WOULD YOU PUNISH A PERSON WHO DOESN’T REMEMBER COMMITTING A CRIME?

Based on the second episode of the second season of the Netflix series “Black Mirror”,
this follows a woman (Lenora Crichlow) attempting to take out a signal transmitter which is
controlling those around her via their device screens. The controlled follow her around,
recording her actions while she desperately begs for their help.

The presence of these hypnotizing devices can easily deceive us into thinking that
“White Bear” is yet another cautionary tale against being too attached to technology, but this
episode’s intentions are far more unnerving. Our protagonist, one of the few people not
controlled by the signal, begins the episode with no memory: no understanding of who she is,
where she is, or why she is there. Much like us, she’s struggling to figure it all out as she goes
along.

But it’s evident that, without her memories, Victoria deeply regrets what she’s done.
She is paraded, strapped to her chair, through the crowd of people shouting death threats at
her before her memory wiped for the next day of punishment. Over the episode’s end credits,
we see the employees and visitors of White Bear Justice Park preparing to terrorize Victoria
another day.

And that’s it. Characteristically, Black Mirror doesn’t offer any obvious answers, no sense of
conclusion, nothing to take from the episode except more questions. While much of Black
Mirror acts as a cautionary tale against technology that advances too far, the most high-tech
part of “White Bear” is the cell phones visitors use to intimidate Victoria. This episode throws
us completely off our game, asking moral questions that feel, in many ways, too real even
for Black Mirror.

While we typically are given a reasonably sympathetic protagonist, Victoria is someone who we
discover we should hate. Even still, Victoria’s error happened long before we meet her. The
Victoria we know has no memory, no idea she’s done anything wrong. She seems horrified at
the thought that she could do what she did. With her crime so far removed from her, is she
even a criminal? We shouldn’t feel sorry for her— that much feels pretty obvious— but then
again, if we can decide that she’s not a criminal, why shouldn’t she deserve our sympathies?

Oh and our remaining options for sympathy? A crowd shouting death threats, those working at
the park to terrorize someone who doesn’t know she’s guilty, and a dead little girl’s family we
only see through archival footage. Black Mirror typically asks us to identify with its protagonist,
to feel bad for them when one single mistake led to a horrible, blown-out-of-proportion
outcome. “White Bear” unnerves us by confusing our sympathies, leaving us feeling disgusted
with everyone involved.
Perhaps the most chilling element of this episode is how it implicates the audience. If the
structure had been different, with us knowing what Victoria had done before seeing her amid
her punishment, would our sympathies be so nobly confused? Would we feel that she is worthy
of our hate? Would we perhaps applaud the creators of White Bear Justice Park for the genius
of their punishment?

As it stands, we as an audience are equated to the attendees of White Bear Justice Park who
record Victoria as she struggles. “White Bear” offers a view of society that we would probably
rather not face: an exceptionally cruel presentation of mob mentality. Those going to visit the
park seem akin to visitors of something like Disney World in the sense that they regard
Victoria’s struggle as an opportunity for entertainment. The implications of this punishment
don’t appear to phase the masses who play an active role in it.

It’s easy to think we’d never let it get to this point, that we would never be so cruel or would
never be implicated in punishment in the ways this episode’s audience is. But Black Mirror, true
to form, doesn’t want us to find comfort in the most comfortable conclusion. We very well
could be the audience in “White Bear,” just as surely as we could be the protagonist of any
other episode. This particular episode, however, stands apart because it isn’t about one person
who caused things to go wrong— it’s about an entire section of society that allowed it to get to
this point, a culture that we not only could theoretically see ourselves in but are already a part
of.

And as the episode concluded, and all ideas summed up, I can clearly say that I WOULD
NOT PUNISH A PERSON WHO DOESN’T REMEMBER COMMITTING A CRIME because if you are
not on your own mind, you cannot give fair and just judgement to your actions and it may
result to something unthinkable and it is why Victoria was labeled as “uniquely wicked and
poisonous individual”. Being a slave to the technology we are in right now results to disastrous
things and to avoid that, all we need to do is to be the master of the technology we are using
and maximizing the help it can offer us while slashing out the negativities it can give.