Season 3:
Episode 3 "Shut Up and Dance"
I don't even know where to start with this one because as far as Black Mirror goes, this episode was really messed up in more ways than one. It's been about a month since I've watched "Shut Up and Dance" and it still gives me the chills thinking about the episode every time. When the episode ended and I had some time to gather my thoughts, one of the first coherent thought that popped up in my mind is some stupid quote I saw on Tumblr years ago. It went something like "You can't expect a lion not to eat you because you tell it you're a vegetarian." Let that sink in a bit, and I'll come back to it towards the end of the discussion.
Something completely off topic and I'm almost ashamed that I'm including this tibet in this review, but I have to say it: JEROME FLYNN! I'm a HUGE Game of Thrones fan so when I saw him, I got pretty excited! I already knew he was a good actor, but his performance in this episode was fantastic. The scene with Hector driving the woman and Kenny in the car, while they were going the opposite way and were running out of time was intense.
I could just feel the tension in the car between Hector and Kenny, and also the air of obliviousness around the woman talking away as if she doesn't have a single care in the world. That contrast made the scene both nerve wrecking and comical at the same time. It's sad to say that this was the was the last "happy" scene, if you can even call it that-I guess it's more like "comic relief."
The bank robbing scene was a pretty sick one, and it was one of those scenes that meant nothing and everything at the same time to the hackers. Actually, at this point I'm not sure if it's one person or more, but I'm just going to assume that it's more just because this doesn't seem to be a one person job. So ahem, back to what I was saying: it means nothing to the hackers because they want Kenny or Hector to rob a bank, but it wasn't really money that they are after. They just wanted to see how far they can push these people to the breaking point.
Obviously banks have cameras and the fact that they provided such a crappy "disguise" shows that they are mocking Hector and Kenny. I mean they gave him sunglasses but they were see through yellow sunglasses, not even the super blacked out one. At this point, I was just thinking that Kenny and Hector should just back out. I mean, they will for sure not get away with this, and even if the hackers don't leak their secrets, how will they ever escape robbing a bank?
When Kenny meets a man in the forest and is told that they must "fight to the death" this is where the puzzle started to finally click for most people (I know some people figured out the big twist in the way beginning, but those people are never any fun). The man asks Kenny "how young were they?" YET IT STILL DIDN'T CLICK WITH ME! UGH, I'm so ashamed. I think it's because in my mind, everyone playing this game has done something horrible, but they're all different kinds of horrible. Like Hector for example, hiring a prostitute because he wanted to sleep "with a twenty something" year old. I thought that the other man just assumed that Kenny had committed the same crime as him, and that's why they were battling it off. I assumed he got caught looking at children's pictures and got caught by someone, while Kenny was recored masturbating to pictures online. I don't know why the "ah-ha" light bulb didn't turn on in my head, maybe it's because I was with Kenny until the very end. He seems like such a sweet and shy kid, and the thought of other people, not just random people but people he knew, seeing him in such a private moment would scare him enough to make him go through all of that trauma. It's crazy to think that there are people who get paid to show off their bodies in magazines or people who make money off of porn, and they don't care who sees them or shares their videos. Yet there are people who would die of embarrassment if someone caught them with their pants down in the bathroom.
In the end when Kenny walks out, I was cheering for him! Again, I hadn't figure out the big twist yet...and it wasn't until his mom called screaming "Kids Kenny, kids!" that I was like "What the f-." That was why he went through all of that, not because he's scared that people will see him jacking off but because what he did was illegal and also very, very, shameful for him. Kenny knows that it's wrong, you can see it in the way he talks to Hector. He knows what he is doing is wrong, and that's why he's scared. Now everyone will know that he is a predator, and they will all know his deepest secrets and the way his Mom was screaming was heartbreaking.
Also when the police caught up with him, and he was half attempting to walk away, that scene was heartbreaking as well. It was as if he was still trying to get away, despite the fact that the hackers sent him a troll face as if saying "ha, you thought you won your way out?" Now Kenny has enough evidence against him to land a lifetime in jail- possession of child pornography, robbing a bank, and also first degree murder. The drone recorded the whole thing so it's not like there also isn't video evidence of the brawl as well.
We also find out that the hackers not only trolled Kenny, but they did so to everyone playing this game. In the end, whether or not the participants played the game or not, all of their deepest secrets were revealed. I think the worst part is, the hackers injected fears into their lives and then they gave them a twisted version of hope, just to take it all away. It kind of makes you think, "why do all of that" if the outcome would have been the same anyways?
As for Kenny, he's the only Black Mirror character that I have truly conflicting feelings about. At the end of the show, I asked myself "Am I really siding with a predator?" and that made me question some things about myself as well...when I think of child predators, I think of 50 year old men in white beaters driving big vans and looking at little kids walking home from school. That's how they are portrayed in movies and it's those older men whose pictures show up on the news, it's never a teenager or young adult. I mean how many stories have been written or shown on the news about a 19 year old child predator? It's crazy; yet, at the same time it isn't. Society has this clear image of what a child predator should look like and act like, that we would never suspect someone of a crime if they don't fit that mold.
When I went back and rewatched the beginning of the episode when he gave that little girl her toy, it made me see it differently. This whole time when I thought he was being sweet and caring, he actually was flirting with the little girl and thinking about her inappropriately. I can't imagine what the mother would think if she knew the thoughts that went through his mind. It also made me wonder how can an adult look at a child and think thoughts like that?
Lastly, I wanted to wrap things up with that quote that I had introduced in the beginning "You can't expect a lion not to eat you because you tell it you're a vegetarian." Throughout this whole episode, the hackers made Kenny do horrible things just because they said they wouldn't leak this video of his, but in the end all of it was for nothing. They still leaked the videos anyways and made Kenny, and all the other players look like fools. Kenny can't complain and say that he did everything they asked for because in the end, people will do what they want no matter what they say. These hackers are like lions, they turn off their humanity to play these awful tricks on people. What person in their right mind would enjoy torturing other people? Worse of all, they aren't physically hurting these people, these people are doing it to themselves. You can't go up to a lion that is about to attack you and say you love animals and would never hurt it, and expect it to understand and leave you alone. The same way Kenny and the other participants can't reason with the hackers because they do not want to listen, they only have one aim and that is to kill, figuratively speaking of course.
So once again we have this "playing God" episode that Black Mirror has done quite a few times (although to me, it doesn't get old) and I love it because it really makes me think. Did these people deserve to be punished? Absolutely yes, but I don't believe that they should have been punished in that way. Who are these hackers anyways, hiding behind a screen and pulling the strings? What makes them think that they are just enough to judge others when they themselves aren't perfect? Why put these people through all that trouble, give them hope, then yank it away at the last possible second?
This episode still gets to me because at the end of the episode, after Kenny's big reveal had occurred, I know I am suppose to feel disgusted by him but I didn't know that I would also feel sorry for him. This is one of the biggest "gray" episodes because even months after finishing it, I still don't know how I feel about it.
- Quick Synopsis
Kenny is a shy and awkward teenager who spends his day working as a busboy and comes home in the evening to spend all of his time on his computer. However, one evening he comes home to find that his computer has gotten a virus. He quickly searches and finds a program to get rid of the viruses and goes about his day. However, he doesn't realize that the program that he had innocently downloaded onto his laptop wasn't an anti-virus program and now hackers have access to his laptop camera and they catch him doing something unspeakable. The hackers then contact Kenny and offer him a deal, one that he cannot refuse because the alternative is just too horrible to think about.
- Discussion
Okay who saw that sick twist coming because if you did, you sure are a lot quicker than I am. It's crazy now how I couldn't see it because I remember watching him interact with that little girl in the beginning of the episode and thinking "aw he's so sweet" and "hm for some reason this is weird to me." I just brushed off that second thought as me being skeptical of overly nice people, but I got that same prickly feeling again when Kenny and his sister were watching television. I don't even think what they were watching anything super arousing but I did find it weird how he looked at her before the scene switches to him going into his room to masturbate to some pictures. Looking back at it, I didn't know if the show was trying to:
- Was the showing hinting that he had some sexual feelings towards his sister? One of my friends mentioned that she thought Kenny was looking up photos of his sister and that was why he was so scared for the video to be released. Also, even though Kenny was caught looking at photos of children, maybe if the police had taken his laptop they may have found photos of his sister.
- That this switch from him looking at his sister to him going into his room to relieve himself was done purposely so the more clever audience members would catch onto this and think "Aha! I know what the big twist is" when in reality they don't. As I've mentioned in past reviews, Black Mirror doesn't do accidents so whatever the real reasoning is behind that quick scene, it wasn't done just because.
I could just feel the tension in the car between Hector and Kenny, and also the air of obliviousness around the woman talking away as if she doesn't have a single care in the world. That contrast made the scene both nerve wrecking and comical at the same time. It's sad to say that this was the was the last "happy" scene, if you can even call it that-I guess it's more like "comic relief."
The bank robbing scene was a pretty sick one, and it was one of those scenes that meant nothing and everything at the same time to the hackers. Actually, at this point I'm not sure if it's one person or more, but I'm just going to assume that it's more just because this doesn't seem to be a one person job. So ahem, back to what I was saying: it means nothing to the hackers because they want Kenny or Hector to rob a bank, but it wasn't really money that they are after. They just wanted to see how far they can push these people to the breaking point. When Kenny meets a man in the forest and is told that they must "fight to the death" this is where the puzzle started to finally click for most people (I know some people figured out the big twist in the way beginning, but those people are never any fun). The man asks Kenny "how young were they?" YET IT STILL DIDN'T CLICK WITH ME! UGH, I'm so ashamed. I think it's because in my mind, everyone playing this game has done something horrible, but they're all different kinds of horrible. Like Hector for example, hiring a prostitute because he wanted to sleep "with a twenty something" year old. I thought that the other man just assumed that Kenny had committed the same crime as him, and that's why they were battling it off. I assumed he got caught looking at children's pictures and got caught by someone, while Kenny was recored masturbating to pictures online. I don't know why the "ah-ha" light bulb didn't turn on in my head, maybe it's because I was with Kenny until the very end. He seems like such a sweet and shy kid, and the thought of other people, not just random people but people he knew, seeing him in such a private moment would scare him enough to make him go through all of that trauma. It's crazy to think that there are people who get paid to show off their bodies in magazines or people who make money off of porn, and they don't care who sees them or shares their videos. Yet there are people who would die of embarrassment if someone caught them with their pants down in the bathroom.
In the end when Kenny walks out, I was cheering for him! Again, I hadn't figure out the big twist yet...and it wasn't until his mom called screaming "Kids Kenny, kids!" that I was like "What the f-." That was why he went through all of that, not because he's scared that people will see him jacking off but because what he did was illegal and also very, very, shameful for him. Kenny knows that it's wrong, you can see it in the way he talks to Hector. He knows what he is doing is wrong, and that's why he's scared. Now everyone will know that he is a predator, and they will all know his deepest secrets and the way his Mom was screaming was heartbreaking.
Also when the police caught up with him, and he was half attempting to walk away, that scene was heartbreaking as well. It was as if he was still trying to get away, despite the fact that the hackers sent him a troll face as if saying "ha, you thought you won your way out?" Now Kenny has enough evidence against him to land a lifetime in jail- possession of child pornography, robbing a bank, and also first degree murder. The drone recorded the whole thing so it's not like there also isn't video evidence of the brawl as well.
We also find out that the hackers not only trolled Kenny, but they did so to everyone playing this game. In the end, whether or not the participants played the game or not, all of their deepest secrets were revealed. I think the worst part is, the hackers injected fears into their lives and then they gave them a twisted version of hope, just to take it all away. It kind of makes you think, "why do all of that" if the outcome would have been the same anyways?
As for Kenny, he's the only Black Mirror character that I have truly conflicting feelings about. At the end of the show, I asked myself "Am I really siding with a predator?" and that made me question some things about myself as well...when I think of child predators, I think of 50 year old men in white beaters driving big vans and looking at little kids walking home from school. That's how they are portrayed in movies and it's those older men whose pictures show up on the news, it's never a teenager or young adult. I mean how many stories have been written or shown on the news about a 19 year old child predator? It's crazy; yet, at the same time it isn't. Society has this clear image of what a child predator should look like and act like, that we would never suspect someone of a crime if they don't fit that mold.
When I went back and rewatched the beginning of the episode when he gave that little girl her toy, it made me see it differently. This whole time when I thought he was being sweet and caring, he actually was flirting with the little girl and thinking about her inappropriately. I can't imagine what the mother would think if she knew the thoughts that went through his mind. It also made me wonder how can an adult look at a child and think thoughts like that?
Lastly, I wanted to wrap things up with that quote that I had introduced in the beginning "You can't expect a lion not to eat you because you tell it you're a vegetarian." Throughout this whole episode, the hackers made Kenny do horrible things just because they said they wouldn't leak this video of his, but in the end all of it was for nothing. They still leaked the videos anyways and made Kenny, and all the other players look like fools. Kenny can't complain and say that he did everything they asked for because in the end, people will do what they want no matter what they say. These hackers are like lions, they turn off their humanity to play these awful tricks on people. What person in their right mind would enjoy torturing other people? Worse of all, they aren't physically hurting these people, these people are doing it to themselves. You can't go up to a lion that is about to attack you and say you love animals and would never hurt it, and expect it to understand and leave you alone. The same way Kenny and the other participants can't reason with the hackers because they do not want to listen, they only have one aim and that is to kill, figuratively speaking of course.
So once again we have this "playing God" episode that Black Mirror has done quite a few times (although to me, it doesn't get old) and I love it because it really makes me think. Did these people deserve to be punished? Absolutely yes, but I don't believe that they should have been punished in that way. Who are these hackers anyways, hiding behind a screen and pulling the strings? What makes them think that they are just enough to judge others when they themselves aren't perfect? Why put these people through all that trouble, give them hope, then yank it away at the last possible second?
This episode still gets to me because at the end of the episode, after Kenny's big reveal had occurred, I know I am suppose to feel disgusted by him but I didn't know that I would also feel sorry for him. This is one of the biggest "gray" episodes because even months after finishing it, I still don't know how I feel about it.
★★★★.5/5
The kid, Kenny, could still quit unharmed from the very beginning. No one could ever prove that the footage from his webcam is anyhow related to that child porn or-whatever-kids-related-stuff-he-was-watching. The only way to (more or less) prove that would be to have a camera filming him together with the laptop screen which was not the case. Yet he bought that bullsh*t together with the “we're watching” one.
ReplyDeleteBtw, is that appropriate to call someone who've never touched anyone (and had no such intention that we know of) a “predator”? Isn't that too much of tabloid-speak in the “Paedofinder General” way?
Hi Sergey!
DeleteI definitely understand where you're coming from. The hacker(s) threatened him without any "proof" but the fact that they knew what he was watching was enough to scare him. Plus Kenny seems like someone who has severe anxiety, and wouldn't ask for "proof" to see if the threats were real or not. I'm not sure what the hackers saw, but at the end when his mom called him she said that the video was leaked and it was about kids. I'm guessing they somehow hacked it to where they were able to film what he was watching from his point of view, as well as film it from the webcam to watch him. That is a good observation though!
We don't know if he did anything with kids-that part was never discussed. However just the fact that he watched child porn makes him a threat, it doesn't matter if he had "no intentions" of going after children in the first place.