Netflix’s New Stanford Prison Experiment draws divided reviews

Netflix’s six-episode reality series The New Stanford Prison Experiment places 30 people in simulated prison roles, revisiting a controversial study while drawing sharply different assessments of its value and purpose. The series follows 22 participants assigned as inmates and eight as guards in a prison facility in Georgia. Reviewers describe the participants as adults from varied backgrounds, unlike the college students in the original 1971 Stanford study. Three women take part, all assigned to guard roles. The series is presented as a two-week exercise, with participants able to leave by saying the safe word “pineapple”; reviewers report that some used it. The production includes safeguards and expert commentary, but its format is television entertainment rather than a conventional scientific study, according to several reviewers. They point to the participants’ awareness of being filmed and to planned interventions that change the roles and power structure. One phase has male guards switch places with male inmates, followed by a period in which the guards are removed and inmates govern themselves. Those structural choices shape the conflicting responses to the series. One...