When White Bears Attack

White Bear, a society’s struggle between cruel and fair.

White Bear, the definition of cruel and unusual punishment, begins with a woman, lost in confusion and waking up with very little memory of to what has happened and who she is.  People chase her with cameras sending signals to the White Bear, or so she is told. The fear that encompasses her all through out the “play” she is in, is her punishment for what she has done.  Her and her ex-fiancé kidnapped a young girl and brought her through the woods where she videotaped this man kill the child.  At her defense, she claims that she was under her lovers spell and that is why she went through with the killing. 

This woman is put through rigorous chasing and fear, imitating the fight or flight response that the young girl went through before her demise.  While everything in the beginning was happening before the plot twist occurred, I began to believe that this film was a cross between the Purge and 1984, with a society completely different than the world we live in today. 

Murder or not, accomplice or not, this was beyond cruel and unusual. The fact that White Bear Park (named because of the little girls white teddy bear) thrived off tourism of people viewing her panic and struggle as entertainment was sickening.  Is prison in this place not bad enough, so you have to torture this woman everyday of her already miserable life for viewing pleasure? 

Something to consider, if the ex-fiancé was still alive, would the punishment be more serious, or is it so cruel because she is the only survivor of the murder? That is something that I wish the film had answered. 

This movie painted the picture of society lack of moral values.  People would come in and bring their children to see violence, as family vacations.  How could any child really grow morally after seeing that that is okay, watch pain and struggle? No matter even if it was a script, it was still used as a tool of torture.  It made me think about how many torture shows and parks that the nation has? If White Bear Park was the only park then, why did they choose to just punish this one woman, why not punish all murders/criminals the same? This begs the questions of; was it because she was a woman, who had participated in this murderous crime? How about was it because she was of a certain ethnicity because everyone in the film was majority Caucasian?

To me, it did not matter the color of the character, the extend of the crime; a person should never have to go through that sort of consequence. Instead, let them be a prison wife, or live in a room where the sun is only seen once a week for an hour. But do not let someone else’s pain be the pleasure of a community.