The fictional representations of prison produced are a reflection of society. Prison films date back to the 1930s during the Great Depression, an era where countries all over the world dealt with the aftermath of the stock market crash. These films reflected the slump of the 1930s in America: the innocent living in fear “clearly [reflected] the despair of the nation faced with incomprehensible social and economic upheaval, [and] the cells, bars, and chains” are symbols to portray “the sense of frustration and restriction in a land of lost opportunity” (Mason 198). Later, in prison media, the popular motif of prison breaks begins to surface—and parallel reality. For instance, television series like Prison Break and Orange is the New Black “use
