Balyhoo Behind Bars: Staging the Women's Prison as Spectacle: A Bernaysian Reading of Orange Is the New Black (2013-2019) within a Critical Cultural Studies Framework
Author
Term
4. term
Education
Publication year
2026
Submitted on
2026-01-06
Pages
6987
Abstract
The project is inspired by the harsh reality of mass incarceration in the USA and the stark contrast between that reality and how female incarceration is depicted in popular culture and news media. It applies Edward Bernays’s theory of public persuasion to examine how Orange is the New Black (Netflix 2013–2019) appeals to audiences through emotional and symbolic strategies rather than rational arguments. Drawing on Freudian psychology and Gustave Le Bon’s ideas on crowd behavior, Bernays defined methods for utilizing unconscious desires, symbols, and stereotypes to ensure easy recognition and elicit appropriate emotional responses. bell hooks’ work on the representation of marginalized bodies in cultural texts serves as a critical point of comparison, alongside Michelle M. Lazar’s Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis (FCDA), which foregrounds the examination of discursive practices that sustain unequal social relations and naturalize power structures. Reading Bernays alongside hooks and Lazar reveals not contradictions but a complementarity: where hooks diagnoses the effects of mass-mediated culture on marginalized bodies, Bernays explains the mechanisms that perpetuate them, while Lazar’s FCDA provides a framework for imagining more just gender and racial representation in popular media. Building on this theoretical framework, the analysis examines how OITNB employs overt sexualization as a strategic device, sustaining audience attention. In this process, sexual excess functions as a smokescreen that obscures structural power relations while appearing to expose them. Moreover, the series normalizes female trauma and excuses the sadistic behavior of guards toward incarcerated women, framing abuse as inconsequential within the narrative. Drawing on Bernays’s recommendation to increase appeal through shortcuts in the form of stereotypes, the analysis also considers how racialized figures are staged within the narrative, simultaneously amplifying their appeal while perpetuating existing clichés under the guise of diversity. Black characters in OITNB defy traditional hypersexualized stereotypes, depicting limited attempts to challenge systemic injustices or illustrating a commodification of Black suffering. Latina characters are portrayed as wild and exotic sexual objects reflecting bell hooks’ concept of ‘eating the other’ or as expendable figures who are disposed of once their narrative function is fulfilled. Maritza Ramos exemplifies this logic, with her storyline functioning as a cautionary tale at the intersection of immigration and incarceration, ultimately reinforcing contemporary discourses that frame immigrants as illegal and criminal. The redistribution of Otherness preserves its persuasive function and ensures easy consumability, maintaining the efficiency of stereotypical representation. In Bernays’s terms, it reduces cognitive effort by relying on familiar images that trigger recognition, moral clarity, and predictable emotional responses. While claiming to present multiple perspectives and diverse representations, the series continuously privileges its white protagonist, Piper Chapman, positioning her as an ideal model for other characters to follow. Finally, the series treats her incarceration as a moral mishap, granting her a clean slate after release, which contrasts sharply with the harsh realities faced by ex-felons in the U.S. justice system.
Documents