I miss Helen!!!!

OK, now that that's out of the way...

Phantom Helen

Visual Imagery: From the very first moment of this episode, the ghost of Helen watches over everthing. The opening scene is the exterior of the prison, with a red car entering. For a split second you almost wish/hope that it's Helen's red Peugot, and the framing is not unlike when Helen drives up to the prison in the very first Bad Girls ep in S1. But of course, it's not Helen's car at all. Then, the very next sequence is Dominic giving out mail, and as he ascends the stairs, the camera zooms in on the brown envelope, which we will soon discover is a letter from Helen to Nikki. But the way it's filmed, I don't know, it feels like it's almost a live thing, not an inanimate object.

Emotional Presence: Equally important is the letter's affect on Nikki, it's truly as if Helen as descended on Larkhall. Nikki was so sullen and depressed, and you just know she had been dragging her sorry sack self around for days. As she says many times later, Helen was always her hope, and this is the first we really see of it, because its the first time Helen reaches out to her and says "hey, I return your affection; I'm here for you." I'm trying to figure out a way to describe the experience of this moment without resorting to cliche, but I'm failing miserably. Dark cloud lifting, ray of sunshine, blah blah blah. How about: the oppressive walls of the prison momentarily disappear and the possibilities in Nikki's life seem limitless.

Power Struggle: As if the above weren't enough, in this episode Karen seems doomed to repeat the same struggles Helen has had with Stubberfield and Fenner. While at first it seems like Karen has far more of a handle on things than Helen did (her insistence that Stubberfield show her full support) once things with Shell flare up, Karen bangs her head into that very same brick wall that Helen did. In fact, her push for Stubberfield to continue the investigation against Jim even after Shell recants felt like deja vu--it was really a mirror of the discussion Helen had with Stubberfield in the previous episode.

The Power of the Word

In this episode, nearly every character seems preoccupied with whose word should be believed. Sylvia and Fenner, as well as the cop who interviews Fenner, all express frustration that a con's word is believed over a screw. They seem to think screw's word should have more power and authority than con's, no matter what the truth. In contrast, characters like Karen, Marilyn, and Helen are all concerned with the truth. Marilyn even makes a few bitter jokes about Fenner not caring about the truth, and Karen complains that Shell's recant shouldn't be believed, that there's evidence to support her previous accusations against Fenner.

I was trying to puzzle out what kind of statement the show was making about truth, and the power of testimony. At first I thought it was a gender thing (Helen, Karen and Marilyn all care about the truth; Fenner & Stubberfield don't)--but then how does that explain Sylvia's support for Fenner and for the screw's word over a con's word? And how does that explain Shell changing her story? But then I realized it's not really about gender, it's about power. Those who care primarily about power (Fenner, Stubberfield, Sylvia, Shell) don't care about what's true. They care about what will preserve their power and authority.

This is particularly notable because both Shell and Marilyn have lost all their power with Fenner's downfall--Marilyn is worried about being impoverished, Shell is no longer feared on the wing. Both are therefore willing to bend the truth (aka lie) in order to protect themselves. Marilyn writes the letter Fenner dictates, and Shell recants her accusation against Fenner.

In a way, truth is really a luxury that very few characters can afford. The ones who can afford it demonstrate extreme integrity: Helen and Karen. And in Helen's case, it costs her her job. That's some very expensive integrity.

The Trials and Tribulations of Julie J

The characters who TRULY cannot afford the truth are the Julies. In fact, I was struck by how almost sociopathic they are in this episode, with Julie J's fake tears to get permission to go to the funeral to see her kids. They will tell any story with a straight face in order to get what they want. We think of them as harmless, but their willingness to lie is matched only by Shell's I think. Shell is also abusive to others, which the Julies are not (well, except in extreme circumstances like in S4 or was it S5?), but the sociopathic survival technique is the same.

I was also intrigued to notice how early they developed Julie J's volatile psychology. Her actions at the end of S7 really ARE in character! In this episode, she's depressed about not being able to see her kids, and she actually attacks Sylvia--this from a character who didn't seem to have a violent or aggressive bone in her body. But over the years she consistently shows an aggressive violent streak when emotionally stressed. Kika Mirylees is really brilliant in showing the emotional angst Julie J is going through. The estrangement between Julie J and her kids in the visiting room is palpable, and then watching them get torn away is truly distressing.

The Weak Standing Up For Themselves

Are the screws untouchable? It seems so this episode, with Fenner managing to get his job back. But after the scene with Julie's kids in the visiting room, Yvonne says not, which is what leads to their mischief against Sylvia, pushing her down the stairs. And the way the episode ends, with Sylvia unconscious, it winds up feeling like a powerful statement by the cons, standing up against abuse.

This plays in to certain other characters who start standing up for themselves. Denny has no patience for Shell's romantic delusions, and she tells her so. Hard to imagine the Denny of S1 talking down to Shell in this way. Similarly, Dominic has a rant about bent screws where he shows far more courage and strength than he did in his tentative support of Helen in S1.

Just a few small commments; this reminded me of Shell's attack on Fenner at the end of the series & her desperate and doomed attempt to get the truth--in writing. And for him to sign it. It's all rather painful; it's a 'confession' under extreme duress so it's meaningless, and it's not, of course, really very 'true' to begin with, factually, although it's certainly the case Shell both feels it to be true, emotionally and that it is true for her, cumulatively, when understanding her relationships with men. But then... Shell & Truth have a, ahm, to borrow from another title thread, somewhat contested relationship to begin with. ;)

And I'd have to add Dominic; of all the S1 characters, he's the one who most simply can't stomach both being a man in a woman's prison and just doing this particular job in these particular circumstances--as you go on to discuss further down the post.

I hadn't noticed the significance of the red car, I don't think I really noticed it at all to be honest. And I have never realised that the close-up of the envelope was of any relevance. All this makes me think of a point we have dicussed previously: Shed wanting Helen (and Simone) in the show. Even though Simone does not feature in this episode, do you think the producers were trying to make a point with te opening of this episode? Like; you can't get rid of her that easily?

I agree that this is where we first see that ray of hope that Nikki sees in Helen. And because it's so soon after she resigned, it gives it more effect; Helen really does care and she felt she had no other option. In the Discussion thread for Ep2, we thoroughly discussed the infamous"Shit Happens" line from Helen and how it was either cruel or softened by the tone of voice or whatever. I think the blow of "Shit Happens" was softened considerably by this letter - we don't know what was in writing but I think we can safely say that Helen explained herself in the letter and it made Nikki understand Helen's actions and she seemed to cheer up considerably afterward.

I found Julie's story in this ep so heart-wrenching. Being seperated from your kids has got to be tough, and when she finally gets to see them, Bodybag ruins it for them. Some may argue that Bodybag was doing her job - the visit was in breach of a court order - but I saw it as more spite than anything. I loved how Yvonne stood up to her, saying, "Leave 'em alone you fat cow", and all this leading up to Sylvia's "fall" down the stairs. I thought it was brilliant.

This is very interesting to note. Like you say, when we think of the Julies we think that they're these non-violent, mum-type women. I love how the writer's have characterised them and made their violence very subtle. And because they're not overly-violent 24/7, it makes their outbursts all the more fasinating.

Like I said before, I thought this was brilliant. And I would have to agree with your statement, Abzug: this is a very powerful statement. And I think what makes it more powerful is the fact that quite a few of the girls got involved, not just the ones who had been personally got at by Hollamby, or the ones who were present in the visitor's room. The Julies and Yvonne are the ones you'd expect to be there, and to be part of this plan. But having Nikki, Zandra and Crystal taking part as well, they're showing us that the cons really do stick together and stand up for what they believe in - together.

I've very much liked the 'themed' posts which have been used to examine the narrative as if in terms of life looked at sideways

Fenner - family man?

I have used this to pick up on threads from the last couple of episodes where we see Fenner, the 'hard working' provider working long hours and expecting gratitude when he gets home. There is a sort of superficial respectability and ordinariness (including phone call from his mother) that is a million miles over our awareness of the other side of him. Marilyn's parting shot of 'the shirts aren't ironed' when she flung his case at him in Episode 1 sums it up. Later on, he posed as a happily married man for the purpose of the police.

[/B] Shell- in love with Fenner?

This was always something that had slightly puzzled me as her attitude to Fenner seemed self serving and you got the feeling that you believed it- as opposed to Denny's rightful scepticism, and she was supposed to be the dim one. It was also interesting that the Julies who saw him as 'their favourite screw' - the man who would patiently deal with their minor problems , had inadvertantly driven Shell into Fenner's direction. You do see that Shell wasn't the 'top dog' that she had always thought - one because of Yvonne's takeover and two because she hadn't seen how Fenner's 'protection' kept her in her position. When she realises how Fenner has double crossed her, it sets up for what is to come.

[B]How Times Change
The entrance of Di from the perspective of later on is quite startling as she wasn't the twisted, vindictive woman and was also a bit of a progressive, being visibly irritated by Bodybag's behaviour.

Likewise, you see Karen in her natural position of aligned with Helen and at daggers drawn with Fenner- " I don't trust you' has that ring of irony for what is to come.

Odds and Sods

This episode shows Helen's shadow presence with Nikki as Abzug very accurately describes and the other side of Nikki who mucks in with the others. It is interesting how Shell and Yvonne battle for who is to be top dog, Nikki and Yvonne accommodate each other.

On a more technical note, I noticed that at the start of the series, Karen was senior officer (along with Bodybag) while Fenner was principal officer. When Karen got her job as wing governor as a 'double promotion' she leapfrogged the hierarchy and leaving Bodybag behind (while Fenner was suspended). It does account for some initial animosity and also the delights of the scene where Karen lays down the law to the wing, especially Bodybag.

On a minor note, when Fenner came back on the wing, I've always associated him with a visual impression of the return of Richard 'Tricky Dicky' Nixon.

Lastly, is the totally memorable shot of Julie J, Zandra, Yvonne, Nikki and Crystal all grouped together, hard faced at their victory and here I must pay tribute to Ekny's study of camera angles. In a perfectly naturalistic fashion, the camera looks up through Karen's vision up the flight of stairs and show them as having the strength- incidentally Bodybag 'falling down the stairs' is an equally memorable moment.

Well, this episode starts propitiously with Dominic bringing some glad tidings to Nikki, who's had to put up with rubbish of late. Helen must've written something nice since her forlorn look is replaced with a smile. I must say Nikki looks quite...um...very tasty here. Helen with her disappearing act is missing this!

Speaking of easy on the eyes, Dominic is finally standing up to the battle-ax Hollamby by telling her to stop "bitching about" :clap not just a pretty face.

We're subjected to still more distateful Fenner/Shell drama :eek while Karen and Stubby are arguing who is more believable. What a farce!

The mother-daughter duo of Yvonne and Lauren have done their good deed of the day by helping Julie.J meet her kids. Do-gooders during the day and gansters by night? OK, just kidding!

We get to see the evil incarnate Bodybag in action when she separates JJ from her children. The whole scenario was really difficult to watch. It's one thing for BB to be mean to the adults they can handle it, but to treat the children in this callous manner is just too much to bear.

This is a key observation, because it paints such a clear picture of society's hypocrisy. It just occurred to me now that it's no accident that this emphasis on Fenner as a family man comes at the same time as the blowup around Julie J's kids. The show has cleverly tricked the audience into rooting for a prostitute to be reunited with her kids, and against a hard-working civil servant.

I also think that Fenner himself actually believes in the facade. Like, no matter what he's done at Larkhall, he still thinks of himself as a hard-working, solid family man who takes care of his wife and kids, supports his family etc. You could imagine a situation where after all the business with Shell, he leaves Marilyn and his kids behind. But he doesn't--he wants to stay in the marriage (well, for a few more episodes at least), and I have to believe that he wants this because it's how he manages to keep up the feeling of respectability. As he puts it, why would he ever dump his wife to be with a "slut" like Shell? I go back and forth between thinking he believes in it himself, and thinking it's just important to him what other people think.

I never liked the shift to the twisted Di. For S3 it was marginally believable, but after that it became completely melodramatic and repetitive.

Nice observation. I love when all the pieces are tied together like this. It makes for such rewarding viewing. And they do it so naturally, without artifice, so nothing feels forced or overly deliberate.

If you google sociopath or sociopathic + personality traits (and/or 'lying') you'll find hundreds of pages w/the same basic summaries of character traits, almost all of which align with Fenner across the board. However ott they might have gone with him in later seasons, it's evident Shed had a very clear sense of his makeup from the start. Just read through any random page. Fenner strikes me as a combination of 2 of the four main types, common & aggressive. Lack of conscience, risk-taking behavior, aggressive sexuality including rape & battering, deceitful, reckless, unable to distinguish between their 'emotions' and normal emotions, lack of conscience/remorse etc etc etc. (This is as apart from psychopaths & APD (antisocial personality disorder)--which is much more generic around 'criminal' or antisocial behavior & heavily disputed anyway.)

They've done as much as they could--more than, in fact--with a character who by definition lacks depth. It's an interesting plot problem to have that sort of char be 'ongoing'. Imo Fenner believes his emotions to be real but we don't care because we know they're not. Anyone with such shallow affect is eventually going to *have* to be reduced to a plot device: can they serve other purposes? I mean, save reflecting greater depths of those around them or act as a monkeywrench? It's not a rhetorical question, I'm curious.

There have been a lot of interesting points raised and a number that I'd overlooked.

First off, I hadn't considered the red Parceline van entering Larkhall the way that Abzug interpreted but an opening scene has been Helen's Peugeot car coming to work. The extraordinary thing about Julie J's outburst at Bodybag is how untypical it seemed of her but this is a motif that Shed kept recurring so that even Julie S never noticed it creeping up on her until Series 7 and the scene of a distraught Julie J separated from her kids is revisited to such powerful effect by Series 7.

The whole scene of her children visiting her was very heart rendingly played and the actress who played Rhiannon depicted the way the light went out of her face when Julie J told them the truth.

Abzug has pushed the theme about Fenner as a family man far beyond my post and makes a brilliant point in terms of engaging audiences sympathies, him or the Julies and, yes, they are quite capable of pulling the wool over the eyes of the unsuspecting as Shell, except that it is in a 'good cause' so it gets overlooked.

As badgirlnuts says quite correctly, Dominic has certainly become more forceful as he has gone along and has the measure of Bodybag by now.

Ekny throws up an interesting question about just how Fenner's personality meshes in terms with plot development. My preliminary stab at this one is that those who are capable of having real feelings and sympathy with others will interact and situations develop as a result of them. Also, the audience being of like mind will understand and feel how this happens. With Fenner, it is as if the motor necessary to a human being just isn't there and consequences just happen- what he says is out of sync with how he feels.

Hi Richard, thanx for noticing my post. :)

The thing about Fenner is that if only Marilyn was more scandalized by what Fenner had done, not only cheat on her and lie to her but also brutally kick the life out of Shell but her keeping schtum afterwards is the real tragedy here. :eek Because he goes on to do more harm to other prisoners later on, that is the egregious part of the whole sick drama.

I found this troubling as well. She clearly thinks he's the scum of the earth. She kicked him out, and told him not to come back, even to sleep on the couch. So why didn't she stand up for herself a little more? I think she WAS scandalized, but that other factors came into play. Concerns for her family's financial well-being is the primary one. She's a stay-at-home mom, and probably wonders where the mortgage payment and food money will come from if she's divorced and her husband is unemployed or in prison. She probably expected to be able to divorce Fenner but still get alimony/child support. But he convinces her that he won't have a job at all, and without that, she has no way to support herself.

I think this is one of the ways the show explores the variety of ways all the characters are imprisoned. Fenner because he has no skills and therefore no opportunity to get a job outside the prison service. Marilyn because she can't support her family without her husband's income. And as you point out, badgirlsnuts, Marilyn's feelings of imprisonment/powerlessness and her resulting collusion with Fenner lead to FAR worse things for many people down the road.

The irony abt Fenner, which we might have mentioned in passing before, is that he'd've been probably fine, or at least a lot better, if he'd just worked for a men's prison. No women to abuse.

Yeah, but that's like saying if Fenner wasn't a sociopath, he'd be fine. He chose to work in a women's prison for a reason: he gets off on dominating and abusing women. He didn't just end up at Larkhall through sheer coincidence.

This discussion definitely brings out aspects of the episode I never considered before. The only point I disagree with a couple people about is the scene where Bodybag gets pushed down the stairs. She was at her worst in the episode, and I didn't exactly shed a tear. But we're talking about premeditated (attempted) murder.

BG definitely muddies the ethical waters. We come to love a cop killer and despise several civil servants, for instance, and that's part of the show's depth and complexity. But for me, this scene crossed the line. Yvonne could push Bodybag, and it would fit her character and the violence we came to accept as part of her behavior. But Crystal? And Nikki ... Nikki is the moral pivot for the show. She stages a sit-in, not a riot. She yells at Helen, she doesn't hit her. She pulls Shell's hair and she knocks down the crazy woman, but she never comes close to trying to kill someone. And while in her most desperate moment it's true she killed a policeman, it was done in defense of the woman she loved and only after all other options (breaking a bottle over his head) had failed.

So for me, it was disturbing (and maybe this is what the writers wanted) to have characters who are basically good and moral try to kill an older woman — and then have that act seen as a little humorous and terribly righteous. They lost me there ... though of course I came back for the next episode, and the next. :)

Mm... yeah but we don't know enough about his backstory to say. I'm hardly defending the character, just observing a lot of sociopaths aren't remotely criminal. Or abusive. They make very successful businessmen, heads of corporations, etc. (Of course those may well be generically Bad but that's another argument.) Point is only with a different educational background he might have worked successfully w/in some other structure & not been a total creep. In a men's prison, he'd have no women to abuse, & he does indeed know his jailcraft. But here he's let loose in the candy shop. We don't actually get much backstory within the show for anyone about how much say they have over where they're positioned.

Ekny beat me to it in pointing out that sociopaths do end up in "respectable" areas of life. All it takes is that quality of being unable to treat someone else as a human being and to sympathise/ empathise with them, to have any real feelings of guilt but the defining mark is to see a human being as a thing to be manipulated. As the tail end of Series 6 says, the policeman says of the CTV film clippage that Fenner looks like Tony Blair- and sounds like him in terms of fake emotions ready to be wheeled out where appropriate. He's never killed anyone personally, it's just that......... Sorry for that detour.

Returning to Fenner, the BG book mentions that his previous experience is in the Army so the male bonding 'old boys network' fits to a T. I also accept that he does know his jailcraft- credit must be given to him in the tessa Spall episode and Shed did right in not portraying him as a bumbling incompetent. It's just that he is a cynic and his mind is closed to the flexible, very adventurous approach of Helen and further handicapped by his paranoia.

Back to the points about Marilyn, I certainly understand the feeling of 'if only she'd stuck to her guns' but I entirely accept Abzug's reasons as to why Marilyn helped him heep his job

Very good point raised by suchfun about Bodybag falling down the stairs.I take the points about the intentions. At the time, my sensitivities to the incident were bluntened because I knew someone at work like Bodybag except a lot worse than her. In retrospect, Shed walked the line because the fact that Bodybag ended up with a neck injury made for comic moments later on and also as a statement on the worst thing possible, the gratuitous separation of a mother from her children.

I was disturbed by this too, the first time I saw it, but I think less so than you. I think I was less disturbed primarily because I didn't think they were trying to kill Bodybag. It's very rare for someone to die from falling down stairs. They have to fall just so, and break their neck. So to me, they were just trying to hurt her, make her feel unstable and uneasy more than anything. I suspect they would have been surprised if she had even broken any bones.

I also think that (as you mentioned), the writers WANTED us to be disturbed, because they were trying to show that this kind of behavior is a natural response for abused, powerless people. Other than Yvonne, none of the women involved were the type to push someone down the stairs. But life in Larkhall (and Sylvia's specifically abusive, dehumanizing behavior) had inspired them to do it. It's an example of prison engendering criminal behavior, and therefore to me it made me more critical of prison as a (non-rehabilitative) system, than it made me critical of the women who participated in pushing Sylvia.

Thanks for that one, abzug. I hadn't really questioned the scene until suchfun asked the very valid question which deserved a carefully thought out response. this follows on from the good point made that the viewer is invited to sympathise with the plight of Julie Johnson in this episode as well as this scene and not with fenner's situation. It challenges what you might call conventional or accepted morality as Larkhall is such a distorted version of what goes on in the world though not too much for valid comparisons to be made.

"it made me more critical of prison as a (non-rehabilitative) system, than it made me critical of the women who participated in pushing Sylvia." quote from Abzug.

This comment prompted me to add in "The Comfy Sofa" 'Stuff about prisons' a very damning report by a former chief of Britain's prison service of the situation today which backs this quote to the hilt.

BUMP
I'm away from home working and no tv where I'm staying. I'm assuming LOGO showed this epi last night. No?
From memory then, a short rant before I have to get back to work. What's with the timeline in this episode? From what I can tell, Helen would of had to posted that letter on her way out of Larkhall for Nikki to get it already. Ok, maybe a weekend went by. This is why...the following scene, Stubblefield tells Karen there's been some changes and promotes here. This would have happened immediatley. Stubby needs a wing gov in Helen's absence. He hired Karen originally as a back up to Helen the book learned upstart. Editorially, the Karen scene could have come first, but suppose Shed wanted to comfirm with the audience right away that Helen was gone except for in Nikki's heart.

I don't remember where we discussed this--besides the Timeline thread, of course!--but I seem to recall there's a pretty broad consensus here that it was, in fact, posted immediately because the card did basically arrive only a matter of days later. --e

LOL, sorry ekny, I'm on a year plus late to the party hereon the board and all the great discussion , but hey, it turns out I was a day early on the LOGO broadcast. That would be tonight. Latter then.

Ah, no worries solitasolano--we wouldn't all be here if we didn't love going over this stuff again and again. I think the theory I came up with is that Helen quit on a Friday, sent the letter right away (that night? the next morning?), it arrived on, let's say, Monday, and that was the first day the main crew was all back at work, and the first day Stubberfield was back at work, so that's why the announcement didn't happen until a few days after Helen quit. It's a bit of a stretch, but of course they wanted the audience to know Helen was still there, emotionally/spiritually speaking, before breaking the news that she wasn't.

I don't really see "rooting for the cons over the civil servant" as a matter of the show challenging morality conventional morality. I see conventional or accepted morality as leading to why we sympathize with the cons.

Or maybe I think better of people, than I ought to? Do the majority of people say, "Well, doesn't matter what happens to them, afterall, they did something bad to end up in there." I mean, if you pour over that statement with most moral codes, it is an immoral statement to make.

What I see is the show informing about and challenging a system that is a treatment for a symptom (crime) and not a cure for (the motivation to commit crime). It challenges a society that turns a blind eye to what is going on in prison or to people that would say the inmates are less than human. It challenges stereotypes, obviously. Convential morality is that stereotypes are immoral and presumptious.

It is because my "convential morality", not too mention life experiences, that sympathize with a group of abused women, looking over their fight, flight, & do nothing options and making choices.

No, I don't sympathize with people that mentally, physically and/or emotionally purposefully torment other people. Nor, do I feel I'm supposed to "condone or approve" of what the inmates did. I feel I'm supposed to understand. Which really, I understand all too well, because Ilived in an ongoing daily hell of mental, physical & emotional abuse.

Now, I think I'll just follow my own principles, which rather align with the absent's Scottish Guv's example when dealing with behavior of others that conflicts with her principles (something like conventional morality).

I consider all the following to be dodgy & unacceptable behavior/actions:
-making the stairs slick
-purposefully harming another human being
-trying to avoid consequences of responsibility for one's actions by framing it as an accident
-being an accomplice to the crime
-holding grudges
-getting revenge

However, it is because I understand the motivation & the situation, I'd forgive them. Which is generally what Helen does, regarding actions she doesn't condone, though not until she's cooled a bit. That's the distinction for me. What Bodybag did is wrong. What they did is wrong. The womens' motivation is so different than Bodybags, though. Although, if Bodybag knew how to repent and reform, I'd be willing to forgive her.

I do sympathize with Fenner's kids and to a lesser extent his wife. It's not his kids fault that their father is a creep.

This is a very interesting twist on our discussion. I totally see what you're getting at. And in certain ways I think you're right: the show doesn't truly challenge moral assumptions or beliefs, or not in a particularly radical way. Perhaps the most radical moral message the show implies is with Nikki's "You do what you want to do, what you feel" in the signposts scene with Helen.

However, I do think that there are many people in the world who think if someone commits a crime and gets sent to prison, that they essentially forfeit all rights as a moral being in our society. That's where the "it doesn't matter what happens to them" perspective you mention comes into play. So it's almost like correcting the morality of the audience members who might have written off prison inmates. Getting them to care what happens to inmates, and even to be sympathetic (or at least comprehend) why inmates might engage in criminal behavior (like the stair push).

It seemed to me that Fenner's belief that he could not get another job is really related to his insecurity ... the hallmark of a bully. His power as a guard is what defines him and what motivates him. The fact that he is a misynogist just adds fuel to the fire ... it's what he needs to validate himself and his subsequent actions.

Oh wow! This reminded me of an experience I had a couple of years ago when I was facilitating group sessions in a male prison back here in South Africa. Thinking back on that experience, I have to admit that I started sympathising with the cons, not about their crimes, but about how screwed some of their outlooks on life was. Some of them truly believed they had the right to commit their crime, that the system failed them and they had no choice in the matter. When confronted with such a situation it is very difficult to attempt to get the person to gain some insight into their behaviour, which was further complicated by the fact that people have different sets of moral values. In my role as psychologist I had no right to force my moral believes and values onto someone else, people just view things differently. We all have a universal moral code that for example informs us that killing someone else is wrong, but when you get down to detail, and how a moral belief/value colours your life, it differs from person to person. The line in BG was so finely drawn, that I never felt judgmental towards any of the cons, but I did feel judgemental towards some of the screws! They were the persons who were supposed to be on the right side of the law, that we as non-cons, actually had to identify with, but I just couldn't (excluding of course screws like Dom). The way they used their "morals" to abuse the system was just plain wrong!

I find it difficult to find the moral message in "you do what you want, what you feel". As humans we have higher order thinking, which sometimes prohibits us from doing what we feel. This is totally out of context with what those words were suppose to mean, but if I feel like hitting someone, my higher order thinking and moral code informs me that it is wrong and most of the time against the law. I would therefore not give in to my urge and rather walk away from the situation. Sometimes easier said than done, granted.

I've always felt that Shed wrote 'Bad Girls' against the context of right wing views on justice as exemplified by the famous 'short sharp shock' that the then Conservative government believed in and Monica's speech on her release on appeal was their full blown statement. With the way the prison system is now bursting at the seams, Bad Girls has certainly not exhausted all the scope for socially critical drama or made is purely a historical document.
What Shed say in essence is that people have reasons for what they do and pushing a prison officer down some deliberately slippery steps looks terrible in isolation but the context of how it happens makes a big difference.
Shed write enough backstory on the individual prisoners to explain just why different people have different values that can go all the way to the sociopathic. The storyline of Shell and Denny terrorising the Hollambys show essentially that 'what goes around comes around' and does make uncomfortable watching where Shell Dockley,who is a victim to some extent, will victimise anyone around who will let her.
Then again, Shed also features institutional life, both for prisoners and prison officers and is at painst to show that , as Nikki says 'what screws are supposed to do and what they will do are two different things. Criminal isn't it.'
To take this further, I have found the character of Bodybag immediately believable after working with someone once who was very like her except for being more cunning and manipulative.

I view Bodybag as the epitome of right wing attitudes and rhetoric, and in "BG speak" the symbol of injustice. The inmates were saying "...we're mad as hell, and we're not going to take it anymore..."

Under those conditions, pushing Bodybag down the stairs was symbolic of their rebellion (moral outrage) against the injustice done to a woman and her innocent children and not intended as a criminal act. Bodybag wasn't killed, so the injustice lives on to make their daily lives a misery. Bodybag as misanthrope? Probably. Depends on your view of the far right.

I'm not sure Nikki's pronouncement about "...you're not normal, you're not abnormal ... you do what you want, you do what you feel ..." is particularly radical. Her backstory has her being thrown out of the house at 16 because of her "deviant behavior". She makes her own way, she and Trisha are successful business women etc, etc. She is perhaps the most moral person of the whole lot, and everything she believes in is true to that innate morality. I think it seems radical because there is no institutionalized version of the thought process itself. I didn't say that very well; I'll have to think about it some more.

Oh, yeah, you're absolutely right. I'm sorry if above I gave the impression that I thought it was radical. I guess I was trying to point out that that kind of moral philosophy (the best way to live is to be true to your heart's desire), is not one that is embraced by conservatives. Nor by Conservatives.

But it is the kind of moral philosophy upon which the gay rights movement is based. Gay people think they should be able to live openly in same sex relationships because being with someone of the same sex means they can be in love, and live happy, fulfilled lives. But right wingers think that two people of the same sex being together is an abomination, not just towards god, but towards a moral, stable society. So even if a person has the inclination to fall in love with someone of the same sex, and they could live a happy fulfilled life in a gay relationship, that is unimportant, next to the moral imperative to follow the laws laid out in the bible and our society.

I like your ideas about Bodybag as the embodiment of the right wing; they definitely ring true to me. I think many of the so-called evil characters represent some cultural or political viewpoint which the writers are trying to undermine.

Yankeelady, that is a very good point. I also think, the symbolism and such, because we are watching a show, rather than watching the actual situation, gives us the distance to see this.

I think if we were a Prison Officer, no matter how much I might be aware of & disagree about how Bodybag went around her job, then I'd probably have been bricking it about what they did. I'd be worried it would be happening to someone else next time for less reason. Even if I had thought it was an accident, I'd imagine as a PO, I'd feel might uncomfortable looking up at all those hard faces.

Out of context, the next statement probably is going to seem a bit odd, but I think if I included my response to the discussion of "you do what you wat, you do what you feel . . .", then I'm going to get wildly off topic. Basically, I wouldn't have used sin, but the "off topic" is about that statement and how BG and SHED handled the arguement with the right wing with regards to homosexuality. I will look for or create a suitable thread for that discussion, when I've finished putting down those thoughts in a coherant manner.

I'd say that Shed and the show Bad Girls, does highlight a great deal about the fact we are all sinners (the good and bad in all the characters) and how many sins are done under the guise of "reforming and punishing the sinners against society." Bad Girls really nails depicting how sinful or immoral treatment of the inmates leads to the inmates using sinful or immoral retaliation; Wrongs lead to more wrongs, like Bodybag going down the stairs.

It's striking how the shot of the prisoners ominously looking down the stairs toward Bodybag (and the camera) so resembles the final images of Hitchcock's Notorious, the film with Ingrid Bergman (first crush on a female celebrity), Cary Grant (another crush), and Claude Rains (no crush there).

Brings back my high school obsession with that film, for which I transcribed the entire script from my dinky portable cassette player.

Ah, how times change. Or not.

rivergal

Hitch had a thing about stairs. He first used that shot in the Lodger. Stairs feature in a bunch of his movies. Psycho, Frenzy, Shadow of a Doubt. Check with Jeanna, she'll know the whole list!

ETA: er, perhaps I should amend that: H had a thing about a LOT of things. :rofl

...blondes, mothers, keys, stairs, birds, nausea, eyeglasses, food, bathrooms, voyeurs...

Vertigo!

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...clergymen, policemen, heights...