If you were a Netflix, HBO or Showtime exec in charge of adapting real-life news stories into multi-part melodramas, and you knew that your boss was a fan of Ben Stiller‘s Escape at Dannemora (’18), would you try to make the sordid saga of Tina Gonzalez, the Fresno County Jail prison guard who was recently busted and sentenced for having sex with an inmate, into a two-hour drama or limited miniseries?
Stiller’s seven-part series was an emotional tragedy about a real-life prison employee, Joyce Mitchell (Patricia Arquette), who wound up punished and humiliated for having an intimate affair with a Dannemora prison inmate named Richard Matt (Benicio del Toro). As she was in real life, Mitchell is also punished for helping Matt and a fellow inmate, David Sweat (Paul Dano), pull off a daring escape.
The Gonzalez affair didn’t result in a prison break, but her sexual behavior was a little crazier than Mitchell’s. Plus (and this is a significant factor from a crude audience standpoint) the 26 year-old Gonzalez is seriously attractive, and could realistically be played by Selena Gomez or someone in that realm. Which makes Gonzalez’s wild behind-bars activity seem all the more odd, and yet at the same time more interesting.
From the beginning the general consensus was that Mitchell was on the homely, dumpy, overweight side. Unkind New York Post editors took to calling her “Shawskank”. I for one felt sorry for Arquette’s Mitchell — a lonely and unloved woman in a drab, dead-end marriage. Arquette’s performance was highly praised, and she won Best Actress trophies from the Critics Choice members as well as the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
Here’s how the Fresno Bee‘s Robert Rodriguez reported Tina’s situation on 6.29:
“Tina Gonzalez, a 26 year-old Fresno County correctional officer, was sentenced Tuesday to two years probation and seven months in the county jail for having sex with an inmate.
“Gonzalez was facing up to three years and eight months in prison, but she avoided prison time despite harsh words from her former boss at the jail, Assistant Sheriff Steve McComas.
“McComas said not only did Gonzalez have sex with the inmate, she also supplied him razors [and] gave him inside information about when officers would be inspecting the inmate’s cell.
“Gonzalez allegedly cut a hole in her uniform to make it easier to have sex with the inmate she was involved with. McComas also accused her of having sex inside the jail in full view of 11 inmates. ‘That is something only a depraved mind can come up with,’ McComas said.”
The interesting aspect is that Gonzalez may have hooked up with the inmate in question (this is pure speculation) because she wielded all the power in their relationship, and because the inmate had none. She called the shots, had sex when she wanted it, helped the inmate in certain ways, and basically wore the paints in the relationship.