A fast inspection of the main inspiration behind “Black Mirror” leads us to a critically acclaimed CBS anthology sequence that serves because the blueprint for speculative fiction on tv. Sure, Charlie Brooker’s “Black Mirror” generously borrows from Rod Serling’s “The Twilight Zone,” the place any similarities between the 2 stem from Brooker enjoying homage to the beloved CBS present. Even when these callbacks are usually not deliberate, the affect of “The Twilight Zone” is unimaginable to flee, because the sequence has formed our collective understanding of tales that evoke the true and the surreal.
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Furthermore, Serling’s present has at all times held up a mirror to root-level societal points, with each episode enjoying out as a morality story that condemns the hollowness of an more and more capitalist panorama. “Black Mirror” has consciously mimicked this method from a postmodern lens, with an elevated deal with our sophisticated relationship with technological progress. Because of this, most “Black Mirror” episodes are prescient or dystopian, the place the enchantment lies within the hole between the current and what might probably happen within the close to future.
These doable futures, nevertheless, are principally bleak, forcing us to confront our over-reliance on expertise which may erode our sense of humanity. With the scary creation of generative AI steadily changing the onus to study base-level human expertise — from essentially the most rudimentary important pondering to research-based essay writing — the image etched by “Black Mirror” is just not as speculative as we wish it to be.
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This raises the query: What does the time period “Black Mirror” even imply? If we take a look at the present’s inspirational roots, “The Twilight Zone” has been described as a liminal house that lies “between gentle and shadow” and “science and superstition.” It’s a purely imaginative dimension that’s past house/time, reflecting mankind’s biggest fears and the boundaries of human data. Maintaining this in thoughts, what does “Black Mirror” imply? Let’s have a look at what Brooker himself has to say.
Black Mirror represents the liminality of each technological display screen in our lives
In an op-ed for The Guardian, Brooker spoke at size in regards to the troubling development of talking to machines all day lengthy — a reasonably current accepted actuality that would not have made sense solely a decade in the past. Brooker cites examples, together with our newfound urge to continuously tweet about our lives, or the necessity to share movies of absolute strangers for viral interactions on social platforms. Whereas underlining these continuously altering norms of what is thought-about socially acceptable, Brooker explains the liminality of the time period “Black Mirror,” which refers to each clean display screen in our lives, from TVs to smartphones:
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“This space – between delight and discomfort – is the place ‘Black Mirror’, my new drama sequence, is ready. The ‘black mirror’ of the title is the one you may discover on each wall, on each desk, within the palm of each hand: the chilly, shiny display screen of a TV, a monitor, a smartphone.”
Brooker confirms “The Twilight Zone” connection proper after, highlighting the brilliance of Serling’s scripts, which might speak about points like racism or class-based exploitation inside “a metaphorical, quasi-fictional world” with out worry of censorship. The CBS present’s anthology format additionally allowed writers to discover a large breadth of themes, growing the scope of what Serling and co. needed to say from a creative standpoint. Brooker follows up by saying that “Black Mirror” has at all times aimed to do the identical:
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“That is what we’re aiming for with ‘Black Mirror’: every episode has a unique solid, a unique setting, even a unique actuality. However they’re all about the way in which we reside now – and the way in which we could be dwelling in 10 minutes’ time if we’re clumsy. And if there’s one factor we find out about mankind, it is this: we’re often clumsy.”
It’s price noting that Brooker would not deny the usefulness of expertise within the postmodern period; if something, he has an appreciation for technological companies that may make life a tiny bit simpler. Nonetheless, the impetus behind “Black Mirror” lies within the latent fear for our futures, the place this reliance would possibly attain alarming ranges and find yourself negating the human expertise as an entire.
