A2 Media

1. POSTMODERN
ANALYSIS
 Black Mirror – ‘Be Right Back’

2. ‘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.

3. 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.

4. 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)

5. 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

6. 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.

7. ‘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).

8. 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.

9. 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).