Media Representation

White Bear smartly opens with a scene of a young woman waking up in an empty house, with multiple televisions, all of which are broadcasting the same eerie symbol with the same creepy static. This is the very first thing the audience experiences in this new world, and it’s indicative of a government surveillance state, a theme closely connected to technology and the abuse of its power. The young woman goes downstairs and finds a room with a single framed photo, a glass of water, a jacket, and a pair of shoes, placed in its spot just so, too precise to be done casually; even the shoes are pointed towards the open back door. This placement of items has been designed to push her out of the house where, as we all know, she will be put through an endless punishment for her involvement in the murder of a young child.

The following scene features crowds of people watching the young woman begging for help, wondering who she is, where she is, and even asking what she’s supposed to do. The end of the film shows us that these crowds are all actors, instructed to use their phones to record her and take pictures of her. They only ever see her through their phone and television screens, where she is watched, recorded, laughed at, and made a fool of. She’s being interacted with on every level except for a human one, and she’s being forced to fit inside the public’s view of her, placed in a world where people who feel like they can get away with anything immediately turn to violence and murder, a world that she’d surely understand.
The most interesting aspect of this film, though, is the fact that she’s the character the audience is meant to sympathize with. We’re seeing this world through her eyes, being watched and recorded and mocked by a silent crowd while she suffers, and at the end of it all we see that this society is set up so that those who mock and record her are the good guys. Their punishment is righteous and justified. The ending of the film really drives the whole point of this film home: through the use of technology and media representation, this woman has been dehumanized. The public sees her as dangerous and vile criminal, the actors in the White Bear Camp view her as a joke, and the people in charge see her as a monster. The only people who ever ask the question if she’s really guilty, if she’s the same person at this point who committed those crimes, if this punishment really fits the crime, if this is truly a just system, is the audience, and that is purely because she has been presented to us as a victim first.
-Lauren Wamble