Book Review: Demystifying the big house: Exploring prison experience and media representations by K. A. Foss

• Date: 01 March 2022
• Published date: 01 March 2022
• Author: Rebecca Rodriguez Carey
• DOI: 10.1177/1057567719826639
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

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Urban Institute.

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Foss, K. A. (Ed.). (2018).

Demystifying the big house: Exploring prison experience and media representations. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois

University Press. 352 pp. $38.00, ISBN 978-0-8093-3657-9.

Reviewed by: Rebecca Rodriguez Carey, Emporia State University, Emporia, KS, USA

DOI: 10.1177/1057567719826639

From Orange is the New Black to Oz to Prison Wives, there is no shortage of media depictions of

prison. Although, despite the plethora of portrayals, the prison system and those impacted by it

are often shown through a narrowed lens. In Katherine A. Foss’s edited volume, Demystifying the

Big House: Exploring Prison Experience and Media Representations, contributors from a wide

variety of disciplines, from sociology to communication to journalism to criminology, shed light

on the ways in which the incarcerated and their loved ones have been depicted on-screen. In

doing so, the contributors critically engage with media texts to examine how these on-screen portray-

als compare to their realities, as it’s argued that current media depictions provide a limited under-

standing of the prison experience, while simultaneously excluding some of the most marginalized

voices. Thus, this volume plays an important role in that it showcases diverse messages and experi-

ences that are typically not shown on-screen.

Section one, Media Representations of Prison, examines how the media depict the

incarcerated. L. Clare Bratten sets the stage for the volume by providing an historical overview of

the “women-in-prison”film genre, noting that few media programs have historically focused on

women prisoners. When women are represented, they are often reduced to their archetypes.

Rebecca Kern’s analysis focuses on two lead characters, Dayanara and Pennsatucky, from the

Netflix television series Orange is the New Black to explore how the female body is subjected to

social control in prison through a “gaze”that emphasizes sex and sexuality.

The issues presented in Orange is the New Black are further considered by Joy Jenkins and

J. David Wolfgang, as they employ critical discourse analysis to observe the relationship between

religion and gender in the series. Through their analysis, they show how religion serves an important

function for the women in prison.

Foss examines how health in prison is portrayed in the media. She notes that health problems

affecting prisoners are relatively absent in film and television, which is ironic given that the incarcer-

ated face more chronic health problems than the nonincarcerated. When issues pertaining to health

and health care are presented on-screen, inmates struggle to receive care; the struggle to receive care

serves as another form of social control.

S. Lenise Wallace’s analysis focuses on the families of the incarcerated, a group rarely depicted in

media. In analyzing the reality-based television show Prison Wives, Wallace notes several themes in

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