Rough Bitches: Jenji Kohan's World of Women
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30 | July 25-July 31, 2013 THEGRIDTO.COM _LINER NOTES Lara Zarum—television Rough bitches: Jenji Kohan’s Barts and craft world of women David Silverman has been a guiding light for The Simpsons since squigglier versions of Homer, Marge, and the kids first appeared in shorts that the animator helped make Jenji Kohan, the creator of the new Netflix original series for The Tracey Ullman Show in the late ’80s. To prep for his keynote address at the Orange is the New Black, has finally figured out a way to Toronto Animation Arts Festival International, we asked Silverman to talk about get a bunch of batshit-crazy bitches on a TV show: Send them to prison. The show, based on a 2011 memoir by the evolution of one of our hardiest comedy institutions through the lens of a suitably Piper Kerman about her 13-month stint at a minimum- iconic image in a recent episode from the show’s 24th (!) season. BY JASON ANDERSON security prison for carrying drug money, brings to the fore- front characters—low-income minorities, transgendered women, and a whole lotta lesbians—who are usually side- lined on mainstream TV, or else seen only in brash reality shows that magnify one trait and ignore everything else. Kohan, who also created the Showtime program Weeds, 1 about a suburban California mom–turned–drug dealer, has long shown an interest in female characters whose behav- ior veers sharply away from what’s traditionally accepted 3 from women on TV. Kohan’s pre-Weeds body of work makes it clear that the writer/producer was trying to break female television characters out of their “nice girl” mould ALSO at a time when many of the shows that bothered to feature WRITTEN 2 women in lead roles at all made it clear that their primary BY JENJI concern should be finding a man and settling down. KOHAN: For “bad girls” on TV, unlike the male anti-heroes we alternately valorize and fear (but rarely pity), the typical Sex and the endpoint is punishment. And for a female character, being City S01E05 “bad” is often as benign as enjoying sex and maybe going “The Power of Female a little too heavy on the booze. In one episode of Sex and 4 Sex” 1998 the City’s sixth season, Lexi, an aging party girl who makes Carrie sleeps a drunken fool of herself at a Manhattan soirée, opens the with a wealthy window in a high-rise apartment building to have a smoke architect who and falls to her death. Carrie is so troubled that she aban- inexplicably dons her long-term career and tragic single life in New York leaves her to move to Paris with her artist boyfriend. Sex and the City an envelope may have been predicated on a pro–single ladies premise, stuffed with but the show operated on the assumption that you can cash the next morning; have all the fun you want as long as you eventually (prefer- DAVID SAYS: “Some of the jokes deep look, so we’d have a low- meanwhile, ably by your mid-30s) settle down with a man who can take Charlotte in this episode [‘A Tree Grows in angle shot looking at Homer in care of you. Otherwise, to quote that episode’s title, splat. surprises Springfield,’ which begins with the foreground, Bart deep in the The recent publication of Difficult Men, Brett Martin’s herself when Homer winning, then breaking his distance, and a receding hallway.” exploration of the male anti-hero character that has domi- she agrees new ‘Mapple’ tablet] are as lazy as 5 nated airwaves for the past decade or so, has left many crit- to sit for a can be. We had ‘Steve Bobs’ instead 3. “Other deaths on the show seem ics questioning whether a TV show built around a bad boy painting in of ‘Steve Jobs’ and ‘MyPad’ instead to be more Wile E. Coyote–ish, has any new ground left to cover. The solution to this glut of an artist’s of ‘iPad.’ It’s a colossal wink to the but Ned has been more affected. misbehaving dudes doesn’t seem to be as simple as replac- latest series: audience: ‘We’re making fun of [He became a widower when wife abstract ing the anti-hero with an anti-heroine. ABC’s Red Widow, Steve Jobs—geddit?’ The joke is Maude Flanders was killed in a portraits of which premiered in March, tried to market itself that way— vaginas. that we’re doing the laziest kind of season-11 accident involving Homer the show, which starred Radha Mitchell as a suburban mom parody.” and a T-shirt cannon.] We felt, ‘Oh, Castellaneta based his voice on the who has to finish her husband’s dirty work after he’s assas- he’s suffered long enough,’ so now Chicago version of Bozo the Clown. sinated by the mob, was cancelled after one season. 1. “The vividness of the colour he’s married to Ms. Krabappel. It’s There are aspects of the show that Kohan has described Orange’s lead character as a “gate- palette is something you can trace never a tough decision to kill off are retro, and yet everybody buys it.” way drug”—she wouldn’t have been able to sell a series back to the Tracey Ullman days. The a character per se—it’s more like, about a group of largely non-white (and non-heterosexual) colour stylist, Georgie Peluse, looked ‘Let’s try it and see what happens.’ 5. “The merchandising and press in women at a correctional facility without having the blonde- at the sketches and said, ‘Bart Sometimes we’ll do crazy things, the first season were about Bart, but haired, blue-eyed Piper (Taylor Schilling) as its lead. But and Lisa and Maggie don’t have like with Skinner and Principal if you really looked at the shows, the show is really an ensemble piece. Each episode exam- hairlines—what are we going to do? Tamzarian [i.e., the much-loathed at least half were about Homer. I ines a different jailbird, including a transgendered woman I’m not going to add a hairline, so season-nine twist when Principal think it’s more people’s perception who used to be a male firefighter, a lesbian junkie, and a I’ll make the Simpsons yellow.’ She Skinner was revealed to have gone that the show’s emphasis shifted curvy Latina whose abusive mother is in the same prison. didn’t want to ruin the purity of the missing in Vietnam and have been onto Homer. Remember, Homer is Typically, these women would be sidelined because of original design, and you can buy replaced by an imposter]. Most easier to write for. There are only the assumption that they’re a lost cause. But on this show, yellow as a hair color and a skin writers are mad about that episode so many times you can do stories they’re the meat and potatoes, not the side salad. Orange is color. This was in the late ’80s, when so they mostly ignore it—it’s like it about the kind of bad-boy, ain’t- in a unique position to dispense with the moralizing aspect vibrant colors were in, and she was never happened!” I-cute mean little kid that Bart of so many stories about women. The trope of punishing very big on that: purple tree trunks really is. And Bart’s universe is the mean girl—think of the many cruelties put upon Celia and Marge having blue hair and 4. “One point of departure for The not as broad as Homer’s universe Hodes, the bitchy blonde housewife played by Elizabeth the walls being pink and the carpet Simpsons was ’50s sitcoms like because he’s not an adult. So there’s Perkins on Weeds—isn’t very handy when every female being green. She didn’t continue on Father Knows Best. We were riffing never really a conscious choice character is behind bars. the show after the first season, but on the era that people like Matt about what direction the show is Plus, the setting makes for some killer cat fights. Watch- she set the stage in a way.” [Groening] and I grew up in. There taking [in terms of which Simpson ing these women go at each other is highly entertaining. are things in it that don’t exist to emphasize]. The other thing is They threaten and yell, fashion crude weapons, crudely hit 2. “Wes Archer and I were the two anywhere any more. For instance, that Dan Castellaneta is hilarious on each other, pee on each other’s floors, stick used tam- guys directing [the shorts] on The Krusty the Klown is based on the [as Homer]. Not to take away from pons in a sandwich and serve it up as punishment. Male Tracey Ullman Show, and we had idea of having local kids shows on Nancy Cartwright or anybody else, characters have gotten away with such stunts for some very cinematic taste. We liked TV—that’s a ’50s or ’60s concept but Dan has so many tools in his time: Oz, the HBO drama set in a maximum-security men’s interesting angles and would try that started disappearing in the toolbox. He makes mediocre lines IMENTEL/WIREIMAGE; ILLUSTRATION ANTONY HARE ANTONY ILLUSTRATION IMENTEL/WIREIMAGE; prison, established a new precedent for violent, twisted weird shots and transitions. There’s ’70s. I knew a local guy in the great and great lines fantastic.” P behaviour on TV 16 years ago.