Torture. When watching Whitebear this particular word came to mind several times, which made me re-examine my personal line between justice and torture.
According to the above definitions, justice refers to reasonable quality treatment and fairness. While torture is a heinous act of inflicting severe pain, force, and mental suffering often for pleasure. They are not related words and one would never lead to another simply because the practices differ so exponentially.
Knowing this, I am see a huge amount of familiar irony watching the community of Whitebear casually call their system a "Justice park" when indeed, it's nothing more than simple sadistic torture. They forced her to repeat each wretched day without cause. They said nothing in the vein of reformation, and quite frankly I'm not even completely sure it was to "pay for her crimes." At the end of each day it was for their own entertainment and they built a fantasyland for both her and themselves. However it affected a much larger audience, the viewers.
Perhaps the most disturbing thing about Whitebear is how helpless it made me feel. It confused me, left me with many questions and a sense of paranoia. Was I really feeling sorry for an alleged criminal, child killer? Well yes, especially considering the ridiculous circumstances under which she was convicted. Such a large margin of error with the non belief that the boyfriend could've influenced her life so much, when the town itself had the power to brainwash her and take her memories!
In the end, Whitebear felt like watching an animal cruelty commercial on eternal repeat. I would not have watched it on my own. I would have avoided it like most of society does with the homeless, weak, and convicted. Initially, I assumed Whitebear would be a comment on social media, with the volunteers who only watched and recorded- not unlike today's society- but at least they were paying attention.
I feel like this idea of "punishment" over justice is prevalent in society today. People say, "I want him to pay for his crime." but they don't aim for punishment/justice that would help make a better, more productive society, partly because they don't actually care about the well being of the individuals at fault. The sequence of events in "White Bear" led us to form an emotional connection with who we would find out to be the criminal, so I, at least, had mixed emotions about the methods they were using to teach Victoria a lesson. I felt like they were not accomplishing much by repeating the same actions over and over, especially since she didn't know why she was there in the first place. "White Bear" is basically commenting on the fact that when criminals get out of jail, they often return to crime because no one has taught them any other way. I do think that people paying for their crimes is necessary; however, we should consider how we treat our prisoners because "punishment" isn't always equal to justice.
ReplyDeleteI agree that justice is not torture and I would have never related those two words. I do believe that people should pay for their crimes accordingly but torture is not a good way to punish someone, especially the way it is done in White Bear. Also, the point about how the society had power over her, brought up an idea. The society is like the boyfriend. They have power over her and are forcing her into doing things that she has no control over but society does not recognize themselves as such. The society believes that even though they are forcing her to do something, it is for the better good of everyone.
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly what I was getting at: the irony of the society's actions paralleling the boyfriends' and also yes, often our own society does not care for individuals like criminals who are pretty much "out of sight out of mind."
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