I'm watching this new season of Black Mirror in reverse order of ratings, i.e. Lowest rated first, highest rated last, so this is my second, after 'Mazey Day'.
As with that episode, this has strayed away from the near-future, tech-related scenarios of most earlier Black Mirror episodes, and drifted even further away in that 'Mazey Day' did all the same have, although very simply, that heavy theme of the insidious and oppressive manifestations of that broad, impersonal, multitudinous but faceless, mass culture, with its very lowbrow and dark appetites, maybe most grimly exemplified in 'Shut Up and Dance', but prominent in most of BM and not very far away at any time.
Both these episodes have too that supernatural element, very definitely taking it away from that 'hard sci-fi' feel of the believable tech and the also 'hard reality' feel of those believable dark sides of mass culture. And this is maybe where and why most people feel disappointed, having anticipated the same kind vibe and that similar dark hardness to previous seasons and their episodes.
But this is the creator's creation, after all, and a creator can take it in any direction they like, and it's hard for me to insist that this is a betrayal or let-down in any way really, even if maybe I might have preferred more of that vibe in some new and similary thought-provoking stories. If there was a desire to take it into murkier and softer realms, or to play around with other vibes, associations and ideas, then that's the creator's prerogative.
And to me the title 'Black Mirror' indicated how these stories reflect dark places deep in the recesses of human culture and human psyche, and it seems to me that this episode is doing much the same, though in murkier and also more personal way, more focused on the internal emotional violence within people, and less on how some abstract psychopathic pattern of culture zoomed out far away from being able to see the individual is the driving force of the 'blackness' reflected by that mirror in previous BM stories.
We see and sympathise with a very likeable, unfairly harassed main character, but we also see the darkness within her in the exceedingly violent fantasies that lurk just a little out of reach of being implemented, and then in how she quite easily slides into violence when given an excuse, and takes it beyond the levels it needs to reach quite unnecessarily more than once, despite confusion, remorse, examples of empathy, etc. Etc.
Also we see 'bad people' who 'deserve' the violence but eventually in the light of their own confusion, remorse, fear, etc., etc. We also see a 'bigger picture' that seemingly justifies any level of violence towards anyone, but also feel the grim and unfair horror of that violence even when committed against those who 'deserve' it the most.
And then we have a big picture of violence, up to the largest and most destructive scale, all within the usual context of 'necessity', justification, supposed self-defense, or prevention of worse, or for the sake of 'justice', etc., etc.
'Good people' commit 'justified' violence against 'bad people' who 'deserve' it, but where really are the clear boundaries between a good justification and a forced and wishful justification for something that maybe you just want to do out of the pure violence in your heart. And where are the boundaries between 'deserving it' and being a 'bad person' and the contingencies that made that 'badness' manifest itself and the simple reality of a human subject caught up in all sorts of bad realities that led them to that place and condition.
The 'justifications' are maybe not such solid 'justifications' really, and whatever they are, maybe the reality of violence in its actualisation offsets that regardless, and the 'badness' is not necessarily simpy based on badness to the core and the 'deserving it' maybe don't necessarily 'deserve it' as much as we like.
In the end it's human culture and the individual human nature that that grows from, and it's impulses to violence that come from our hearts and our guts and come out in our rage, and with contexts and justifications that are real, but all the same it's all just violence. Violence is needed in this reality of contexts and contending forces, but violence is always horrific, but violence is a visceral impulse for us, so we're also looking for excuses for it. So it's never about 'good' and 'bad' or any other contrasting concepts, but about that tension of simultaneous duality and contradiction. It's made into comedy here, again adding ambiguity, but violence it is, and the whole world is seen to be violent.
In this way, in this vaguer, 'softer' but definitely violent way, this episode also reflects the blackness at the core of humanity, and of the big, impersonal context of humanity, and maybe even more bleakly in its inevitable relishing in having no real resolution to all these contradictions. Just violence or submission or oblivion. Definitely, in that way, a 'Black Mirror'.
And also in that is sympathy, shown not only directly to absolutely every single character in some mild way at the very least, but also in the portrayal of the place and time, with music probably very nostalgic and poignant for Charlie Brooker, with the nods to 70's British reality, fish & chips, Minis, boozing and swearing TV cops, even the streets and shops and tv shows and ads and fashions and wallpapers, etc., etc., etc., that made up the whole comfort zone of human tastes and imaginings in 1970's Britain. Humankind in its feeling reality in its messy context of distractions and contradictions. A mirror is being held up here. Not as vividly as earlier, maybe not as obviously, maybe not as successfully, but all the same.
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