Black Mirror: The National Anthem (Episode 1)

Media and technology are overwhelmingly present in the first half of the first episode of the British television series, Black Mirror. The episode opens with the Prime Minister, Michael Callow, waking up to a phone call to hear the news that a video was posted on YouTube of Princess Susannah being held hostage. She is forced to explain that in order for her to return home safely, the Prime Minister must have sexual intercourse with a pig on live national television. Michael immediately demands that the news must not leave the room, to which the response is it already has. Even though the video was only posted on YouTube for nine minutes, it was enough time for multiple people to download and share it. At that point it was too late and the news was spreading uncontrollably.

Watching the news unfold through different media was fascinating to watch and can be related to what Marshall McCluhan has to say about “The Medium is the Message.” First, the video was circulating social media such as Facebook and Twitter, but people received it very doubtfully. Even though they were seeing it before their eyes, the medium was too untrustworthy for them to fully believe it. Since the royal family put out a D-notice, the news outlets were hesitant to report on it, but once one of them did, they all followed. It’s not until the public saw the news on television that they fully believed it. This goes to show that the same exact message has very different impact depending on what medium delivers it. The medium that carries the message also makes people act differently. For example, when people saw the video on YouTube and social media, they were less sympathetic and more focused on the PM embarrassing himself. However, when it was on the news I feel like people were more sympathetic towards the situation.   

Because the news was blowing up, it also added another element of worry to the royal family. On top of trying to locate Princess Susannah and trying to work around the problem at hand, they were concerned that because of the news they already had a bad image. Even though the PM hadn’t done the act, his wife pointed out that it was happening in everyone’s head and it was already embarrassing enough. In this instance, media and technology changed the characters actions by intensifying the dilemma because they were also worried about what others thought about them. Another way technology was being used was in their attempts to work around the problem. Since the video was up on YouTube they were able to track the location of when and where it was posted from, and they also tried special effects to put Michael’s head on another man’s body. It was as if the only way to beat the problem that was brought upon then by media and technology was to use it to fight back.

I’m not sure if there is anything the characters could have done differently to avoid the spread of the video, but I think they could have handled it differently. It is obvious that the captor wanted the news to be known, because he wanted Michael to perform the act on national television. From the very beginning the captor’s goal was humiliation and the characters gave the captor exactly what they wanted. As hard as it would have been to do this, I think if the whole community worked together they could have responded to the news differently and in a way that didn’t give the captor what they wanted. I’m not sure what this would look like exactly (maybe everyone refusing to watch TV) but it probably wouldn’t have been possible with the nature of the media.

This episode of Black Mirror is from a very dystopian perspective where they live in a world where nothing seems to go their way. If this episode was from a utopian perspective, none of it would have ever happened. However, if they were in this situation, the message wouldn't have been spread and the public wouldn't have watched TV if they couldn't help it from happening. Since the captor made the first “hit” with a video on the internet, from that point on the PM and his team were just trying to play catch up. They weren’t in control. The captor was in control and seemed to have the whole nation against them in the form of pure embarrassment. If they had control of the situation, they could at least take away the element of humiliation if it wasn't possible to save the princess any other way. So, perhaps in that case maybe the perfect world would be a world without the overload of media and technology.