I've watched all three seasons of "Black Mirror". I can say that "White Bear" was hands' down my favourite episode, although it was the one that most troubled me and left me feeling both guilty and intrigued by the idea of alternative ways to: 1) make somebody feel accountable for something they've done and 2) make the viewer feel accountable for vicariously participating in another person's absolute debasement.
Kudos to everyone on this series who played a role in making "White Bear". The episode delivers a punch to our moral sensibilities, drives a knife into our beliefs about right and wrong and then twists that knife to leave us asking at the end of it all: do we all have a monster in the nether regions of our psyches that gets satisfaction on the basest of levels at seeing somebody else suffer? "White Bear" is what could have been the result of a collaborative effort by Rod Serling, David Conenberg and David Lynch, tasked with the objective of creating a game where people are given the opportunity to participate in the ritual torture of another person, albeit one who has done something absolutely vile and inexcusable to another.
The kicker is that the person who has committed a vile act against another is not being held accountable for her actions, as she is forced to undergo ritual torture day after day with no memory of what had transpired to that point. So in essence, the participants in her torture, as are we the viewers, all members of the baying mob drawn to the sight of somebody else's misery.
Kudos to everyone on this series who played a role in making "White Bear". The episode delivers a punch to our moral sensibilities, drives a knife into our beliefs about right and wrong and then twists that knife to leave us asking at the end of it all: do we all have a monster in the nether regions of our psyches that gets satisfaction on the basest of levels at seeing somebody else suffer? "White Bear" is what could have been the result of a collaborative effort by Rod Serling, David Conenberg and David Lynch, tasked with the objective of creating a game where people are given the opportunity to participate in the ritual torture of another person, albeit one who has done something absolutely vile and inexcusable to another.
The kicker is that the person who has committed a vile act against another is not being held accountable for her actions, as she is forced to undergo ritual torture day after day with no memory of what had transpired to that point. So in essence, the participants in her torture, as are we the viewers, all members of the baying mob drawn to the sight of somebody else's misery.