Black Mirror Exam Practice

 Explore how social and historical context influences representations in television shows

Refer to Black Mirror in your response (15 marks)

Social and historical context influences representations in television shows through how the representation of sexuality in black mirror. This is because the two main characters in San Junipero are Kelley and Yorkie who both engage in a lesbian relationship with each other and their relationship is presented throughout the episode. they subvert the social and historical context of it not being the normality or socially accepted in the time period of the 1980's, an era of which San Junipero aims at, to be gay. This means that Charlie Brooker when deciding the plot of San Junipero would of used those contexts to build the representations of both the characters and the overall storyline. Sexuality is also important in social context as the episode was released around the same time that Donald Trump was elected as US president, and he was known for publicly sharing his views on LGBTQ views, most of which were negative. This context contrasts with his views and even if its not intentional, it subverts the stereotypes in the US of the things that Donald Trump would be saying. Sexuality is also represented through the way the characters dress in Black Mirror due to social constructs of lesbians show them to have short hair and look more male-like whereas Kelley subverts this stereotype by remaining very feminine through the way she acts and dresses, potentially influencing the representation of how lesbians are expected and represented through mainstream media. The representation of the main characters' sexuality is presented during the scene where Yorkie and Kelley were dancing together, and Yorkie explains she felt everyone was looking at them dancing together, which would of been a common occurrence if two women were dancing together due to the rarity and judgement placed upon lesbians in the historical time of the 80s. This form of representation links to Bell Hookes theory of how lesbians and women are represented on the way they look and act. 

Social and historical context influences the representation in television shows through the changes in technology. This is presented through scenes in Black Mirror where the characters of Yorkie and Kelley meet, there is always a change in technology, and that is made based on the effect of the appearance of the Tuckers bar they always go into and what is included within. The historical features of the arcade game machines help build representation of time period as it transitions from having older style 80s games or newer 2000s style games such as Dance Break and Pacman, showing the transition of how technology has evolved and how games have changed, being represented through the different time zones in the episode. Another way that technology is represented in San Junipero is the social expectations of things such as electric cars or self driving cars, which are included towards the end of the episode when older version of Kelley visits Yorkie in hospital, as her transport matches with that expectation and the facilities and technology in the hospital is very advanced, something that is represented out of a build up of social expectations and the help of the Science fiction genre. This represents technology as a positive thing as it shows how technology is helping elderly or sick people, during a time period where there is so much social negativity and question marks over the right uses and effectiveness of technology and AI to people lives. 

Explore how economical contexts influences the context of television programmes

Refer to Black Mirror

Economic contexts influence the content of television programmes based on the type of content included in Black Mirror during the changes of ownership. This is because Black Mirror from series 1-3 was shown on Channel 4, which was a non-profit organisation, and all their funding came from advertisements, with all profit being put back into shows and programmes. This meant that they didn't have the overall budget to sustainably afford to continue to hire new cast members and implement new storylines that Charlie Brooker wanted to achieve for Black Mirror. This is when Netflix brought the rights and distribution rights for Black Mirror, which was estimated around $40 billion, to present on their streaming service, which overall increased the potential audience of the show due to being shown in multiple different countries such as America. This overall changed the style of content on Black Mirror, based on the overall budget for things such as filming locations, as San Junipero was filmed in areas of South Africa, special effects included and storylines overall, as there was no regulator for Netflix content in the UK as Netflix is its own individual company, which allowed more freedom for what content was allowed to be created, which contrasts to Seasons 1-3 of Black Mirror where the episodes needed to meet a certain criteria in order to meet Ofcom regulations. Also following the change to Netflix, it meant episodes were able to be more advanced, have more higher effected episodes, with the budget to hire new cast members for each episode, as no episode can have the same storyline or cast as no episode follows on from one another. San Junipero was the first episode created after the investment from Netflix which was why some of the content in the episode was more toned back than before, yet Charlie Brooker was originally wanting to include a storyline including a heterosexual couple yet then changed it to a lesbian couple to try and target a different era of audience

In what ways does the episode of Black Mirror you have studied conform to genre conventions? (15 marks)

Black Mirror conforms to genre conventions through the ability of meeting the romance genre based on the storyline of Yorkie and Kelley, and this is created through the traditional meeting at the start, trying to get together throughout the story and then ending up together at the end. The sci-fi genre is met through the location of San Junipero is a computer hard drive based where residents go after dying in real life, as there spirits return to 20 year old version of them, and the use of futuristic technology for when Kelley and yorkie are in old age and yorkie is in the hospital. There is also links the genre of Black Mirror being an anthology series due to none of the episodes being the same and the episode of San Junipero having a completely different storyline and cast as other episodes with no links and fitting the style of Black Mirror.