White Bear exposes the dangers of chasing the mild amusement of entertainment and reducing oneself to an empathetically numb spectator. This point was illustrated through the story of a woman trapped in the agonizing cycle of a justice system driven by punishment and profit. The most terrifying aspect of this story is the closeness to which it reflects the current state of the United States Justice System. Although, unlike the film, United States’ inmates are not tortured and exploited for purpose of entertaining the public, their detainment is guided by the motives of punishment and profit, through torture and exploitation.
In the film, the everyday citizens actively and eagerly participated in the punishment of the inmate. Her punishment was molded with an “eye for an eye” mentality. The end goal of her tortuous day of fear and confusion was aimed to force her to empathize with the child she filmed being murdered. In the moment of the child’s death, the woman served as an empathetically numb spectator in the pursuit of heartless amusement and entertainment. Parallel to the punishment of the inmate, the audience of White Bear was forced to empathize with the inmate via fear and confusion. Her heinous crimes were not revealed to the audience until the end. Therefor, the audience was encouraged to establish a relationship with her and label her as the innocent protagonist for the majority of the film. The audience was purposely mislead by the use of creative plot tactics in the same way the inmate was mislead through the utilization of strategically placed shoes, open gates, and the encouragement of secret actors.
In the film, the everyday citizens actively and eagerly participated in the punishment of the inmate. Her punishment was molded with an “eye for an eye” mentality. The end goal of her tortuous day of fear and confusion was aimed to force her to empathize with the child she filmed being murdered. In the moment of the child’s death, the woman served as an empathetically numb spectator in the pursuit of heartless amusement and entertainment. Parallel to the punishment of the inmate, the audience of White Bear was forced to empathize with the inmate via fear and confusion. Her heinous crimes were not revealed to the audience until the end. Therefor, the audience was encouraged to establish a relationship with her and label her as the innocent protagonist for the majority of the film. The audience was purposely mislead by the use of creative plot tactics in the same way the inmate was mislead through the utilization of strategically placed shoes, open gates, and the encouragement of secret actors.
In White Bear, the day to day citizens thoroughly enjoyed viewing and participating in the harassment of the prisoner. They were shown to have watched the torture like it was a play and to applaud the actors at the end of the show for their work of misleading and terrifying the inmate. The justice system of the film seemed to turn a profit by exploiting the inmate’s punishment and sharing it with the public. This is not unlike the United States Justice System in that its goals seem to be to punish the inmates in a way that is beneficial to the general public. Rather than exploiting prisoners for the purpose of entertainment, the United States exploits prisoners for the purpose of production. Prisoner labor is a way to cut costs, increase margins, and exploit the culture of confinement and routine within the prison system. Though highly profitable, it encourages the detainment of nonviolent U.S. citizens and longer sentences, yielding an increase in workers and hours of cheap labor. As a result of systems such as these, the United States has had the highest incarceration rate per capita in the world for over a decade (links below). White Bear exposed ugly truths of modern society through the creative use of deception within the plot and hopefully circumvented the culture of the empathetically numb spectator.
Matt Brint
Pertaining to your point about connecting with the protagonist: I agree completely. I was rooting for her enthusiastically. It reveals how much power film has to draw us in and form emotional ties, and quickly.
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YES. This simple sentence may be more profound than you intended but it sums up a capitalistic, uniquely American issue! Numbers do not lie: either America is chalk-full of "bad guys" or we are doing it wrong. I appreciate your post.
I do agree that our prison system is very messed up and is used to teach a lesson to the inmates, but just like in the movie white bear, she does not know of here crime until it is erased from her memory. Who is to say that when a prisoner is released from jail that he/she will not commit the same crime again. There is no positive answer for this. Like you also said the prison/ jail is full of non violent criminals. We as the United States have the most incarcerated people in prison per capita, most of which are between the age of 18 and 30 for drug related crimes such as selling or using. Many of these people are just trying to escape the day to day struggles like you or i would with TV or a glass of alcohol. Like Gabby said in the comment, we are doing it wrong. There needs to be a better way to address these issues.
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