A View from the Top (Dog): Intersections of Incarceration,Motherhood,and Trauma on Foxtel’s Wentworth

Abstract

In this essay, we extend conversations around motherhood depictions in popular culture to women inmates on television. Specifically, we explore intersections of incarceration, motherhood, trauma, and power on Foxtel’s Wentworth (2013–2021) through the character of Bea Smith. We investigate her journey to Top Dog status—analyzing how these intersections propel her to that highest authority position in prison, while also unpacking why they contribute to her losing that coveted position. We argue that Bea’s trauma morphs her into what D’Amore calls a “vigilante feminist,” who uses violence to protect herself and others. However, Wentworth shows the complicated nature of how trauma operates with motherhood as it intersects with incarceration and power in that Bea’s journey is not a straight one. Instead, Bea shifts away from the role of vigilante feminist at times, opting in favor of using violence for pure revenge.

Introduction

In this essay, we extend conversations around depictions of motherhood in popular culture to incarcerated women on television to address the complex intersections of motherhood, trauma, and power in the lives of women inmates. We are especially interested in understanding these intersections as they relate to the distress of losing their children or caring for them afar from prison. Incarcerated mothers are often overlooked in studies on television and mothers in general. Simultaneously, incarcerated mothers tend to be omitted from studies on incarcerated characters on television. Given this, we hope our contribution here will serve as an intervention by adding to and/or renewing interest in the few academic studies that currently look at this demographic. Specifically, we explore intersections of incarceration, motherhood, and trauma on Foxtel’s Wentworth (2013–2021), which stands as the highest-rated (Hyland 2021, par. 7) and longest-running, original Australian drama series in Foxtel history (Moustafa 2021, par. 11), as well as “Australia’s longest-running one hour drama” in general (Spencer 2020, par. 6). While Wentworth held its series finale on October 26, 2021 after wrapping up its two-part, 20-episode eighth season, it is a noteworthy text to examine due to its extensive global reach, its stronghold among fans (especially as it is a reimagining of Prisoner, a beloved Australian soap opera with a cult following), and its high recognition at award ceremonies. In addition to being widely popular in Australia and a critical darling at awards shows, the series has aired in “173 territories across the globe including the United Kingdom, France, Denmark, Canada, Israel, Finland, Japan and the United States” (Hyland 2021, par. 8). We examine the series with this context in mind.

Using feminist textual analysis, we explore how, even in prison, women—specifically mothers—hit a glass ceiling when it comes to acquiring and/or retaining power. While there are eight seasons (one hundred episodes) in total for Wentworth, we focus exclusively on the first four seasons (forty-six episodes) as we investigate one incarcerated mother’s journey to Top Dog. ¹ In the next section, we survey existing scholarship on televisual depictions of incarcerated mothers. ² Within the latter, we include what has already been discussed regarding incarcerated mothers on Wentworth. In our main analysis, we examine the intersection and role of motherhood and trauma in one woman inmate’s (i.e., Bea Smith’s) propulsion to the highest position of power in prison—and how these same factors ultimately remove her from that coveted position. Specifically, we argue that Bea’s trauma morphs her into what D’Amore (2017) calls a “vigilante feminist,” who violently take matters into her own hands after the system continually fails her and her daughter. As D’Amore (2017, 387) states, “vigilante feminism. . .applies specifically to the performance of vigilantism by girls and women who have undertaken their own protection, and the protection of others, against violence. . .because they have been otherwise failed in that manner.” In this way, Bea uses her trauma as motivation to protect herself and others from violence. However, and as will be discussed in our analysis, Bea sometimes veers away from using violence solely to defend other women away from violence (i.e., vigilante feminism); instead, in these instances, she opts for exercising violence as an act of pure revenge. In addition to this theoretical framework, our analysis works in dialogue with, but also as an extension to, the important work of Hinton and Hoekstra (2022, 175–76), who analyze the specific context of Wentworth and “explor[e] the methods by which. . .coercion occurs with a look at Bea Smith (Danielle Cormack)’s experience during season one as she is injected into and learns to navigate the motherhood marketplace.” We conclude this essay with some final thoughts on Bea’s journey.

The Invisibility and Shaming of Incarcerated Mothers on Television

Mothers constitute 80 percent of women in jails (Swavola et al. 2016), as well as 58 percent of women in prison in the United States (Maruschak et al. 2021). Prisons in the United Kingdom report 52 percent of women inmates having children under eighteen years old (HM Inspectorate of Prisons 2022). In Australia, 90 percent of incarcerated women are mothers (Liotta 2019). Still, mothers are not as prominent as characters within the women-in-prison genre. As described by Buonanno (2017, 12), “the women-in-prison (WIP) genre. . .[operates] to counterpoint the male-dominated underworld with the mostly all-female world of the prison institution in which heteronormative ideology of gender can be transgressed and overturned.” Prominent televisual examples of the WIP genre include Prisoner (1979–1986, Australia), Women in Prison (1987–1988, United States), Hinter Gittern – Der Frauenknast (1997–2007, Germany), Bad Girls (1999–2006, United Kingdom), Capadocia (2008–2012, Mexico), Penoza (2010–2017, The Netherlands), Dead Boss (2012, United Kingdom), Wentworth (2013–2021, Australia), Orange Is the New Black (2013–2019, United States), Vis a vis (2015–2019, Spain), Clink (2019, United Kingdom), and Hard Cell (2022, United Kingdom).

The few televised representations of motherhood behind bars usually encourage audiences to think about incarcerated mothers as anomalies in a typically male-centered crime genre (Echeverría-Domingo 2020), and as deserving to be in prison (Cecil 2007). Portrayals of incarcerated mothers in reality TV, televised documentaries, news magazines, and talk shows offer a mix of information and profitable voyeuristic entertainment (Thomas 2020), usually emphasizing violence, sex, and drug abuse (Cecil 2007). The rationale behind these motherhood portrayals is that “good” women “do not risk their families by doing things that may land them in prison” (Cecil 2007, 321). These televised constructions of motherhood then focus on stories about the suffering of children caused by a mother’s “choice” that resulted in her incarceration (Cecil 2007) but omit systemic issues like cycles of abuse. According to the Justice Health and Forensic Mental Health Network (2022), 87 percent of women in prison in Australia have experienced emotional, sexual, and/or physical abuse. Institutionalized sexual and medical abuse are also glossed over in narrative TV shows (Holcomb 2018). Likewise, few TV shows include depictions of pregnancy and motherhood behind bars that address the prevalent shackling of pregnant women and how devastating mothering can be in prison where women have no support at all (Garcia-Hallet 2018; Rodriguez Carey 2018). As Esnard and Okpala (2015, 314) point out, “the silence on these issues and experiences of incarcerated mothers is deafening.” A notable exception is Netflix’s Orange Is The New Black (hereafter, OITNB). The series has discussed the oppression and lack of opportunities that multiple incarcerated mothers face inside and outside prison (Howells-Ng 2022). For instance, the show depicts the character of Aleida Diaz, an incarcerated mother, in her struggle to find a job and regain her children after being released from prison (Howells-Ng 2022). Discussion and awareness of these and other issues that incarcerated mothers might face can help construct more accurate, complex, and humanized representations of motherhood in prison (Cecil 2007).

Despite how rare representations of incarcerated mothers continue to be, they are the focus of recent studies in narrative television (see DeCarvalho 2021a; Hinton and Hoekstra 2022). In fact, more complex portrayals of incarcerated mothers started to appear in the 2000s, such as ITV’s Bad Girls, and these portrayals have increased in mainstream television more recently with TV shows such as KRO-NCRV’s Penoza (Buonanno 2017). Specifically, they reflect characteristics that fit Buonanno’s definition of “antiheroines”: women characters “endowed with moral ambiguity, damaging flaws, enduring strength, unapologetic wickedness and the relatable qualities that work together to shape a conflicted and nuanced, despicable, and admirable antiheroic figure” (Buonanno 2017, 3). These characters address “a feminist agenda in a fundamental and uncommon way” (Buonanno 2017, 3). Still, these portrayals are infrequent and usually relegated to low-budget productions (Hermes 2017).

A few depictions of incarcerated mothers in Antena 3/Fox Spain’s Vis a vis and Foxtel’s Wentworth have been shown to be more transgressive, offering representations that question patriarchal views on motherhood and femininity (see DeCarvalho 2021b for example). In these representations, characters discuss prison as a space where both them and their children can be less constrained by patriarchal norms (DeCarvalho 2021b; Echeverría-Domingo 2020). For instance, series like Showtime’s Weeds (2005–2012) and AMC’s Mad Men (2007–2015) include “neglectful, disengaged, absent” mothers as heroines, or anti-heroines, who unapologetically deviate from normative motherhood behavior (Walters and Harrison 2014, 38).

Wentworth has recently showcased more of these rare constructions of incarcerated mothers. For instance, DeCarvalho (2021a) discusses how Doreen Anderson, an incarcerated Indigenous Australian mother, acts in her children’s best interests while struggling with systemic oppression in the prison-industrial complex. According to Atkinson (2022), Wentworth’s Doreen Anderson was given more depth and complexity than the original character from Prisoner. In Wentworth’s predecessor, she was at times a comic-relief character created as a middle-aged blonde. In terms of this latter demographic, Wentworth explores how Liz Birdsworth, a middle-aged, straight white woman, resists norms of femininity, and struggles with unaddressed trauma and the crushing nature of motherhood (DeCarvalho 2021b). More recently, Hinton and Hoekstra (2022, 187) explore how Wentworth challenges stereotypical ideas of motherhood as “natural” and “sacred,” and constructs motherhood as “an exploitable resource used to gain or maintain control within and outside prison walls” (p. 169). Likewise, Brennan (2022, 144) analyzes how OITNB and Wentworth use flashbacks as a tool to understand women in prison, including mothers, as “morally complex and ambiguous.” Finally, Warner (2022) argues that, as a TV show that reimagines Prisoner, Wentworth is more realistic.

Most mediated constructions of incarcerated mothers lack contextualization on the larger societal and cultural factors that push women into entering the prison system. If these factors are not addressed and discussed, audiences are encouraged to place all responsibility on mothers exclusively (McDonald-Harker 2015). This means that abuses against mothers committed by individuals or institutions, such as domestic partners or child protection services, could be left unexamined and unchallenged (McDonald-Harker 2015). Incarcerated mothers repeatedly mention having committed a crime in order to protect or feed their children (Da Cunha and Granja 2013). However, most media constructions of women in prison do not provide audiences with the context to understand how to better support these mothers and their children, which is a must if we want to empower them and stop abuses committed against them (McDonald-Harker 2015). Furthermore, separating a mother from her child is “at the ‘top of the pains of imprisonment’” (Da Cunha and Granja 2013, 115), and as Beyer (2019) points out, mothers are separated from their children in the most inhumane conditions.

Motivated by Trauma: Examining A Mother’s Rise and Fall of Power on Wentworth

In this section, we analyze the intersection of Top Dog status and incarcerated mothers within the Foxtel Australian prison drama. As Burdekin (2017) explains, “Top Dog in any prison is the number one criminal that no other inmate messes with and who rules the roost. Both the criminals and the prison officers are ruled by the Top Dog in any prison establishment” (p. 193, emphasis in original). More specifically, discussing Wentworth, Hinton and Hoekstra (2022, 177) state that “within the prison’s social culture is a power structure most visible through the position of ‘top dog’: the woman who has both authority over and responsibility for the social, political, and economic systems within the inmate population.” Our interest lies in the power dynamics at work as we were struck by how the entanglement of trauma and motherhood propelled one woman inmate—Bea Smith, who is the prison drama’s opening protagonist—to the highest position of power at the fictional Wentworth Correctional Facility. In our analysis here, we discuss Bea’s journey to Top Dog, but also her downfall, through her major on-screen turning points; and, in the process, we highlight how motherhood and trauma have served as both a motivator and her Achilles’ heel.

“I’m Not Your Dog, Harry”: Bea’s First Major Turning Points

When the series premiered on May 1, 2013, viewers were introduced to prison culture at Wentworth Correctional Facility by way of Bea Smith on her first day as its newest inmate. Throughout Seasons One through Four, Bea is shown rising to power. The very first time that viewers see her onscreen is in Season 1-Episode 1 (hereafter, S#-E#), as she is being transported to the correctional facility. Shadows cover her body and half of her face in many closed frame shots, indicating her captive state. When she finally enters the prison, there are many shots that are shorter in duration that show Bea’s fragmented state of mind, emphasizing that she is unsure of her current environment and is continually being reminded of her traumatic past (which is intercut with the present).

These flashbacks continue throughout this pilot episode. They are important to consider here because it lets viewers know that, even before she enters prison, Bea is forced to face the moral fork in the road within her home environment. While the moments are fleeting at first, they eventually grow longer after halfway into the episode. In one scene, Jacs Holt (the current Top Dog) returns to the general prison population after having been in solitary confinement. Upon her return, Jacs demands that Bea get her some hot tea and continually finds problems with the said tea, using this as a ploy to showcase her dominance over other inmates. Jacs’s power grab triggers Bea and it is then that more context is revealed to audiences: Bea’s husband, Harry, is physically and sexually abusive toward her. More so, Bea fears that this will escalate to their teenage daughter, Debbie, especially with the physical and emotional distance between her and Debbie now that she is in prison and Harry is left as Debbie’s primary caretaker. In terms of incarcerated women, Hinton and Hoekstra (2022, 177) note that “confinement within the prison limits physical contact with their children, but it also limits their ability to uphold their motherly responsibilities.” As such, these past moments that are intercut with the present in S1-E1 are the first instance that viewers see where motherhood and trauma intersect for Bea’s character. It is through these flashbacks that viewers learn what landed Bea in prison in the first place: she attempted to kill her husband (and stage it as a suicide) but stopped when her daughter walked in. ³ Bea’s trauma is constructed, then, as a complex response to extreme and unbearable circumstances. Rather than framing her trauma as debilitating, she instead uses it to motivate her and help liberate others from violence. In fact, Bea’s trauma response involves the chance of freeing herself and Debbie from Harry, Bea’s abuser. Thus, Bea’s trauma morphs her into a “vigilante feminist” (D’Amore 2017, 391), someone who performs violence against violence as “a mechanism by which to forcibly claim justice from a social and legal system that has systematically failed to meet their needs” (D’Amore 2017, 391). However, Bea is ultimately punished and sent to prison for fighting back against patriarchal violence, without any discussion of how the legal system failed to keep her abuser accountable to begin with.

Despite her fear of Harry and his escalating violence, Bea ends up saving his life after realizing firsthand the impact that it has on their daughter: specifically, Bea sees Debbie trying to help her father and then sees her hysterically crying, which prompts Bea’s “maternal instinct” to rescue him. Simultaneously, a glimpse of Bea’s strength is shown in the present moment when, after having these flashbacks, she refuses to entertain Jacs’s power trip any longer (paralleling her refusal to entertain Harry’s abuse) and instead tells Jacs to make her own tea. However, her strength against both Harry and Jacs is short-lived. In S1-E2, Bea becomes fully aware that her removal from their home environment now places Debbie more clearly in harm’s way with Harry, who again has been physically and sexually abusive toward Bea; she worries that her absence will result in Harry starting to abuse Debbie instead. Similarly, in S1-E3, Jacs blackmails Bea into helping her punish Franky Doyle—who was interim Top Dog while Jacs was in solitary confinement—for continually overstepping and questioning Jacs’s Top Dog status. What is important to note is how Jacs blackmails Bea: specifically, she threatens to have Debbie killed on the outside. According to Hinton and Hoekstra (2022, 169), “prisoner mothers are assets that enhance others’ abilities to achieve power.” More so, Hinton and Hoekstra add, “. . .Wentworth excises motherhood from its seemingly sacred and safe place attached to (and owned by) the individual maternal body” (p. 169) and instead shows how “it is leveraged to compel or coerce inmates into the exchange system” (p. 175). Stated differently, the series “creat[es] tension between the body of both mother and child. . .by removing authority and control from the mother figure, and by devaluing the moral authority commonly granted to ‘natural’ maternal practices” (p. 176). However, it is significant to point out that both Harry and Jacs represent different things here. Harry represents the continued stronghold that the patriarchy has over women, while Jacs represents the stronghold that the Top Dog has over the entire prison population. Both Harry and Jacs exploit Bea’s motherhood, only adding to her existing trauma. Viewers recognize that the only reason Bea continues to tolerate their abuse is due to her genuine fear for Debbie’s safety (i.e., from Harry transferring his abuse of Bea onto Debbie instead and Jacs threatening to have Debbie killed if Bea does not comply).

“What Sort of Woman Will You Be?”: Bea’s Second Major Turning Point

In S1-E7, Bea finally begins to show more backbone again at the correctional facility when she refuses to allow former interim Top Dog, Franky, to be gangraped. As such, Bea confronts the current Top Dog hoping to persuade her from ordering the violence. In this moment, Bea is using her trauma, and one that stems from the guilt of Debbie now being alone with Harry (especially as he had previously raped Bea in their home), to possibly veer the outcome of a fellow inmate away from enduring unimaginable sexual abuse. Their conversational exchange is noteworthy as well in how it deals with sexual violence against women, being committed by other women. In this way, Jacs’s method of being Top Dog means using patriarchal “tools,” like sexual violence, to assert power. While the outcome is mixed for Bea, who is left hospitalized by Jacs’s crew, she is successful in her intervention as the gangrape is deterred by Franky. This is Bea’s biggest turning point in prison up to this point, specifically where she goes from a character who is more submissive in nature—solely due to the constant fear that her intersection of motherhood and trauma poses, always reminding her of Debbie’s safety outside of the prison—to one that stands firm in her convictions despite the heavy consequences. Furthermore, Wentworth literally spells it out for viewers toward the end of the same episode that it was Bea, not Doreen Anderson (another inmate), who put plans into motion for the intervention. Wentworth could have easily done without an exchange between Franky and Doreen but opted to include it to underscore Bea’s renewed strength (and other inmates’ recognition of it). As will be discussed next, Bea’s ascension to eventual Top Dog is influenced strongly by two major events: (1) the murder of her only child; and (2) the instability and corruption of a governor (Joan Ferguson). ⁴

“One Well-Chosen Moment Can Take You Straight to the Top”: Bea’s Third Major Turning Point

While the debut of Wentworth started with Jacs as Top Dog, her reign comes to an end in the Season One finale when Bea unknowingly heeds Jacs’s previous advice: to not show one’s anger in prison unless she is prepared to follow through with murder. In S1-E10, Bea confronts Jacs, demanding to know what happened to Debbie who died of a heroin overdose (despite not having a history of substance abuse). ⁵ In a moment of rage upon hearing Jacs confess to being responsible, Bea stabs the Top Dog in the neck with a pen. Upon realizing what she has done, Bea tries to stop the bleeding, but Jacs pushes her away: Jacs’s death will be on her own terms. It is important to note that Jacs’s decision here (1) forces Bea to become a murderer and (2) extends Bea’s prison sentence by twelve years. As such, it is the ultimate power move that Jacs could have taken as Top Dog in her final moment of life. At the same time, viewers notice a change in Bea in how quickly she realizes that murdering Jacs has placed her in line as the next Top Dog. More than that, viewers see her as she quickly decides to make a power move by sending a message of this achievement to the rest of the inmates, including Franky, the former interim Top Dog. She is no longer submissive Bea, and she reifies this by breaking the cardinal rule in prison, which is to never push the code red emergency button to alert guards. Instead, she pushes the button so that, as she is led to solitary confinement, all other inmates see that she is the one who took out Jacs.

The murder of Debbie expedites Bea’s journey toward becoming Top Dog, but only after she becomes mentally stable again. Upon losing her only child and attempting death by suicide in S1-E9 and later murdering Jacs and being placed in solitary confinement in S1-E10, Bea has a mental breakdown. Despite her initial strength, Bea unravels mentally. In a discussion of ABC’s Once Upon a Time (2011–2018) ⁶ with the characters of Snow White, Regina Mills, and Emma Swan, Brown (2015) notes that: “. . .all three women know that the others’ ‘maternal instinct’ is an Achilles heel” (par. 7). More so, despite them being strong women, if “their children are threatened or their ability to parent is questioned, they’re temporarily undone” (par. 6). This applies to Bea as she further hits rock bottom after receiving her manslaughter sentence for Jacs’s death and finally has a moment to process/grieve her daughter’s murder. It is noteworthy that viewers are privy to Bea’s thoughts of Debbie throughout her mental breakdown. What this does is it allows viewers to see the complicated nature of her trauma, which has been only compounded by her further traumas of Debbie’s death, now being a murderer, and having attempted suicide.

What ultimately motivates Bea to snap out of her depressed state is her need to bring Debbie’s killer (and Jacs’s son), Brayden Holt, to justice. It is here that her “maternal instinct” to continue fighting for her daughter overcomes her paralyzing state of grief and trauma over the loss of her child. As the system already failed her multiple times, Bea’s reasoning here (i.e., killing another person) is a distorted version of the vigilante feminist’s perspective since she “turns the tools of violence against those who have wronged her” (D’Amore 2017, 387). As D’Amore asserts, vigilante feminism is “not violent for the sake of dominance. Rather, it is a response to an overall pervasive rape culture that does not accommodate the needs of girls and women” (p. 391). Bea’s decision here reflects a traumatized mother who wants pure revenge, which veers away from vigilante feminism as it is not about protection. Her bond with Debbie is what drives Bea to overcome her darkest days to ensure that she avenges her daughter’s death. Another way to see this is as Bea’s way of coping with her grief: she must take action as a way to process the trauma that she has endured. More so, it channels the guilt that she feels about having been away from Debbie when her daughter needed her most. This reifies what we discussed in our survey of existing literature with Cecil (2007) highlighting how children suffer because it is their mothers doing something illegal that lands them a prison sentence. As Seabrook and Wyatt-Nichol (2015, 360) argue, “our societal emphasis on retribution reinforces ‘bad mother’ discourse and women are punished twice—for the crime convicted and for not living up to the ideal standards of motherhood.” The same applies to Bea as the role that patriarchy has played in all this (as manifested by her husband, Harry, being abusive in the first place) goes unchecked ⁷ ; and instead, the only thing that truly matters to Bea is fixing the mistakes that she has made as a mother who put her daughter in such a vulnerable position. Stated differently, in the eyes of the (patriarchal) judicial system, the blame is not placed on Harry for being an abusive husband or for being a neglectful father but instead on Bea for trying to rebel against the system in the first place.

“I Don’t Give a Fuck What Franky Says”: Bea’s Ascension to Top Dog

Tensions between Bea and Franky, who takes over as Top Dog again after Bea is placed in solitary confinement for murdering Jacs, rise throughout the second season. Bea defeats Franky in S2-E11—solidifying her own future status as Top Dog—while, more importantly, also setting herself up in the process to escape from prison to finally complete her mission to avenge Debbie’s murder. ⁸ The visual imagery of Bea and Franky’s fight is important because viewers see a high-angle, medium close-up shot of a blood-covered Franky (conveying her loss of power), that is immediately followed by a low-angle, medium shot of Bea who is also covered in blood (conveying her gain of power). The latter is important to clarify though as Bea had cut up her own body with the same razor that she initially cut at Franky’s with. This represents that Bea is not only in control but that, just as crucially, she is the only one who is (significantly) drawing blood from her body. Furthermore, this ultimately highlights how Bea’s intentions have all along been motivated by the trauma of losing her only child—and she never lost sight of this despite the never-ending and continually changing power dynamics at work within the prison. Stated differently, similar to why she is even in prison in the first place, Bea is only propelled to Top Dog because of the intersection of her motherhood and trauma.

The final part of Bea’s ascension to Top Dog is bringing her daughter’s murderer to justice. Viewers finally see her face-to-face with Brayden in S2-E12 after Bea escapes from prison. However, as she is threatening to kill him, Bea hesitates and is reminded of what truly matters: her motherhood and bond with Debbie. This is only temporary though when her trauma resurfaces as Bea catches Brayden smiling smugly at her. Without any hesitation at all, she shoots him in the head, killing him instantly. This is another instance where Bea shifts away from vigilante feminism, resorting to pure revenge after it was clear that her daughter’s murderer was not remorseful and would not be held accountable for his action of violence. Having both completed her mission to seek vengeance for her daughter’s murder plus the bonus of defeating Franky in a battle toward that goal, Bea returns to prison where Franky voluntarily secedes her position as Top Dog to Bea, thereby dubbing her “Queen Bea” in front of all the other inmates.

The Trauma Resurfaces Again: Bea’s Downfall from Top Dog

More moments that intersect motherhood and trauma continue in the fourth season, which from the start showcases Bea struggling to find meaning in her life and how that internal struggle directly relates to this intersection. In S4-E1, Bea starts to internalize the aftermath of murdering Brayden, especially as this brought her a life sentence without the possibility of parole. More so, she is shown contemplating death by suicide. However, these suicidal thoughts are halted due to two reasons: (1) her feeling the need to protect the inmates from Joan Ferguson, the former governor who is both extremely dangerous and now incarcerated at the same prison; and (2) her initially hesitant but later growing attraction to another inmate (Allie Novak). Viewers can see then that she is turning back toward the role of the vigilante feminist after temporarily stepping away from it to cope with her grief. As will be discussed shortly, these two aspects dovetail later in a way that strongly reflects the intersection of her motherhood and trauma at work.

Throughout the rest of this fourth season, viewers watch as Bea continually struggles to retain her Top Dog status. More so, her struggle becomes worse simultaneously as her romantic feelings for Allie grow stronger. While she loves other inmates who are friends in the prison, it is not on the same level as her love for Allie, which seems to be on par with her love for her daughter. In S4-E10, another inmate (Maxine Conway) reminds Bea: “Take it from me, if you get a second chance, you grab it and you don’t let go.” There are multiple ways to interpret what is said to her, but one is that Allie acts as Bea’s second chance at living (now that Debbie is gone). As such, there is a noticeable dynamic at play, which is that Bea can only ever have one or the other—never both love someone deeply and hold Top Dog status. An example of this can be seen in S4-E11 when Bea ultimately loses her Top Dog status while snitching to protect Allie.

Getting past the trauma of losing her daughter, Bea does what she thinks is right to protect Allie. However, the trauma resurfaces when she later learns that Allie was forced into a drug-induced coma by Ferguson. What is particularly noteworthy is that, in S4-E12, Bea ultimately resorts to using the same tactics that the very first Top Dog (Jacs) used against her, only now against Ferguson to ensure accountability. When her initial plan of killing Ferguson with a screwdriver is temporarily thwarted by Ferguson disarming her, Bea instead lunges herself onto the screwdriver still in Ferguson’s hand. More so, she continually uses Ferguson’s hand to drive the screwdriver into her own body several times until Ferguson continues the job herself. To which Bea smiles and says, “I win.” This parallels how Jacs died on her own terms, while taking Bea down in the process. Coming full circle, Bea’s ultimate power move here reflects the deep trauma caused by losing Debbie. She was on the cusp of losing Allie, the only other person she truly loved and simply could not go through that level of grief and trauma again. As such, she sacrificed herself to protect the one that she loved, thereby solidifying her final role as a vigilante feminist.

Conclusion

As we have discussed, incarcerated mothers tend to be omitted from discussions around depictions of motherhood on television. Since onscreen depictions impact both public perception and public policy (see Băluță 2015), we have used our efforts here to (1) draw focus to this minoritized demographic by way of (2) examining the representation of a prominent incarcerated mother on the widely popular Wentworth. In this essay, we analyzed intersections of incarceration, motherhood, trauma, and Top Dog status through Wentworth’s initial protagonist of Bea Smith. In this final section, we would like to take a moment to assess Bea’s journey more critically. As McDonald-Harker (2015, 324) asserts, “. . .in contemporary neo-liberal times the ‘abused woman’ is responsibilized, pathologized, and her plight decontextualized from systemic factors like gendered violence and economic marginalization that constrain her choices.” We see this as being the case for Bea: even before entering prison, motherhood and trauma were continually linked for Bea because of her role as an abused wife who lived under the same roof as both her abuser and their teenage daughter. It is this link that ultimately served as her motivation and propulsion to Top Dog. Throughout Bea’s journey, she navigates this intersection of motherhood, incarceration, trauma, and power by shifting into the role of the vigilante feminist but also away from it at times. When she transitions into the role of the vigilante feminist, she does so in an attempt to spare herself and other women from (further) violence. As D’Amore (2017, 391) asserts, “these are not choices made in a vacuum; vigilante feminists’ response to patriarchal violence are directly related to the violent world in which they exist.” Between the violence that Harry used against her, to the violence used by Jacs against her and the other women inmates, Bea no longer wishes to sit idly by while waiting on a system that time and again shows no accountability for patriarchal violence (or in the case of Jacs, internalized patriarchal violence). Hence, she turns to “the performance of a violent fantasy of feminism” (i.e., vigilante feminism).

While doing so, Bea utilizes the same tactics to push back against women, who use violence to harm other women but who have also been severely impacted by the patriarchy themselves: Jacs Holt was a matriarch in the eyes of the public but was still cut down to size by her husband; and, as a child, Joan Ferguson witnessed her father murder her mother. This represents an important distinction from D’Amore (2017) who mostly discusses men as the oppressor. Instead, Wentworth sheds light on how women who have been wronged by the patriarchy can then go on to internalize and perpetuate patriarchal violence. More so, it is significant that Jacs and Ferguson do so because of their own traumas and that both also have this link with motherhood and power (i.e., Jacs uses her son to gain power, thereby taking back agency that her husband took from her; and Ferguson uses her power as governor, later inmate, to punish those who harm mothers, without realizing that she is doing the same). In terms of fulfilling her role as a vigilante feminist, Bea is “strong on behalf of others, and [she] actively seek[s] paths of justice that deeply unsettle the structures of power implicit in patriarchy” (D’Amore 2017, 390). But she only does so to a point because Hinton and Hoekstra (2022, 180) rightly point out the following: “Although Bea was victimized repeatedly by a system that exploited motherhood and forced her to participate, she does not use her power as top dog in season two to dismantle it. Instead, Bea becomes a willing consumer, coercing other inmate mothers as she seeks vengeance against Jacs for Debbie’s death.” In these moments, along with her action of killing Brayden, Bea is no longer acting as a vigilante feminist because protection for others is the last thing on her mind. Instead, her judgment and actions are clouded by pure revenge. So, this shows viewers the complicated nature of how trauma operates with motherhood as it intersects with incarceration and power. That is, the path of a vigilante feminist is not a straight one as trauma (and grief) manifests differently in each person.

Another part of this is how “mothers are taken up as part of the prison’s economy” (p. 169). Stated more succinctly, “[Bea’s] storyline highlights the four major strategies by which motherhood is exploited to secure compliance, ensure loyalty or exact retribution: controlling contact, extortion, using or coordinating violence and appealing to motherhood” (p. 177). In this way, Bea is continually used as a resource for those, like Jacs or Ferguson, who wish to pursue their own personal goals, and this impacts her own trajectory. At the same time, whenever Bea uses her trauma as motivation, it is clear to viewers that her trauma is never truly gone but instead resurfaces in various ways. As we discussed, it is precisely the trauma of losing her daughter that deposes her from the coveted position of Top Dog in prison. Similarly, it is this exact trauma that eventually has her committing the same power grab that was previously done onto her by another Top Dog, only this time used to both keep her own trauma and grief from increasing any further while also protecting the woman that she loves.