To summarize the episode, Victoria and her fiancé, Eric, abducted a young girl and tortured her while keeping video recordings of all the abuse. Eric, the primary offender, eventually killed her by lighting the young girl's body on fire. Once the law had caught up to the duo, Eric evaded judicial proceedings by killing himself in jail. The community, enraged, decided Victoria's punishment should reflect the heinousness of the crime with which she partook. They took her to this facility that reminded me of a Disney Torture Kingdom™. In the park, they've created a strange world that operates on the following premise: There is a symbol that has turned humans into documenting onlookers that follow the protagonist/antagonist Victoria, dangerous killers willing to do anything, even murder, for the cameras, and indifferent and scared civilians. The actors run around pretending to want to kill her and anyone else that doesn't act like an assassin or recording robot. Victoria has woken up every day with absolutely no recollection of the day before. The controllers of the fictional world are dedicated actors (Jem, Damien, and Baxter) that feel some sort of sick satisfaction with torturing a woman who does not even remember her own name, much less any crime she has committed, all under the guise of 'justice.'
What is Justice? The very first question philosophers ask philosophy students is still one that gets increasingly hard to answer as the course goes on. Black Mirror is a series that has really provoked a confusion into the matters of right and wrong. I cannot for the life of me think of anyone they have portrayed as fully good or bad. The show depicts a life that is not so black and white. We currently live in such a world where the lines of right and wrong lines blur. A person can feel very strongly about a certain stance or another, and do the exact opposite in a sort of state of exception. In "White Bear" the stance the public detest is torture is wrong. That, however, didn't stop the formation of a theme park that sells sadism with a smile. People are layered. Our morals are layered. This series, particularly this episode, leave me with several questions I'll be thinking about for a lifetime that very well may go unanswered. Is justice real? Is it a tool of the powerful to prey on the weak of heart and mind? Are there cases that are solved in absolute justice? The only thing I truly know for sure is I'll never stop questioning acts of justice, retribution, and morality.
3 comments:
I really like that you brought into question what it means to be human and what is justice. I agree with you that people are layered and our moral values can sometimes become contradictive as you said about the public disliking torture until it's to the person who originally committed the horrific act.
I really liked your post! You clearly summarized the entire film with a short amount of words and not only gave your rendition of how things played out, you also asked questions that made me reevaluate how I saw certain parts of the movie. When you said people are layered, it made me look at this movie's main character. She as a person is layered, these layers become so diverse that the unknowing part of her sees a child she believes is hers, but just weeks before she was incarcerated, she willingly watched this little girl die a horrible death. With layers, comes unpredictability, uncertainty, and most assuringly instability. Good Post!
I love that fact that you agree qith me on what makes a person a person and what makes justice, justice because people everywhere have different defenitions.I also love the play on words, "sadism with a smile," even though it was witty, it summarizes what Victoria wa going through and makes me think, should I feel sorry for her.
Post a Comment