° Comunicación y Medios N 37 (2018) www. comunicacionymedios.uchile.cl 79 Diversity behind bars: Stereotypes and gender identity in the fictional television series Orange is the New Black Diversidad entre rejas: Estereotipos e identidad de gé- nero en la ficción televisiva Orange is the New Black Leyre Eguskiza-Sesumaga. University of the Basque Country. [email protected] Abstract Resumen The multiplicity of platforms and channels pre- La multiplicidad de plataformas y canales en la vailing in the Third Golden Age of television has Tercera Edad De Oro de la televisión ha genera- generated an expansion of fictional products, do una expansión de la oferta ficcional, dando giving new formats, stories and characters their cabida a nuevos formatos, historias y persona- own place. Orange is the New Black, with a jes. Con un elenco mayoritariamente femenino, mostly female cast, brings the audience closer Orange is the New Black acerca a la audiencia to daily life of women in prison. This research la vida de un grupo de mujeres en prisión. Este work delves into the representation of main cha- trabajo de investigación ahonda en la represen- racters’ gender identity, determining which fac- tación de la identidad de género de sus prota- tors affect the way these women are reflected. gonistas, determinando qué factores influyen An in-depth analysis of fourteen female cha- en dicho retrato. El análisis en profundidad de racters detects several stereotypes and values catorce personajes femeninos detecta estereo- associated with the traditional heteronormative tipos y valores asociados al modelo heteronor- model. Nevertheless, prevailing social canons, mativo. Sin embargo, la representación de los represented by the main character, open the cánones sociales imperantes, personificados a door to multiple femininity models and give visi- través de la protagonista, abre la puerta a múl- bility to minority collectives. tiples modelos de feminidad y a la visibilización de colectivos minoritarios. Keywords Gender identity; stereotypes; television; fiction; Palabras clave gender studies Identidad de género; estereotipos; televisión; ficción; estudios de género Received: 14-03-2018 / Accepted: 01-06-2018 / Published: 30-06-2018 DOI: 10.5354/0719-1529.2018.48622 ° Comunicación y Medios N 37 /2018 e-ISSN 0719-1529 L. guskiza-Sesumaga 80 1. Introduction 2. The Representation of women in fictional television The American Piper Kerman began writing her memoire to tell the audience about the Women and communications media have for- single most defining experience in her life. In med a widely researched pair in recent decades, Orange is the New Black My Year in a 2010 : with a profuse number of studies that broach au- Women’s Prison , an autobiographical book diovisual production from a gender perspective. about her time at the Federal Correctional Ins- Academic interest in the representation of mul- titution, Danbury (Connecticut), was released. tiple realities within the aspect of femininity in The director producer Jenji Kohan would sub- fictional television, coinciding with the success sequently bid to turn the book into a television of series in general, has led to well-informed Orange is the New Black series: (in reference research centering on roles, stereotypes and to the orange jumpsuits worn by inmates on social representation on the small screen (De arrival at the prison). Miguel, Ituarte, Olabarri $ Siles, 2004; Galan, 2007; Belmote $ Guillamon, 2008; Menendez The first season of the drama/comedy was re- $ Zurian, 2014). It has also covered other ma- leased on Netflix in July 2013, and 65 episodes tters of interest such as family models (Lacalle have been aired to date1. Since its inclusion in $ Hidalgo-Mari, 2016). In the same manner we the global television catalogue the series has find more examples of research linked to other garnered considerable success, not without acclaimed works of fiction such as The Walking criticism, for its depiction of issues of social in- Dead, Mad Men, and Game of Thrones (Lopez terest such as racism, the abuse of power, and & Garcia, 2013; Chicharro $ Acolea, 2014). the privatization of the penitentiary system. Its popularity is such that in the first two days of Some North American series such as Ally McBeal the release of the fourth season on the digital (1997 – 2002), Sex and the City (1998 – 2004), platform, 6.7 million viewers in the US tuned in and Desperate Housewives (2004 – 2012), con- to watch (17/06/2016 – 19/06/2016). The data sidered pioneers in the audiovisual industry, provided by the communications conglomera- brought about a change to the representation te Nielsen single it out as one of the most fo- of female characters, and empowered them in Netflix. llowed series on the face of traditional male chauvinism. This was the result of research projects such as Women in In the opening episodes the audience accom- Series (Fernandez, Menendez, Torras & Trapero, panied Piper Chapman, Kerman’s alter ego, 2006), a set of articles about the first two series on her first incursion into prison. However, the mentioned above, in conjunction with other arti- protagonist slowly gives way to the rest of the cles that analyze the same series from a feminist characters, turning them into an ensemble cast and post-feminist perspective (Dubrofsky, 2002; in which the lives of the inmates and prison staff Moseley & Read, 2002; Gerhard, 2005; Kaufer, weave and intertwine. This paper investigates 2009; Hill, 2010; Lorié, 2011; Chicharro, 2013). deeper into the representation of the female characters, looking at transversal factors such Orange is the New Black was born in the midst as age, race, social status, religion, maternity of the Third Golden Age of television, a period and sexual diversity. One of the main tasks was that began in the late nineties and has continued to determine what factors influence the por- until today. For Alberto Nahum, “to explain this trayals of these women, detecting the possible boom means we must take into account a set presence of gender stereotypes that lie hidden of factors – industrial, technological, narrative beneath the façade of a bold and transgressive and audience – that have become enmeshed aesthetic. and in that entanglement each has synchronica- lly influenced the others” (2014: 1). Stand outs among them are the arrival of cable and satellite television to the US, the proliferation of digital Diversity behind bars: Stereotypes and gender identity in the fictional television series Orange is the New Black platforms and the subsequent multiplicity in the Spanish Harlem (Latin American inmates) and 81 offer of different subject matter. In their search The Ghetto (black inmates) and a fourth group for an increasingly more segmented audien- of older women called the Golden Girls. Taking ce audiovisual productions have undergone “a these circumstances in mind efforts have been leap in quality with heightened ambition regar- made to balance the origins of the protagonists ding content, and stories that are more sophis- – approximately twenty – integrating a similar ticated” (Nahum, 2014: 1-2), integrating narrati- number of characters from each group. Given ves that initially didn’t seem to have a place in the group of older inmates is smaller, their re- programming. presentation in the sample is accordingly sma- ller. The fourteen characters in the sample are This particular series “moves away from repre- distributed in the following manner: sentation typically associated with patriarchal tradition” (Aguado & Martinez, 2015: 263), and The Suburbs: Piper Chapman, Lorna Morello, bids to reveal and showcase mental disease, Carrie Black and Tiffany Doggett transgender women, abortion, sexual assault and age. Despite its fairly recent appearance in The Spanish Harlem: Dayanara Diaz, Aleida programming it has inspired a bevy of research Diaz, Gloria Mendoza and Maria Ruiz stemming from gender studies (Artt & Schwan, 2016; Fernandez & Menendez, 2016; Schwan, The Ghetto: Sophia Burset, Tasha Jefferson, 2016; McKeown & Parry, 2017). In the same Suzanne Warren and Poussey Washington manner racial discrimination in prison is also a frequent research topic (Caputi, 2015; Enck & The Golden Girls: Galina Reznikov and Rosa Morrisey, 2015; Aguado & Martinez, 2016; Bel- Cisneros cher, 2016) that develops with the construction of the timeline in the series (Silverman & Ryalls, The analysis was carried out in accordance with 2016), the protagonists’ occupations (Pramag- a file based on the methodology Elena Galan giore, 2016) and Netflix’s promotional strategy Fajardo presented in her study The social ima- (DeCarvalho & Cox, 2016). ge of women in fictional television series (2007). The initial phase in the method details three fun- damental axes for the development of the cha- racters in question: physical description, psycho- logical make-up and social environment (Galan, 3. Methodology 2007: 46). After the aforementioned first appre- ciation the study then relies on the contributions The methodology revolves around an in-depth of Phillip M. Parker to broaden the parameters character study of the female protagonists in (Galan, 2007: 48). External presentation refers the first four seasons of the series, each season to gender, age appearance or sexuality. Internal with a total of thirteen episodes. The wide va- presentation refers to intellectual and emotio- riety of female characters that make up the cast nal parameters that inform their behavior. Lastly, has required that the sample used in the study context refers to their environment, relationship be reduced to only the main roles. Who was with their environment or personal history. considered a main character was based on whe- ther a character had one or more episodes dea- Taking the above factors into account, the au- ling exclusively with their story, narrating parts thor drafted an extensive table to analyze each of their lives prior to being incarcerated. Main character (Galan, 2007: 85-90) with content characters were also determined to be charac- adapted from the goals of the study, eliminating ters that have been present on the show since certain categories and adding others.