Analysis Of Orange Is The New Black

“Orange Is the New Black” is a modern memoir that leads you through Piper Kerman’s experiences in Danbury, a women’s correctional facility, and shows you the life within the cold walls. Her words magnify the greatness within everybody, even the ones who have been thought to not even contain a heart, not even a soul within their body. The people who have been encaged, locked up behind bars. “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” by Michelle Alexander is an extraordinarily-written modern book, completely opposite of Piper Kerman’s memoir. It shows the challenges that most of the colored and Latino men face once they are framed as a criminal, as well as the stereotypical treatment they receive as human beings. While Piper Kerman’s book shows the happiness and good in all the different types of people, gay, black, white, straight, transgender, Latino, Buddhist, Catholic, or a stone cold killer, Michelle Alexander points out the fact that African Americans are being treated the way they used to, being looked at no differently than slaves.

Piper Kerman, a freelance producer living in New York City with her boyfriend, was incarcerated in 2004 for money laundering and drug trafficking. She tells this story in her memoir, Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison. Kerman tells her audience about her escapades in her twenties, and her normal life afterwards. But one day she is greeted with two police officers at her door, and things go downhill from there. Kerman is later arrested after a very lengthy court case and taken to federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut. Kerman makes light of her year spent in prison, writing about the different people she met and the experiences she had. Overall, Kerman’s memoir is an easy and fun read

Introduction: Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman portrays the experience of a middle-class white woman serving a 13-month sentence in a minimum security prison in Danbury, Connecticut. Being from a different cultural and socio-economic background than most of her fellow inmates, Kerman’s prison experience wasn’t as dreadful as the others. Without directly putting herself in their shoes, Kerman acknowledged to the readers that the guards abused their power towards other inmates; knowing the guards were most likely use to the abuse and neglect and wouldn’t be listened to if they were to report the abuse. The mistreatment that certain women encounter as they get caught up in the system because of racism, poverty, and low-level drug involvement

John Jurgensen’s article asks us an interesting question: how many TV series can our brains take? As television series expand to grandiose levels, it gets harder to follow what is happening: who people are, and what their place in the overall story is hard to follow for a large number of viewers. Jurgensen attempts to address this within his article, and it has some interesting points.

Donald Trump, the recently elected 45th president of the United States, gave two different answers when he was asked for his thoughts on immigration and the road to citizenship. While being interviewed in June of 2012 by CNBC, In response to the tough immigration law passed by the state of Arizona a day before, Trump said that he understood the undocumented immigrants and how hard they have worked to become exemplary people and that he does not believe that they should be sent out of the country. However, in June of 2015 when Trump initiated his presidential campaign by responding quite the opposite by stating that Mexico does not sent their best people, instead they sent their rapists and criminals, he also said that all undocumented immigrants on the road to citizenship would have

“Prison is not an isolated institution, it is part of a continuum in the control of women, whether by our lack of access to economic independence, violence, racism or specific laws that target women such as prostitution and social security. The society that condemns the behavior of women it imprisons, yet accepts the treatment prisoners are given inside is at best hypocritical, but perhaps more correctly, sadistic” (Amanda George). The prison system takes people away from their families and communities, for petty crimes and then give harsh sentences that doesn’t match the crime that was committed. Women are placed in an oppressive and controlling environment which subjects them to be treated in a manner which society looks down on but accept and sadly, does nothing about. Correspondingly, Piper Kerman wrote a memoir “Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison”

Since being released to Netflix in 2013 Orange is the New Black has been revolutionizing tv and has become one of the most progressive shows airing. It shows the dehumanization of inmates, transphobia, and corruption within the prison system. Not only that but this show is also challenges major problems in today’s television and society regarding race, misogyny, and heteronormativity and the typical character.

Orange is the new black is a Netflix original television show, which follows the journey and experiences in the correctional system of Piper Chapman who is played by Taylor Schilling. Chapman is a bisexual women who gets sent to Litchfield correctional Institution to serve a 15 month sentence for transporting a suitcase full of drug money to her former girlfriend Alex Vause, portrayed by Laura Prepon.Vause is an international drug smuggler and dealer. Chapman was charged with criminal conspiracy. The occurrence for this charge happened ten years prior to getting caught which gave her time to move forward in life and become a law abiding citizen in New York’s middle class. When Chapman began serving her sentence she was reunited with Vause who originally called her out in trial which resulted in her arrest. The show follows not only Chapman’s fight to survive the prison lifestyle and culture but also follows the life of other inmates and the prison guards.

Orange is The New Black is a new and innovative series aired on Netflix that follows the life of Piper Chapman, played by Taylor Schilling. Chapman was sentenced to fifteen months and serves her prison term at Litchfield Correctional Facility. She acquired the charge of criminal conspiracy after transporting a suitcase full of drug money to her then drug-running girlfriend Alex Vause, who is portrayed by Laura Prepon. Piper’s decade-old crime finally caught up to her. She has to give up her upper-class routine and her fiancé Larry, portrayed by Jason Biggs, for an orange jumpsuit and the new prison environment she was hoping to elude. The series follows Chapman’s unique experiences inside the prison, explores her interactions with other inmates and shows her animosity towards her ex-girlfriend Alex who happens to be in the same prison.

In 2013, Orange Is The New Black premiered as an original Netflix series based off the real life story of Piper Kerman and her time spent in a women's prison. The show which has gained much popularity in recent years, breaks the normal standards of female characters on a television series. Instead of trying to stick with this glorified idea of a lesbian character the show portrays various characters that actual lesbians can relate to on some level. Michael Gold, of The Baltimore Sun talks about the show and how it, “offers some of the most nuanced, thorough portrayals of queer women on television.” What is most fascinating about this show is how it incorporates a new look into the life of these women not only in prison, but what their lives outside of the prison walls were once like.

Depicted as a drama with comedic elements, Orange is the New Black deals with issues of gender and sexuality in prison and translates them into “stories about the struggles and successes of particular people” (Best 152). Although sociologists may criticize this portrayal of social problems because the show’s claim about the issues of gender and sexuality in prison can translate into individualized suffering, Orange is the New Black utilizes visual representations of its claims, making it less about the individual and more about a community (Best 152). For example, while Orange is the New Black focuses on Piper Chapman’s adjustment to life in Litchfield Penitentiary, it also displays other representations of women, such as the character Sophia Burset, and her experience as a transgendered woman in prison. Moreover, Orange is the New Black uses women to reflect different genders, sexualities, and personalities throughout its storyline to universalize its target audience, and this is a successful strategy as Orange is the New Black has received notice from various organizations with awards such as SAG, Emmy, and Critics’

Piper Kerman, the main character, gains privileges such as being granted furlough over the other inmates. This is significant because even if the audience doesn’t agree with the relevance of white privilege they are still being educated on what it

The show is based on Piper Kerman’s memoir of the same name, and documents the experiences of a privileged Connecticut WASP named Piper Chapman who spends 15 months in a woman’s prison because she transported money for the head of a drug cartel, who happened to be her lesbian lover. Some of the show’s primary themes involve this clash of worlds, between the upper class white background of Piper, and the lower class, mainly nonwhite world of the prison.

Orange is the new black is a show that basis women's views from a prison who are not terrible people however they ended up doing something if not for themselves but for someone else that gets them in trouble with the law. Necessarily wasn't the best idea or the right thing to do. The women are viewed as being strong or weak emotionally independent, dependent.

Orange is the new black is a Netflix original series about the functional ability of a woman's prison in upstate New York. Integrity, power, and privilege all work together to create many of the situations that arise. Litchfield prison is made up of white male officers, and different racial groups that are clearly divided. For each race, loosely made up of: blacks, latinos, whites, “others”, and a group of older women known as “the golden girls”, there is a sector of living. Blacks in one block, with a bathroom only for them, whites in another, etc. Conflict theory and symbolic interactionism are both excellent theories to examine this series by. Conflict theory, a multi-part theory about both race and gender, is applicable to Orange Is The New Black because of the degrading treatment of the women and the denial of their basic feminine needs. Symbolic interactionism can be applied to most situations that occur in the show. Through these theories social interactions in Orange Is The New Black can be looked at and better understood.