Orange Is The New Black Essay

Orange is the New Black is a netflix series that covers most, if not all of the topics we’ve discussed in sociology. It’s not just a series about a woman who ends up in jail because she was transporting drug money for her international drug smuggler girlfriend at the time. It is also about individual prisoners who've somehow ended up in prison and their backstories. The five topics I felt were most displayed were sex, social interaction, religion, race, and groups. One clip that shows how the series looks at sex and sexual behaviors is one from season 4 episode 5 when the sexist, racist COs were talking about Ramos as if she was food and she defended herself. She makes fun of one of the COs for implying she’s like a savory breakfast.
The series also touches on mental illness
There are a lot of great examples of these terms but there’s a specific scene I thought would suit it best. The last scene from the most recent season is a nail-biting and magnificent cliff hanger, but it also shows how the prison is divided into racial groups. The scene begins with the warden talking about the death of inmate Poussey who was accidentally killed by one of the COs while he was holding her down because he thought she was a threat. Taystee, a friend of Poussey, was listening to the whole news report from outside of the warden's office. She was infuriated because they weren’t going to fire the CO and he was also called the victim. Taystee then went into the “ghetto” everyone about what just happened, so they went down the halls yelling there was no justice and other inmates heard her and tagged along. This is where we see how the prison’s dorms are divided into the “ghetto”, “Spanish Harlem”, and the “suburbs”. They then all march to where two COs are and they surround them. Dayanara ends up with a gun and she points it at a very hated CO. That is when it cuts to a flashback of a Poussey in New York