"White Bear" was incredibly disturbing to me from beginning to end. Even when the episode was over, I was still able to recall her screams of agony on the chair at the end of her days. Although the episode left me with many questions, there was one that truly stood out to me: Was the Victoria that participated in the horrible murder of the little girl the same Victoria that suffered every single day for a crime she did not even remember? To me, the answer was no, but to find this answer, I even had to question myself several times.
"White Bear" was basically the short story of a woman named Victoria, who woke up one day to a pain in her neck and total confusion. She is made to believe that she has a daughter which she continues to see throughout the episode, through fragments of her shattered memory. As she goes outside, she realizes there is something either wrong with herself or with the people who just watch out of their windows, obviously waiting on something. Later, she is encountered with a man with a mask that has a sign, which she is also able to remember from somewhere. The man proves to be some type of hunter that shoots at her, initiating some sort of hunt down. Throughout this hunt down, Victoria is saved by a woman named Jem, who explains that the people are under some type of signal, which she plans to interrupt. The two woman go through a terrifying journey that ends in the control room, where they battle against other hunters. In order to protect herself, Victoria shoots at one of the hunters, only to find that confetti comes out of the gun and some doors open to reveal the truth.
As we all know, the truth is that Victoria actually participated in the murder of the little girl by filming her fiance kill her. The part of the episode that brought me to my question was actually the end, where Victoria realizes the horrible person she is and the torture she has to continue to go through. Anyone can see that this was not the same Victoria because she had gone through so many days in which her mind was completely erased, that a video was made just to put something recognizable in her memory. Furthermore, I was able to believe that she was not the same person that participated in the girl's murder because of the torment she went through believing the awful truth of her past acts. The point in the episode where she is sitting in the chair and pleads to the man to just kill her already is an inexplicably heart-breaking moment. For a person to get to that point, an incredible shame and mental anguish had to be reached. To me, this woman was a completely different woman than the one Victoria was, simply begging to end a life, even if she did not remember if she actually committed such a crime.
3 comments:
To me, it seemed like the whole point of having Victoria be submitted to that daily routine of torture was for society to satisfy their vengeful appetites. It is clear that her punishment has been taken too far, and that the people conducting her torture are only doing it to put on a good show for society. The person who they are punishing is not really the same person that was found guilty of assisted kidnapping and murder. And yet, the people of Victoria's society look at her and see only the criminal that she is--a criminal that needs to be punished. So yes, I agree, the Victoria that we saw being punished is not the same Victoria that the rest of society thinks they see.
I agree that she is a different person. We're are the sum of our memories and experiences. If she has no knowledge of her deed or her past self, she is not that person. Also, the fact the Park used the term punishment is unsettling. I firmly believe we can't even call White Bear Park a punishment. Punishment is meant to be reformative. In Victoria's case, this doesn't seem to have an end. Punishment that is non-reformative is literally torture. It really makes you wonder where we as a society actually stand on the concept of torture.
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