The Black Mirror episode "White Bear" tells of a situation where a woman and her significant other kidnaps a child and murders her and all the while filming the whole thing. They get caught and prosecuted and the man and woman both experience two different things. The guy ends up killing himself, and the woman goes through something else entirely. She is put in a "park" where her memory is wiped of who she is and she believes people are out to kill her while innocent bystanders stand by and watch. At the end though, the truth about who she is, is revealed. She then realizes what she has done and feels so bad to the point where she states for them to kill her. This process is then repeated everyday. This episode begs several questions about things like does she deserve it, and overall how comfortable we are with cruel and unusual punishment and capital punishment in general.
The first question I had to ask myself at the end of the episode was did I feel badly for the woman. Now during most of the episode I did and I thought how terrible the world she lives in is. But at the end when I found out what she did I felt no sympathy whatsoever. For someone to kidnap a child and murder her while filming it is disgusting horrific. Bu then I saw the calendar in which I saw how long they have been doing it for which made me think. The focus has shifted from punishing the crime to entertainment for others. What she did was terrible and I believe she deserved to go through the White Bear park experience one time so she can experience pain while others look on not doing anything and then live the rest of her life with that experience. But wiping her memory negates all of that and the park experience then becomes cruel and unusual punishment.
Another thing that this episode does is make us realize how desensitized technology has made us. Think of all the situations that occur where people film instead of getting involved. This is seen when there are fights and other altercations. If you do not believe me just think to yourself how believable was the beginning of the episode where people just followed her around and filmed her being hunted down. I thought the idea of that happening was actually plausible and is occurring today to some extent.
It seems technology has shifted us from participants to bystanders which is a terrible thing and can no longer continue. Can you imagine if people only took pictures and filmed the people in need as opposed to actually doing something to fix it. That is an eventuality that I hope we never achieve.
4 comments:
I agree with your point on how technology has desensitized us to modern issues. Great point to make to end your blog post.
I also agree. I think that many of us are in a way mesmerized by technology and it makes it easier to just watch. I can definitely see something of this nature actually happening sometime in the future if people these days are constantly on their devices like they are now.
I do believe that we are too accustomed with technology to the point where we can just ignore actual human life. In the episode, we could see how misplaced Victoria felt from being recorded and this further accentuates this point. Another aspect of the "park" that was unjust was the blatant profit the producers of the show were gaining from this cruel and torturous punishment. That was another factor that made the idea of this "Justice park" distasteful to me.
Your header really caught my attention. I agree with your first sentence of the second paragraph too. I felt very bad for the woman at first because I thought she lost her daughter, but at the end I felt like she deserved it. To go through that everyday might be a little too much.
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