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Black Mirror

Started by Faust, December 13, 2011, 10:51:24 PM

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Faust

Charlie Brooker has a new show airing called as you might have guessed from the title The Black Mirror.
The Mirror in question refers to the bleak monolith sitting in everyone's living room or in their pockets. Each episode is to deal with a different aspect of technology and the role it plays in society told through different styled stories.

The first episode deals with a situation where a celebrity is kidnapped and the ransom for her life is that the prime minister fuck a pig on live tv, and how as soon as it hits the internet it goes viral.

While the first episode was good, it wasn't until the second that the show blew me away and it is this episode I would suggest everyone watch.

I won't go into specifics.

It deals with a lot of the themes we're very much familiar with on the boards. All of it works through nightmarish parody of culture we have now, X-factor is brought to its logical and extreme conclusion of utter judgement of a persons worth, we see health obsession, unskippable adverts in life, purchasing digital representations of real life commodities, having an online Doppelgänger to portray an idealised pretend version of yourself (and then being ridiculed when it doesn't fit in), assuming someone is inferior because they don't have the prepackaged lifestyles that are allegedly desirable.

We've seen some of this stuff in the likes of transmet and Doktor Sleepless, but it's never hit so close to home.

I'd really like for some people to watch this episode and tell me what they think.

I don't know if this link will work for everyone:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/black-mirror/episode-guide/series-1/episode-2

if not acquire it any way you can because this is good.
Sleepless nights at the chateau

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Freeky

Will most indubbitably keep an eye out for this.

Faust

Do, I'd love to hear some PDs opinions of this. Also if that link doesnt work, its up on youtube.
Sleepless nights at the chateau

Pæs

Just watched the first 15 minutes of E1. I have pretty limited data allowance, but I think tomorrow I'll have to go somewhere a better deal and download all of this.

Are you sure it's a parody and that the creators aren't time travellers?

Triple Zero

Getting. Will watch later tonight. To anyone searching for it (as indeed the 4oD link seems to only work in the UK), the show's name is "Black Mirror", without "The" (couldn't find it at first).
Ex-Soviet Bloc Sexual Attack Swede of Tomorrow™
e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.

Faust

Quote from: Beardman Meow on December 14, 2011, 10:50:49 AM
Just watched the first 15 minutes of E1. I have pretty limited data allowance, but I think tomorrow I'll have to go somewhere a better deal and download all of this.

Are you sure it's a parody and that the creators aren't time travellers?

Just wait until episode two. Fucking Hell.
Sleepless nights at the chateau

Scribbly

I'm watching episode 2 on 4oD right now.

After part 1, the Gmail ad charting how gmail is integrated into the relationship of a dad and his little girl came up.  :horrormirth:

I wasn't going to bother after the 1st episode, as I didn't really like it. Episode 2 is goddamn fantastic though. Thanks for the tip, Faust!
I had an existential crisis and all I got was this stupid gender.

Scribbly

OK, just saw to the end.

It really was amazing.

I suspect this one really resonated with Brooker. He quit doing Screenwipe because he felt like he was becoming a self-parody just tearing down all the time. I'm not sure I liked the message that was sent out by the ending, though.


Things below might get spoilery, so...



Not to get too philosophi-wanky, but he's touching on the real paradox at the heart of our consumer culture. Working to consume goods we don't need, or even really want, measuring our self-worth by what we own... but he set up a thread where the characters could have found some meaning through their personal relationships; in fact, that seems to be what the characters themselves have realized...

And then he sharply turns away from that, everyone sells out, engaging with the system at all is shown to be corruptive and there's no way shown not to engage with the system.

It was a very powerful show and I enjoyed it, but I don't think the message is one I agree with. It renders the possibility of collective action impossible, and where the first episode showed the power one man can have... this one implied that one man is completely powerless.

I also see why he took this to Channel 4 - I don't think you'd ever get half the stuff that went on in this past the BBC, and that makes me sad.
I had an existential crisis and all I got was this stupid gender.

Faust

Quote from: Demolition_Squid on December 14, 2011, 01:27:35 PM

And then he sharply turns away from that, everyone sells out, engaging with the system at all is shown to be corruptive and there's no way shown not to engage with the system.



That's the thing, it is bleak and dark with little faith in humanity. The end of it has a lot of parallels with "He loved big brother", but it hits home even worse then that did because it doesn't give us an enemy or faceless state to blame all this on.
At the end, the truth of the matter was we had all facilitated that horrible souless world, there was no one to blame but ourselves.

For those that 4OD doesn't work for maybe youtube wont be blocked.
http://www.youtube.com/show?p=c1LJgrhyEsY&tracker=show_av
Sleepless nights at the chateau

Scribbly

Quote from: Faust on December 14, 2011, 02:22:57 PM
Quote from: Demolition_Squid on December 14, 2011, 01:27:35 PM

And then he sharply turns away from that, everyone sells out, engaging with the system at all is shown to be corruptive and there's no way shown not to engage with the system.



That's the thing, it is bleak and dark with little faith in humanity. The end of it has a lot of parallels with "He loved big brother", but it hits home even worse then that did because it doesn't give us an enemy or faceless state to blame all this on.
At the end, the truth of the matter was we had all facilitated that horrible souless world, there was no one to blame but ourselves.

For those that 4OD doesn't work for maybe youtube wont be blocked.
http://www.youtube.com/show?p=c1LJgrhyEsY&tracker=show_av

It reminded me more of Brave New World. Only he doesn't get the final strike back against it that the savage in BNW does.

In the case of Big Brother, it was done out of a conscious desire to control, too. In this, it seems to be perpetuating simply because that is what it does. I get that these are supposed to be a warning if you like, but even in 1984 there was a nod made to the worth of human relationships through the romantic subplot. This felt too bleak to me. The message the ending left me with was 'You won't beat the Society of the Spectacle, so don't bother trying, sell out, at least you'll be comfortable'. I don't find that a useful message.
I had an existential crisis and all I got was this stupid gender.

Faust

Quote from: Demolition_Squid on December 14, 2011, 02:30:16 PM
Quote from: Faust on December 14, 2011, 02:22:57 PM
Quote from: Demolition_Squid on December 14, 2011, 01:27:35 PM

And then he sharply turns away from that, everyone sells out, engaging with the system at all is shown to be corruptive and there's no way shown not to engage with the system.



That's the thing, it is bleak and dark with little faith in humanity. The end of it has a lot of parallels with "He loved big brother", but it hits home even worse then that did because it doesn't give us an enemy or faceless state to blame all this on.
At the end, the truth of the matter was we had all facilitated that horrible souless world, there was no one to blame but ourselves.

For those that 4OD doesn't work for maybe youtube wont be blocked.
http://www.youtube.com/show?p=c1LJgrhyEsY&tracker=show_av

It reminded me more of Brave New World. Only he doesn't get the final strike back against it that the savage in BNW does.

In the case of Big Brother, it was done out of a conscious desire to control, too. In this, it seems to be perpetuating simply because that is what it does. I get that these are supposed to be a warning if you like, but even in 1984 there was a nod made to the worth of human relationships through the romantic subplot. This felt too bleak to me. The message the ending left me with was 'You won't beat the Society of the Spectacle, so don't bother trying, sell out, at least you'll be comfortable'. I don't find that a useful message.

It's true that his only avenue of rebellion after Hope dismantles his speech and admits its all bullshit is to kill himself. He sells out his rage for some tangiable well, things and even those... It is ambiguous if what he is looking at out the window is real or not. The unsung villian was humanity. I didn't fet the impression that the message was sell out for comfort to make the best of your situation I got a warning for his end situation was just as horrible as his original one. "Don't let this happen, we're all responsible for making sure the world never becomes this because at that point revolution and rebellion are impossible".
Either way it is REALLY bleak and hard to watch but I find it more powerful for that, we don't get any seblance of a happy ending.
Sleepless nights at the chateau

Scribbly

It was definitely powerful. I felt it was much more successful at being hard to watch than the first episode.

I just felt the level of hopelessness overpowered any underlying message that we shouldn't let it happen. There was never any implication that there was any alternative; rebellion was shown to be just as vapid as acceptance. If he'd followed through and killed himself, the message that there is at least an alternative would have been preserved.

It would have still been depressing, but I think the message you got out of it would have come through clearer for me. As it was, it felt very mixed to me.
I had an existential crisis and all I got was this stupid gender.

Triple Zero

I'll get back to this thread when I've watched Ep2. Dunno when that will be, maybe tomorrow or friday or so.
Ex-Soviet Bloc Sexual Attack Swede of Tomorrow™
e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.

Luna

Jesus FUCK, Faust...

I swear, there are spiders dancing up and down my spine.   :x
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"My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know, everybody you see, everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake, and they live in a state of constant, total amazement."

Quote from: The Payne on November 16, 2011, 07:08:55 PM
If Luna was a furry, she'd sex humans and scream "BEASTIALITY!" at the top of her lungs at inopportune times.

Quote from: Nigel on March 24, 2011, 01:54:48 AM
I like the Luna one. She is a good one.

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