In the video “White Bear” from the series Black Mirror, at first it appears as if
the setting is some sort of apocalyptic style world in which signals and
pitches were released on TV’s, computers, and other technologies that changed
people into emotionless beings that just aimlessly walk around recording and
filming. There are only a few people that actually interact and seem to want to
help the leading woman character. However, in the end it is revealed that the
main female character and her fiancé had kidnapped a young girl. The woman had
recorded her fiancé killing the young girl, and this torture park was her form
of punishment. The people who seemed as if they wanted to help her were
actually actors in the park, and the other people were just visitors. Everyday
her memory is wiped and the day repeats of her being confused and chased by
people with weapons and other people only standing by recording. This “park” is
set up to make her live like the little girl that she kidnapped and recorded
her fiancé killing.
The video forces you to feel empathy towards
the main character, and at first you even see her as the victim. Perhaps if the
video explained her crimes beforehand you would not feel as attached to or
sorry for her character. This park is set up as a type of revenge punishment
for the woman. It seems like the people feel as if there is justice occurring,
but is this really justice? The onlookers that visit this park are not much
different from the woman. They too are watching someone suffer and doing
nothing but recording it. How are they really any better than her?
This shows people’s desire to dehumanize and
punish criminals. Sending people to prison is not quite as an extreme torture
as this woman’s punishment, but it is certainly torture. I believe this video’s
purpose was to show what these social attitudes toward justice are like when
taken to the extreme. Many people have the desire to punish criminals in a
retributive style, like an eye for an eye. This video is not farfetched from
reality. Many people use to attend public, violent acts of humiliation towards
people who had broken the law or committed some crime. Even today certain
people can still go view executions. Though scary and strange to imagine, this
“justice park” could actually happen.
1 comment:
Prison is often labeled with the blanket statement that it dehumanizes criminals. It does many times, but it is intended to rehabilitate them, too. A park like this one is a bad idea. If someone is there for murder, and the victim’s father comes in the park to “participate” I cannot foresee that ending well. However, if there was an institution that was meant for people to understand their wrongdoings, there would be benefits of a place like this. That would be truly rehabilitative. A place that punishes you, tells you why they punished you, and then erases that reasoning from you is only torturing you.
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