Media Analysis: Bandersnatch and Nosedive
- Yeiz The
- Dec 6, 2019
- 6 min read
Nowadays, with the development of the internet, our lives have been raised to the next level. The Internet allows us to stay connected to each other without the boundaries of distance and cost. With electronic mails such as Gmail, we are able communicate with others in the most effective way. With social media platforms such as Facebook, we could expand our networking or even use them for online businesses. The Internet as well as modern technologies even help us reach beyond the Earth with our space exploration led by NASA. But the Internet is a double – edged sword. It causes harmful effects in the way we socialize. We can discover the universe, but sometimes we are isolated from our family and friends. Both the positive and negative effects of the internet, as well as modern technologies, are expressed and symbolized in the two Black Mirror episodes by Netflix.
Black Mirror is a British science fiction television series created by Charlie Brooker. Black Mirror examines “the modern society and its relationship with new technologies – often in a dark and satirical way” (Tarver Production, 2018). The reason why this television series is called “Black Mirror” is because when you turn off your phone or computer screen and you look at it, you will see the reflection of yourself on the black screen. As the series creator Charlie Brooker said: “The “Black Mirror” of the title is the one you'll find on every wall, on every desk, in the palm of every hand: the cold, shiny screen of a TV, a monitor, a smartphone” (Brooker, 2011). Everyone in this world has their first moments that they will never forget: their first kiss, their first job, etc and with Charlie Brooker, he will never forget his first conversation with Siri, which inspired him to create and develop Black Mirror (Brooker, 2011). Therefore, each episode of Black Mirror is about the relationship between human and technology. In September 2015, Netflix bought the Black Mirror series from Channel 4 (Cox, 2015).
Bandersnatch is the latest Netflix’s movie and it becomes the most special episode of all Black Mirror episodes because it is the first movie that uses interactivity. Interactivity is “back-and-forth communications between the audience and the narrative material” (Miller, 2014, p.18). Bandersnatch was made by director David Slade, and it is set in 1984 in the United States with the main character named Stefan Butler (Netflix, 2019). Stefan is a video programmer and he is completing a video game called “Bandersnatch”, which is a based on the novel he loves. The pressure during the process of making the game, intertwined with the difficulties in real life, made Stefan depressed. As a result, he sank into his own crazy delusions when disoriented between real and virtual lines (Nguyen, 2018). In Bandersnatch’s world, every incident is chosen by the audiences and the end of the movie is the result of these actions. The choices that the audiences make in the interaction is sometimes as harmless as what Stefan will eat for breakfast, but it can also cause a lot of obsession as who would jump off the balcony. The interaction in Bandersnatch not only attracts the audience’s attention but also allows them to interact with the narrative. The biggest different between digital storytelling and traditional storytelling is that the audiences “can become active players in the narrative and even have a direct impact on it” (Miller, 2014, p.20). In Bandersnatch, the script writer is no longer the person who leads the story because the audiences are the ones who decide what they want to see in the next scenes. Netflix brings interactivity in digital storytelling to the next level because we usually see interactivity in “video games, content designed for the Internet, mobile apps”, but now, we are able to do it through movies (Miller, 2014, p.18). Because of that, Bandersnatch is more than a game and more than a pure movie. Bandersnatch only takes about 40 minutes to watch but in order to discover all the endings, the audiences have to spend more than 50 hours (Schiff, 2019). Not only does the interaction in the movie makes Bandersnatch successful, but also the non – linear storytelling helps Bandersnatch get millions of views as soon as it is released. Unlike linear storytelling, which has a fixed beginning, a middle, and an end, non – linear storytelling allows the audiences to have a freedom of time travel: “they can begin where they want and they can end where they want” (Palmer, 2016). In Bandersnatch, multiple flashbacks memory sequences, and non – linear storytelling helps the audiences to explore more detail about the past of Stefan as well as understand why Stefan was feeling and behaving in that way. For example, the flashbacks, which intertwine with the main story in Bandersnatch, reveal why Stefan lost his mother and why he hates his father that much. Moreover, the flashbacks also show the connection between Stefan and his childhood toy, the rabbit. Therefore, by using the interactivity and non – linear narratives into Bandersnatch, Netflix really makes the breakthrough for the film industry. And by watching Bandersnatch, we are able to experience the powerful impacts of the Internet as well as modern technologies in creating a new type of movie.
In contrast with Bandersnatch, Nosedive is a movie which talks about the negativity of the interactivity of our lives. In Nosedive's fantasy society, after every interaction in real life, people have the right to mark the person they interact with on a five - star scale by using their smartphones. While those people who have a high average score will enjoy certain social privileges, such as having a discount when renting, not having to stay in a queue when paying money. The original idea is good because it makes people communicate nicely with each other and people get reward by doing good things. But then people would gradually become fake because they would find every way they could to get five stars from the others, which is the case of the main character Lacie Pound. By watching Nosedive, we could see that our real society is living based on the five stars. People really live base on the rank, they could not live with their real personality, their real feelings. When they are interacting with other people, they have to put their mask on, they have to say words that make others satisfied even though this is not what they want to say. In Nosedive, people value quality and morality of a person through their numbers on social networks, it makes you feel more awful because everything is so similar to our society now. Lacie in this episode has to “act” for her entire life to get a good score on that social network, and it was also the numbers on social network that kill her best friend’s soul. What happens in Nosedive is becoming real when the State Council of China published a social rating system called “Planning Outline for the Construction of a Social Credit System” and plans to launch it in 2020 (Botsman, 2017). In this system, people who have poor behaviors can get “banned from flying or booking train tickets”, the Internet speeds “being throttled”, their children are kept out of the best schools while people who earn a favorable score will “get more matches on dating websites, discounts on energy bills, better interest rates at banks and the ability to rent items without a deposit” (Knight, 2018). This is extremely frightful because what we are afraid is coming closer to us. Nosedive brings the wake-up bell to every person who immerses themselves and judges everyone else only by the numbers on social network. The Black Mirror is really like a black mirror that reflects the ugly and things in this society.
In conclusion, Bandersnatch and Nosedive in Black Mirror are science fiction movies but the technology used in each episode is real and it has a huge impact on human beings. Technology, just like everything else in this world, has both positive and negative sides. Human beings, as the ones who control it, must find a way to use technology for a better world.
References
Botsman, R. (2017, October 21). Big data meets Big Brother as China moves to rate its citizens. WIRED. Retrieved from: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/chinese-government-social-credit-score-privacy-invasion
Brooker, C. (2011, December 1). Charlie Brooker: the dark side of our gadget addiction. The Guardian. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/dec/01/charlie-brooker-dark-side-gadget-addiction-black-mirror?utm_source=DesignTAXI&utm_medium=DesignTAXI&utm_term=DesignTAXI&utm_content=DesignTAXI&utm_campaign=DesignTAXI&awc=11152_1548012604_20308f6666dfe50af3576d00d85bc24f
Cox, J. (2015, September 25). It's official: Netflix is picking up Black Mirror's third season. The Verge. Retrieved from: https://www.theverge.com/2015/9/25/9397087/netflix-black-mirror-season-3
Knight, S. (2018, November 21). Beijing is moving forward with controversial social rating system. Techspot. Retrieved from: https://www.techspot.com/news/77533-beijing-moving-forward-controversial-social-rating-system.html
Miller, Carolyn Handler. Digital Storytelling : A creator's guide to interactive entertainment, CRC Press, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy.humber.ca/lib/humber/detail.action?docID=4689397.
Netflix. (2019). Bandersnatch. Netflix. Retrieved from: https://www.netflix.com/title/80988062
Nguyen, H. (2018, December 31). ‘Black Mirror: Bandersnatch’: All the Easter Eggs in Every Timeline and the Tuckersoft Website. IndieWire. Retrieved from: https://www.indiewire.com/2018/12/black-mirror-bandersnatch-references-easter-eggs-tuckersoft-video-games-1202031474/
Palmer, Z. (2016, September 18). Linear vs Non – linear Storytelling. Odyssey. Retrieved from: https://www.theodysseyonline.com/linear-vs-non-linear-storytelling
Schiff, R. (2019, January 9). On Netflix, 'Bandersnatch' gives viewer the power to make story changes. Gusto. Retrieved from: https://buffalonews.com/2019/01/09/on-netflix-bandersnatch-gives-viewer-the-power-to-make-story-changes/
Tarver Productions. (2018, September 29). We’re excited to be working on season five of Black Mirror. Tarver Production. Retrieved from: https://www.tarverproductions.com/en/blog/post/we-re-excited-to-be-working-on-season-5-of-black-mirror
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