Race, size and economics in "15 Million Merits"

**TRIGGER WARNING** for discussion of rape/coerced sex, and minimisation of its significance.

**SPOILERS** For Black Mirror episode 2 ("15 Million Merits")

NB: I'm going to use role-identifiers instead of character names - partly because I can't remember the names clearly, and partly because the allegorical nature of this episode seems to have made all the characters seem a little one-dimensional so that the names seem quite irrelevant (and how many times does it seem I used the word "seem" in this sentence?)

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Channel 4 are currently showing a miniseries called Black Mirror written by comedian and comment-maker, Charlie Brooker, and I have recently been catching up with the series online via 4oD.

Charlie Brooker is one of those people with whom I don't always agree, and sometimes get quite annoyed, but I respect his intelligence and generally I respect the principles behind his position (though not always). "Black Mirror" is described on 4oD as:

a suspenseful, satirical three-part mini-series that taps into collective unease about our modern world

The third episode will air later tonight.

Some general notes: both episodes so far have had an undercurrent of non-consensual sexual activity to them - in the first episode, called "The National Anthem", the central premise is that the Prime Minister is blackmailed by a hostage-taker into performing "an obscene act" on live television, otherwise a member of the royal family (who's presented as being a new "Princess Di" type of public icon) will be executed. In the second episode, the subject of this piece, the theme returns in a different form and I'll get to that later.

The episode's title is "15 Million Merits". Channel 4 describe it as, "a satire on entertainment shows and our insatiable thirst for distraction set in a sarcastic version of a future reality."

The set-up gives us some basic information: people live in cubicles where every wall is made of a large video screen. These present a virtual world (such as a virtual cockerel to wake you up in the morning) and also feed video games and television channels, or streams, to the inhabitant while he or she is there. Most interaction between people happens through their "doppels" - their avatars in the virtual world of these screens. However, periodically, adverts for other features such as the TV channels (and, in the male central character's case, these are often the porn channel called "Wraith Babes") will appear. Skipping these adverts costs merits. Covering one's face results in a high-pitched and loud "torture tone" and an angry red screen saying "view blocked, please resume viewing". These adverts also appear from time to time on surfaces that double as bathroom mirrors.

Another frequent advert is for "Hot Shot", which is the talent show of the society, a version of The X Factor, Britain's Got Talent, Next Top Model etc.

The majority of people's days are spent on exercise bikes arranged in large hallways in a vast building (it's hinted that there are other such buildings), and viewing another screen where the material advertised earlier can be viewed, or the cyclists can view a "rolling road" screen where their doppel cycles along a cartoon-like rendition of a country road. It eventually transpires that the exercise bikes generate the power to run the machinery on which the society depends, such as the lighting, computers and the ever-present video screens. Pedalling earns merits, which turn out to be the currency of this world. Everything else costs merits - food, avoiding adverts, viewing television, modifying one's virtual world and/or doppel - and centrally, appearing on "Hot Shot".

There are three strata in the society: the vast majority appear to be the cyclists. There are then above them, the media stars who do not have to pedal to earn their living (membership of this class can be won by impressing the judges on "Hot Shot"), and the service staff, who are people who ran out of merits due to not pedalling enough and consuming more than they could afford. They are an object of hatred and derision for the people who are in the pedalling class, and are marked out by having to wear yellow jumpsuits.

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This brings us to the first fail that bothered me about this episode. I am willing to believe that Mr Brooker's intention with this is to satirise the treatment of the unemployed and the attitudes towards fat people in today's society, but he seems to fall well short of his intended aim if that's true. There simply isn't enough criticism of the prevailing attitude in the society he's created to make that work, so instead it appears to support rather than detract from, the attitudes expressed. In the "15 Million Merit" society, fat people are fat because (a) they don't pedal hard enough (i.e. they're lazy and don't work or do exercise) and (b) they consume too much (i.e. overeat, or eat the wrong things). This means they end up with no merits, and therefore deserve to be despised for sponging off the hard work (pedalling) of the other people.

Unfortunately, those are the attitudes of a lot of people nowadays as well, and while I say again that I think Mr Brooker was trying to satirise that, I think he failed to criticise it. He does manage to highlight that the attitude exists, and that it is related to the way people view unemployment as well, but that alone does not count as helping; at no point is the attitude challenged or unpacked, and all the characters operate within the paradigm so that all speech reinforces the idea that it is okay to hate fat people for being lazy overconsumers.

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Back to discussing the fictional society. Almost all non-virtual items are disposed of as soon as possible, and it's implied that all foods are synthetic ("grown in a Petri dish"). The society thus appears to be entirely self-contained.

However, it's hinted at during the exposition phase of the programme that people come in from outside, and that the age of majority is 21 - you grow up somewhere else, and then at age 21 you are placed into the cycling halls. The "love-interest" character reveals that she had hoped to go to a different one (where she had a sister) but "there weren't any spaces there" (she's introduced as she replaces someone who runs out of merits and thus is relegated to cleaner duties). It's revealed at the very end of the programme that there are lush, green forests outside the building in which the protagonist lives.

That's all the information we're given.

The first thing that I notice is that it is extremely middle-class focussed. We get some hint about how the non-producing success stories live (the media class), but nothing about how the underclass (the cleaners) live, outside of their duties as cleaners. What matters is the virtual lives of the cyclists. I found myself wondering if, to a certain type of personality, the conditions (though not the hatred) of that life might not be preferable (since you could get away from the ever-present screens!)

The second thing that puzzled me was that there seemed to be no means of reproduction available. "Love-interest character" at the start makes reference to her parents (and there's that porn channel, to which I shall return) so we are led to believe that sex still happens in this society (babies are not grown in Petri dishes, apparently, or at least, are raised as though they weren't). However, there seems to be nowhere for it to happen, and nowhere for parents to raise their children. This implies that there is a fourth class of person in the society: the "child rearing class", and presumably there is a way in which one graduates from cycling to parenthood.

That leads to the third puzzle: what are the long-term prospects for the cyclists? Do they continue until they reach a certain age and then graduate to another mode of living conditions, or do they just keep going until they die of old age or are no longer able to pedal hard enough to pay for their food? We're told that Lead Character had a relative (brother, IIRC) who died and left him 15 million merits, but we're not told anything else about advancement, except the hint that the Hot Shot judges tell contestants that, "you'll never do anything else except ride a bike, unless you accept our offer".

I was particularly confused over the healthcare system in this society. Presumably people occasionally overdo things on the bikes and have muscle injuries. They might fall over and hurt themselves. We're shown Central Character becoming violent in his cubicle and eventually cutting himself on some broken glass of one of the screens. Injuries must happen, and some of those injuries might be serious enough to stop one pedalling for a while. What happens then? Also, given that everyone inhabits an enclosed space, what about infectious diseases? Cleaning duties and hygiene do seem to be a priority in the society (although left to the society's most hated inhabitants) but still, one would expect that viruses and bacteria still exist within the bodies of the inhabitants, and can be spread by various modes of infection including airborne. Given the close habitation in the cycling halls, it seems as though diseases such as influenza would spread astonishingly quickly through the population and could conceivably cause a vast shut-down of the power production!

The final question in my mind was simply, "is it possible to opt out of the system?" The apparent presence (revealed at the very end) of a verdant and apparently fertile world beyond the confines of the building seems to suggest that it would be at least feasible to exist and survive outside the realms of the society in which the story is set, so the question is whether there is a way out of the building and to survive (by hunting/gathering or by farming) in the world beyond it. Could you choose a real life over a virtual one? If yes, do people do so? if no, then why not? Arguably, of course, the media-obsessed world that Mr Brooker presents would never hear about those who did opt out; the people who run the streams would never let on that there could be another option. However, the question must surely have occurred to other viewers. There again, this might be like the "If I were a... then I'd..." trope, or the "Why didn't she just leave her abuser?" question. Maybe similar issues would be relevant to those living in the virtual society?

Now, I promised that I would talk about the theme of non-consensual sex, and the porn channel in "15 Million Merits". The astute will no doubt have already guessed that these are linked. Sadly, they are also linked by the word in the post's title that hasn't been addressed yet: race.

One of the key events in the story is when Love-Interest Character, having been gifted the 15M merit entry fee for Hot Shot by Central Character, sings in front of the judges.

The Black man on the judging panel, as soon as she steps into the spotlight, says something along the lines of, "get your tits out". It transpires in the following sequence that he is Mr Wraith, the owner of the Wraith Babes porn channel. My heart sank, though, at this presentation of a Black character (other than Central Character, who is also Black, but mostly seems to speak in a very cultured and "British" accent, and might be coded as "acceptable blackness"). My heart sank because this played so heavily into the stereotype of Black men as sexual predators.

After Love-Interest Character sings, she is told that she's above average but "there are no slots available for above-average singers". White Dude Judge says instead that "Mr Wraith's got it right. Your suggestion of worldly innocence would fit right in on his channel. You can go and be a Wraith Babe." It's at this point that she is given the ultimatum that she can ride the bikes for the rest of her life, or she can appear in porn. (We're not given any hint as to what happens to media people when people stop choosing to view their media, so what would happen to Love-Interest Character after she loses her sex appeal is not clear, so it's not obvious how much this offer really means.)

LIC is then pressured (people are pedalling to keep the spotlight on you and you're dithering, wasting their effort!) into accepting the deal, even though she's a shy and demure person (the very qualities the sexual violation of which are deemed attractive to the porn-viewing audience).

Now, sadly, the world we live in is such that porn, or sex work in general, is very much like that (see, for example, what I discovered from talking to some performers on Live Jasmin). This is Not Okay. Coerced sexual activity of any kind is not cool, even when the coercion is financial in nature. Even sex workers' rights campaigners want sex work to be voluntary!

So I feel comfortable in saying that the Love-Interest Character's coerced involvement in the porn industry of "15 Million Merits" is basically "rape as plot point". It's the advert for her debut porn video that triggers a reaction in Central Character (who no longer has enough merits to skip the advert) to drive the conclusion of the episode. Apart from that, we know absolutely nothing about her after she accepts the offer from Mr Wraith. We have no idea how she feels about her new life and her duties as a Wraith Girl. We have no indication of how it affects her. The only thing that matters is how it affects Central Character.

That made me very angry with Mr Brooker because, in his apparent attempt to satirise and criticise the porn industry, he has accepted the premise on which such exploitation is based. Love-Interest Character exists in the story only in terms of how she relates to the male characters (the two male judges, and Central Character), and not in any other way - such as being a person with her own will and direction (all the other characters are background characters anyway).

So there you have it: "Black Mirror: 15 Million Merits" - fail on race, sizeism, and gender issues. Raised some interesting hypotheticals about the society it presented.