Feminist Perspectives on Orange Is the New Black

Book excerpt: Since its 2013 premiere, Orange Is the New Black has become Netflix’s most watched series, garnering critical praise and numerous awards and advancing the cultural phenomenon of binge-watching. Academic conferences now routinely feature panels discussing the show, and the book on which it is based is popular course material at many universities. Yet little work has been published on OINTB. The series has sparked debate: does it celebrate diversity or is it told from the perspective of white privilege, with characters embodying some of the most racist and sexist stereotypes in television history? This collection of new essays is the first to analyze the show’s multiple layers of meaning. Examining Orange Is the New Black from a number of feminist perspectives, the contributors cover topics such as gender, race, class, sexuality, transgenderism, mass incarceration and the prison industrial complex, disability, and sexual assault.