Here’s a hypothetical scenario: you are a woman in your mid-30s. Your violent husband has just divorced you. Your only daughter has been murdered. And you’ve just come to know that you will spend the rest of your life in jail.
Every single day of your life will be spent amongst convicted criminals. Till the day you die, prison walls will be your home. What meaning can there be in such a life? How does one go on, after knowing this? Why not spare yourself the trouble and do what many others have done before — take your own life?
Well, this is the predicament of Bea Smith, a hairdresser sent to jail on charges of attempted murder, and also the opening premise of Wentworth , perhaps the most inspired prison fiction to have ever graced the airwaves.
Smith, played by Danielle Cormack, an actor from New Zealand, enters the prison lost, depressed, and suicidal, a stereotypical victim of domestic abuse cast aside by society and fed into the maw of the criminal justice system. But that’s where the stereotypes end — at the prison gates, for the oppressive world inside Wentworth Correctional Centre is also a strangely empowering one — it is an all-woman world.
Sister act
Wentworth is a women’s prison. But it is a prison after all, and the women are ready to cut each other’s throats. But then, there is also sisterhood, and communities of support for the women hurt by the patriarchy. In fact, some of the inmates who leave on parole are unable to cope with the world beyond the walls, and return to the welcoming arms of their ‘sisters’, some of whom wouldn’t hesitate to sell them out for a stash of heroin or a reduced sentence. It is an unpredictable, dangerous, and complicated world, and unlike any seen before on commercial television.
Of course, in the age of web-streaming, prison dramas are legion. From Prison Break to Oz , Porridge and Bad Girls , they have always enjoyed a loyal viewer base. More recently, the sub-genre of dramas set in a women’s prison has come into its own with the global success of Orange Is the New Black ( OINB ), whose first season released in 2013, the same year as Wentworth .
But OINB , which has been widely praised for its provocative mainstreaming of queer-lesbian relationships, doesn’t compare with Wentworth when it comes to originality of script or authenticity in characterisation.
By, of, and for women
Wentworth bends the prison drama genre to breaking point by positing a world that is almost entirely populated and dominated by women. The jail, at least until Season 5, has always been headed by a female ‘Governor’ (chief warden). The guards and support staff are mostly women. You don’t get better lab conditions to explore a world that is by, of, and for women, and see whether it might be better than the male-dominated mess we all inhabit. So what if the women in it are all damaged goods.
Well, as a regime of oppression, the prison has a strict hierarchy, headed by the Governor among the staff, and the ‘top dog’ among the prisoners. The top dog is the big boss among the prisoners. Nothing happens without her approval. If you are an inmate, you have to keep her happy in order to survive, much like how, in the ‘normal’ world outside, you cannot displease the boss and expect a promotion.
The first four seasons follow Smith’s fortunes as she comes to terms with the reality of life in prison, makes mistakes, learns from them, finds a purpose in life and the will to pursue it, forms and breaks alliances, and makes a grab for power. Cormack as Smith is a casting coup. There is a certain hardness to her features that suggest a tough life, perhaps years of domestic abuse. But the fiery red curls and large, expressive eyes hint at both guile and vulnerability, qualities that would confound her fellow inmates and millions of fans around the world.
Unique portrayal
Wentworth also covers new ground in its depiction of women’s relationship with power. Apart from Game of Thrones with the likes of Cersei Lannister and Daenerys Targaryen, and House of Cards that gave us Claire Underwood, Wentworth is perhaps unique in its surfeit of ‘badass’ women characters in positions of power.
From the mob-connected Jacs Holt and lesbian punk Franky Doyle — the top dogs that draw Smith into a violent power struggle – to the Governors Erica Davidson, Joan ‘The Freak’ Ferguson, Vera Bennett, and the prison shrink Bridget Westfall, a host of strong women populate the show, demonstrating what’s possible on television when talented writers work with absolute freedom.
The top dog
A great number of television dramas today revolve around intricate power struggles, typically infused with violence, backstabbing, and shocking betrayals.
In Wentworth , the ‘top dog’ is pretty much the prison equivalent of the Prime Minister or King, with a multitude of privileges, including the free labour of other inmates at your disposal. Why wouldn’t anyone want to be the top dog in the dog-eat-dog world of a prison? Yet, it is a testament to the ambition and ingenuity of the script that in the space of four seasons, Smith goes from lost novice to feared top dog to someone disillusioned with power, whose relationship with it is eventually shaped by a keen sense of its degrading nature.
Among its other attributes, what also sets Wentworth apart is the no-nonsense feminism of a screenplay that has no time for the infamous male gaze. All said and done, the female leads in OINB still fit the traditional parameters of eye candy.
But it is difficult to think of a commercially successful TV show apart from Wentworth that not only fills the screen with women who violate every one of these parameters, but also makes them real as both desiring subjects and objects of desire. Its sensibility with regard to the female body is noticeably different. One memorable sequence featuring a ‘protest’ by the inmates shows them pelting the prison management with sanitary pads soaked in tomato ketchup.
Coming back to the show’s central premise, it becomes clear, with every passing season, that even in a prison, a place that is by definition degrading, offers little hope and even less agency, a woman could experience something pure and beautiful, something not guaranteed even to the most powerful person on the planet — the gift of love. Smith’s scorching romance with a fellow inmate is already the stuff of Netflix legend. As is the heartbreak.
Critics have pointed out that Wentworth is gritty, dark and disturbing, with heavy doses of surreal violence. It is certainly all of these, but it is also moving, tender, and authentic in its rendering of female dignity in the face of injustice.
Among the hundreds of hit TV shows streaming online, it stands out for its nuanced exploration of power, love and sexuality from a woman’s perspective, one that ultimately transcends gender to hold a mirror to the human self.
