White Bear

"White Bear" is about a woman named Victoria Skillane who can not remember anything and thinks she tried to commit suicide. She then finds her way outside with a picture of what she believes to be her daughter. Victoria then is attacked while she was watched by people with their phones. She finds two people and they help her escape, one dying in the process. The girl she is now with is named Jem. She is trying to reach White Bear and shut down the transmitters to be in a safe place against the attacks. They run into Baxter who seems to be helpful, but then turns on them. After their escape, they make their way to White Bear and Skillane is then put into restraints and it is found out this was all a show. Skillane is then shown she is a criminal who filmed the murder of a child (who she thought was her kid). You find out this is what the criminal justice system decided was a fair punishment: everyday removing her memories and having her live through what she did to the child.

I would say this is not justice. Most people would consider justice punishment to a person who committed a crime. But justice to me is to rehabilitate people to rejoin society so they can be productive again. I would argue this is not justice just on that basis, but if you believe in punishment for the people who commit a crime is justice, then I would say you are still wrong because of the issue of her memory.

Skillane does not know who she is therefore she is nobody. As you see in the film, when they show snippets of her past and the video of the child, you can tell this is a completely different personality than the Skillane we saw during the first part of the film. I would argue this memory wiped person is completely different. This Skillane's personality is made up of her new memories just being created, making her a new person everyday. Since everyday is played out in the same way, this makes a branch of new people being identical every time the show is played out. I would argue they are now punishing the wrong person for the crime and they already killed the one who committed it when they wiped her memory away. I think we would all agree that punishing someone on purpose who did not commit a crime would be an unethical and just a plain stupid way to have a justice system.