cultural Life Program at Furman sponsors events that promote a variety of subjects and cultures. Attendance to CLPs is required for graduation for all Furman students. Students must attend at least 32 CLPs by the time they graduate. This podcast focuses on the professors’ opinion on the program and the importance of it.

Featuring Dr. Sandra Wheeler, Dr. Brent Nelson, and Brad Barron

Oreos and Social Media

Posted on October 30, 2014 by Gar Tate

Reading Response #7 – David Dubois – “Content Strategy is King in Social Media” & Jan Kietzmann, et al. – “Social Media? Get Serious! Understanding the Social Building Blocks of Social Media”

Oreo Superbowl Blackout Tweet (click for original source)

Your social media should not just exist. It needs to be a presence. Hook the reader. Make them interested. If the content is not interesting, you will have no viewers. In a way, your blog is a business and it is important to have customer loyalty. Make the readers come back and back again. The layout and appearance of the site only do so much. If the content is bland or unoriginal, your viewers will stop coming. Companies can use social media to promote their product while also entertaining the viewers like Denny’s with their Twitter which helped them increase their popularity.

To keep your blog appealing, you should follow this 3 rules:

Content: More than the Room
- Have your goals clearly defined. Know what you are doing.
Creative Content
- Make your content original
- Social media allows you to post new ideas as soon as they are made so they always stay relevant. Your ideas can go up instantaneously. Make sure that they are creative, while also getting your point across like the Oreo Superbowl Blackout Tweet.
Springboards for Content
- Make sure your content is easy to share. If the content is not shared, people will not see your work. Bloggers and celebrities are a great way to get a message across.

Different Types of Social Media (click for original source)

Social media is becoming a bigger and bigger deal as more people become active on it. Even the Pope has a huge social media presence. Social media has given people a platform in order to voice their opinion specifically against corporations and products. It also allows celebrities to connect with their fans like Katy Perry, who has the most Twitter followers. People can also live tweet events or TV shows we can give instant feedback on how successful the event was.

The Seven Functional Blocks of Social Media – factors that interrelate in order to provide a social media experience:

Identity
1. Your identity on social media can be whatever you make of it. You can decide how much personal information that you realize, of your age, weight, ethnicity, gender, etc.. The amount of identity necessary to use social media can vary greatly. Facebook requires a rather large amount of identity, while Tumblr requires very little to no identity.
Conversations
1. Conversations on social media are vital. Users need to communicate with each other.
Sharing
1. Sharing is all about the extent to which you can share, distribute, and receive content from others on social media. Sharing varies greatly from site to site.
Presence
1. Presence is all about knowing what others are doing. Whether or not they are online or available.
Relationships
1. Relationships is all about how users can be connected to each other. How can they interact? What can do they do for each other?
Reputation
1. Reputation is how people identity themselves based on their social media. People judge themselves based on how many Twitter followers they have, how many Instagram likes they have, or how many reblogs on Tumblr. This is also how people judge other people. LinkedIn is a professional social media site where people make hiring decisions based on the person’s social media presence.
Groups
1. Groups is all about the extent to which people can create communities on social media sites.

It’s also important to follow the 4 C’s for developing strategies for monitoring, understanding, and developing new social media.

Cognize
1. Recognize and understand the social media landscape
Congruity
1. Follow guidelines of other social media sites with similar goals. It makes it so the new social media is easily understood by the users and it follows a successful plan so it increases the chance of success.
Curate
1. Curate the social media interactions and content. When starting a social media site, edit what goes on it in order to make it the most appealing.
Chase
1. Chase information on your social media site in order to understand how users use it although it is time consuming and expensive.

The LGBTQ Community & Laverne Cox

Posted on October 28, 2014 by Gar Tate

Members of the LGBTQ community campaigning for equality. Original photo from democrats.org

Without a doubt, society has become accepting of the LGBTQ community in the past fifty years. 92% of the LGBTQ community say that society is more accepting than a decade ago, and the same number are optimistic that the acceptance will continue to grow over the next decade.

This new level of acceptance has been reciprocated in the diversity of television characters. In the 2014 fall television season, LGBTQ characters make up “3.9% of the total number of series regulars on prime-time shows on the five broadcast networks, or 32 out of 813.” This looks fairly representative of the LGBTQ population at first glance because 3.4% of American adults identify as a member of the LGBTQ community, except “no regular characters on broadcast prime-time shows are transgender.” The transgender community has been historically overlooked or forgotten even in the LGBTQ community.

Two of the only shows that have included a transgender regular character are not made by broadcast television, but by their online, streaming television equivalents. Those shows include Amazon‘s Transparent and Netflix‘s Orange is the New Black. Orange Is the New Black even “has more LGBT characters than any other show on broadcast and cable TV.”

Laverne Cox: actress, activist, advocate. Orignial photo from Hollywood Reporter

Laverne Cox plays Sophia Burset, on Orange is the New Black, who is a transgender inmate in Litchfield. This character emphasizes the treatment of the transgender community in prison when Sophia’s estrogen pills are changed to generic and she’s given a below recommended dose just so the Department of Corrections can save some money. Laverne Cox said at the 2014 Creating Change Conference that “healthcare for trans people is a necessity. It is not elective, it is not cosmetic, it is life-saving… But we are more than our bodies.” Since it is not elective, the prison should honor the lives of these people and give them the proper medical care.

Besides being an advocate for the transgender community on television, Laverne Cox is an advocate in her personal time, including the support of CeCe McDonald, her release from prison, and the documentary made about her. Cox was also the first openly transgender person to have their own Time magazine cover. She also produced a recent documentary on trans youth, The T Word.

And just remember that just because they are being represented, it doesn’t mean that they are being represented accurately or not based on stereotypes. When the transgender community is represented on television, which is not often, it is as some sort of sex worker. Laverne Cox has this to say on this stereotype:

“When folks want to write a trans character, the first thing that they think of is sex work. And part of the reason is that the most visibility, really, that trans folk get is through sex work. And then there is also crazy unemployment rates among transgender people; it’s like twice the national average. If you’re a trans person of color, it’s four times the national average. So, so often the only job opportunities presented for trans folks are in street economies, including sex work. Obviously there are lots of trans women who don’t do sex work, who have all kinds of professions.”

While Orange is the New Black and Laverne Cox are promoting tolerance and equality for all members of the LGBTQ community, it doesn’t mean anything if you aren’t. Just be tolerant of anyone who is different than you and respect their freedom of expression.

Representation in Television

Posted on October 15, 2014 by Gar Tate

It is no surprise that representation of race on television is lacking. Up to and including 2010, there were nearly 1,000 actors and actresses nominated for Emmys in the categories of Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress in Comedy and Drama, respectively. Only 53 of those actors were non-white. That is essentially saying that 94.7% of America is white, which is false. The 2010 Census says that only 72% of America identifies as white. Assuming that the census is correct, 28% of the American population is severely underrepresented on television.

The video below by Glozell Green, a prominent Youtuber, shows the importance of representation specifically through The Princess and the Frog.

Studies have shown that the self-esteem of white male children is increased based on the amount of television he watches, but television has been shown to decrease the self-esteem of white female children and African American children.

The Latino population is 13% of the American population, but represents only 3% of the population on television.

Women are more likely to be portrayed as “thin” to “very thin” than men on television. Their appearance is also more likely to be commented on. In television and movies, women are more likely to be shown doing “appearance related activities” such as shopping and grooming than men.

It is important for characters to represent real life people. Photo: Gar Tate

All of this considered, it is important that television shows make an effort to accurately portray minorities and women. All of the misrepresentation has been shown to cause low self-esteem and increased eating disorders in girls.

Orange is the New Black has been praised for it’s portrayal of “real women” since it has a cast of varying races and body types. While the main character is a white women from an upper class background, the focus is not entirely on her. Piper has even been criticized as being “boring” and “a Trojan horse” for creator Jenji Kohan.

The diverse cast of Orange is the New Black. Original photo: jezebel.com

The show also presents characters that defy stereotypes and some that are stereotypical. It is important to realize that characters of a certain race cannot all be the same, but not all of them can break stereotypes. Stereotypes can be shockingly accurate sometimes. Taystee and Poussey’s relationship break stereotypes and show strong, independent black women as friends. Black Cindy is more stereotypical as presented as a sassy, loud-mouth hooligan.

The show does bring up Piper’s white privilege both in and out of the show. Jenji Kohan identifies white privilege when she was pitching the show to networks:

“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. But it’s a hard sell to just go in and try to sell those stories initially. The girl next door, the cool blonde, is a very easy access point, and it’s relatable for a lot of audiences and a lot of networks looking for a certain demographic. It’s useful.”

Representation matters. What you put out on television validates the viewers. People tend to associate the images on television with beauty and perfection. Therefore, it is important to represent everyone because everyone is beautiful and perfect.

Scripts, Storyboards, and Videos — Oh My!

Posted on October 7, 2014 by Gar Tate

Reading Response #5 – Lynda Felder – Writing for the Web – Chapter 4 & Todd Chappell – Video Production Primer

Images can captivate an audience, especially when they move. Adding moving graphics to a website can greatly increase the appeal to the audience, but they can also distract. Make sure you choose moving graphics wisely. There are many types of moving graphics but only some work in certain situations. Types include:

Example of an animation graphic. It shows a way on how to tie a tie. Click image for original source.

Video: This is best used for real-life, moving images. Also for showing interviews.
Animation: Works well for introductions, short ads, and instructions
Motion graphics: Makes logos or words move across the screen to catch the reader’s eye.
Software simulation: Helps the reader experience a software program. Perfect for promoting software and providing instructions on how to use the software.
Games: Provide entertainment, and sometimes education
Photo slide shows: Perfect for showing people
Digital storytelling: Works for personal stories

Example of a storyboard. Click picture for original source

When designing, it is important to brainstorm. Some people have found that sticky notes, 3 x 5 cards, lists, outlines, napkins, or a combination of the things above are very useful tools in brainstorming and organizing your thoughts.

A storyboard is a necessity for designing, and it’s also a form of brainstorming. It shows “all the media for each scene, such as sound effects, voice-over, music and text, and describes how they all work together.” They also:

Record the plan
Persuade stakeholders
Inform team members
Establish a blueprint
Create a working agreement

When making a video or animation, a script is important for multiple reasons.

It helps the speaker remember what to say and when to say it.
It helps prevent noises of confusion like “ah,” “um,” and “er.”
It stops some spontaneous, impromptu nonsense that would be redundant and need to be eliminated.
It helps set up the scene by briefly describing settings.
It helps describe actions.
It provides some stage direction.

When making your own video and animation, avoid these common mistakes:

Talking heads
Panning and zooming too quickly
Little or no sound
Timing is too slow or too fast
Not providing a war to print out detailed information
No transitions
Too many scenes
Impersonal instructions

There are three steps in the video making process.

Pre-production
1. Debatably the most important step
2. Make a story with a beginning, middle, and end
  1. VERY IMPORTANT
3. Make a script. Two types of scripts-
  1. Screenplay
  2. Interview
4. Make sure you have appropriate media for the project that you have the rights to
  1. Images
  2. Music
  3. Stock Footage
  4. Videos
5. Make sure you have appropriate storage for your media. Also that is organized in a way that makes it easily accessible and understandable.
6. Make sure you know that film making is a time consuming process.
Production
1. Have appropriate gear
  1. Camera
  2. Tripod
  3. Microphones
2. Understand Basic Shots
  1. Subject/Action Shot
  2. Establishing shot
  3. B-roll
3. Look at tutorials online beforehand
4. Keep this things in mind
  1. Don’t zoom in for close ups, move the camera manually in.
  2. Anticipate action
  3. Keep computer screens out of the shot
  4. Use a tripod
  5. Make sure you know your camera before taking it into the field
  6. Be aware of background noises
  7. Keep the wind in mind
  8. Test your microphone beforehand
Post-production
1. Have a good editing software. The most common ones are
2. Edit the video
  1. Cut it down to the most important clips. Then string them together with transitions
  2. Note: the fancy transitions or other glitz can distract from the message and look tacky
  3. Images can also tell a story effectively
  4. B-roll can come in handy here
3. Save and export your work

“Don’t Tell Me. Show Me.” & Violent Pandas

Posted on September 25, 2014 by Gar Tate

Reading Response #4 – J. Carl Ganter & Eileen E. Ganter – “Sound in the Story”

When interviewing or making audio, there are several ideas and tactics that are important to know beforehand. You must plan ahead and know how to properly format your audio in order to interest your reader.

The attention span of the average person has greatly decreased over the past couple of years. This is partially in fact due the increased use in technology. You could argue that this is shown in the popularity of the app, Vine. Vine is a social media platform that allows users to posts videos that can only be up to 7 seconds. You could argue that people’s attention span can no longer handle movies so they switched to TV shows and then to Youtube videos. Now our attention can only be held for 7 seconds, not even a full 30 minutes for a TV show. Therefore, keep your audio short enough to keep it interesting, but long enough to cover the basics.

“Audio is an intimate medium.” So keep it personal. Play on emotions and make people care. “Be interested, be organized, be authentic.” Be yourself. Make people like you for you. Care about what you are doing. Know what you are doing. Plan ahead, but not too much in order to allow for some fluidity and flexibility.

Logistical components of an audio project:

The interview
Ambience
Natural sounds
The voice-over
Supplemental music

There are three stages to an interview:

Development
1. Think about what you are going to do and plan ahead. Make questions, make plans to interview a certain person, set up the recording equipment, research background information to make the audio more topical, do whatever you have to do to set up for the audio.
Pursuit
1. Pursue the audio and record it
Mop-up
1. After you finish the audio, go back through it and edit it. Make sure you have everything you need. Call or schedule another interview to gain more information if necessary.

There are multiple bad habits to avoid in interviews, especially podcasts. Examples include, but are not limited to:

Silence = reflection
- Try not to immediately fill the void of silence because silence means that they other person is contemplating and thinking which can be helpful
Multi-barreled questions
Leading questions
Editorializing
- Keep it objective
Putting an assumption on a question
- Allow the interviewee to make their own ideas and assumptions
Trigger word questions
Biased words
Questions that go on too long
Either-or questions

Friendly advice: Repeat names, not pronouns. It allows for the listeners to constantly be reminded of who they are listening to and keep them interested.

Professional recording equipment in a studio. Click picture for original source

Make sure you have the appropriate recording tools:

Professional minidisc
DATs
Cassettes
Microphones
Editing software
- Audio/video
  - I.E. Audacity, Premiere, iMovie, GarageBand

Corruption in the American Prison System

Posted on September 23, 2014 by Gar Tate

In Orange is the New Black, several issues are brought to attention that are currently corrupting the American prison system. Piper Kerman and Jenji Kohan have included these topics in order to raise awareness of these issues. Obviously, some of these issues are dramatized on the show in order to make it more emotional or appealing, but they are still very real.

Sexual Assault

Sexual assault is common in prison unfortunately. Half of the sexual assaults are committed by guards and prison staff. Even if the inmates give consent, it is still technically statutory rape if committed with a guard. 10% of inmates suffer from sexual assault. Even if the sexual acts are consensual between inmates, it is still illegal and not allowed, but is often used to have a submissive partner be protected by the dominant partner.

In the show, multiple inmates are having sexual relations with each other like Piper and Alex. Some inmates even have consensual relations with prison guards like Daya and Bennett. The show doesn’t depict any rape between inmates, but does bring up the fact that sexual relations between an inmate and a guard is rape. These depictions show the vulnerability inmates feel while in prison. They just want love. They want someone to care for them. They want to know that someone understands what they are going through.

Elder Care

The elderly are the fastest growing population in prison due to the long sentences given to inmates in the past. While the population is growing, the care needed to provide proper medical attention to them is increasing. The price for caring for ailments such as dementia and cancer is well above the limit that is currently set aside for the inmates. It costs three times more to pay for elderly inmates. For when it gets too expensive to care for the elderly inmates, the prison system does compassionate release regardless of if the inmate has a place to live or if they will just be homeless. In some cases however, the inmate could stay in prison instead of receiving compassionate release and staying with loved ones during their final days.

Orange is the New Black if the characters were played by an older cast. (Collage made by Gar Tate)

In Orange is the New Black, an inmate, Jimmy, suffers from dementia and is given compassionate release after diving from a stage onto the ground believing she was diving into a pool. She has no where to go and is essentially put on the streets where she will probably die. Another inmate, Rosa, suffers from cancer and is unable to receive the surgery that she needs to live due to the prison system refusing to pay for it.

Solitary

In prison, solitary confinement is often used to punish inmates. They are placed in a room by themselves to “think about what they’ve done.” They can be placed in there for any amount of time. This can have psychological, mental, and physical effects on people. It is not a safe practice. Protestors of this punishment is saying it is torture. In the show, several inmates are given solitary for very mundane reasons or just because the correctional officer doesn’t like them.

Budget Shortages

States have cut prison budgets severely in the past years, but the demand for money has not decreased. On July 31, 2007, 4,322 women inmates were housed in a correctional facility that was designed for 1,980 inmates. Overpopulation is a trouble for many populations. It has also been said that the prisons are highly understaffed. The federal correction system is functioning with 3,200 fewer guards than need.

In the show, they show budget shortages when it comes to lack of food and supplies. Instead of fixing the plumbing when sewage was rising from the shower drains, the prison system ignores it due to the high cost of fixing it. In the show, Natalie Figueroa, the executive assistant to the warden, embezzles money from the prison in the show which is an extreme case of corruption in prison.

The show does portray some of these issues in exaggerated or inaccurate ways which has angered some former inmates. It is important while watching this show to remember that this is someone’s life. Hundreds of thousands of women live this daily. Don’t be afraid to laugh at the jokes, but take it with a grain of salt. Do not take it as a perfect guide on how to survive women’s prison.

Obviously, just the depiction of these problems on the show is not solving any of the problems, but it is starting a discussion. The show is making these issues mainstream and opening people’s eyes. It is all about informing the masses. With knowledge, change can occur.

Gar is the New Black

Summer Thoughts & Digital Communications