Week 2

“Man Bites Dog,” “The Eternal Frame” and the “White Bear” episode of Black Mirror deal with excitement and passivity in the face of terrible violent acts.

“The Eternal Frame” documents a recreation of the JFK shooting. The crew is meticulous in recreating the events as realistically as possible. While one might expect the audience that gathers to watch the recreation to be upset or sad, it turns out they are pretty excited about watching the whole thing go down. The JFK assassination was the first true mass media spectale. It happened just as televisions had become a staple in American homes and prior to the assassination, there was never a film event as widespread. The film simulatneously deconstructs and celebrates the media’s appropriation of the assassination by putting on a huge spectacle for those around the neighborhood while at the same time exposing their obsession with the public death of a world leader.

“Man Bites Dog” is the most visceral film of the bunch, featuring the crew as characters that are part of the narrative. The film feigns a doumentary structure focusing on a serial killer, Ben, as he wanders around harming and murdering peope seemingly at random. As the film progresses, so does the physical involvement of the crew in regards to the violent acts. Their attitude towards the acts of violence is torubling from the beginning, they don’t stop Ben from murdering people or help the victims. The turning point in the film is when the crew help Ben murder a child. A few scenes later, the take turns raping a woman while cheering each other on. The gang rape scene is the most poignant and hard to swallow. Later, Ben murders a woman at a party, but instead of the other party-goers trying to stop him or calling the police, they just kind of act like it’s normal and go on with the party. That scene takes the film into surreal territory (although I guess the entire premise is a bit unbelievable from the beginning). Eventually the crew and the subject meet their demise as they are gunned down in the end.

Black Mirror consistently does a great job of taking the way media and technology is increasingly influences social behoavior and pushing it to a terrifying point. The plot of episode “White Bear” doesn’t disappoint. The episode begins seeming like an action thriller. A woman, Victoria, wakes up with amnesia and when she goes out into the world, she is confronted by violent masked characters while spectators watch on, all holding out their cameras to record the events. Victoria soon learns about a signal that is being transmitted that causes most of society to become useless voyeurs while the unaffected either choose a path of violence or evade the violent ones. Towards the end of the episode, Victoria finds out that the whole plot was a setup and she is actually a part of a punishment program where she relives the same trauma daily. The interesting part of the punishment program to me is that the spectators/audience endorse this program and routinely attend these daily events willingly, seeming to enjoy watching Victoria go through the same struggle every day.

All three pieces from this week dealt with the public’s fascination with violence. The approaches to conveying this obsession were a sign of the times in each case. “The Eternal Frame” is modernist in its approach; “Man Bites Dog” is postmodern; “White Bear” is contemporary.