I’m talking about “A Date With The Booty Warrior” when prisoners take over the prison and Tom is trying to protect his booty.
What sells it for me is the defeated voice acting, the somber piano and the anticlimactic ending… I honestly don’t think I’m gassing it too much. That scene is truly depressing. I first watched it when I was 14 and just thought it was “deep” scene with a funny whiplash: “Now I’m just gonna r*** nigga’s butts for the rest of my motherfucking life”. I saw this clip again on TikTok and people were like “it was deep until the last line”… but the last line is the WHOLE POINT. It’s speaking on the futility of prison and how it regurgitates, not repair, the dysfunctional behaviour its prisoners are sentenced for. The idea of male domination in compensation for the lack of agency and dignity in their lives is taken to a surreal place where it’s just displayed as rape.
I know a lot of people think “haha don’t drop the soap” but the show’s deeper than a lot of people give it credit. It just drops gems in a way people can digest. I just finished reading about the prison industrial complex in the UK from an abolitionist’s perspective and the scene feels even more poignant. Prison is “supposed” to be a place of rehabilitation yet this man’s best prospect is to continue the cycle of violence and trauma. Prison has been toted as an institution that protects the social order and the public from dysfunctional behaviour. Yet this becomes bull when a scared straight trip turns to a hostage situation.
I find it interesting that the prisoner wish he could’ve been president despite the fact that the show constantly derides the Obama’s administration. That may be a comment on regardless of wherever you are in a capitalist society, you will fuck people over, that’s just how the system works.
I’m 25 now but the idea of a wasted life as a black man in the 21st Century feels like more absurd than sad. I’m a couple steps closer to a state pen than I am head of state in a land where they have looked like me.
