In the Black Mirrors episode “White Bear,” Victoria
wakes up with no memory of herself or her life. Seeing a picture of a girl who
she assumes is her daughter, she immediately becomes more desperate
to find out
what happened to her. She sees people nearby only to find them unresponsive and
taking photos and videos of her. As the episode comes to its climax, Victoria
discovers that the events from the day are all an act. As the actors strap her
to a chair they reveal to her who she really is and why she was being attacked
and terrorized: she and her fiancé kidnapped and murdered the girl who Victoria
thought was her daughter. While the fiancé burned the girl’s body, Victoria
filmed it on her phone. As Victoria is taken away, the once unresponsive people
are now encouraged by the cast to take photos and video her, just as Victoria
did to the girl. Victoria is returned to the house where she woke up, strapped
to the chair, and connected to a memory wiper. Victoria wakes up to repeat the
same day as before.
At White Bear Justice Park, tourists and customers come and
pay to live the experience of video taping and photographing Victoria. And
because I’m a complete geek, I couldn’t help but think of the Capitol people in
The Hunger Games (THG). Similar to
“White Bear,” the rich and social people of the Capitol put 24 children into an
arena to fight to the death as entertainment. They watch it on screen and take
bets just as if it were a sport. What once started as punishment for rebelling
turned into a highly anticipated event and celebration.
But who are they punishing? In THG, it was meant to punish the children’s rebel parents. In “White
Bear,” it’s meant to punish Victoria pre-memory wipe. But as time progresses,
those rebel parents are gone and those being punished had nothing to do with
the rebellion. In “White Bear,” Victoria
doesn’t even remember her past life.
In fact, she believes so badly that the girl is her child and is devastated to
find out the truth.
People watch high profile cases on TV. We talk about it,
post about it, turn on the news when we get home to get updates on it. And who
does this benefit? In “White Bear,” THG, and
real life, it benefits the viewer. After reading THG, I was fearful that something like that could happen. After
watching “White Bear,” I see it taken to the next level and it makes me more
fearful. Our society continues to find new forms of entertainment, but I don’t
think “let’s give them a taste of their own medicine and then watch the
results” is the best way of doing that. Cruel and unusual is an understatement
in these cases.
2 comments:
I'm glad I was not the only person thinking about "The Hunger Games" while watching "White Bear." The teens in the districts and Victoria are similar because they are being punished for crimes they had to be told about.
That is a very interesting parallel. In both scenarios, it just doesn't seem fair that they were punished for crimes that someone else had to tell them that they were involved in.
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