Orange, black & lots of white
CAN a man convincingly write about female experience? Can a white writer authentically convey the experience of black people? And even if they can, should they? These are not easy questions to answer, but they are ones that need to be grappled with.
Recently, a picture circulated on Twitter of the writing staff for US prison drama Orange is the New Black. It’s a show which features one of the most racially diverse casts you’ll find in mainstream television. Although the show hasn’t avoided criticism entirely, it has also been commended for the creation of complex, interesting black female characters in a TV universe where such individuals are often relegated to the role of “finger-clicking sassy friend”. Over its four seasons, the show hasn’t shied away from dealing with race. One of the most darkly comedic aspects of its first season was the realisation by main character Piper — a cosseted white liberal — that in jail she would be expected to align herself with other whites against black and Latina prisoners.
And so the photo of OITNB’s writing staff caused some consternation. That’s because it appeared to suggest that of all the people responsible for writing the show, not one was black. Subsequent investigation by online news sites revealed that of 16 writers, there was one Asian woman and two Latino men. The rest were all white.
Does this matter? Well, yes. It matters because of scenes like the following, which played out in the second episode of the recently released fourth season. Black inmate Cindy introduces herself to her new Muslim cellmate Alison as “Tovah”, because she claims to have converted to Judaism. Alison, who is also black, retorts: “Black people been naming their kids some crazy shit, but Tovah ain’t on the list. Unless the ‘v’ is like a five or somethin’.” It’s a funny line. I laughed at it when I watched the episode. But when you learn that not a single black person was involved in writing that line, you might start to feel far less comfortable chuckling at it. As a black person’s wry statement about naming practices within their own community, it works just fine. If it’s a white person’s observation about African-American names, though, things start to get stickier. Then you have to ask: at whose expense is this joke?
No doubt this all sounds dreadfully earnest, but I also write it out of a sense of disappointment. Once you’ve learnt the composition of the writing staff, it’s hard not to let it cloud your view of the show’s extremely compelling fourth season. Why does Hollywood get it so wrong, so often?