Abstract
Orange Is the New Black is a Netflix television series that began in 2013. The series focuses on the lives of inmates in a fictional women's prison. Television series about prison have focused primarily on men in prison. This thesis will expand upon previous research on representation of minorities in television using a feminist media analysis to examine the first season of the series. I will explore how race, gender, and sexuality are represented within the series. I examine the representations of four characters during the first season. I chose these four characters because they represented different racial groups, sexualities, and gender expressions. I argue that while the series gives visibility to many minority women, the show continues to use harmful stereotypes that perpetuate negative cultural ideologies about minorities.
Advisor
Laura Harrison
Committee Member
Barbara Carson
Committee Member
Jessica Flatequal
Date of Degree
2015
Language
english
Document Type
Thesis
Degree
Master of Science (MS)
College
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Recommended Citation
Chaves, M. R. (2015). Representing Us All? Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Orange Is the New Black [Master’s thesis, Minnesota State University, Mankato]. Cornerstone: A Collection of Scholarly and Creative Works for Minnesota State University, Mankato. https://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/etds/422/
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Gender and Sexuality Commons, Race and Ethnicity Commons, Television Commons, Women's Studies Commons
Rights Statement
