Red Rover, Red Rover, Send Victoria Over

In Black Mirror's "White Bear," the line between justice and entertainment becomes blurred, as the actors of White Bear Justice Park profit of off the "criminal."

In “White Bear” the guilty party is punished in an unconventional way and every aspect of her punishment is meant to mirror the crime committed. This is because the actors and participants are trying to place Victoria in the shoes of her victim. For instance, Victoria herself is meant to represent the little girl, as her memory is artificially reset each day, making her innocent in a way; she is forced to wonder why she has to endure such hell when she wakes up, what she has done to deserve it, and why no one is helping her. The audience represents Victoria, not the Victoria we see in the episode, but Victoria who filmed and acted as an accomplice to the crime, claiming that she was under her boyfriend’s spell. The mentally incapacitating signal represents Victoria’s dead boyfriend, who, as Victoria says, entranced her and encouraged her to film such a heinous crime. Because Victoria’s boyfriend hangs himself before being put on trial, all of the blame for the little girl’s death falls on Victoria.

Leaving out the crime in the beginning of the episode allows the viewers to sympathize with Victoria, painting her solely as a victim, rather than a criminal as well. Though I disagree with the crime that she helped commit, and though I think that a punishment of some sort was appropriate, I find it disturbing that the participants of this simulation walked in with the impression that she deserved to be physically and mentally tortured every day for a crime that she did not even remember committing. The rules of this “park,” revealed at the episode’s end, are also disturbing, one in particular which instructed the audience to enjoy themselves, which is odd considering that the entire purpose of a park is to have fun; I find this rule to be disturbing because it implies that any feelings towards Victoria’s punishment other than joy, relief, or others along those lines are taboo and out of place and that to reject this extreme punishment is to advocate for a pardon of her actions to an extent.

   

My problem with this episode is that I never saw any substantial evidence that the claims made against Victoria’s character are true, but instead they are made and perpetuated by people who were not initially involved with the crime. The tourists in the justice park are much like a jury, who rely on a set of facts given to them to form their own opinions of a given situation. Not to mention that the guilty party is having her memory wiped clean every day, so she does not even have the opportunity to defend herself or provide the audience with her side of the story because she has zero memory of what happened. I do not find this punishment to be fitting to the crime at all, seeing as how she is not only tortured and publicly humiliated every day until her trial, but also how she still has to be officially sentenced by a judge. Punishments/sentences are meant to rehabilitate, not just humiliate. By forcing Victoria to relive this experience every day, she does not have the opportunity to reflect upon her actions and consider her role in this whole ordeal, nor does she have an opportunity to become a better person, because in her mind she was innocent to begin with. Without her memory, the Victoria being punished in the episode may as well be a different person from the one who had all her faculties, filming and participating in a crime..

The most frightening and disturbing aspect of this episode is how closely it (among others) resembles real life in the west and the way that we profit off of this sort of treatment, ignoring the humanity of others. I suppose that is why the show is titled Black Mirror, because it is supposed to reflect the worst, darkest parts of our society.