Lessons from Shawshank: Outlaws, Lawmen and the Spectacle of Punishment
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. As Seen on TV
Much of the magic of cinema lies in the medium’s power to give us something other than life as is…Movies do not merely offer us the opportunity to reimagine the culture we most intimately know on the screen, they create culture.
2.1. Introducing the Cast: Les Misérables
2.2. The Archetypal Outlaw
2.3. The Archetypal Lawman
Javert, embodies all that is hostile to the principle of giving offenders second chances…he represents both the long shadow of imprisonment, and the impossibility of ever becoming free of its influence or stigma, and the diffusion of penal authority into every crevice of public life.
2.4. Repackaged and Resold
In a lot of ways Piper was my 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. 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.
3. The Archetypal Prison
3.1. Prison-as-Penance
“I completed all the programs. I followed the rules. But I still wound up back in prison.”
3.2. Prison as a Playground
Imagination tends to be taken on a sensational journey into spaces where the false and the fictional arise victorious from the ashes of the real. Prisons are usually typecast either as dark institutions of perpetual horror and virulent vandalism or idyllic holiday camps offering in-cell television and gourmet cuisine on the back of taxpayers.
3.3. Prison as a Paradox
“You are Inmate Boyce, 470236? Is that correct?”
…to protect society by confining offenders in the controlled environments of prisons and…[to] provide work and other self-improvement opportunities to assist offenders in becoming law-abiding citizens.
4. Updating the Spectacle
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
1 | The film versions vary from one another. For example, the 1978 version depicted Valjean escaping from Toulon Prison, not gaining his parole, and he spends his life fleeing from the original charges, whereas the 2012 version depicts Valjean breaking his parole and creating a new identity in response to the gift of silver. The original novel begins with his parole, not his escape. |
2 | Understandably, many of us cannot travel to the space of prison film without (re)experiencing trauma. |
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Boyce, B. Lessons from Shawshank: Outlaws, Lawmen and the Spectacle of Punishment. Humanities 2023, 12, 10. https://doi.org/10.3390/h12010010
Boyce B. Lessons from Shawshank: Outlaws, Lawmen and the Spectacle of Punishment. Humanities. 2023; 12(1):10. https://doi.org/10.3390/h12010010
Chicago/Turabian StyleBoyce, Benjamin. 2023. "Lessons from Shawshank: Outlaws, Lawmen and the Spectacle of Punishment" Humanities 12, no. 1: 10. https://doi.org/10.3390/h12010010