Or your typical who is the monster, and who is the man.
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| Black Mirror - White Bear (2013) Just me and Manface. |
Just to warn you there are going to be a lot of spoilers in this one. Do not read this review if you haven't yet watched the episode. I believe the point of Black Mirror lies in your own complete uninfluenced undertaking of it. In a series about the way we experience media you need to experience it through the intended media, not through the thoughts of others. It is all about your initial response.
Once again, I know Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror (2011 - ) is a TV series not a film, however I take the stance of; It's my blog and I'll do what I like.
I could argue that with quality of film making, arguable durations, as well as the debate of the role of cinema in today's society, not to mention the advent of the home cinema experience, that the roles and definitions of film are constantly blurring. (I mean heck, we don't even use film any more. The concept of 'film' is as ethereal as the content of the first episode in Black Mirror's new season.) I do believe that's this is true but these aren't debates I want to get into here. Maybe in a pub with a few vodkas. I'll see you there.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. It's my blog and I'll do what I want to.
So if Black Mirror: Be Right Back (2013) (you can find my review here) was this season's equivalent of Black Mirror: Fifteen Million Merits (2011), I guess Black Mirror: White Bear (2013) is the new Black Mirror: National Anthem (2013). Not as good. But that's a huge compliment to the latter.
White Bear follows a girl (Lenora Crichlow) who wakes up in a house with no memory of who or where she is. Her only clue is a photo of a little girl she assumes is her daughter. As she ventures into the outside world she discovers a strange symbol broadcast on every television screen has indoctrinated almost the entire population. The few who are unaffected spend their days desperately attempting to escape the Hunters who, in the absence of law or society, have become faceless, bloodthirsty killing machines. The majority of humanity however are now silent husks who spend every waking moment watching and filming the plights of the hunted. With the help of another unaffected (Tuppence Middleton), the girl must make it to White Bear, a transmitter tower with the intention of wiping out the signal, all the while with the niggling feeling that everything isn't quite what it seems.
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| Leonora Crichlow (rear) and Tuppence Middleton (front) in Black Mirror: White Bear |
Ultimately, we and the protagonist discover that 'White Bear' is actually a memorial park for a young girl whom the protagonist's fiancé brutally murdered while she filmed the ordeal. It is his distinctive tattoo which is the symbol broadcast on every television set. Her fiancé hung himself in his cell before he was brought to trial and so she must carry the punishment for the both of them. Now she lives out the same horrific scenario day after day, while tourists and visitors watch and film. After she is captured and made to face her crimes before a live studio audience, her mind is wiped ready for a new day and a new crowd.
It is an interesting idea, though I must admit one I saw coming as soon as White Bear was mentioned. White Bear refers to the murdered child's teddy bear, a symbol for purity and innocence in the darkness of an evil world the media would have you believe houses a child catcher around every corner. Don't let your children outside, don't let them exercise, let them never live and fester in their own engorged flesh...Maybe I am a little like Brooker after all.
There is no question of whether the treatment of the protagonist is right or wrong. There is no question that her pleas of being forced to commit her crimes are anything but lies. There is no question that she deserves any horrific punishment that can be thrown at her.
It's an interesting view of how society reacts whenever violence of any sorts towards children is involved. Even the whisper of a suggestion and we treat the culprits like animals. No, less than animals, these are purely evil monsters. They are not human and therefore no punishment exists to match what they deserve.
Of course I am in no way defending any form of violence against minors. I do however mourn just as much for the medieval style justice that 'good citizens' believe it entitles them to commit.
If that wasn't enough, in White Bear the punishment is used as means of entertainment for the masses. Back to the days of public execution then.
I hate reality TV at the best of times. We already torture people on television for our own amusement. In 'celebrity' embarrassment shows like I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here (2002 - ) we make them face their biggest phobias and starve them if they don't perform as well as we would like. We encourage them to torture themselves, and for what? So that the others in the camp don't hate them for 'not doing their best.'
It reminds me of G. R. Stephenson's 'Cultural acquisition of a specific learned response among rhesus monkeys' experiment in 1967. You know, the one where they placed a banana at the top of a flight of stairs, then squirted all of them with water if either one attempted to get it. They then replaced one of the monkeys and as it reached for the banana the others attacked it. This continued until the room was full with a group of monkeys, all of which had no idea that reaching for the banana would result in them getting hosed down with freezing water, and still they would attack the new monkey who reached for the banana. (This isn't exactly how it happened but the myth has become more than the reality so we'll go with that.)
We shouldn't be doing it with monkeys let alone people.
In the so called 'talent' show we mock and bully those who are deluded to the point of mental illness. Then we delude ourselves into thinking we are doing it for their own good. We act like somehow through our abject humiliation we are helping them, educating them even.
Just because they they subject themselves willingly doesn't mean we can shirk the blame. When you see people in the televised auditions in shows like X Factor (2004 - ) they have already been through numerous others stages which don't get shown. We have already lied to them, built them up and made them believe they are good enough. Just so that they can be torn down in front of a live studio audience. The only thing people have in common in these reality shows, from celebrities to your everyday Joe with a dream, is all they want is to be loved. We dangle this carrot above them and then make them feel despised. Even worse, if they do 'win' and therefore 'win our hearts', after that whole ordeal we forget about them again in six months. If they're lucky.
I confess, I have gone off on a rant, and you may think that it is a tenuous link, but White Bear is just showing the evolution of this sort of tortured reality show. Just what can we defend putting people through for our own entertainment? Just as we give reality show contestants hope we do so in White Bear. We give the practically newborn protagonist hope that she is the innocent party, we let her believe there may be a way out and then we tear her apart.
This is revenge, not retribution, and the crimes weren't even against those claiming it.
One might even argue that, if she has no memory of her crimes, can she really be punished for them? In my view the point of punishment is rehabilitation. By torturing a girl with no memory of what she is accused of, how can she repent or regret? In fact, if she genuinely has no memory of who she was or what she has done, are they even really her crimes? It's almost similar to punishing a daughter for the sins of her mother.
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| The fantastic Lenora Crichlow as the protagonist. I would love to talk more about her but we all know this is Brooker's show |
I think that is where the irony falls. If you watch this and upon discovering that she was involved in the abuse of a child, decide that she is getting what she deserves, then you are just like her. You are watching, or mindlessly recording, the torture of someone who is barely more than a child for nothing more than your own entertainment. A newborn, someone seeing the world for the first time. She filmed and watched the torture of a child, the visitors to white bear film and watch the torture of her and now through them we watch her torture. When does it stop? Where does the blame stop?
I'm going to stop now as I have already gone on far too long, and the more I delve into it the more I want to say. Maybe White Bear is as good as National Anthem. Maybe better. Maybe I've just forgotten how good National Anthem is. Damn my obsessive waiting for a series to end so that I can buy the complete box set!
This is why I love Brooker. The more you think the more you know.
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