Michel Foucault's Black Mirror

Depending on whom you ask, it can be hard to find a television show that both entertain its audience while simultaneously critiques societies use of technology. The word technology is derived from the Greek tekhnologia, which meant a systematic treatment of an art, craft, or technique and was originally used to refer to grammar. French theorist, Michel Foucault, defined the Greek word techne as a rationality that is consciously governed. To Foucault, technology had a much broader meaning than the modern definition; the application of a scientific knowledge that is used for a sort of practical purpose. In philosophical studies, technology is often seen as more of a threat than a gift. According to the studies, it is becoming increasingly easier …show more content…
Foucault once said, “I’m no prophet. My job is making windows where there were once walls”. Very recently I was introduced to a show that has uncannily parallels to some of Foucault’s theories. That show is Black Mirror. Black Mirror is a British television anthology series that was first released in 2011 and later added to Netflix in 2016. It is quite commonly referred to as the modern day Twilight Zone. The shows creator, Charlie Brooker describes it as having a different cast, setting, plot, and reality in each episode, “but they’re all about the way we live now- and the way we might be living in 10 minutes time if we’re clumsy”. The show quickly gained a cult following due to the sense of fear that both entices yet horrifies its audience. It has a way of tapping into that very realistic, primal part of us. The Science Fiction genre can be problematic for a series of reasons. For me, I believe that its impossible to write about something you’ve never experienced first handed, this applies to literature, film, and TV. But with Black Mirror, the worlds we are watching are so very close to where we are now, so tangled up in our current reality, that it works. In regards to the title, it has been said that it refers to the technology screens that we find ourselves coming across daily, from computer screens …show more content…
This episode takes place in the not so different near future. Western civilizations are still as obsessed with technology as they are today, but instead of carrying around the latest iPhone model majority of people have a “grain” that has been implanted behind their ear. This technology can do many things but primarily featured in this episode is its ability to record everything through the eyes of its subject. The grain is, to these people, as much of a part of their own bodies as their fingers are. Our main character is Liam, a lawyer who is struggling to get an appraisal approved when he starts to suspect that his wife, Ffion, is cheating on him with a man named Jonas. After a dinner party the two argue about the way Ffion looked at Jonas as he talked about how he masturbates to recorded clips of his previous sexual encounters. Once home, Liam uses his grain to project clips from their night on the living room TV. In a heat of rage the two argue and than proceed to have passionate sex. For the rest of the night Liam watches their sex, and her encounters with Jonas nonstop. It continues to go downhill for the family as we learn that Ffion has been cheating on Liam for a long time and that their baby is actually a product of the affair. It is through the recorded clips of Ffion’s grain that Liam realizes all of this. The episode ends with Liam alone in a now empty house as he uses a razor