This edited collection charts the first four seasons of Black Mirror and beyond, providing a rich social, historical and political context for the show. Across the diverse tapestry of its episodes, Black Mirror has both dramatized and deconstructed the shifting cultural and technological coordinates of the era like no other. With each of the nineteen chapters focussing on a single episode of the series, this book provides an in-depth analysis into how the show interrogates our contemporary desires and anxieties, while simultaneously encouraging audiences to contemplate the moral issues raised by each episode. What if we could record and replay our most intimate memories? How far should we go to protect our children? Would we choose to live forever? What does it mean to be human? These are just some of the questions posed by Black Mirror, and in turn, by this volume. Written by some of the foremost scholars in the field of contemporary film and television studies, Through the Black Mirror explores how Black Mirror has become a cultural barometer of the new millennial decades and questions what its embedded anxieties might tell us.
Author(s): Terence McSweeney, Stuart Joy
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2019
Language: English
Pages: 290
Tags: Contemporary Film And Television Studies
Front Matter ....Pages i-xi
Introduction: Read that Back to Yourself and Ask If You Live in a Sane Society (Terence McSweeney, Stuart Joy)....Pages 1-15
Front Matter ....Pages 17-17
“The National Anthem”, Terrorism and Digital Media (Fran Pheasant-Kelly)....Pages 19-31
“Fifteen Million Merits”: Gamification, Spectacle, and Neoliberal Aspiration (Mark R. Johnson)....Pages 33-42
Enhanced Memory: “The Entire History of You” (Henry Jenkins)....Pages 43-54
Front Matter ....Pages 55-55
Making Room for Our Personal Posthuman Prisons: Black Mirror’s “Be Right Back” (Andrew Schopp)....Pages 57-67
Ideological State Apparatuses, Perversions of Courtly Love, and Curatorial Violence in “White Bear” (Paul Petrovic)....Pages 69-81
Political Apathy, the ex post facto Allegory and Waldo’s Trumpian Moment (Terence McSweeney)....Pages 83-94
We Have Only Ourselves to Fear: Reflections on AI Through the Black Mirror of “White Christmas” (Christine Muller)....Pages 95-107
Front Matter ....Pages 109-109
The Planned Obsolescence of “Nosedive” (Sean Redmond)....Pages 111-123
Augmented Reality Bites: “Playtest” and the Unstable Now (Soraya Murray)....Pages 125-135
Shame, Stigma and Identification in “Shut Up and Dance” (Stuart Joy)....Pages 137-150
Unreal City: Nostalgia, Authenticity, and Posthumanity in “San Junipero” (Isra Daraiseh, M. Keith Booker)....Pages 151-163
Deviating the Other: Inspecting the Boundaries of Progress in “Men Against Fire” (Ana Došen)....Pages 165-177
On Killer Bees and GCHQ: “Hated in the Nation” (James Smith)....Pages 179-190
Front Matter ....Pages 191-191
Dethroning the King of Space: Toxic White Masculinity and the Revised Adventure Narrative in “USS Callister” (Steffen Hantke)....Pages 193-204
“Arkangel”: Postscript on Families of Control (George F. McHendry)....Pages 205-216
The Sovereignty of Truth: Memory and Morality in “Crocodile” (Jossalyn G. Larson)....Pages 217-229
Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before: Relationships and Late Capitalism in “Hang the DJ”’ (Aidan Power)....Pages 231-244
Killing the Creator in “Metalhead” (Barbara Gurr)....Pages 245-255
Hope, with Teeth: On “Black Museum” (Gerry Canavan)....Pages 257-270
Change Your Past, Your Present, Your Future? Interactive Narratives and Trauma in Bandersnatch (2018) (Terence McSweeney, Stuart Joy)....Pages 271-284
Back Matter ....Pages 285-297
