One tool I saw being used in the society portrayed in “White Bear” was manipulation, on several levels. On a personal level, Victoria, the main character and woman who was subjected to the harsh punishment, was manipulated by her punishers. Victoria had no recollection of her crime and was tricked throughout the entire journey by people pretending to care about her and help her. By the time she makes it onto the stage, she still is unsure why she’s going through this. A news story detailing her crime begins to play on screen and she see what she has done; however, we know the news is not always truthful and often manipulates peoples’ opinions by skewing reality. Therefore, it is difficult to know how “evil” Victoria really is. How can we as viewers be certain of what happened if the one who took part the crime can not even give her side of the story?
On the other hand there is manipulation happening on a larger scale in their society. For everyone to agree to work together to punish Victoria, there was probably some type of persuasion by higher authority. Just thinking about it, what kind of society is able to get everyone to agree and work together like that? In our society today, we see lots of groups trying to persuade outsiders to follow them. Whether it is a religious group, social group, etc., the facts are rarely presented in total honesty. Sometimes people are pressured into “jumping on the bandwagon” when it comes to their opinions on social issues, just because they believe it will help avoid conflict with others
The episode itself also persuades viewers to think deeper about their own feelings for Victoria. After hearing about the crime she took part in, we wonder how we could still feel sorry for her. For me personally, the savage way she was treated and the way that the audience responded (or didn’t) made me pity her in a way. The makers of the episode probably used these elements to intentionally manipulate viewers into feeling a way that confuses them, by feeling sorry for someone like Victoria, and to make a commentary on the ways that our society is able to manipulate us today.
I found that the total manipulation of the viewer was the core commentary from Booker. The fact that the victim was what seemed the protagonist throughout, the story gets the viewer wanting peace for her and to find that answer of who she was in the world before whatever happened. As some other people have touched on about the prison systems and legal system how they are more inclined to imprison an African American and then do it multiple times to one individual in their lifetime, they might not get rehabilitated as they should. They would be in a cyclic lifestyle and that goes for the lower classes also that go in for something they did as a young person and then are marked for the rest of their life, ruining any chance of a normal stable lifestyle. As I see it Booker dressed the whole issue up in this episode, as you mentioned she doesn't remember the crime now and with a society telling her she did it no matter what she could have possibly done different, the opinion is now fact and there is no way out of the cyclic torture she is in. Either way Booker touched on a subject that is up for discussion and reconsidering.
ReplyDeleteBoth of you pose interesting views on this subject, not only is the character Victoria being manipulated, but the people inhabiting her world are, too. Like Shelly touched on, everything that the character Victoria is experiencing is designed to strip her of any hope(people who pretend to care for her, people who gained her trust, people who then used that trust to further punish her for things she can't even remember doing) and like Spencer pointed out, this act is something that will define the character forever. She's nothing but the woman who killed a child. She wasn't allowed to give her side of the story, she isn't given any chance of rehabilitation, and she will be continuously punished for a crime she can't remember committing. This is how the White Bear Justice Camp presents her as a dangerous criminal, and the actors who watch and record her turn her into a joke. The viewer is forced to ask themselves just how guilty Victoria is and even if, after all of this torture and brain-erasing, if she's even the same person who did or didn't commit that crime. Everyone on every level is being manipulated and we're being shown every level of that manipulation and more or less left to decided which party is the right party despite the fact that we've only been given parts of the truth.
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