How Does Orange Is The New Black Conflict Theory

Orange is the New Black (OITNB) is a Netflix series that is loosely based on Piper Chapman, a self proclaimed WASP, who was imprisoned in Litchfield Penitentiary, a women’s jail, for drug smuggling. For the majority of the show, it gives insight on the social, personal, and past lives of inmates, as well as the interactions between the inmates, correctional officers (COs). In season four, episode nine, there is one main running theme, power imbalances. The core scene that depicts power imbalance and corruption is when a CO demands an inmate, Blanca Flores, to shower, but she refuses. He then forces her to stand on the dining tables for multiple days as a punishment. During this time, she urinates and defecates herself, causing her to smell even more. Eventually, other inmates realizes that this is wrong, they practice civil disobedience by joining her on the tables. Eventually, this turns into a dangerous riot

“Conflict theory looks at society as a competition for limited resources”, which eventually leads to “individuals and organizations [who are able to] keep more resources than others, and these ‘winners’ use their power and influence to maintain social institutions” (Openstax College 16), and it seems that the “winners” of OITNB were taking advantage of their position of power and influence, and abusing it. Instead of maintaining social institutions, they created havoc. In addition, German sociologist, Georg Simmel believed that “conflict can help integrate and stabilize a society” (Openstax College 17). However, although there has always been passive conflict that kept reoccurring in the prison, nothing was done about it. When a conflict finally ensued, it was volatile, and did not not result in stability. Hence, a power shift from the powerful, to powerless, due to disagreement of the distribution of power is seen the main plot of the