Media Paper
When thinking about stereotypes and cultural rhetoric within the media, one of the first
things that came to my mind was the new series on Nelix, Orange Is the New Black. This show
in par!cular portrays life on the inside of a women’s prison. From the very first episode of the
first season, it is made clear just how full of racist stereotypes this show is. The mere fact that
the whole show is revolved around a nice, blonde, girl-next-door type person being sent to
prison for carrying drug money for her lesbian lover over ten years ago shows how the makers
of this show took just a show about a women’s prison and gave it an interes!ng twist by adding
this woman who is not what you think of when thinking of women who go to prison. And the
producers of this show take full advantage of that fact throughout the series.
In the first episode of Orange Is the New Black, en!tled I Wasn’t Ready, Piper Chapman
is sent to prison to serve her 15 month sentence for carrying drug money over ten years ago for
her lesbian girlfriend at the !me. It is immediately a shock to everyone around her, including
her new fiancé Larry, that someone as normal and innocent as her would be sent o/ to prison.
A0er Piper surrenders herself to prison, like a good woman would do, she is thrust right into a
whole other world: prison. And so the racism of prison begins.
Piper is stripped of her clothing and belongings and put in a prison jumpsuit and loaded
onto a bus, driven by another inmate, which will take her to the prison itself. While on the bus,
she is advised by the driver of the bus, Morello, to be careful no one steals her things in prison,
and they both immediately look over to the African American woman si2ng next to Piper. This
small ac!on tells a big story; when one is thinking about prison, often !mes it is easy to just
picture an African American person who beats up on and steals from everyone else. This is the
first real representa!on of the racism within this prison in this show. Once the inmates from the
bus make it into the actual prison and taken to their rooms, Morello, who is another regular
looking Caucasian woman like Piper Chapman, hands her some supplies such as a toothbrush
and !ssues that she will be needing in the days to come. As she hands Chapman these items
Morello states, “we look out for our own… it’s tribal not racist.” This is your first glimpse of how
segregated this prison is in terms of race and cultural background but yet the inmates see no
problem with this, it is simply how things are in prison and that is what becomes normal to
them. From an audience point-of-view, it is very clear how this show is set up to portray all of
the typical stereotypes one thinks of when thinking of prison.
Yet another portrayal of a racial stereotype comes fairly early on in the show as well.
