BarbieDavalos
ENC1102
Professor Gonzalez
Literary Analysis
“Nosedive”
Imagine living in a world where everyone had the ability to rate you as a person, how would that change how you interact and behave? Nosedive, an episode in the series of Black Mirror depicts this world and gives us a tiny glimpse of how our society acts today. By a simple swipe going up or down indicating the rating from a 1-5 scale, a person’s life can easily change. Anyone from your best friend, worst enemy and even a stranger passing by has the ability to point their phone and rate you at any moment. In this world if you’re rating does …show more content…
The end goal would be to achieve such a high rating that most people will know you for what a good person you are. Every character in the episode uses someone as a form of means, every interaction, gesture and conversation is artificial. They are all looking for something in return from every one of their encounters, nothing in this world is genuine. For example, in the elevator scene when Lacie, the main character is merely engaging with co-worker that rates at 4.6 in the “social game”. Lacie, being only a 4.2 awkwardly offers her an extra pastry in hopes of receiving 5.0 rating, but is disappointed by a bare 2.6.This scene really captures the depths that Lacie will go to get a good rating from a complete stranger or in this case a co-worker. These interactions become more apparent throughout episode, when the barista in the coffee shop offers her an extra pastry, or the man in the hallway at work offering smoothies just …show more content…
We see that in order for Lacie to achieve the 4.5 in order to move into Pelican Cove, she needs to interact and receive ratings by the higher-ups. She must keep up with her social media page and with that also be constantly giving others good ratings in hopes that they do the same for her. Her compulsive desire to impress can be shown in the scene where she sets up her coffee and biscuit for a picture in order to acquire more likes and keep the momentum of a seemingly perfect morning. Although the basis of the series is meant to be set in place of the future, “the episode is more concerned with the present than it is with the future” (Sculos, Bryant W.). The desire to conform to the boundaries set by the social control facists who only seek to decrease people’s value by breaking down their every move and judging it to the point of restriction and inability to be truly free. However, after trying everything and anything to get to the wedding where she had already been disinvited to because of her rating, she crashes it and goes into a much needed mental break down. She is then detained and taken to a cell with a glass mirror where she proceeds to let lose by cursing out the man across the cell, this moment doesn’t seem rude but more of a sense of release and being able to just let loose and say whatever she wanted with no
ENC1102
Professor Gonzalez
Literary Analysis
“Nosedive”
Imagine living in a world where everyone had the ability to rate you as a person, how would that change how you interact and behave? Nosedive, an episode in the series of Black Mirror depicts this world and gives us a tiny glimpse of how our society acts today. By a simple swipe going up or down indicating the rating from a 1-5 scale, a person’s life can easily change. Anyone from your best friend, worst enemy and even a stranger passing by has the ability to point their phone and rate you at any moment. In this world if you’re rating does …show more content…
The end goal would be to achieve such a high rating that most people will know you for what a good person you are. Every character in the episode uses someone as a form of means, every interaction, gesture and conversation is artificial. They are all looking for something in return from every one of their encounters, nothing in this world is genuine. For example, in the elevator scene when Lacie, the main character is merely engaging with co-worker that rates at 4.6 in the “social game”. Lacie, being only a 4.2 awkwardly offers her an extra pastry in hopes of receiving 5.0 rating, but is disappointed by a bare 2.6.This scene really captures the depths that Lacie will go to get a good rating from a complete stranger or in this case a co-worker. These interactions become more apparent throughout episode, when the barista in the coffee shop offers her an extra pastry, or the man in the hallway at work offering smoothies just …show more content…
We see that in order for Lacie to achieve the 4.5 in order to move into Pelican Cove, she needs to interact and receive ratings by the higher-ups. She must keep up with her social media page and with that also be constantly giving others good ratings in hopes that they do the same for her. Her compulsive desire to impress can be shown in the scene where she sets up her coffee and biscuit for a picture in order to acquire more likes and keep the momentum of a seemingly perfect morning. Although the basis of the series is meant to be set in place of the future, “the episode is more concerned with the present than it is with the future” (Sculos, Bryant W.). The desire to conform to the boundaries set by the social control facists who only seek to decrease people’s value by breaking down their every move and judging it to the point of restriction and inability to be truly free. However, after trying everything and anything to get to the wedding where she had already been disinvited to because of her rating, she crashes it and goes into a much needed mental break down. She is then detained and taken to a cell with a glass mirror where she proceeds to let lose by cursing out the man across the cell, this moment doesn’t seem rude but more of a sense of release and being able to just let loose and say whatever she wanted with no