The Underrated Piper Chapman

Jenji Kohan, the creator of Netflix’s Orange is the New Black, has spoken in interviews about how main character Piper Chapman is in some senses a “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,” Kohan told Terry Gross on Fresh Air. “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.”

(minor spoilers below)

Indeed this vision has become more fully realized in season 2, which was released last month. Piper is entirely absent from the second episode, “Looks Blue, Tastes Red,” and when she returns to the Lichfield prison, she is far less of a focal point than in the first season. With the introduction of new characters like Vee, the show has become far more about chronicling all of characters in the prison and examining the institution itself than Piper’s journey. This development is welcome and has elevated OITNB. 

Piper is often unlikeable, deliberately so. She practically wears her privilege on her sleeve (see “17 Of The Whitest Things Piper Chapman Said In Orange Is The New Black”), tone deaf in the extreme when she first starts her sentence. She has advantages in prison that many of the inmates of color lack, as the second season arc in which she gets a temporary furlough demonstrates.

Yet these stories are increasingly in the background. The conflict between Red and Vee, Taystee and Poussey’s relationship, and Rosa’s cancer all feature more prominently in the second season’s final episodes.

Some might argue that at this stage the show would be better off abandoning Piper entirely. Aura Bogado harshly criticized Kohan in The Nation for approaching prison through the eyes of a privileged white woman in its first season, and my podcast partner Mark Lieberman more modestly mentioned recently that he could see the show eventually moving beyond Piper.

The almost universal opposition to the continued featuring of characters more present in Piper’s former life like Larry and Polly could logically extend to eventually phasing out Piper herself.

I don’t share that perspective. Eliminating those characters from Piper’s life makes a lot more sense for a character who changed behind bars than eliminating Piper from OITNB does for the show.

Piper may be merely a trojan horse, but Kohan and actress Taylor Schilling have made her interesting in her own right. What’s still ahead in Piper’s journey remains compelling, even it's just one in a number of ongoing character arcs.

It’s worth mentioning that the average Netflix viewer (this one included) more closely resembles a white person of means like Piper than other inmates like Taystee, Red, or Daya. Just as Piper tells boyfriend Larry in the first season to forgo watching the latest season of Mad Men until she is out of prison so they can watch it together, one can just as easily imagine a real-world version of Piper telling her fiancee to hold off on watching the latest season of OITNB.

This matters because it makes the injustices that are regular elements of prison life resonate more deeply. The first season episode “Fucksgiving” includes Piper’s first stint in solitary confinement (“the SHU”). While the specter of solitary has been mentioned previously before by other characters who have experienced it, the first direct depiction doesn’t come until Piper is sent there. It’s a powerful testament to the inherent inhumanity of the practice.  

Yet while the show is a favorite of the young liberal crowd, discussed on the MSNBC programs of both Chris Hayes and Melissa-Harris Perry upon its premiere, as a political statement is it much more cautious. Solitary confinement aside, it has mostly adhered closer to a “few bad apples” view of prison-related corruption (*) than of prison itself as an inherently corrupt institution worthy of reform or abolition.

Which brings us back to Piper. Kohan will have a decision to make, but also an opportunity, when Piper completes her 15-month sentence (**). It can phase Piper out of OITNB entirely (or nearly entirely) or follow her journey on the outside as she attempts to build a life for herself in the real world (***).

Perhaps one of the most damaging aspects of incarceration in the U.S. is how difficult it is to reintegrate into society upon release. Employment discrimination against convicted criminals in legal. Recidivism rates in this country are high, representing a failure of the criminal justice system and making a mockery of its supposed rehabilitation mission.

A show dedicated to exploring the full reality of prison should depict this. OITNB has done this to an extent with Taystee’s brief, jarring release in season 1 and showing Alex’s life on the outside in season 2. But those have been fleeting portrayals and as with solitary confinement, would be more resonant with a Netflix audience with more screen time and Piper experiencing those hardships.

I’ll still enjoy Orange Is The New Black and watching the other great characters Kohan has developed if Piper departs for good. But the potential narrative avenues to be explored by keeping her around make it the wisest course of action.

(*) See characters like Pornstache, an abusive guard, and Fig, an administrator who is embezzling money.

(**) It’s mentioned in the penultimate episode of Season 2 that Piper has eight months remaining on her sentence. At the show’s current pace, her release should come either in the third or in a hypothetical fourth season.

(***) In theory Piper’s sentence could be lengthened, but considering that she somewhat miraculously escaped serious consequences for beating Pennsatucky, I see this as unlikely.