Beware the Bear

The film, White Bear, was eye opening. It made me contemplate today's society and what we are morphing into as humans. The film was about a woman, Victoria, who was being tormented daily for committing a terrible crime. At the end of the torment, the person in charge would show her a video of what she did, then they would erase her mind of that memory. The girl subject to torment and her boyfriend kidnapped a child. While the child was beaten by her boyfriend and set on fire, Victoria just watched,  filming the whole process, doing absolutely nothing. As punishment, Victoria would have to suffer the same way as the young child did. Victoria would be tormented and chased, running for her life while no one did anything to help, but stand there and watch through a cell phone camera screen.

I do not believe that method of punishment was right, especially repeating the punishment everyday and erasing Victoria's memory everyday. One day may have been good enough, or maybe even a week, but not a whole month. It defeats the purpose of acknowledging what you did wrong, learning from it, and attempting to grow from it and change your ways. It wasn't fair the way they allowed people to video tape her and mock her for their own entertainment. It was cruel and inhumane. There should be other ways to punish humans who committed heinous crimes without destroying their identity and treating them like they are not humans no matter what they did. An eye for an eye will just leave you blind.

However, the film resembles the actions of today's society. We are so quick to pull out our phones and "capture" the moment that we stop thinking. We don't ask ourselves, "Why am I actually doing this?" Part of the reason is for entertainment, inclusion, and bragging points. We want to feel liked and accepted by others. In some cases, recording is ok, such as in a crime or an accident. Recording helps you catch the bad guy, or argue your point. When we record fights, the mentally ill, or some other idiotic thing when should be trying to help, it is not ok. It demonstrates values and choice. We need to think more about what we think is right, and what we think is wrong. In order to fix the problem, we have to stop being apart of the problem and become apart of the solution.