“Orange Is the New Black”: A Show about Women

“Orange Is the New Black”: A Show about Women

“Orange Is the New Black” is another one of Netflix’s creation, premiering just this summer. There was a lot of hype going on about this new show that would break through the cultural norms and give the audience a unique experience they can’t find on actual television, except maybe on HBO. “Orange Is the New Black” or OITNB has chosen the perfect medium and dialogue to capture the attention of the audience and get them involved with current conversations happening in our culture. OITNB is raising issues about different types of women, LGBT rights and conflicts, and race. All of these issues are immensely important but one stands out above all. By choosing Netflix to be their medium, OITNB has fewer regulations about what to present to an audience and therefore has made the most significant contribution of representing a new identity in the media: giving transwomen of color a sense of connection and belonging.

Netflix doesn’t have the same regulations as broadcast, including the use of dialogue and imagery, and it doesn’t have commercials, either, which is appealing to an audience. Netflix decided (brilliantly) to release all the episodes of OITNB at one time, because they listened to the audience and found out that people get hooked on shows when they can marathon through all the episodes (it’s like they know me). This method worked out incredibly in their favor, especially when it came to a groundbreaking character, Sophia Burset. Laverne Cox, a real life transgender woman and transgender advocate, has been casted to play Sophia, a prison hairstylist, who wound up in prison for using stolen credit cards to pay for her transition from male to female. Sophia’s back story was told in episode 3 “Lesbian Request Denied” and captured the emotional support from the audience early on.

OITNB has presented the first transwoman of color as a main character which is huge, not only in transhistory, but also media history, to have someone who can represent an identity that is non-existent in the media and make it more visible. We know from class that identity is the representation of social groups on television to establish norms and expectations of the particular identity and the dialogue in OITNB has effectively captured the bigoted remarks and actions that transgender individuals face on a day to day basis (Zimdars). This portrayal of certain cultured responses toward transwomen through the intelligent dialogue has brought in an empathetic audience to understand what Sophia is going through and when you hear “he/she”, you see how truly offensive that can be. They have Sophia as a strong character who brushes these comments off effortlessly, which was another intelligent move by Netflix to show the a transwoman of color as a strong role model for other people who share her identity.

Throughout Sophia’s episode they use her script to bring out the issues of money, freedom, and family that a person who wants to change their body might go through. One of the most important lines in the episode occurs when Sophia visits the doctor’s office because they stopped giving her the proper dosage of hormones to keep her regulated. She pleads the doctor to up her dosage and says “I’ve given 5 years, $80,000, and my freedom for this. I’m finally who I’m supposed to be, I can’t go back”. It is the perfect example of how OITNB structures the dialogue to make you stop and reassess what you know about transwomen stereotypes.

OITNB presents a transgender woman, but equally important, it presents the voice of the family. The audience is incredibly empathetic toward Crystal, Sophia’s wife, who has stuck by Sophia’s side through the whole transition into becoming a female and being in prison. In a flashback scene, Crystal pleads with Sophia to keep her penis- she can deal with the hair and makeup, but the entire alteration is difficult to process. OITNB also shows the less supportive side of Sophia’s son Michael, who is perhaps too young to process that his dad wants to be a woman. Crystal and Michael are opposite characters in the show, portraying both sides of what might happen when someone close decides to make a life-altering gender change. Crystal picks out a purple dress for Sophia to wear while Michael calls some shoes “gay” at a store in front of Sophia.

OITNB is breaking down boundaries and providing outlets for these types of conversations by alluding to the many issues transgender individuals and their families will endure. As Laverne Cox says in an interview, “Our society isn’t culturally coded for black transwomen to be able to live out our dreams publically”, but with progressive television shows, such as “Orange is the New Black”, there is a definite possibility for total equality in the future (Bell). Cox speaks on the constraints of her acting career as a transwomen of color and states that “I think the industry has to change, and I think their ideas have to begin to change about who trans people are, and what it means to have trans folks playing ourselves and playing characters that are written as trans on television” (Colurso) and Netflix is doing just that-trying to change the industry to give transwomen a chance to live out their dreams.

Sources:

Colurso, Mary. "Laverne Cox,Transgender Actress and Alabama Native, Earns Acclaim on 'Orange Is the New Black'" Al.com. Alabama Local News, 04 Sept. 2013.

Cox, Laverne. "Orange Is the New Black’s Laverne Cox Talks Trans History." Interview by W. Kamau Bell. Video blog post. Totally Biased. Slate.com. June Thomas, 12 Sept. 2013.

Zimdars, Melissa. "Representing Identity: Race and Ethnicity." TV Criticism. United States, Iowa City. 09 Sept. 2013. Lecture.