POSTMODERN ANALYSIS Black Mirror – ‘Be Right Back’

‘Be Right Back’ – Black Mirror • Martha becomes a widow after her partner dies in a traffic accident. She is

pregnant and fins herself going through the situation alone; she is in desperate need for companionship and finds comfort in computer software that can imitate her deceased partner.

At the end of the episode the spectator appreciates how the:• Virtual substitute of the partner of the protagonist seems to not be able

to play the same role as the original partner.

How is this episode postmodern? Intertextuality - Tablets, I phones, touchscreen, cyborgs (similar to the

matrix, Reborn from the nano-bots and synthetic clone)

Dystopian narrative - the world is taken over by technology and there is a replacement for everything (the island) – movie. People can be replaced artificially, like the terminator effect, the uprising of technology. Adding a sense of horror and expectancy of terminator.

Hybridisation - futuristic, romantic, drama

Flattening of Affect - the clone has no recollection of empathy or emotion, he only knows the information that is fed to him. Like a computer removing the humanistic nature of the character.

Artificialness - When the clone resurrects it only brings back an artificial version of her husband and it does not fill her expectancy and have the qualities that she misses the most. Also it shows that the way we show are self's on social media is artificial and not the real us and just a platform were we show are best bits.

How can you apply baurillard’s theory?

Hyper reality of their artificial world -

The robot of her husband is a Perfect version - it has its best features of him.

grieving has new advanced solutions

Social networks can determine someone's personality.

robots become more of the person the more they learn and information they are fed.

Communicate on social media to the dead (simplified version of complex human emotions)

How does it differ or challenge other media?

Modern technology advertising – • Such as Apple or Samsung; they advertise their new and innovative products

which are always portrayed to enhance our lives. In black mirror it shows new ways that are online profile can be used to create a simulated version of us and also how it only shows are positive emotions and feeling as this is what is mostly posted on social media.

• Current TV dramas - Much more advanced technology used in the drama focusing how it can help people suffering from grief.

• It challenges traditional media (such as TV shows/films/advertising) because it challenges the concept of getting attached to something that is not real and is all based on ‘social media’. It shows how that social media only portrays are ‘best bits’ and is not the real us. This is what Martha discovers with the avatar of Ash.

• Most romantic films end with a happy ending but this one ends with a dull ending were the daughter is left with a robotic dad who lives in the cupboard, dehumanising it

What does Martha need in order to continue her own life? • She needs to be gazed upon by someone in order to feel

and acknowledge her own identity because she is feeling lost.

• She needs human warmth, because she is feeling sad and abandoned.

• She needs to discover that she belongs to a, because the couple has

• Vanished and she wants a human place from which to depart and build a future.

‘Love is stronger than death’ She also needs to know that love is something stronger than death, because without this judgement; life becomes worthless.

“Macbeth: She would have died later anyway. That news was bound to come someday. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. The days creep slowly along until the end of time. And every day that’s already happened has taken fools that much closer to their deaths. Out, out, brief candle. Life is nothing more than an illusion. It’s like a poor actor who struts and worries for his hour on the stage and then is never heard from again. Life is a story told by an idiot, full of noise and emotional disturbance but devoid of meaning”

(William Shakespeare, Macbeth).

Continued…• Does she really receive what she missing? • She only obtains an artificial and inauthentic (dumb) substitute which lets

her have enough psychological strength to get through the suffering she faces.

• She realizes that this man-machine response is not enough. It amuses her when she needs it. But it is not a rationally somebody able to provide her with the rational fulfilment that she is looking for.

• The virtual partner becomes a kind of pill that alleviates pain but doesn’t cure the cause of the suffering. It doesn’t suffice anthropologically speaking but instead lets the protagonist cope with her psychological difficulties.

Does technology solve our existential demands?

• Perhaps, technology is no more than a means to look for answers to anthropological questions, but not a response itself.

• Perhaps, we, if we are modern people and believers in the myth of the progress, consider that science and technology are the natural bearers of our happiness.

• Perhaps, we should realize that the myth of progress and the myth of the man-machine are still operating in our unconscious social imagination.

• Perhaps, we should also realize that these two myths don’t convey reality, because we cannot produce our own happiness or salvation (progress) exclusively through scientific and technological work (man-machine).