The Color Orange? Social Justice Issues in the First Season of Orange Is the New Black [Note 1. Thanks to Pat Darlington for suggesting this piece. Thanks ...]

O RANGE IS THE NEW BLACK (2013–) IS A POPULAR, CRITICALLY acclaimed Netflix original series, loosely based upon the bestselling 2010 memoir of Piper Kerman—a white, blonde, upper-middleclass Smith graduate who got involved in the drug trade via a lesbian lover. Kerman had left that lover and established herself in a straight lifestyle, including becoming law-abiding and engaged to a man. But, a few years later, the drug ring was discovered and Kerman named as a collaborator. Taking a deal, she served just over a year in a minimum security federal prison. The catchy title refers to the orange jumpsuit worn by new prisoners. Soon after Kerman was imprisoned, a friend mailed a clipping of a New York Times fashion spot, showing women sporting the color, and quipped: “NYers wear orange in solidarity w/Piper’s plight.” Kerman quipped back: “Apparently, orange was the new black” (71). As that high-fashion reference suggests, Orange is the New Black (OITNB) is not a female version of HBO’s ultra-grim Oz (1997– 2003). Rather, it is a “dramedy” or “dark comedy” and was designated a “comedy” by Netflix when it came to categorization for awards. OITNB has generated a great deal of media buzz, including in the alternative press. Writing in Curve, a lesbian magazine, Francesca Lewis praised it as “The Most Queer Feminist Thing Ever” and offered three reasons: the show’s “woman-centeredness,” “diversity,” and willingness to “take on a controversial subject—prison.” Diversity in representation does matter. Media theorists George Gerbner and Larry Gross aver: “Representation in the fictional world signifies social existence; absence means symbolic annihilation” (182).