The cast of Orange Is the New Black recently picked up their third consecutive SAG Award for outstanding performance by an ensemble cast in a comedy series. Netflix renewed the show through season seven, which represents the streaming company’s largest commitment for any original-content production. It now garners ratings as high as the top serialized television series and is the digital service’s flagship show.
Stef Woods of American University examines the impact of OITNB as a cultural phenomenon. Through a close look at the fictional series that centers on the female inmates of Litchfield Penitentiary, she examines how it takes on real-world issues like race, class, sexuality, identity, and the criminal justice system. Woods analyzes how the show intersects with in-the-news topics such as the growing visibility of people who identify as transgender and the Black Lives Matter movement—a storyline that generated backlash for the series. She also discusses how life in fictional Litchfield parallels that in privatized prisons in the United States.
As Woods provides an overview of the show’s five seasons, get ready to join conversation as she explores why we’re still making time for the women of Litchfield who are serving time.
Woods is a professorial lecturer in AU’s American Studies program and a former attorney. She often uses popular culture as a focus for her classes and has previously presented programs on The Hunger Games and House of Cards for Smithsonian Associates.
