The producers of "Orange is the New Black" lost their bid earlier this year to keep the Netflix show about a women's prison in the comedy categories for the upcoming Emmy Awards competition, getting relegated instead to drama.
The comedy classification didn't feel quite right last year – even if Uzo Aduba earned deserved recognition for her by turns chilling and amusing portrayal of the mentally ill prisoner nicknamed "Crazy Eyes." Still, "drama" doesn't exactly fit the bill: The second season actually proved funnier than the first, with plenty of gallows humor, punctuated by the finale episode’s climax in which dying prisoner Rosa (fatally?) mows down escaped jailhouse scourge, Vee, with a purloined van.
The difficulty in labeling "Orange is the New Black" marks a sign of its strength. The show, which returned for a third season Friday, won't be trapped behind snug categorical walls.
The program's spirit of creative freedom belies the fate of characters, whose backstories emerged in greater volume and detail last season through an increased use of flashbacks. What started as the (loosely based on fact) story of a privileged woman's seemingly unlikely immersion into an alien world of imprisonment has blossomed into a richly wrought ensemble piece.
The inmates’ stories vary – from lovelorn Morello’s past as an unhinged stalker to Taystee's childhood exploitation as a victim of the drug-world Fagin, Vee, to Sister Jane’s crusade as a rogue nun who loves attention as much as she hates war. But there's a good argument to be made that some of the show’s characters might not belong behind bars, at least not as long as their sentences suggest.
“OITNB” presaged (and perhaps helped spark) the renewed debate over incarceration in the U.S. The program also has attracted attention with its a wide variety of sharply drawn characters – including jailhouse beautician Sophia, portrayed by Laverne Cox, who became the first transgender person to grace the cover of TIME magazine (headline: “The Transgender Tipping Point: America’s Next Civil Rights Frontier'), a year before we met Caitlyn Jenner.
For all its resonance beyond the world of streaming media, “OITNB” succeeds in entertaining viewers, offering comedy and drama, along with plenty to mull over long after the binge watching ends.
U.S. & World
In the upcoming season, Alex Vause who dragged her onetime lover, preppy main character Piper Chapman, into a life of crime years earlier, lands back behind bars, promising some fireworks. But the show’s allure rests less in new developments than in insights gained from peeks into the inmates’ pasts, juxtaposed against their hopes for the future. Check out a preview as “OITNB” flings opens the prison doors on another (hopefully) award-worthy season destined to defy easy description.
Jere Hester is Director of News Products and Projects at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism. He is also the author of "Raising a Beatle Baby: How John, Paul, George and Ringo Helped us Come Together as a Family." Follow him on Twitter.
Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Alex Vause.
