Orange Is The New Black: Black Suffering For White People To Enjoy? Is This What The White Writers Are Doing?

by | Jun 29, 2016 | Culture, Opinion | 0 comments

If you’ve been watching this latest season of Orange is the New Black then I am sure you’ve been through hell with the characters. No stone has been left unturned, they have attacked America and the screwed up prison system head on.

Of course that needs some respect. BUT every action needs to be seen from multiple lenses.

Orange is the new Black is entertainment, for a socially conscious generation. People who care! But suffering after suffering, white representation, black representation, on closer inspection the show may just be trauma porn.

Written by white writers and seemingly at times using white apology and white saviours the black characters are taken through a hell like no other. I’m not sure the writers quite know it but it seems it may be starting to show through and violence sells. People watched Rambo mow down 100s of people the same way they watch a female prisoner beaten to within an inch of her life. Violence on screen tugs at emotions, it’s the same as going on a rollercoaster, we get to experience the highs and lows within safety.

I want to turn you to another post now, written by Ashley Shackelford for Wear Your Voice Mag. Ashley writes:

“The new season of Orange is the New Black is such a whirlwind of bullshit and triggers that I’m baffled as to why I even engage with it so heavily. I’m constantly caught between thinking, “are they doing this because they want audiences to see and acknowledge the violence and realities against people of color?” and “Y’all antiblack as fuck. Fuck the clique you rep. All these white and non-black writers got me fucked up. I don’t know why I watch this shit! Mannnn, fuck y’all!”

I’m at a crossroads of wanting to critique it because it allows for us to have colorful (white supremacist pun intended) conversations about the realities of prison, systemic racism, misogyny, sexual assault, white fragility, white privilege (times a billion) and antiblackness. But I also just want to throw up. It’s like the entire show is written as a season long trauma porn. It’s like the writers and producers sat around and said, “Let’s put all the most fucked up recent cultural references in one season and be the most forward, innovative, social justice show out there!” It’s literally the exploitation and voyeurism of our pain on a platter for the world to gawk at and consume.

I made a list of some themes and motifs that are constant throughout the show and current season that prove that this show is written and produced to employ shock factor for capitalistic gain and intended for the white gaze.”

You shoudld really finish her article which can be read in full here: http://wearyourvoicemag.com/more/entertainment/orange-is-the-new-black-trauma-porn-written-white-people

I would love to know your thoughts.

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