"Prisons, of course, thrive on class inequalities, they thrive on racial inequalities, they thrive on gender inequalities. They produce and reproduce those inequalities, because they segregate and isolate the individuals they punish. They also conceal the inequalities they reproduce." — Angela Davis, "The Meaning of Freedom" (2012)
In Angela Davis's writings on the Prison Industrial Complex she suggests that in order for the current prison system to work, we are required to forget our loved ones there, and even our own past experiences in prisons. We are required to think of prison life as not here, not us, at the same time that we are meant to fear going to prison. This erasure is accomplished by fear, produced by police presence and surveillance with the threat of incarceration, and by culture as a whole, including sensationalistic, flat and inaccurate representations of prison life in popular culture.
Jenji Kohen's controversial if critically acclaimed new series on everyday life for women in prison, Orange is the New Black—is a bold effort to reassert these erased stories—and in particular the struggle to maintain personal integrity, equality and sexual freedom. This exploration of the meanings of freedom in prison goes hand in hand with the show's representation of multiple races, sexualities, genders and classes of women.
I admit to being impatient initially with the ways that the show at first centers the struggles of Piper Chapman, the educated white woman who is wrested from her comfortably heteronormative life by being sentenced to one year in prison for past drug trafficking and money laundering. We watch Piper bearing the prying eyes of the women of color prisoners in the shower and aggressively pursued by "Crazy Eyes," an African-American prisoner whose sense of reality seems a little bit off. Piper becomes our entre into prison life; her humiliations the gauge of what's wrong with prisons. At least at first.
But as the show develops over the course of the season, it increasingly subverts its white center. This is particularly important because women of color constitute the fastest growing population within the entire prison population. As the season unfolds, we see the lives of the multiple women unfold, both through flashbacks that give the stories behind their crimes, and with more time on screen. While flawed, Orange is the New Black has begun to live up to the promise of its superb opening credits, which feature a vivid montage of closeups of faces of women formerly incarcerated in real life, depicting multiple skin colors, ages and genders, all whose eyes have story to tell.
At its best, the show reveals how the structural racism of prison reflects our larger social fabric. White women and women of color are given unequal punishments for their infractions. For example, when Piper is seen by the guards running to catch an illusive chicken on the grounds, she is given a slap on the wrist while an African American inmate also found running is sent to "the shoe," or solitary confinement. We watch Piper's face struggle as she wrestles with this knowledge, even as she sometimes uses it as a bargaining chip. At these moments, Piper's relative white privilege is made visible. Even the ways that racial segregation in the prison is naturalized by the inmates themselves, by calling it "tribalism," powerfully illustrates the ways that the prison reflects the racism in our society as a whole, in these so-called "post-racial" times.
Sex is everywhere in Orange is the New Black: in showers, behind a church pew, solo in a bunk with a rubber-padded screwdriver, and it is depicted with raw, funky and sometimes funny honesty. But scenes of true intimacy and trust are rare on the show. We also see the ways that sexual harassment is a tool used regularly by the guards and officials. While some might hail the sexual frankness of show, and especially its willingness to feature lesbian sex scenes, I think it's also important to call attention to the emotional bleakness of the sexual landscape, and the undermining of trust, intimacy or eroticism by the prison's structures.
The show also movingly depicts the surveillance of gender expression in prison. Through the character of Sophia, a transgender character (powerfully performed by real-life trans actor Laverne Cox), we see how the control of gender is medicalized, when Sophia is blithely denied her hormones to complete her transition as a means of cutting down health costs.
I believe that in its next season Orange is the New Black has the power to bring more folks in the United States to the nationwide activist movement for prison reform and abolition. But in order to do so, it will need to continue to center the experiences of women of color and an analysis of prison's structures of power.
Francesca Royster is a Professor of English at DePaul University, where she teaches courses on Shakespeare, Popular Culture, gender, race, sexuality and performance. Her books include Sounding Like a No-No: Queer Sounds and Eccentric Acts in the Post-Soul Era (University of Michigan Press, 2013) and Becoming Cleopatra: The Shifting Image of an Icon (Palgrave, 2003).
