MovieChat Forums > Black Mirror (2011) Discussion > One fatal flaw with Shut Up And Dance

One fatal flaw with Shut Up And Dance

posted 8 years ago by eazyduz
29 replies | jump to latest

This is for the grown men, women responses will be disregarded.
So you're bored of your wife and try to seek a prostitute just as the episode suggested.
Basically put yourself in his shoes. You're a grown ass man, clearly doing OK with money and clearly not that in love with your wife anyway.
Do you:

1. Go all beta and be submissive to some online trolls threatening to expose what you've done. Knowing full well that they may expose what you've done anyway.

2. Ignore it, wipe laptop, change number. Hell even take time off work and keep an eye on the wife. Seriously if it was me, what i'd do is stay at home and log into the laptop, wait for the hackers to text my phone moaning that i didnt do what they said so they'll expose the truth, then delete whatever messages they send to the laptop (which are aimed at his wife)
Or better yet, throw away the laptop and tell the wife it broke down. Then what do they do?

So many ways around it, yet the guy (who was clearly quite strong minded, not a push over) just does what the hackers say.
Huge plot hole.

Same with the black guy. The other two are doomed as they can be exposed with or without destroying their computers. But cheating isnt a criminal offence.

[–] laurendorward-990-190608 8 years ago

They have all his info his laptop is immaterial. They sent the info to his wife. So, unless he has access to every single one of her accounts 24/7 etc your logic makes no sense.
There is no fatal flaw, at least not this.
His wife had a right to know what a sleaze he was. He said himself he still loved his wide he just fancied a bonk with a 20 year old. Scum basically

[–] ebwalkerjr 8 years ago

You can love your wife, and still want to have sex with other women. I wouldn't call him scum. If he approached his wife logically with an argument about them not having a sexual relationship anymore and she is still defensive...wouldn't that make her scum.

[–] laurendorward-990-190608 8 years ago

If you cheat on someone you are a sack of *beep* end of.
There was no mention of her not wanting sex anymore he just fancied a fumble with a young girl.

[–] mafila 8 years ago

I suppose the vast majority of people in this world are sacks of *beep* then. Have you ever told a lie? Have you ever stolen anything in your lifetime? Have you ever cheated on anyone? If you ever encounter someone who says "no" to any of these things, either that person is one of the few saints in this world or that person is a liar. The latter is the far more likely explanation. Everyone makes mistakes and does things they are not proud of, it doesn't make them sacks of *beep* What makes someone a sack of *beep* is having a lack of remorse and refusing to learn from past mistakes.

[–] Rayvio 8 years ago

You can love your wife, and still want to have sex with other women

it's not the wanting to that was wrong, but the actively trying to. he was a likeable character for the most part, but he still got into the mess because he did something really *beep*

If he approached his wife logically with an argument about them not having a sexual relationship anymore and she is still defensive...wouldn't that make her scum.

no, depending on how it went it could make her argumentative, cold, oblivious... but to qualify as scum she would have to seriously overreact

~~~
I don't care, I'm still free. You can't take the sky from me...
rayvio.wordpress.com

[–] filho2109 8 years ago

That's not how your social media and email accounts work buddy. Destroying the laptop is not going to prevent his wife from seeing the messages on another computer or her phone. They could also send the stuff to everyone on his contact list.

I also think he said he sent some incriminating photos, and text messages, which if disseminted broadly could have negative consequences on more than just his marriage.

Seemed like he really loved his wife too...but was going through a midlife crisis. The real kicker was his kids. Pretty much said he rather die a painful death than lose them (I think). Hackers probably knew this from something he may have written online.

Not as strong a sell as paedophilia, but it wasn't a fatal flaw. People have committed heinous crimes during child custody cases. The assumption was this guy was capable of that.

[–] eazyduz 8 years ago

How do you know he had social media? How would the hackers have his phones contact list if they had to ask for his number in the first place?
He could also have just said it was an elaborate troll job by a disgruntled ex girlfriend

[–] filho2109 8 years ago

I don't know if he or his wife had social media. Just mentioned it as a possible way of disseminting the texts and photos without need for the laptop.

I'm no hacker, but assumed once they got into his phone, the can pull out contacts, text messages, emails etc..

He could definitely try to weasel his way out of it - they all could. But the hackers may have his voice recorded (or was it all text messages...don't recall) and it's still a hard sell explaining why he had those photos - i think he said he sent incriminating photos of himself.

One last thing, is he described his wife as particularly vindictive - if they fell out she'd try to punish him by denying access to his kids.

You may think it's a weak setup - we all have our opinions on that - and yours is as legit as any. BUt I think there's enough plausability in the set up that it's not a 'fatal flaw'.

[–] ExcellentBulletproofVest 8 years ago

Lying straight up to someone who's lived with you for many years on such a huge issue and getting away with it would not be easy, especially if when there's a load of evidence of chatlogs etc. She could check for herself by looking back at some of the excuses he's made for where he's been when he's having it away with the prostitute and seeing if they're legit.

For me the biggest stretch was that he was willing to go ahead with a bank robbery to prevent his affair being exposed. At that point the risk of doing the bank robbery far outweighs the risk of his wife finding out.

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What started out as a joke has turned out to be a disaster

[–] ToHelenBackAgain 8 years ago

For me the biggest stretch was that he was willing to go ahead with a bank robbery to prevent his affair being exposed. At that point the risk of doing the bank robbery far outweighs the risk of his wife finding out.

Yes, same here.

Also, by the end, it became clear that there were varying degrees of involvement based on varying degrees of wrongdoing. I didn't think married dude's trying to hire a hooker was anywhere near the severity that the hacker/trolls seemed, generally, to apply to the degree of punishment he got.

I wondered if it was true that the non-existent prostitute was 20. We don't get any hint that he thought anything else as best I can recall, but if she was instead presented as, let's say, sixteen (legal in UK but much more icky on his part), then his portion of events makes more sense.

"When did you both become crazy raccoon people?"

[–] moviemasochism 8 years ago

Hector wasn't motivated by being criminally prosecuted. He didn't want to lose his children. He emphasized more than once that it was his reason for going along.

"Mindy's" information was originated from a source he couldn't control. They went back and forth over text that included pictures that he sent. What could he wipe from his laptop?

I think a part of being "strong-minded" and alpha might be to start with understanding how things work. And not just how a phone works but story and what exactly a plot hole is. Something isn't a plot hole because it's not what you would have done.

Hector had a choice: he could accept not being blackmailed and face up to what he'd done or try to mitigate it as much as he could by going along with the blackmailers. But while you create all these scenarios that would not have fit into the story, did you consider that other targets did not go along with the coercion? If there were any, we wouldn't have seen them because our protagonist was Kenny. The reason I ask is because for this story to work, only the people who did succumb to blackmail could possibly be involved.

[–] eazyduz 8 years ago

Destroying the laptop destroys the only link between the truth and his wife.
Without the laptop how would they contact her? He could go drastic and 'borrow' her phone and drop it down the toilet too. Then how would she ever know?

[–] moviemasochism 8 years ago

Are you being serious? If you broke your laptop, you'd lose all connection to the world? So if his wife just happened to have her laptop, desktop, and/or cell phone all destroyed in one day, she'd never have access to any network communication ever again?

Let's not forget by the time he finds out it's a setup, he's already in a hotel and being tracked. When he deviated course to drop off her friend at the train, they knew exactly where he was. If he started driving home, you think they would have sent her all the information then or wait for him to completely destroy her entire connection to every network device until the end of time?

But I think you're just trying to be funny. I can't hate you for that.

[–] Meldove 8 years ago

We don't know what information the hacker trolls pulled, if she worked they could have access to her work email, to their friend's emails. He can't cut her off from the world entirely.

[–] christmastiger-16003 8 years ago

Lol bro, the internet is not inside the laptop. when you drop the lid down on your laptop at night the internet doesn't turn off all over the world.

BEST RESPONSE OF THE THREAD.

Also, OP really does not know how hackers work. They chatted through text, that can give the hacker's access to his contact's list. I really want to believe that you're a troll and not just really stupid and too stubborn to admit it.

[–] ExcellentBulletproofVest 8 years ago

Just rewatching it, they also had a picture of him cock in hand too.

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What started out as a joke has turned out to be a disaster

[–] eazyduz 8 years ago

No laptop no pic evidence

[–] laurendorward-990-190608 8 years ago

Really not sure if you're trolling or not but you cannot be that dumb to understand it. He sent pics and posts to the prostitute the hackers took his entire history off his laptop they had all his contacts etc. All they'd need to do is send them to his wife. It's not rocket science.

[–] eazyduz 8 years ago

How do you know he had contacts on his laptop?
Why would said contacts open an email from some random hackers? It would go into junk mail anyway

[–] laurendorward-990-190608 8 years ago

He was contacting a prostitute you ninny. Which involves things like adultwork all based on email and websites....They hacked his whole computer with all his info.
You cannot be this stupid.
It leads me to think you're just trolling...

[–] eazyduz 8 years ago

People tend to resort to insults when losing an argument.
All the best.

[–] laurendorward-990-190608 8 years ago

^^^ kinda proved my point. Cheers.

[–] buchowski 8 years ago

Lol bro, the internet is not inside the laptop. when you drop thelid down on your laptop at night the internet doesn't turn off all over the world.

Theywill have his browser history, his email conversation and maybe even the hotel booking lol.

[–] alligatoruk 8 years ago

I mean, really, would the guy get involved in a bank robbery JUST to save his marriage and keep his kids? I don't think most normal people would - they would just fess up to the wife or await the consequences.

However, there would be the odd person who was too weak or scared to take the risk. That's the one guy we're following in this story.

[–] vjfoogie 8 years ago

We have the luxury of sitting back and thinking through things. If you did something you thought would destroy your life, and people threatened to release information to prove it....you would do exactly what they say or kill yourself. To argue otherwise is simply a luxury of people not in that position.

Remember these people thought their lives would be ruined if this information got out. The guy said he would kill himself without his kids. The others watched child porn, and the CEO is definitely ruined. I agree the CEO and the black person didn't get that bad of a deal, but they probably weren't forced to do terrible stuff.

Believing your life will be ruined, you will do anything to make sure that doesn't happen.

[–] docstar84 8 years ago

It was written by men, for men.
Women were just annoying people who caused inconveniences to men in that story.