HCØ, MCL

Black Mirror
‘San Junipero’ (season 3, episode 4)
Fact sheet:

 Black Mirror is a sci-fi anthology

 Each episode plays like a stand-alone movie, just like
shows like The Twillight Zone
 San Junipero won the Emmy for ‘Outstanding TV
Movie’ and for ‘Outstanding Writing’ in 2016
 The show owes its success to the “deep, philosophical
questions it asks” and is considered as speculative
fiction where specific elements of our contemporary
world are exaggerated and distorted in a near-future
setting playing off on utopian or dystopian themes.
 Each episode is a hybrid-genre borrowing from 1: Who wants to live forever?
Horror, Romance, Police Procedural, and so on.

Worksheet:
1: Account for what a ‘period piece’ is and describe the setting of San Junipero. In your account, you must
examine the iconography of the movie.

Hint: Iconography

Ikonografi består af følgende elementer:

1. Det konkrete og fysiske; herunder ting, rekvisitter og personer

2. Aktiviteter; herunder specifikke hændelser, action og bevægelser
3. De fysiske rammer; herunder locations, settings og miljø.)

Your Answer:
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2: Who is the antagonist in this episode?

Your Answer:

3: Intertextuality (a literary device) helps build meaning and purpose in fiction. Consider how the use of the
songs ‘Heart and Soul’ by T’Pau and ‘Living in a Box’ contributes to the two main themes – and ascertain
what they might be.

Your Answer:

4: Make a brief account of the plot in ‘San Junipero’

Your Answer:

5: Analysis of genre. Comment on the hybrid genre of the episode.

Your Answer:

6: The genre theorist Steve Neal would say that the episode needs to display something original to set them
apart from other examples. What could be identified as original in this episode (made in 2016):

Your Answer:

7: What is the message of San Junipero?

Your Answer:
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8: Hyperreality. The big question is the extent to which it can be considered “real,” and an important factor is
sensory input--Yorkie clearly relishes digging her feet in the sand, and marvels that “It feels so real!” At the
same time, we know that people who connect to San Junipero have “pain sliders” (see roof scene).How does
the fact that San Juniperans control their own sensory input as well as their physical appearance affect how
“real” it is?

Your answer:

9: Is Yorkie as she exists on her hospital bed “alive”? Is San Junipero really an afterlife for her? In other
words, to what extent is “life” a biological fact and to what extent is it a social experience with prerequisites
(like freedom)? How does technology like San Junipero redefine life and death?

Your answer: