Black Mirror is a Netflix original British science fiction television series that is macabre and uses science to show that it can be used to have control over people and their lives in the future. This show wonderfully incorporates race, gender, and sexuality as well as other topics such as ableism and classism. In this paper, four distinct episodes in the show that represented these themes were explored. We chose to focus on the episodes “Men Against Fire,” “Fifteen Million Merits,” “San Junipero,” and “White Bear” from the show Black Mirror.
“Men Against Fire”, season 3 episode 5, is set in a dystopian future, where our main protagonist, Stripe, works for a military corporation that hunts and exterminates mutant beings called “Roaches”
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She is immediately degraded, and asked to show her boobs. Fisher says in her book Gender and the Science of Difference. She says: “Women continued to be perceived as inferior to men, but no longer because they were seen as imperfect males; rather, the multiple biological differences that were identified cast them as weaker, more vulnerable, and so on” (Fisher). This is how women are seen and treated in this episode: as inferior and only useful as sexual objects. Lastly, “Fifteen Million Merits” looks at able-bodyism through the existence of the lemons, or the lower class. These people are only part of the lower class because they are heavy, and are thus unable to keep up with the all-day bike exercises. The lemons are subjected to humiliation on tv shows, are shot in video games, and are badmouthed by those on the bikes, all because they are heavier than everyone else. Using an encapturing story, “Fifteen Million Merits” discussing important current issues through the lens of a dystopic society.
“San Junipero” is season 3 episode 4 of the Black Mirror series and it is the place where the dead can reside forever and the living can visit every Saturday night for a few hours. The two main characters of this episode (Yorkie & Kelly) met at a bar in San Junipero and eventually became a homosexual interracial couple. The article on “Fabulous: Sylvester James, Black Queer Afrofuturism and the Black Fantastic” from the readings in Unit 2 came to my mind as I was
The book opens with a squad of soldiers running a tactical control point just outside of a village called Yusufiyah. They are approached when a man Abu Muhammad had found his cousins family brutally murdered not too far off. Sgt. Tony Yribe and 3 others went to go investigate it. Although it was a terrible scene Sgt. Yribe had just assumed that it was like most other situations in Iraq in that the family was a victim of Iraqis attacking other Iraqis. The one thing that bothered him was that there was a shotgun shell and Iraqis do not normally use shotguns.
From the beginning of the book, Half the Sky, the stories of Srey Rath, the vibrant girl from Cambodia, and Meena Hasina, the courageous mother from India, and other stories like theirs have helped many people understand the tragedies taking place all over the world. Their stories have inspired the authors and many who have read their stories to dive deeper into thought about worldwide issues plaguing many countries, including the United States. The global issues surrounding women’s health in the beginning of this book include the topics of: the three types of abuses, the inaccuracy of the term “sex trafficking”, and the initiatives to stop slavery.
John “Crash” Coogan is the typical jock; he lives in Pennsylvania and is starting his second year of middle school as a 7th grader. I thought the main theme of the book is don’t judge a book by its cover. At least what most of us have in mind as a jock? Crash had always picked on his neighbor Penn Webb because of his choices and his lifestyle until later he realized something about Penn that he was his meant- to- be best friend. Crash has a wonderful life, until life deals him a hand that he could not have expected. When Crash 's grandfather unexpectedly has a stroke, Crash instinctively steps back and re-evaluates his life without even realizing he 's doing it. Suddenly, his cool friend, Mike doesn’t seem so cool anymore. Things that
In dystopian literature, there are many universal storytelling elements and literary devices that builds onto the theme. This is apparent in Charlie Brooker’s TV show Black Mirror’s Nosedive, where your social media score determines your life. You’re rated out of 5 stars, the higher the rating you have the more successful you are. The lower your rating the less unsuccessful you are. Black Mirror uses universal storytelling elements such as social cohesion. Black Mirror also uses literary devices such as verbal irony, symbolism, and parable.
“Nosedive” directed by Joe Wright is part of a television series called Black Mirror which examines modern society, particularly regarding the consequences of new technology. Nosedive presents a social rating-based system that determines how much power and and privilege people in their society hold. This episode touches on how social media is negatively impacting us and our relationships, and how the concept of power and privilege can drive us to do crazy things. A key theme in this episode that stood out to me was the negative impact of social media.
Jalapeno bagels is about a boy named Pablo whom cannot decide what to take to school for International Day. He wants to bring something from his parents’ baker. He wants something that represent his heritage but he cannot decide what to bring. His mother who is Mexican baked pan dulce and change bars. His father who is Jewish baked bagels and challah. Both of the bake good were good but while helping his parents with the bakery on Sunday morning, Pablo made a decision on what to bring. He decided to bring jalapeno bagels because they are a mixture both of his parents and just like him too. The multicultural representations in the story line is Mexican and Jewish. The pictures that were drawn in the book, the family has the same color of skin even though the parents are different cultures and the main character is mixed. There were no different skin colors.
I have chosen to look at and analyse a television text. It is a TV drama aimed at a teenage audience called Skins. I chose this particular text as it focuses upon many different characters and scenarios in regards to sexuality and this forms a basis for analysis and evaluation. Skins also focuses upon Teenage sexuality, specifically, which I believe is a broad and interesting subject to analyse with many opportunities to elaborate.
Through a number of important essays, Marleen Barr’s “Afro-Futurism” opens up a conversation about racial autonomy and collective agency in a literary space that seems to have been reluctant to even whisper about such things: namely, Science Fiction. Maybe that is not all that surprising given the genre’s predominantly white(ned?) literary categorization that, while it has no outright barred people-of-color, has not in turn seemed to make any meaningful space for them, either . Indeed, there is such an implicit racial claim of science fiction by White Culture that when a person-of-color is cast in one of the starring roles of a major Science Fiction production – oh, let’s say “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” – that there is a massive outcry and calls for boycott and existential fears of white erasure.
Black Mirror’s “San Junipero” is an episode that, on the surface, seems to be a simple love story between two women, Yorkie and Kelly. They meet in the virtual town of San Junipero, a town that feels very real, but is essentially a simulation where they can be ‘uploaded’ when they ‘pass over’, their consciousnesses permanently stored in the cloud, alive in the virtual town. Both are still living but are close to death and are in San Junipero as ‘tourists’, allowed to test-drive life in the virtual town for a limited time. They fall in love and their whirlwind romance overcomes Kelly’s moral reservations about being uploaded and Yorkie’s reservations of being out with her sexuality. It also provides Yorkie a chance to live the life that she was denied because of the quadriplegia she suffered from an accident following her parents’ poor reaction to her coming out, that paralyzed her before she truly got to experience life. Hidden underneath the optimistic love story, however, are levels that suggest that regardless of its invisibility in this story, the patriarchy is still very much in control, symbolically oppressing them without even needing to be present.
It is often said that the media and the arts are an accurate reflection of any given community. This is especially true in American pop-culture, where television shows depict the various stereotypes attributed to men and women and the roles they play in society. House, a highly popular medical drama that revolves around Dr. Gregory House and his diagnostic team, is a particularly good example as it represents the true state of the traditional gender roles in American culture today by, both, redefining and reinforcing them over the course of the show.
Social Commentary in Black Mirror Nosedive The TV show, Black Mirror, changes aspects of our reality to exarate our societal norms. For example, the episode Nosedive, execrates our use of social media to the point that a person can ruin their life with just a few bad social interactions. Black Mirror--and Nosedive in particular--comments on different parts of our global society through this exaggeration. Season three, episode one, Nosedive, takes an extreme approach to social media.
The book Black Hearts opened my eyes to how leadership from a single Officer can have a grappling effect on such a wide range of soldiers from the lowest of ranks. One of the best takeaways from Black Hearts is to never do anything: illegal, unethical, or immoral. Although this is a easy statement to repeat, Black Hearts demonstrates the difficulties that lie behind these words. It has also painted a picture of how leadership can topple extremely quickly from a top down view. The Army is portrayed in a bad light throughout the book relentlessly. This is due to the concentration of poor leadership of the 1-502nd Regiment (Referred to as “First Strike”), a battalion of the 101st Airborne Division.
In the essay written by Joey Franklin, the author exposes his own internal conflict, as well as the existing prejudice against fast food restaurant workers. The work is well developed, with the use of witty diction and tone, in addition to the appeals to rhetorical devices.
The stand-alone series “Black Mirror”, features an episode titled Nosedive directed by Joe Wright. In the show, a seemingly ideal woman named Lacie Pound lives in a status-obsessed world, and struggles to express herself. At first, Lacie is described as this merry, popular, and fun person to be around. But then we see that Lacie tries to fit in with everybody else, and struggles with that objective. So she begins to have courage in herself to say and do whatever she wants, even if society disagrees with her defiance. In the end, Lacie is finally able to find her voice and express her individuality, even though ultimately she is put behind bars. Therefore, Joe Wright suggests that even though social hierarchy is valued in society, it does not promote one’s self expression or individuality. In other words, Nosedive displays the negative impact of social standings on people who are not a true fit with what society views as perfect.
“In a moment my hand was on the lever and I had placed a month between myself and these monsters.” What a classic, wonderfully imaginative science fiction sentence. The story is completely and utterly engrossing. The fact that the book was published in 1895 and science-lovers can still love and appreciate this book and H.G. Wells