Women in prison film

Women in prison film (or WiP) is a subgenre of exploitation film that began in the late 1960s and continues to the present day.

Their stories feature imprisoned women who are subjected to sexual and physical abuse, typically by sadistic male or female prison wardens, guards and other inmates. The genre also features many films in which imprisoned women engage in lesbian sex.

WiP films are works of fiction intended as pornography. The flexible format, and the loosening of film censorship laws in the 1960s, allowed filmmakers to depict more extreme fetishes, such as voyeurism (strip searches, group shower scenes, catfights), sexual fantasies (lesbianism, rape, sexual slavery), fetishism (bondage, whipping, degradation), and sadism (beatings, torture, cruelty).

Prior to these films, the only expression of pornographic women in prison was found in "true adventure" men's magazines such as Argosy in the 1950s and 1960s, although it is possible that Denis Diderot's novel The Nun anticipated the genre. Nazis tormenting damsels in distress were particularly common in these magazines.

Prison film

A prison film is a film genre concerned with prison life and often prison escape. These films range from acclaimed dramas examining the nature of prisons, such as Cool Hand Luke, Brubaker, Escape from Alcatraz, The Shawshank Redemption, and Kiss of the Spider Woman to actioners like Lock Up and Undisputed, and even comedies satirizing the genre like Stir Crazy, Life, and Let's Go To Prison.

Themes repeatedly visited in the action films include escape attempts, gang activities inside the prison, and an entire subgenre of films where the toughest prisoners are permitted (or forced) to engage in boxing matches or martial arts bouts, replete with high-stakes wagering on the outcomes. These elements may be meshed together, where for example a prisoner forced to fight uses the occasion to plan an escape.

POW films

Prison films set during war have become a popular subgenre known as prisoner of war film.

See also

References

Prison (1949 film)

Prison (Swedish: Fängelse) is a 1949 Swedish drama film directed by Ingmar Bergman.

Cast

External links

Women in Prison (TV series)

Women in Prison is an American television sitcom created by Katherine Green which aired on Fox from October 11, 1987 to April 2, 1988.

Synopsis

Set in cell-block J of the Bass Women's prison in Wisconsin, the show focuses on the interactions among the prison inmates. The show's cast include Peggy Cass, Julia Campbell, Antoinette Byron, Blake Clark, Denny Dillon, CCH Pounder, and Wendie Jo Sperber.

Campbell stars as Vicki Springer, an overachieving yuppie, who was brought to Bass Women's Prison for supposedly shoplifting (she had been actually framed on the charge by her scheming no-good husband), where she had to deal with the inmates. Eve Shipley (Cass) was the old lady prisoner, having been there for almost 10 years and was kind of the old hand prisoner, helping others get used to the routine; Dawn Murphy (Pounder) was a bad tempered African-American woman who had murdered her abusive husband; and Bonnie Harper (Byron) was in for prostitution.

Vickie, Eve, Dawn and Bonnie all shared a cell, while, in a nearby cell of her own, complete with computer access, was Pam (Sperber), who was, not surprisingly, in prison for computer fraud. They all had to contend with guard Meg Bando (Dillon), who didn't like the prisoners, and vice versa, and the assistant warden, Clint Rafferty (Clark), for whom Vicki worked as a secretary (for her prison job) and to whom he was attracted.