Black Mirror brings out the darker side of the digital world we now live in with its' White Bear episode. With a different look in perspective can we, aka Dr. J's class, be put on the same level that the "watchers/viewers" from the show stand on? If we look at this through a different perspective and pretend that we are being watched watching the episode, would the people watching us watch think of us any differently from the characters in the show? We as a class judged the "watchers" because they found pleasure from watching Victoria be tortured and live in misery, but can any of us say that we weren't entertained by the episode? Yea, the watchers from the episode were finding joy from watching her be miserable but it doesn't change the fact that we were also being entertained all at the same time. Some of you reading this might think, "this wasn't at all entertainment," but the definition of entertainment is "the action of providing or being provided with amusement or enjoyment." Unless you sat in class and took a nap or played with your phone the whole time, can you say you were bored? It might've not been the same type of entertainment but I think it is safe to say that we were all captivated and wondering what the heck was going on.
Something else we didn't discuss as a class was how in today's day and age people recording real life violence is an already existing thing. Something as small as recording a fist fight in the high school parking lot to up to date Snapchat footage of a school shooting, go viral everyday. These type of videos go viral on the sole fact that it feeds from the our appetite for emotion in entertainment. Please do not get me misunderstood that I think school shootings are a pleasing and enjoyable thing to witness behind a screen. But I am saying that people do tune in to watch live action rather than only listen to a news anchor tell the tragedy with only words and no visual presentations to lock us in.
One more thing I wanted to point out. I think sometimes when watching something from behind the comfort of your screen rather than witnessing it in person, the emotions and impact gets lost between the actual event and the web. Referring back to White Bear, in the scene in the woods when Victoria is about to be drilled in with a drill gun, as she is yelling for help she shouts "PLEASE! I AM A HUMAN BEING." I don't know how that didn't effect any of the bystanders/watchers. After all, no matter what her sins and mistakes were, she is a living human and yet there they stand recording for their friends and family to watch. The people they are broadcasting it to, won't feel the same emotions they are feeling while being there and present in her torture and if they don't any remorse or guilt nor less will the people watching it on the web because to a degree, it just looses its effect of power.
4 comments:
I like that you mentioned how people have no emotion. Like you said, we are all already desensitized to any violence we see on social media. All we do is record, watch, and scroll. I guess because we're not actually experiencing those tragedies, it doesn't hit us as hard.
I honestly enjoyed reading a very different perspective. I also had the same thought, as we were watching White bear in class. The thought that our society can relate to this film, because we do the same when we record tragedies occurring. I rarely see a person recording actually stop and help the person that needs to be helped.
Well as much as a point that you are making, which is a good one, what about the little girl? She was also a HUMAN BEING but she didn't seem to care then. So yes it was bad but she could've prevented it all from happening.
I agree with you on the part where you say she is still human. Yes, she did commit a horrible crime but the punishment she deserved was definitely not to be tortured for a long period of time. After all is that fair? Is it fair to punish a crime with inhumane actions every day, I don't think so.
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