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Chloe Burns

Media Analysis

12/01/16

Orange is the New Black… is the New Call to Action

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When I started the first season of Orange is the New Black (or OITNB), I felt a lot of the

same things I imagine many viewers did: I was intrigued by the premise, I found myself irritated

with the seemingly holier-than-thou character of Piper Chapman, I briefly questioned my

sexuality, and the show became a fun way to spend the evenings when there wasn’t much else to

do. But by the end of season four, my eyes and ears were glued to the screen, I had dried tears

on my cheeks, and minutes after the episode ended, I was still sitting in shock. Over the course

of four seasons, facing growing injustices in the world around it, OITNB saw the opportunity to

make their message matter, and they stood up to meet the challenge head-on. Now, it may

provide one of the most important narratives when it comes to the new Black Liberation

movement.

Racial inequality in the United States is, obviously, by no means a new problem (one

might even say the country was founded on the idea). But social justice movements exist on a

pendulum, constantly in motion either away from or towards uprise. When OITNB began in

2012, the country was already gathering momentum towards one of these swings, kicking off the

year with the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin by neighborhood watch coordinator George

Zimmerman. “The murder of Trayvon Martin and the acquittal of his killer… was a turning

point in the development of this new phase of the black struggle,” says Brian Jones in his article,
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Black Lives Matter and the Struggle for Freedom. He goes on to cite Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor,

author of the book From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, as she says, “George

Zimmerman benefited from this dual system… He was allowed to walk free for weeks before

protests pressured officials into arresting him… He was not subjected to drug tests, although

Trayvon Martin’s dead body had been” (qtd. in Jones 6). The issue was not just that Trayvon had

been murdered — it was how the case was handled afterwards. As Jones states, “The sharpest

edge of American racism, of course, is the U.S. criminal justice system” (2). As OITNB

continued following Piper’s journey in prison in season two, the outcry continued to grow from

outside, accumulating in the protests in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, after Michael Brown was

fatally shot by police officer Darren Wilson. Like George Zimmerman, Wilson did not face

criminal charges for the murder. The number of similar cases not only continued to occur, but

began to gain more national attention, producing hashtags such as #SayTheirNames and

prompting more protests by concerned citizens. The public was entering a time of large-scale

unrest, but that didn’t necessarily mean that television shows had to respond.

As Jonathan Gray, author of Creativity, Innovation, and Industry puts it, “Novelty and

innovation, by executive logic, are risky, and while they may pay off big… it is safer, more

‘comfortable’ to produce more of the same” (24). Even in a time when sex and scandal are

extremely popular (as evidenced by the numerous successful shows depicting them), it would

have been intimidating to approach such a subject as sensitive as systematic brutality against

African Americans. Sex, though some people pretend otherwise, is something everyone secretly

wants to get involved with. In contrast, brutality and violence, especially when it is reflecting

the real world that many people face, is something most everyone finds gruesome at their core.
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And indeed, after the ending of the fourth season, many people felt deeply violated by the risk

OITNB had taken. Emily Nussbaum, author of the article Empathy and “Orange is the New

Black,” remarks that after the finale, “there was an explosion of rage and grief among some

viewers… some observers resented the fact that the show, which has mostly white writers, had

forced fans, especially African-Americans, to soak in racist violence rather than offering them a

respite from it” (Nussbaum, “Empathy”). However, the show also sparked a new kind of

conversation: Who is to blame in incidents of brutality? Yes, Bailey killed Poussey, but it was

not an intentional act of racially-motivated violence; it was the end link in a chain reaction of

corporate greed and ignorance that not had only neglected to train him properly, but engaged in

increasingly dehumanizing treatment of the inmates. But then, whenever we start to feel tears

welling up for the guard, we are reminded that a girl is now dead, so does any defense for Bailey

really matter? We are also forced to ask, should she have even been in prison in the first place?

(Poussey was, after all, arrested for pot-smoking and trespassing — charges that Bailey had

earlier taken part in himself.) It seems that OITNB is not only asking us to refrain from

demonizing individuals, but it’s also asking us, what do we do from here? Nussbaum suggests

that ultimately, “when conditions are unbearable, ‘good behavior,’ love and kindness, are

insufficient to achieve justice,” which, considering the gun in Daya’s hands and the crowd

egging her on in the second-to-final scene of season four, does seem to follow the show’s

narrative.

Although Gray discusses at length the many ways television can fall into the same self-

destructive, repetitive patterns, he also reminds us that this doesn’t necessarily mean that’s the

way it has to be. “[T]he television serial’s length… potentially offers television its greatest
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power as an art form” (27), he says. While OITNB might have fallen into a somewhat

predictable, uncomfortably familiar narrative in the beginning (a white, middle class woman

with, quote, “dangerous secrets”), this allowed it to gain enough traction to step out on a limb

when it needed to. And yes, it needed to, or at least something did. At a time when many peace-

makers are tempted to say they “don’t see color” or insist that there is no longer racial bias in this

country (we just had a black president, for goodness sakes!), it is the job of artists to draw

attention to the problems that need brought into the light, whether these are comfortable or not.

Being a commercial art medium, television is precarious when it comes to risk-taking, but should

that mean it’s exempt from this responsibility? Perhaps this means it should be held to it even

more aggressively. In any case, OITNB recognized not only their position, but with two

successful seasons under their belt, their opportunity to do what other shows might not have been

able to: to take the growing tensions among the African American community and bring them

into our homes. Of course, now that they’ve delivered it, their job is mostly done. As Nussbaum

sums up, in reference to the haunting smile Poussey gives us at the end of the season four finale,

“The smile is a confrontation, and maybe a kind of pressure, too.” What the writers of OITNB do

next is on them, whether or not they continue to present these hard-to-hear messages. But what

happens in reality, of course, still remains on those of us who have been smacked in the face with

it.

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Bibliography

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Jones, Brian P. “Black Lives Matter and the Struggle for Freedom.” Monthly Review 68.4

(2016): 1-8. Research Library. Web. 1 Dec. 2016.

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Gray, Jonathan. “Art with Strings Attached: Creativity, Innovations, and Industry.”

Television Entertainment. Taylor & Francis, 2008.

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Nussbaum, Emily. “Empathy and ‘Orange is the New Black.’” The New Yorker

(July 2016). Web. 1 Dec. 2016.