Women’s Prison Movies

James Joyner @ Gone Hollywood | Wednesday, March 8, 2006

The “Women in Prison” film has been a reliable subgenre of exploitation films since their beginnings in the teen “reform school” movies. Known as WIP films to cineastes, to less formal fans they are affectionately called the Chicks in Chains flicks. Most of these stick pretty close to formula: some third world hellhole of a hoosegow is filled with gorgeous babes who get to take a lot of showers; after 80 minutes of being mistreated, some flimsy pretense gives them the upper hand and they stage a bloody breakout in which all but two or three of the cast gets killed.

That’s a fair description. From early classics like “Women in Cages” to modern fare such as “Reform School Girls,” “Caged Fury ,” and the “Chained Heat” series, women’s prison looked like a relatively enjoyable place to be, especially if you were a lesbian with a Wendy Williams jones.

Alas, a recent academic study finds that this depiction is not entirely accurate.

But if you watch these films, you won’t know anything about the inside. From depictions of the inmates and their behavior, to the lack of security and impossible happenings of the celluloid facilities, the content of the four films viewed for this project can at best be described as misleading, and at worst, as damaging.

Truly a shame. Of course, four is a rather small sample size, so the results might be somewhat skewed.

Women’s Prison Movies

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