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Stereotypes In Jenji Kohan's Orange Is The New Black

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Never before in history of television has there had such an ignition of TV revolution for women, and now, the new binge watching, based on a true story, adapted from the book, series, has finally arrived with the premiere of “Orange is the New Black” by Jenji Kohan. Completely contradicting the illusion of ads —such as the misrepresentation of women having perfect bodies— Kohan pursued to take an initiative and create a show where women in prison are allowed to be represented as black, white, Hispanic, and Asian; fat, slim, short, and tall; straight, lesbian, gay, and transgender; murders, psychopaths, stalkers, and drug dealers. After all, isn’t everyone imperfect in his or her own way? When watching the show—more specifically S1E3— it is possible to, observe the protagonist’s failed attempts to make new relationships with people in prison due to hostile environment, to register hierarchy among women prisoners, and to characterize stereotypes of women with color. When the protagonist Piper Chapman first enters the world of Litchfield prison, everything she believed in or knew disappeared in …show more content…

Her struggle in prison is identified when she tells Piper, “ [I] ain't had powder foundation in dark for three months. 
I can't be walking around here with white face on,” showing that being a black woman doesn’t get all the merit a white woman does. Later she also adds, “Commissary don't carry a size 13 [shoes]”. Since Sophia was born a man, she is much taller than all the other inmates. Thus, the commissary doesn’t have her shoe size, which turns out to be another item out of stock for black women. In addition to that, in both passages, she uses incorrect English grammar to insinuate that black women in prison talk this

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