Black Mirror: Nosedive and colonialism

For such a largely growing Netflix original it seems only appropriate to unpack the underlining themes. I will be referring to Black Mirrors: “Nosedive”, Season 3 Episode 1, TV series 2011 directed by Charlie Brooker. This episode is set in a futurism time period in which people’s entire life are reliant on their technologically advanced phones. People are ranked by other people, 5 is the best and 1 is the worst. Your ranking determines how much money you can make, what houses you can buy, what clothes you wear, what jobs you can get, etc. The main character is so concerned about what ranking she is that she doesn’t realize the true meaning of life. She realizes that she is deemed “the other”, a concept that will be further discussed in this essay.  Through the ways in which colonialism has developed over history we can see a connection to this episode. This will help you understand what this episode is about.

Black Mirror: “Nosedive” is a prime example of how our society uses social media and technology in a way that contributes to the rise of colonialism. Colonialism is the way in which people have developed control over an area and exploited it economically.  Through the idea of ranking people in society that Black Mirror gives it creates this sense of hierarchy that is relevant to colonialism. In John Rieders essay, “Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction” he writes, “For Colonialism is not merely an opening up of new possibilities, a “new world” becoming available to the “old” one, but also provides the impetus behind cognitive revolutions…that reshaped European notions of its own history and society” (Rieder, 4). This quote is one that suggests that colonialism is new opportunities as well as a revolution of what is known and that reshapes how people see their own histories and societies.

My first piece of evidence that supports my claim is how these people rank each other. This video is indicative to how people judge each other in our society today. It also gives this notion of what you “should” do in order to be a part of the society. If you don’t live up to what you “should” be doing then you are looked at as “the other”, i.e. someone who is not living up to the norm. In our society today we see social media and technology taking this notion for its self. Meaning that what we see on Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat is how we think we “should” be in order to fit in or be successful. Edward Sapir connects this point very well in that he writes, “All cultural behavior is patterned. Things that an individual does and thinks and feels may be looked upon… from the standpoint of generalized mode of conduct that is imputed to society rather than to the individual” (Sapir, 282). Sapir explains through this quote that not only do we behave from our individual self, but it also comes from the behavior of society.

In this episode we see that the technology they have developed has separated people in an unequal way. From this we can relate this to colonialism in that when people came to land and conquered them, the ones who were deemed the leaders look down upon the others and created unequal situations. Atterby writes, “An essentially modem view of the world-scientific, psychological, historical, materialistic- is thus pitted against a traditional magical view… And each of these worldviews, comes with a heavy burden of historical freight” (Atterby, 386). This suggests the idea that the scientific, materialistic world is one that has been brought up by history. We do things because that is what history had told us to do.

As we can see this episode is a prime example of how our society uses social media and technology in such a way that contributes to the rise of colonialism. People are being segregated because of their different ranks in society and this can be correlated to how much money someone makes in our world today. Not only is social media causing people to be judged, it also gives them false evidence of how they “should” be. It’s the notion that if you don’t do this certain thing then you are classified as “the other” and receive different treatment. When in reality the only thing that matters is what you choose to do yourself. These ideas have been brought up by the history of colonialism and the rise of technology.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

Rieder, John. Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press. Pp: 1-33 [PDF]

Sapir, Edward. “The Unconscious Patterning of Behavior in Society.” In Readings for a history of Anthropological Theory, pp. 281-291 [PDF]

Attebery, Brian. “Aboriginality in Science Fiction.” Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 32, No. 3 (Nov. 2005), pp. 385-404. [PDF]