The first episode of dystopian anthology series Black Mirror, “The National Anthem”, is about a UK Prime Minister fucking a pig on live broadcast to secure the release of a popular kidnapped royal so his poll numbers don’t go down. And the whole country watches him, on tv, the internet, everywhere.
The most recent episode, as of this writing, Season 4’s “Black Museum” is about a woman who stumbles across a road side attraction, a museum full of “authentic criminological artifacts”. The museum’s owner gives the woman a tour, showing off three objects in particular, and telling weird and tragic stories related to them, while also telling an overarching story of technological progress that the owner was involved in, starting with a device that can let one feel what others feel, moving to people’s consciousness being able to be put into other people or objects, and finally ending with technology that basically allows one to be immortal as a hologram. This last technological miracle is shown with the museum’s main attraction: the enduring consciousness of a death row inmate taken just before execution, and now a fun interactive exhibit where lucky visitors can flip the switch and execute the soul of a condemned man all for a small fee. This torture is the fate of the museum owner, however, as the woman is none other than the daughter of the condemned man, come for revenge with her mother’s consciousness inside her as well. After getting her poetic revenge, ending her father’s soul’s misery, and saving a woman trapped in a teddy bear, she sets fire to the museum and drives away.
It’s a rather common take to say that Black Mirror is technophobic or anti-technology, like this joke (which would make a pretty ok SNL sketch), or this actively, very bad, no good tweet. And fine. If you don’t like Black Mirror that’s fine, I hate parts and aspects of it, I get it if it’s not your cup of tea, if you don’t like dystopian fiction or sci-fi, or if it’s just too bleak and mean and terrible for you, more power to you. But I do object to the thinking that underlines these tweets: a (almost willful) misreading of the series and it’s themes. This misreading is made all the more aggravating because Black Mirror is very blunt about the targets of its critique, there’s a reason the show opens with a world leader fucking a pig and ends (for now) with a woman getting revenge by using tech to freeze a dude in eternal agony. Because Black Mirror doesn’t hate technology, it hates humanity.
The evidence for this is abundant, but let’s run down it in list form because lists give the illusion of structure and let me bounce around. So:
1) “The National Anthem”: the very first episode of the series, the introductory paragraph that gives us our thesis statement, and there’s no fantastical technology at play in any of it. Is the premise absurd? Yes. But is it all technically possible? Also yes. It’s no accident that this sci-fi series opens with a story that lacks futuristic technology. Honestly if this wasn’t connected to Black Mirror, would this story even be sci-fi, or instead considered a dramatic satire? And what is the focus of this satire? It’s you. If you want to know what Black Mirror thinks of you, it’s the general populace in this episode. Everyone who watches the PM have sex with a pig, chooses to do that. They aren’t forced to. At any time they could turn off the tv, put down the tablet, just not watch, but they do. “You sick fucks would watch a head of government engage in bestiality on live tv and you would reward him for it,” is what this episode says, more or less. And the fact that the people choose to watch the PM and the pig is important. Black Mirror is (usually) a well written show, so characters make meaningful choices that impact the plot and drive the story. In basically every episode it is not the technology that ruins people’s lives or causes harm, it is a person’s choice to misuse or abuse the technology that causes harm and ruins people’s lives.
2) “Arkangel”: the “individual choices are what spells disaster” is shown really well in this episode, where a mom basically installs a security system into her daughter. Now this is one of the episodes where the technology at play is just down right evil, but the technology is also unnecessary. The sci-fi stuff merely makes certain things easier and also pushes the stakes higher, but you can remove it and still hit the plot points. At its core Arkangel is a story about a mother who wants to protect her daughter, and in trying to do that, becomes overzealous. Which isn’t to absolve the daughter at all, she still acts irresponsibly and ends up nearly beating her mother to death, and that’s kind of the key thing here. The episode is the story of this mother daughter relationship, but with a chrome coating. The mom chooses to put an implant into her daughter, then chooses to turn it off for a time, the Daughter chooses to do drugs and have sex, the mother chooses to restart the system and find out about these things, at the center of it all are humans making choices. The technology is just a tool, handy little plot magic it can’t do good or bad because it’s a thing. It has no morality, it can only be used or not. Everything that happens is the result of human choices.
3) “Nosedive”: The plot of Nosedive is happening. Or at least Silicon Valley and China are trying to make it happen. It’s not alarmism or technophobia when your dystopian setting is coming true because the People’s Republic wants yet another avenue with which to control people, while some frat bros who can code want to eliminate tipping. But besides the fact that we live in the lamest possible cyberpunk dystopia, Nosedive is a story not about social media, but rather about the stress of having to always perform an idealized version of yourself. What is ultimately critiqued is, well the “Yelp for People” app that everyone, save a few social outcasts, are linked up to; but more broadly an inescapable system where you must always perform an idealized version of yourself, least you face unemployment or homelessness. Its worth noting that the only people who seem to be actually happy are those that finally cracked, those who rejected the system and were rejected by the system. The reason Bryce Dallas Howard’s character laughs in the end, having lost it all, is because she finally free and able to express her true self. And, once again, that’s an ending you can get with out the sci-fi technology. Because Black Mirror is critiquing us, not tech.
5) Rapid fire because this essay is already north of a thousand words: The episode “USS Callister” is about a dude who designs a virtual reality game and creates cyber clones of people he knows to act out his Star Trek fan fic. The cyber clones then stage an uprising, break free of the evil dude who ends up basically dead, and escape into the larger VR game and live free lives exploring virtual space. That’s a rather happy ending that’s not condemnatory of virtual reality or even tech itself, but rather a certain brand of nerdom that is heavily steeped in misogyny and self entitlement. Really there’s zero critique of tech at all in the episode, it’s all critique of humanity in some way or another. Not even all of humanity, but laser focused on a very dark underbelly of a specific subculture. “Hang the DJ” turns out to have taken place in a matchmaking app, that’s one of about… two episodes that actually likes humans and the ending is rather tech positive. “The Waldo Moment” and “Fifteen Million Merits” are both about how rebellion and dissent can be repackaged and sold back to you in a way that just reinforces the current system; with “The Waldo Moment” having barely (if any) fancy sci-fi tech. As I said before, the hero of “Black Museum” uses basically all the tech that’s mentioned throughout the three stories to get her revenge. Because Black Mirror about how technology is used by people, not that technology exists.
6) “San Junipero”: The most optimistic, and undoubtedly best, episode, “San Junipero” is quality sci-fi that explores intense feelings and ideas through the lens of its fantastic setting and its one of like two, maybe three, episodes that actually likes humanity. It is the story of Yorkie, a lesbian who’s been in a vegetative state for most of her life, as she gets ready to upload her consciousness to a computer so that she can live in a retro 80s world forever. Before this happens however, she meets and falls in love with Kelly, a bisexual woman who’s nearing the end of her own life, but has had a family that is sadly long gone. Does Kelly stay with Yorkie and enjoy eternity, or does she reject that because the rest of her family didn’t have the possibility of eternal life? It’s not an easy question to answer but it is explored well and we get a happy ending. I bring all of this up because, none of this is technopobic or even misanthropic. A supercomputer gives two queer women eternal life in a better version of the 80s, there’s only positivity from this ending. This complicates all readings, sure, but that’s also an argument for Black Mirror‘s quality. It wants to be engaged with and also realizes you can’t just have six hours of nonstop misery and hate. And so, for once, it considers that there might be some good in people. Very deep down.
So, why are we here? Why write so much on very bad takes, after all that’s basically what Twitter is for. The answer is because I really don’t like the thinking that lead to these takes in the first place. It’s not just that I disagree with them, it’s that these takes are born out of ignorance, out of a failure to critically analyze and engage with a work of art. Its like watching Mad Max: Fury Road and seeing only a chase movie. There’s a lot more going on, you don’t even have to dig under the surface, its right there in front of you. By all means hate Black Mirror, I for one hate its misanthropy and bleakness, but hate it for what it is, not what you think it might be. On top of it all, I’m actually grateful for Black Mirror as it is a 21st century work that critiques our use of technology without offering some worthless, hippie inspired (at best) or reactionary inspired (at worst) lesson about how it is technology and the modern world that is evil, and we must “return to the land” or some such nonsense. For all of its misanthropy, Black Mirror does realize that technology is a tool, how it is used is up to us. And I’m appreciative for a show who’s themes are in that area. For a show that isn’t so enthralled with technology that it promises salvation but also isn’t so technophobic as to ascribe human problems to the technology we have created. As we head full speed into the lamest possible cyberpunk dystopia, its nice to have a show that wants us to think about our actions.
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