Search results
The first popular prison imagery came in the form of Hollywood films, which gave audience members a glimpse of the prison routine, while following the journey of a new inmate. While these movies are the most iconic images of prison, in today’s media landscape representations of prison life can be found in a variety of places.
- Dawn K. Cecil
- 2017
The popular American television drama series, Prison Break, which ran continuously and with great success for four seasons from 2005-2008, emerges as a momentous location for an intellectual debate with the theoretical expositions on justice and punishment and their place in popular culture.
- Roshni Sengupta
- Characteristics of A Prison Film
- Characters in Prison Films
- Plot Themes in Prison Films
- Representations of Women’s Imprisonment
- Absent Realities in Prison Dramas
- Damaging Depictions Or A Tool For Reform?
- Questions
Given the wealth of films and television dramas featuring the prison in some way, there are challenges involved in determining what constitutes a ‘prison film’. Scholars have debated the remit and characteristics of the prison film genre; is it simply that the prison must feature in the film, that the film is based inside prison, or that the film i...
While the ‘worst of the worst’ are evident in many prison films and dramas, Rafter (2006: 164) argues that the range of characters featured stretches beyond this, with numerous ‘staple’ characters often including: In contrast to the emphasis on the most dangerous or serious ‘offenders’, another popular feature of prison films and dramas is the stru...
Frequently, plots of prison films involve a jailbreak or prison escape. Popular films Escape from Alcatraz (1979), Papillon (2017), Midnight Express (1978), The Great Escape (1963) and The Shawshank Redemption (1994) all feature efforts to escape imprisonment as central to their plots, while the series Prison Break (2005–2017) has five seasons all ...
Most popular representations of imprisonment are based on the adult, male prisoner experience (O’Sullivan, 2001), while prison staff as central characters are also often male. As such, the experiences of women are less visible in dramatic representations. Where prison films about women have existed, these have often been part of the ‘Babes-Behind-B...
While these characters and plot devices might help to delineate the prison film genre, the centrality of exceptional or dramatic themes often comes at the expense of dealing with core realities of prison life. As such, ‘dramatic products may help create a view of the world as much by what they leave out as through what they include’ (Wilson & O’Sul...
As discussed above, there are many criticisms of popular depictions of imprisonment, with scholars noting the damage that can be done through putting ‘into circulation’ particular interpretations and understandings of the prison (O’Sullivan, 2001). An important question then is whether such representations have any meaningful impact on prison refor...
Does representation trump reality in the public consciousness surrounding imprisonment?Do popular representations of the prison normalise imprisonment?Nov 16, 2017 · A number of participants described the experience of leaving prison as a “culture shock”—that is, entry to a world where social rules are suddenly unfamiliar and hard to judge. This shock could be crippling for those leaving long stretches. Louie Bell, for example, described being totally disoriented after release from a twelve-year sentence:
- Liam Martin
- 2018
Jun 29, 2015 · From prison camp escapes to the Underground Railroad, popular culture is rife with stories of prisoners escaping their captors. For the most part, however, those prisoners are the good guys. In ...
These inter-disciplinary and dynamic essays offer an important intervention in the field for students and practitioners and of prisons, criminal justice, criminology and media culture. At the same time this book engages with what might be termed the 'cultural turn' of criminology and offers an original contribution to discussion of the relationship between prison, public and government.
People also ask
Are prison images based on mediated experiences in popular culture?
What are some examples of Prisons in popular culture?
How important are prison references in popular culture?
Is popular prison imagery a lesson about prison?
What media culture references a prison?
Are prison films based on a prison escape?
Feb 13, 2018 · The fantasy of escape does not only play out in the minds of prisoners and guards: it is a mega-narrative of popular culture, which feeds a public proclivity to absorb escapes as an iconic figure of the dangerous-cum-heroic through global entertainment products like the TV series Prison Break—sometimes based on true stories , sometimes not. What kind of popular representations of law ...
