As Mark Johnson points out, while “many claimed to be put off by the shocking and explicit nature of the Black Mirror’s first episode”, the second episode “might be a more representative introduction to the series” because in the first one the “technology is present, although is arguably less central than other concerns”. Precisely, one of the features of the series is to expose some of the technological phenomena that are happening right now in a manner that they would lose their familiar qualities so their sinister edges become more evident. That is something that the series second episode “Fifteen Million Merits” does fully.
“Fifteen Million Merits” shows a society focused on the production of energy that, at the same time, is absorbed by the consumption of entertainment through a regime as violent as the one that forces people to work. But where is the difference between the society that this chapter portrays and reality? The difference resides for example in the fact that in the episode we do not know exactly what energy is produced for, we don´t know what people work for. In other words, what “Fifteen Million Merits” does is overshadow the productive character of the economy to make us concentrate on the most sinister features of its relationship with entertainment.
As the authors of the Frankfurt School pointed out almost one century ago, the relationship between capitalism and the entertainment industry is not a secondary relationship, there lies the essence of capitalism. This relationship is highly complex, and it can be pointed out that the entertainment industry not only socially reproduces the ideology of capitalism but is the basis of the consumption dynamics that give life to global capital. That is why “Fifteen Million Merits” is not only showing the most sinister side of consumerism in the digital age. It shows that the alienation of all the members of society forced to produce continuously without knowing the purpose is exactly the same as the alienation to which they are led by senseless consumerism.
Continue reading
