"Orange is The New Black" is now in the limelight for the wrong reasons. The plot of the very famous show has now angered the veterans.
The veterans raised their voice against the stereotypes that the storyline hold and also demand an apology. The latest season of "Orange Is The New Black" was found to be offensive as it portrays former soldiers hired as prison guards as "bad people," according to reports.
We have seen that in season four of the Netflix drama, "Orange is The New Black," officers' behavior towards the female inmates was not 'nice' and the inmates are constantly abused by the guards.
What sparked the anger even further is the way in which the characters who run Litchfield Penitentiary in "Orange is The New Black" talk about their experiences of war. This was even more offensive for the veterans. An example would be the way Lee Dixon (Mike Houston) is heard telling Baxter 'Gerber' Bayley (Alan Aisenberg) how he killed innocent people in Afghanistan, in one of the episodes.
"You get so mad, tired and bored [that you] just grab a farm kid and make him juggle live grenades until one blows up," the officer shared, without any regret.
The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) were not happy as this would stigmatize the veterans even further. The transition of veterans into civilian life is already very difficult and this would further hamper it. Since the story does appeal to many people, this fiction will be fed into their heads when the reality is far from it claimed the Iraq And Afghanistan Veterans Of America (IAVA.) The Disabled American Veterans (DAV) also found the content of "Orange is The New Black" inappropriate.
DAV spokesperson Dan Clare voiced these concerns of the veterans. Air force veteran, Tahlia Burton, told that the officers were not "bloodthirsty, heartless killers and sexists" like it was portrayed in "Orange is The New Black." IAVA policy officer Jonathan Schleifer also expressed concerns on how this would stigmatise a community further. VFW national commander John A. Biedrzycki Jr demanded an apology and said that it was time to change the line of the story where a veteran is deranged.
