by CARLOS DELGADO
Black Mirror, “Nosedive”
The British science fiction television series Black Mirror, created by Charlie Brooker, recently concluded its third season. The series, originally broadcast on Channel 4 in Britain before moving to Netflix, has drawn considerable praise from critics for its depiction of the dark side of modern technology and its unintended, often horrific, consequences.
The series follows an anthology format. Each episode tells a separate story that takes place in either the future or an alternate version of the present.
In “Nosedive,” for example, everyone’s social media profile is visible beside their head, and people can “rate” each other on a one-to-five scale. The resulting score determines each person’s social standing, employment opportunities and even where they can live. In “San Junipero,” science has developed the ability to completely digitize human consciousness, allowing sick or dying individuals to gain a sort of immortality by uploading their minds into a computer-simulated paradise. “Fifteen Million Merits” depicts a reality-TV dystopia where individuals are forced to watch vapid television programs all day, and the only escape is to enter an American Idol -like competition in the hopes of hosting one’s own show. In “Hated in the Nation,” victims of online hate campaigns end up dying in real life.
(We need to warn the reader that, because nearly every episode hinges on a narrative “twist” of some kind, it’s impossible to discuss the series without “spoiling” the various endings to some degree. However, since almost every twist is telegraphed within the first few minutes, a reasonably attentive viewer is unlikely to be greatly surprised anyway.)
Critics for the most part have lavished superlatives on the show, calling it, for example, “the most relevant program of our time” (James Poniewozik, the New York Times), “gripping cautionary tales about how technology makes people less human” (Melissa Maerz, Entertainment Weekly), “smartly written and well cast … with darkly satiric overtones that distinguish it from most of what’s currently on U.S. TV” (Brian Lowry, Variety), and so forth. Many have drawn comparisons between Black Mirror and Rod Serling’s classic The Twilight Zone (1959-64).
Brooker himself is often held up as something of a Nostradamus of the digital age, with various episodes supposedly having predicted social phenomena of one sort or another (“The Waldo Moment,” about a foul-mouthed cartoon bear who runs for office, has been said to have anticipated the rise of Donald Trump).
It is certainly true that there is something “dark” and contradictory about the advancement of technology under capitalism, which subordinates all social questions to the drive for profit. Whereas advancements in automation, robotics and communications technology should create conditions for the elimination of poverty and the widespread raising of the social and cultural level of humankind, instead these technologies are used by a rapacious ruling elite to eliminate jobs, drive down wages and disseminate cultural rubbish and propaganda. The most cutting-edge technologies are appropriated by various military organizations, who use them to create advanced killing machines for imperialist war.
This is not due, however, to some inherent flaw in technological advancement, much less to inherent flaws in human nature. Rather, it is the result of the subordination of technology to the interests of those in power. While Brooker’s satire is occasionally pointed, his apparent blindness to this essential social fact severely limits Black Mirror’s ability to say anything enduring.
The series generally directs its ire toward rather easy targets. Occasionally the results are amusing, as when a character in “Nosedive” produces a chart calculating how her potential wedding guests will impact her social media rating, or when television advertisements in “Fifteen Million Merits” emit shrill tones if the viewer isn’t looking directly at them. Yet, the series never bothers to investigate the social roots of these problems.
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