Ultimate Surveillance: Political Themes and Identity Issues in Black Mirror
Black Mirror, created by Charlie Brooker, is a British television series on Netflix that portrays futuristic technological events, depicting consequences and occasions of society’s most reliant technological era. Episodes differ as they each express their own technological outcomes, in order to convey a specific message of how technology, even though it positively affects society, it can be misused to harm individuals in the civilization. Generally, a black mirror is a turned off screen, ranging from television screens, phone screens, computer screens and through the turned off screen, individuals are able to see their reflection, that further outlines society’s self-reliance on any technological product. In particular, season 2 episode 2: “White Bear,” portrays an occasion that revolves around placing the main character, Victoria, through a continuous simulation, in order for society to bring vengeance upon her for her terrible actions. Throughout the episode, political themes such as surveillance and invasion of privacy are shown, alongside identity confusion and unawareness experienced by the main character surfaced as a result of her simulated punishment.
“White Bear,” follows the movements of the main character, Victoria, who goes through an unbroken cycle of being subject to a simulation. Throughout the episode she is chased by hunters and faces life or death situations where she has to plead in order to save her life. Throughout the journey, she is observed by onlookers, who are people following and not intervening to help, recording her every move. The episode takes place in a house, in the woods and at a facility called “White Bear Mountain,” which is said to be the headquarters of a signal being transmitted to the area, which made almost everyone in a certain range become an onlooker. At the end of the episode, it is revealed to Victoria that she, not remembering who she was, is a criminal. Victoria was involved in a nationwide criminal case along with her fiancé, Ian, who kidnapped a 6 year old girl named Jemima from her family home for months, causing a nationwide search for the little girl. Victoria was found guilty of being an onlooker, by recording and not intervening when her finance tormented and murdered Jemima and additionally, buried her body in the woods. Meanwhile, Ian killed himself in jail, while he was waiting for a trail. The episode exposes to the audience that the simulation is set up in order to make Victoria pay for her sins. The individuals involved in the events are all actors, the onlookers, the hunters, the acquaintances Victoria makes along the way, are entirely there in order to ensure the production and subject, Victoria, completes certain actions throughout the simulation in order to end it with her learning of the sins she committed.
In the beginning of “White Bear,” Victoria wakes up alone, confused, unable to remember who she is and who her friends and family are. Her memories of each simulation are wiped afterward, so she wakes up in a confused and unknown state each time. As Victoria makes her way disarranged throughout the house she woke up in, unable to recall any memories, she does not know where she belongs in the world. Throughout the episode, she does not fully remember her name and claims a picture she saw of 6 year old, Jemima, as her own daughter, being unaware of the events that occurred in reality. Her bewilderment to the world she woke up in and her uncertainty with her identity, led to her to developing a selfish attitude and skewed perception, where she wants people to help her, but she does not want to help others. In the episode, for example, she was supposed to help a boy, Damien, take down one of the hunters, who was trying to murder them, but instead she ran away the first chance she got without trying to help him. Towards the end of the episode, it is revealed to the audience that as a factor to evoke the simulation, stagehands and actors strategically place photographs and items around the set, in order for Victoria to conveniently find them. This was a tactic used by the actors into leading Victoria to believe that the individuals in the photos are her family or friends.
Black Mirror employs many political themes throughout its series, with surveillance and invasion of privacy being the specific themes used in this singular episode. Throughout the simulation, there were individuals called “onlookers” who specifically recorded and monitored all of the movements of Victoria. In other words, they followed her around and recorded her for the duration of the scene. Another instance of surveillance used in the episode, is the monitoring of the actors and the overall set. Since Victoria is the only one being deceived and everyone else is in on the fact that they are trying to engage in distinct acts, Victoria is severely monitored as there are unnoticeable cameras placed throughout the scene. The cameras record her movement and let the actors around her know when she would be arriving at a certain location and when, so they are ready to play along with the scenario when she arrives. When Victoria asked how the world formed into the way it was, with individuals recording, not talking or helping her when she was running for her life, she was told by her accomplice that a flashing symbol appeared on any screen available which caused countless people to become bystanders and film everything around them. In our society today as technology is becoming exceedingly advanced and society is extremely reliant on it for everyday purposes, it makes it easier for movements and locations of individuals to be tracked.
Simple movements are being tracked, for example in the scholarly journal, Privacy, Surveillance, and Law, it states, “Gmail, Google’s popular email service, automatically searches the text of an email and posts advertisements keyed to its content.” (Posner 249). This detail expresses factual evidence on the surveillance aspect which comes from common, uncomplicated search engines, which is widely used in our world today. As small and compact our phones are today, it can be used widely by various sources, not only the government, to trace an individual. In the episode, individuals are using their cellphones to record and capture the movements of Victoria. Furthermore, in “Restraining the Surveillance State: A Global Right to Privacy,” it states, “Identifying the emerging norm of privacy, it is suggested, is of vital importance not merely for individual citizens but for the governments whose powers need to be checked. Technology might be useful, but its use in a situation free of ethical guidance or legal restraint is not desirable,” (Kampmark 12). In other words, since technology is widely available and used for almost every aspect of life, it is readily available for the government to use for their own predilection. Even so, they should be aware of society’s rights and understand that surveillance should be limited in many ways out of respect for its citizens. Lastly, the US government has control to limit the privacy its citizens receive during certain times. To put it simply, during times of war the security increases while privacy decreases.
The episode engaged with identity politics, which is the act of people forming alliances and groups based on a similar factor they all categorize with. In the episode, there was a formation of 2 groups: the onlookers and the hunters. The onlookers are witnesses, recording the whole event and not physically participating in anything. Especially when Victoria asks them to help her, they do not respond, instead they only follow her around recording. She is unable to hide from them because they are trailing her every movement. This is a definite case of invasion of her privacy. The individuals in this group identified with the fact that they wanted to participate in the scene by recording events and tracing the main subject. The next group in the episode was the hunters. They are a violent group of individuals who were not affected by the flashing signal. These individuals realized that they are able to cause fear among others by committing terrible acts without being stopped. They carried guns to shoot and kill other non-affected individuals. In order to strike fear in the main character, they chased to kill her. Overall, Victoria was placed in situation where her life was at stake and she had to plead and beg in order to save her life. By doing this, the actors in the simulation were trying to invoke the fear and the feelings that her and her fiancé caused upon the little girl. Victoria was an onlooker in the real life event, where she was filming and not intervening to help the terrified young girl as her fiancé tortured, afflicted suffering and murdered the innocent young girl. In comparison, her fiancé is on the other side, a hunter, where he was on a mission to kill and cause fear in others around him. Lastly, the simulation creates a parallel between the little girls disturbing incident and Victoria’s current situation.
While it might be true that, surveillance and invasion of privacy negatively affects society, others may say that surveillance benefits society in many ways as the government is able to track certain aspects. For example, in, “Surveillance as a Cultural Practice,” it states, “From this perspective, surveillance can serve democratic or empowering ends if it brings about openness, transparency, accountability, participation, and power equalization among social groups and institutions,” (Monahan 498). Overall, this fact shows that surveillance is a way of creating a different atmosphere, while taking into consideration many composed factors surrounding it. It also leads the public into certain directions which may benefit them in long term by providing them with necessary information. Also, in the text it states, “In another example, James Walsh (2010) shows how progressive activist groups engage in technological surveillance of the U.S.-Mexico border, border agents, and vigilantes to prevent immigrant deaths, by using geographic information systems, for instance, to determine where to site water stations” (Monahan 498). This detail depicts a specific reason as to why surveillance is beneficial to other societies. By monitoring certain functions that contribute to the way of living, individuals can highly benefit. The government is able to observe the effects of precise utilities or purposes and change it depending on how it may affect the primary community. Even though the evidence of surveillance can benefit those globally, surveillance specifically on a community negatively impacts it as people are further traced in detail.
To conclude, surveillance negatively impacts individuals and it is specifically shown throughout an episode in Black Mirror. Along with this, the episode portrays the formation of parties and identity issues as the perpetrator, Victoria, undergoes a replica of reality based on her verdict of being found guilty by the jury. Victoria is faced with harsh conditions that she would repeatedly face, in order to understand that what she participated in was extremely wrong.
Works Cited
Binoy Kampmark. “Restraining the Surveillance State: A Global Right to Privacy.” Journal of Global Faultlines, vol. 2, no. 1, 2014, pp. 1–16. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.13169/jglobfaul.2.1.0001.
Brooker, Charlie, director. White Bear. Netflix Official Site, Netflix, 25 Dec. 2015, www.netflix.com/watch/70279174?trackId=14170289&tctx=0%2C1%2C53167a52-4b72-4224-bbdd-91a3e9834c40-70832817%2C938822e1-5d66-41ea-ab1e-59bdbddec158_4541362X3XX1543423642204%2C938822e1-5d66-41ea-ab1e-59bdbddec158_ROOT.
Monahan, Torin. “SURVEILLANCE AS CULTURAL PRACTICE.” The Sociological Quarterly, vol. 52, no. 4, 2011, pp. 495–508. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23027562.
Posner, Richard A. “Privacy, Surveillance, and Law.” The University of Chicago Law Review, vol. 75, no. 1, 2008, pp. 245–260. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20141907.
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