What Is Something You Love to Watch or Play, Even When it’s Difficult?

I know plenty of folks have (very valid) issues with Orange Is the New Black—but I adore the series. I just finished the fifth season of the show (it was my respite during the stresses of E3 week), which is laser-focused on about four days of life in the prison, as the women of Litchfield riot after a beloved character is senselessly killed.

As ever, OITNB scores points for progressive ideals and lashes out—hard—against such brutal realities of American life as rampant racism in the criminal justice system, police abuse, and the sickening reality of the prison-industrial complex.

It's very, very hard, sometimes, to keep up with the show, with its extreme tonal shifts—there are uproariously funny moments snuck in next to, say, eloquent speeches about equality, like this one, from Taystee (Danielle Brooks): "Our fight is with a system that don't give a damn about poor people… and brown people… and poor, brown people. Our fight," Taystee says, pausing to wipe away tears, "is with the folks who hold our demands in their hands… Those demands are fair and necessary, and show that we intend to keep this demonstration peaceful and focused on change."

And moments like that are next to images of torture and abuse, next to genuinely funny sight gags, like a Magic Mike-style dance-off in a guard "talent show." I don't blame a soul who isn't interested in seeing, say, a contingent of Nazis sling poisonous epithets around (they do—and nearly every imaginable type of prejudice rears its head during the series).

I'll always appreciate that the show goes hard for what it believes in. This is a very funny series that is all in on showing the disgusting realities of prison, a subject many privileged folks may never care to think of if it weren't served up in an entertaining wrapper. Writer-Producer Lauren Morelli told The Hollywood Reporter this in a recent interview, speaking about the series' place in our entertainment landscape:

"It's easy, on one hand, to maybe be dismissive of the meaning of TV. For so long it was viewed as this lightweight, frivolous thing. But working on Orange has really taught me what an important platform we've been handed. I take that really seriously—Jenji has taught me how to take that really seriously. Not only for me as a person getting be around this show and watching this inclusion and how that's changed me and my worldview and self image, but continuing to do that for people is so incredible. Visibility matters and having people get to turn on their televisions and see people who look like them means that you are saying, "You matter." Because someone who looks like you is on this television. I certainly hope that will always continue to be a part of my own work and the TV that continues to be produced."

I could write a book about how much I love the characters on this show—the flawed, ever-complicated, richly drawn, downright amazing women portrayed here, but that's a post for another day.

Ok, friends, so let's take it to the forums. Is there a piece of media out there—games, movies, books, TV, whatever—that you love, even when it can be tough to swallow?