Prison movies rely pretty heavily on clichés for main plot elements and to add a sense
of atmosphere. I guess, in part, that's because most filmmakers haven't done any
time... except for Robert Downey Jr., of course, who is doing enough time for all of
Hollywood. Oh yeah, and Sean Penn and Charlie Sheen did some time in lock-up too.
But you know what I'm saying. My sense is that most people in Hollywood are
pretty oblivious about prison, so a lot of what they know about it comes from other
movies. The result is that a cliché, once established, propagates throughout
the genre
very quickly. I'll be adding to this list as I notice things, but here are a few
conventions or clichés you'll find in many prison movies.
The Bad Guard: According to movies, every
prison has at least one Bad Guard; a guard who is head and shoulders above
the rest in terms of cruelty and violence. He/she is usually the
most distinctive guard in appearance as well, being either the largest or
smallest, the only one with facial hair, the one wearing a different style
uniform from the others, or having a special implement of his/her own
(such as carrying a whip or club or something). You'd almost think
the prison guard's union required hiring a Bad Guard.
Caged
Animals: A lot of wardens seem to keep animals in their
offices. Birds, mice, snakes, and so on. I guess this is meant
to symbolize the deviant personality of the warden, who likes to keep
things caged up. Or maybe it just represents a microcosm of the life
of the prisoner, locked up and on display. I don't know, but keep an
eye out for this one. It appears in both good and bad prison movies.
The Disappearing Guard: In many prison movies, just as the
hero is about to be assaulted by a villainous group of prisoners, a guard will often been
seen deliberately turning away to avoid having to interfere. I've always wondered
about this one. Sometimes, we see the bad prisoners bribing the guard with money or
drugs, but often it just seems as if they have some sort of understanding. Does this
really happen? I'm often more interested by the "back story" than what is
actually happening on-screen, and this is one of those cases. How does the guard in
this scenario justify his behavior? Does he tell the wife and kids, "hey gang I
let the Aryan Brotherhood assault another prisoner today. Who wants ice cream?"
Do prisoners ever complain? Don't the guard's supervisors notice that
whenever he's on duty, battered inmates soon end up in the infirmary?
The Gauntlet: Whenever prisoners are
first introduced to the general population of the prison, they usually
have to walk a gauntlet between the inmates who call out to them with
threats and catcalls. Often, this is actually provoked by the guards who
introduce the new inmates by saying something like, "fresh fish
coming through." Isn't there any way to get the prisoners to
their cells without putting them on display for the existing
inmates? Or is this consider part of the rehabilitation process?
The Prisoner on the Edge: Most prison movies feature a
character who is walking the fine line between sanity and insanity. The defining
characteristic is some sort of obsessive behavior -- such as caring for a pet rodent or
insect, or having an extreme attachment to some activity such as painting or working in
the prison library. At some point, the prison warden will, for some petty reason,
remove the prisoner's rights to do whatever it is that keeps him sane, and the prisoner
will either kill himself or do some other crazy thing. This event is often a turning
point which will convince the hero to break out, lead a prison revolt, or whatever it is
the main character is supposed to do to move the plot forward.
The Prison Brothel: This is a staple of women-in-prison
movies, especially the Imprisoned Innocent and Prison Infiltration sub-genres. In
the Imprisoned Innocent version of the story, some pretty young thing is unjustly sent to
prison, and later discovers that she was sentenced as part of a corrupt deal between the
judge and the warden to run a high-class brothel for the mafia, Arab sheiks, Asian
white-slavers, or some other evil group. The Prison Infiltration version of it has
an imprisoned innocent disappear in jail, and then her older sister or family friend or
hired PI commit a crime to get inside and find out the Truth, which inevitably is that the
imprisoned innocent has either been sold into prostitution or has been killed for trying
to resist. If I remember correctly, this was the plot of the famous Charlie's Angels
episodes where the gals went undercover to a women's prison.
The Warden's Intro: Prison movies often
feature a scene early on where the prison warden makes a speech to new
inmates laying out the prison's rules. This speech often features
one of two themes. The first is how impossible it is to escape from
the prison because of (a) the water/desert/jungle in all directions, (b)
the high-tech monitoring system, or (c) the impossibility of
hacking/tunneling/sneaking out of the cells. The second theme is
something along the lines of "if you behave, you will be treated
well, if you don't, you will suffer." The second theme is often
punctuated by the introduction of the Bad Guard, who is destined to abuse
the hero (and usually get killed in the end).
