CONFESSIONS OF A CHARACTER FREAK

CONFESSIONS OF A CHARACTER FREAK: ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK

I’LL ALWAYS TRY TO AVOID SPOILERS!

Zoe Jay S

Hey! Good day readers and fellow character freaks, how’s it hanging?

So, we discussed the Evil Queen last time we were together in all her amazing glory. I wanted to try and create a pattern, so we are going to alternate between my favorite characters and those that irk my nerves. Sounds good? Let’s get into it ‘cause I know you saw which show we are focusing on today.

I got put on to Orange is the New Black a few years back. I’d heard of the show before that, but I didn’t take interest… who knew it would become a show of 7 seasons that I watch religiously? It was only right that I told my friends to watch too, and we’ve all come to the same conclusion that a certain character just completely and utterly sucks: Piper Chapman.

I mean look at the wanna be hard core criminal! It’s laughable, I’m sorry.

Talk about ugghhhhhhh!!!!

That was my frustration with this woman literally from season 1 to the end of season 7. Piper Chapman is not your “average” woman. Tall, Caucasian, blue eyes, blonde hair, comes from a family that does well for themselves, has the perfect Jewish fiancé, Larry, and is just super opinionated when she should really just shut up for her own good sometimes.

Small backstory: Piper had a low point in life where she was traveling with a female drug dealer better known as Alex. The reason she is in prison is for money laundering. Oh, and she turned herself in… gotta love that.

But anyway, Piper Chapman’s story is what kicks off the rest of the inmates stories and lives and brings life to Litchfield Prison. And that’s the only praise she gets.

We do know that Piper is a representative for the bisexual community, but she struggles with her relationship choices for the whole of this shows production. Why? Simply because your girl is selfish and indecisive. People either got emotionally or physically seriously hurt because of her actions.

Couldn’t she just serve her 15-month sentence quietly?! People like Healy, and her mother, and fiancé wanted this for her. In laments terms: just shut up and do your time so you can get out! But noooo. Gross.

She’s really not. Somebody go get Red, Pennsatucky, and Miss Claudette.

Do you want to know what sign I think Piper is? A Pisces or a Gemini. Most people tend to blame problematic issues on these two signs and hey, i’m not one to stop the chatter. She just makes you want to smoosh her head and ask her what the heck she’s thinking sometimes.

And we get it, if you’re serving a long sentence might as well do something to occupy the time but for crying out loud, sis was looking for justice in all the wrong places, making Red angry and basically starve her, angered some other folk and got branded. It’s like multiple altercations and you would think she would’ve picked up on the fact that being invisible would have done her wonders. I guess some just have to learn the hard way. She is EASILY the least liked character of the series, and if you think otherwise, I am so sorry for you. * sips tea *

I will say though that her storyline is very creative. And i can at least sympathize with the need to separate herself from the ways of her family. Not going to lie, Piper’s an angel compared to her mother and father. Just my opinion though.

Thomas Benke: Looking Around In Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott, in the Chapter “Looking Around,” says this: Now, if you ask me, what’s going on is that we’re all up to here in it, and probably the most important thing is that we not yell at one another. Otherwise we’d all just be barking away like Pekingese: “Ah! Stuck in the shit! And it’s your fault, you did this …” Writing involves seeing people suffer and, as Robert Stone once put it, finding some meaning therein. But you can’t do that if you’re not respectful. If you look at people and just see sloppy clothes or rich clothes, you’re going to get them wrong. She goes on to speak about empathy for other people and also, as an extension empathy for yourself. So, in a sense as you try to write believable, relatable characters, you will come to forgive people their trespasses—because no one believes they are the villain of their story, so you have to write “bad,” or “evil” characters from a point of view where they rationalize what they are doing in such a way that it is the right or only way they see is possible. By extrapolation, then, if you begin to forgive and withhold judgment from your less-than-desirable, or annoying characters, perhaps you can extend the same courtesy to yourself and forgive your own trespasses and sins. This, for me, starts to enter the realm of “writing as therapy,” and though I am a firm believer in that—I practice it to this very day—I think I would caution anyone who thinks that simply writing through things is going to lead you to a place of light and love. I am not saying it can’t by any means. What I am saying is I have wrote through my thoughts and my problems and my desperation and depression for decades and I still had enough baggage on my shoulders to supply an army platoon with rations for a year. In any case, when thinking about craft, it is very important to step into the shoes of all of your characters, especially those characters that you see as antagonists and villians. I believe there are very few universal maxims in writing but one thing is virtually certain: every character you write is your version of that human being. Confucius said “everywhere I go, there I am,” and that is never more true than when you are writing. So if you are writing a character that is distasteful to you, it might be effective for you to ask yourself why that is the case. I wrote a blog for Obscura last semester titled, “The Puppy Had It Coming.” The gist of the article was to pose a puzzle to writers. How can you write a scene where an adult human kicks a puppy across the room and the reader at least understands why. I am not saying there is any way to justify the action or for the readers to be on the human’s side unless they are sociopaths. I am saying you need let the reader know how dark the place is in the character’s mind that he is capable of doing that.