Black Mirror: Shut Up And Dance Review (Spoilers)

Hey you, welcome back to the channel. And guys, today we're going to review Black Mirror: Shut Up and Dance. So, um, like, uh, National Anthem, this episode deals a lot less with technology, I guess. This is very comparable in that this is, uh, more very realistic to our time. Some of the issues of concern that possibly could come up with security regarding the internet and technology and various things like this. This is a day and age where we have to be concerned about internet security, we have to cybersecurity, we have to be concerned about hacks of our information. And screen, various screen recording software that can see exactly what you're looking at and monitor you. And this is very easy to be done by just about anybody. So we kind of live in this state now where that is something of concern right now. And this story is very much realistic to something that could happen. It's similar to how National Anthem was. So I kind of took that from this episode. Also interesting to note is I find it very interesting, many of the Easter eggs that are planted in regards to the Black Mirror series, and it kind of gives you the impression that they're all happening in the same place, same time, same universe. But some of them I believe are just Easter eggs because I'm finding out with some of the things that are being planted that are relating from episode to episode and connecting various episodes that they seem to happen in different times, right? Like for instance, what I got a lot from this particular episode is it seems to be more of a present-day type episode. I could tell by the vehicles, whereas some episodes we see this very far future technology and we even see vehicles that are very futuristic and even robotics and various things like that. So some of them are just Easter eggs. Some of them may actually be connected in the same universe. So we follow the story here of Kenny here. And Kenny is kind of an awkward, socially awkward young man who is basically being monitored on his computer. And he's participated in an embarrassing act, okay? An embarrassing personal sexual act of masturbation. And it's basically recorded on his computer. And the way it's recorded is much like how viruses and hackers and various things get on people's computers now, and that's by various adware and spyware. And obviously he's visiting a type of sexual, uh, uh, type of website that's, you know, allowing him to, uh, you know, uh, engage in this. And later on we find out exactly, you know, what type of website that was, and we're going to touch on that a bit later in the review. But what comes to mind as he's being monitored, and later as we got to see controlled by the, uh, you know, by the, uh, the hackers, is a movie that came out several years ago called Eagle Eye. And I don't know if you all, many of you know about Eagle Eye or ever saw Eagle Eye, but Eagle Eye, I, I kind of get the feeling that kind of inspired this because Eagle Eye came out before this series. But Eagle Eye is about basically the same thing where Hackers are able to get various information from you, and through technology, you don't know who the people are, you don't know what's going on, but they use the mobile devices and various things to get you to do things that may even be crimes or against the law. And they do this because they have information on you, of course, that can be very damaging or destroy your lives, and they activate you. There's a term used in this episode called "you are activated," in which you have to meet the demands of the, uh, you know, the information from the hackers or the source or the technology or whatever it may be. Uh, and at first I thought this would follow the path that Eagle Eye— and I'm not going to give Eagle Eye away because maybe some of you haven't seen it yet, but I thought it— if you have seen it, I thought it was going to go in that direction. But Kenny does get activated. He's devastated. His embarrassing act, he doesn't want it all around the world, all over the internet, as what the hackers are threatening to do. So, uh, you know, basically all through the episode both Kenny and we get to meet this gentleman here named Hector, who are victims in this, uh, this type of, um, uh, um, hacker type of blackmailing scheme. Uh, and, uh, you know, as we got to see, uh, you know, they're, they're having to jump through all these hoops and they're meeting various people. That are in a similar situation, and they're all in this web together. They're all tied together, all have been basically— are basically being controlled by these hackers with damaging information, destructive information that could be used against them. So initially what we're seeing is Uh, we don't really know the full nature extent of some of the things they're being asked to do, but they don't seem to be that bad at first. They seem to be doable, uh, but it's not long before, uh, these demands gradually get more, uh, severe. And it just gets to the point where, uh, they have to hand off a cake to someone. In the cake there's a gun and a mask and a hat, or glasses and a hat, because Kenny now has to rob a bank. Now, at this point in the episode, this is the part where I'm like, okay, uh, this doesn't seem like much of a choice. And that's where I found the episode a little bit problematic personally for me, because I think whenever there's demands there, it has to be an equal, uh, there has to be an equal, uh consequence to what the demand you're asking a person to do, right? So if you're robbing a bank, it's 90% of the time, uh, 90% chance or even 99% chance you're going to be caught and you're going to have to face a big long jail sentence, prison sentence. And when I compare this to what Kenny's crime was, and we can go ahead and get into it, it was a very severe crime. It was a crime of, uh, Uh, it would be classed as— he's basically— Kenny was basically, um, a, uh, um, ah, he engaged in pedophilia, I believe. Well, he didn't actually do the crime, or I'm sorry, he was a pedophile. And, um, but he, as far as we know, he hadn't engaged in pedophilia yet, but he would have still been guilty of a crime of kiddie porn. And I'm not sure how much jail time that carries, but I believe there is jail time with that. And so he was looking at possible jail time there. But the only problem I had with the episode was that it's quite clear to me that if you're robbing a bank with an armed robbery and you're robbing a bank, which is a federal crime, that the punishment in that would be much greater. And there was a very good chance, I would say, that he was going to be caught for the crime now. So which means that it was more likely he was going to have to face the music on that crime, was going to be more, you know, damaging, or, you know, more than that. But also, I think in this episode Um, I, I guess one could reason that he much would rather be guilty of the crime of robbing the bank, or more so than the crime of being a pedophile, watching kiddie porn, and various things like that. And this opens up a lot of moral questions as well about, uh, does punishment fit the crime, right? Uh, as, as far as how this ends in the episode with Kenny and the other participants. And that is that he had done this act, but he had not yet, or rather he was alone in his room and he was engaging in this, but he hadn't actually physically harmed anybody yet. Now, the problem as well with that is there's the argument as well that this is how pedophilia starts out, right? With him not harming anyone, but with nothing being done about it, it eventually can become this— he could later become this pedophile that ruins and destroys many people's lives. And in Crime and Punishment, I think that crimes like pedophilia, child molestation, what more would definitely be seen as the worst crimes, right? So for him to kind of more so go with the possible being arrested for bank robbery over that, I can see where that could make some sense in the episode for him to be, uh, you know, make that choice. Just trying, because that's, that's the only flaw I've seen with the episode, that he would make that choice over just going, you know what, uh, um, I give up, uh, I'm going to the authorities, my computer was hacked and they're trying to blackmail me into this or that. This also raises another interesting question I found about the episode. Which was the hackers themselves who would quote unquote could be kind of considered vigilantes maybe, or some type of hybrid between a troll and vigilante. Not exactly sure what the hacker's goal was. They never really state. You know, what their goal was other than to troll. But some of us can reach a conclusion that because they're only going after people who have done these very heinous, atrocious things, or, you know, Hector, you know, seemingly to be more, you know, in a ring of infidelity. And whereas another character that's met, uh, with Kenny who has a similar crime. Seems like he's a pedophile as well. And then there's a gentleman who Kenny first meets on a moped who I'm not sure what he does, but whatever he does, his entire family is, uh, uh, in an argument with him at the end, uh, to suggest they have found out his act. And I'm only assuming that it's in the character and the nature of the rest of these acts, uh, because, uh, there is another character in the beginning who's played by, uh, she actually played Rosalind on Battlestar Galactica. She played, uh, in Dances with Wolves with Kevin Costner. And I don't remember the actress's name, but she's actually, as we got to see, uh, exposed in a racist scandal, uh, and she is— so these are all very terrible crimes, and this is what makes To many, their punishment very fitting. And although that is the twist in the episode we get to see with Kenny is that as we kind of felt Kenny was just a victim in his room, he doesn't tell the complete truth to Hector. He doesn't tell the whole story that his act is not something that maybe most of the population has engaged in whilst online with the internet. But that is much more than that, it's much darker. And it's much more horrible than that. And as a society, we have crimes and laws to punish this. And so these hackers in a way can be seen as an arm of justice in that regard, whether they are trying to be or not. They in a way do fulfill a certain area of that whilst breaking the law themselves by using a type of blackmail system in a sense, which is what vigilantes do. Vigilantes, remember, they operate outside the law. So at the same time as they're giving out maybe a type of justice, they are breaking the law. Uh, and in Kenny's case, uh, it can be looked at, I guess, more similar to what we got in Minority Report. And then Minority Report, uh, films we got to see, or movie, people are convicted for crimes before they commit a crime because there is a high probability that they will, or in the Minority Report's case, it was pretty much that they would. It was, they had actually seen their futures and the probability rate was high that they would commit it. And so it's like pre-crime, they stop you. And so in a sense, I think it would be a reasonable argument to say a person who is watching kiddie porn is en route to becoming, uh, is festering something that is very dangerous and that, um, you know, needs to be taken care of. The fact that he hadn't committed the crime though yet still opens up that Kenny hopefully could have received some type of rehabilitation. And that's where I kind of seen an issue again in the episode, right? That, uh, but then one can also gather that Kenny may have never gotten help had this had never come, and that Kenny didn't want help for this. That's why he preferred to rob the bank, take his chances over there, as this was something he wanted to do. So I found all this very interesting, this episode, very— and quite disturbing, quite disturbing. Call back the national anthem. Of course, we get the troll symbol at the end, the troll symbol. Symbolizing that the trolls, the hackers, were never going to honor the conditions, and they don't. And so a lot of us leave the episode, well, they got what they deserve. Obviously at the end, Kenny is apprehended by the cops, and one of the demands were to fight to the death with this guy. So again, he's doing everything to avoid facing up to his, basically, his wrongdoings, right? And so found it all very interesting, this episode. Again, a bit disturbing, probably right along the lines with National Anthem, Black Mirror doing this disturbing thing. And, but always having the interesting twist that make us look deeper into our, into our human nature and, uh, try to further explore the psychology that goes into that. So guys, anyway, that's my review on, um, this episode of Black Mirror, Shut Up and Dance. Guys, if you like content like this, don't forget to like and subscribe. And until next time, take care.