My graduate school colleague and now NYU professor Dr. Shabnam Javdani wrote this powerful op-ed about Orange is the New Black. Heres an excerpt: As fans of the show, are we content to revel in the drama and internalize the message that prison can be a vehicle for self-discovery and liberation? To celebrate the diversity of its cast? To believe that we have a window into the plight of incarcerated women? To exclaim that #yesallwomen -- even those in prison -- finally have a voice!? This is fantasy with a dangerous social function -- to promote a false sense of progress and keep us on our couches. Therein lies the sour twist. The show may ultimately perpetuate the illusion of womens empowerment and make us very comfortable with womens incarceration. Why? Because it remains silent on the issue of social power and uncritical of evidence that criminal justice policies are casting a wider net and bringing more women to prison in the first place, as suggested by one of my co-authored studies -- all the while allowing viewers to feel they are part of a movement. That is not my definition of equality. I want to watch a show that criticizes our reliance on incarceration, not one that depicts a jumpsuit as an item every woman needs in her closet...Instead of celebrating its diversity, lets ask it trouble the over-criminalization of Black and Latina women. To make gender inequality its star and depict the social institutions that function to maintain it -- including the criminal justice systems response before, during, and after incarceration. To reveal that even though we do not make the rules, we have to live by the consequences of breaking them.
Posted on: Fri, 27 Jun 2014 23:47:38 +0000