MovieChat Forums > Black Mirror (2011) Discussion > Why is everybody judging the characters?

Why is everybody judging the characters?

posted 8 years ago by makryashina
3 replies | jump to latest

First of all, sorry for mistakes as I'm not mother tongue English. I've watched two seasons and then I ended up reading comments because I felt confused and wanted to see what other people thought. Well, actually I think that noone should watch this series in order to be coherent with the message: Internet/technology/propaganda is against human nature. But I'm watching it, and so you are, so let's talk about it.

I think it's not about what we would do in any of the suggested situations. They don't ask us to make choices. It is just a portrait of the contemporary society and a landscape of where we are NOW (even in the 1S2E - dystopic story): people guided by somebody who wants us to behave in a certain mode for certain reasons. Behave as a mass, not as individuals. (And I'm not into conspiracy theories).

Why should we judge the character of "White bear" episode? Do we have the right to do so? Do we have the right to say: ok, she did it, so the punishment fits. I don't think this is the main issue of the episode: what the authors wanted to say is that justice has become an inhuman instrument of the system that wants us to entertain and have fun instead of thinking with our own minds and making ethical choices.

This series itself is a simplification of ethics and morality. If one would really care about the moral part of the series they should read philosophers/writers of the past, who are much deeper and humane than the directors of Black Mirror episodes. I must still admit that Black Mirror is really amazing... and disturbing.

[–] RockinRickyRialto 8 years ago

I can sort of see what you mean with the contrast inherent in the show - "Digital technology and the internet are destroying us all, so watch our show on Netflix that got a huge following thanks to internet streaming!"

Also, it's hard enough to explain a complicated philosophy in a two hour movie and still be entertaining, but Black Mirror episodes are half that length. I think that when trying to make complicated social commentary in a TV time length, you sometimes have to be preachy--like The Twilight Zone before Black Mirror.

If you must blink, do it now.

[–] makryashina 8 years ago

I know it's just a series, and it needs to be entertaining. Again, I'm not criticising it as a production. I'm just saying that it's not about who did what, what character did what. It's about how we react. And, for me, the right reaction should be reflecting on what I am rather on where the characters mistake or how they behave.

[–] turnipjedi 8 years ago

Look at it like a gateway drug,

It's a TV show, cleverer than most, asking some big questions but still being wildly entertaining or thought provoking, but like others have said there is only so much you can cover in an hour

Maybe some people will come away from it just thinking 'that was some gosh darned good tellying what I just see'd' and others will look at message boards and the like and go searching out the 'source code' for a lot of the idea's touched on in the show and end up at the works of the writers and thinkers you mention. It's a bit telling of humanity that we now have a box of near infinite information (the internet) that a vast percentage of us are just distracted by how shiny the box is rather than the contents