Sociological Analysis Of Orange Is The New Black

For this mini sociological activity, I watched an episode of “Orange is the New Black” on Netflix on Monday, November 9th from 12:30 to 1:30 pm. Before watching the episode, I created a chart listing the possible racial-ethnic groups that could appear in the episode. Then as I watched the episode, I took a tally of the number of characters that belonged to each racial-ethnic group and wrote down words that described the characters of each racial-ethnic group and how they were portrayed. While watching an episode of “Orange is the New Black”, I observed a total of 42 characters: approximately 50% of which were Caucasian, 29% were African American, 17% were of Hispanic background, and 5% were of Asian background. I also found that most of the …show more content…
A majority of the black inmates have stereotypical “black” hairdos, such as afros, and speak with a particular dialect or slang associated with black culture. Furthermore, “Orange is the New Black” shows one black character as a former track star, presenting the societal view of African American athletic dominance. Another stereotype of African Americans remains that their teenagers act as delinquents and reject mainstream society, shown in this episode of “Orange is the New Black” when one of the black character’s son gets in trouble with the police for assaulting another …show more content…
Hispanics, traditionally, are family oriented and have large families; all of the Hispanic inmates are mothers, have multiple children, and often talk about their families. Another stereotype of Hispanic-Americans are that they are of the working class and, more often than not, represent the lower class. None of the Hispanic women in “Orange is the New Black” come from wealthy backgrounds. The Hispanic women in the show are also religious and act in a sexual manner; both of which are stereotypes of their racial ethnic