Orange is the New Black’s Danielle Brooks praises show for hitting on MeToo movement ‘before #MeToo was a thing’

Orange is the New Black’s Danielle Brooks praises show for hitting on MeToo movement ‘before #MeToo was a thing’

Danielle Brooks has praised Orange is the New Black for taking a stand in political messages – and says that they ‘touched upon the MeToo movement before it was even a thing’.

The actress, who plays the much-loved Tasha ‘Taystee’ Jefferson, has become a prominent leader of the women in Litchfield over the past two seasons – most notably due to the prison riots that took up the entirety of season five.

Speaking to Metro.co.uk, Danielle revealed that the show has no intent to slow down now, and that their confrontation of hot topics in the US has become par for the course of life inside the women’s prison.

Taystee is in for a rough ride this season following the prison riots (Picture: Netflix)

She told us: ‘Orange is one of those shows who are unafraid, and even the trailblazers of, speaking up first. I think we were hitting on the MeToo movement before the MeToo movement even happened or was being spoken of.




‘We spoke directly to the LGBT community, to Black Lives Matter, to immigration, to women’s rights, to prison reform…even when people aren’t talking about it.’

‘I think that’s a staple of Orange, and I don’t think that will ever go away.’

Speaking of her own personal experiences of injustice, Danielle admitted she felt it ‘every day’ in the US, and said: ‘Whether it targets me specifically or my family or my friends, I have a black father, black brother, black uncles…and the way in which our society works is, it’s OK to be loud and boisterous about how you negatively feel about other races, and it’s OK to shoot a black man, and you’ll get off on it.’

Danielle has revealed that the show has made her become more politically active (Picture: Phillip Faraone/Getty Images)

With political unrest becoming more and more prominent in the States since the start of the Trump administration in particular, Danielle also admitted that she fears that she’s not using her platform enough in the real world.

She said: ‘It’s an interesting time we live in. I was talking to Natasha [Lyonne] about it earlier and we were really struggling.

‘Like as actors, and especially being on a show like Orange, we have made an impact, you feel like we’ve been vocal and active,’ she added, before revealing that on top of being prominent in political marches, the girls have also started clothing drives for women who have just left prison.

The fallout of last season’s riots will have a major effect on Taystee (Picture: Cara Howe/Netflix)

‘There’s a lot of things women have done in our show,’ she added. ‘But at the same time, sometimes it feels like, how much more can we do? How much further can we go?

‘Are we sitting on our laurels by saying our activism is in our work, is that enough? I don’t know.’

Rebelling in the face of adversity became a particular issue for Taystee last season, when the murder of her best friend Poussey Washington resulted in her leading the inmates in the riots, with at least one inmate and two guards killed in the crossfire.

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As a result, this season she finds herself sent to Max – and not favoured kindly by guards who are convinced she was the ringleader behind the uprising.



But Danielle is proud of the strides that her character took regardless, and is hoping that viewers will be able to learn their own lessons from the path she chose to take.

‘Taking that journey right alongside her, has just shown me, first of all, that whatever you believe in, there’s no excuse to not fight for it,’ the actress beamed. ‘This is a woman who’s been incarcerated, and she still found a way to try to fight for justice, which to me proves that there’s no excuse.’

Orange is the New Black season six is released on Friday in full on Netflix.

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