Spoilers Ahead….
We’d all like to have our own virtual world to play God. Or
at least be part of a subculture that’s so cool and unconventional compared to
the allegedly mainstream ones. But what if it consequently leads to the onset
of virtual purgatory and virulent fandom? What if the subculture is riddled
with self-aggrandizing abusers who unmercifully quell any critique or when they try to be the
obnoxious gate-keepers? The now famous 1st episode in the 4th
season of sci-fi anthology TV series Black Mirror titled ‘USS Callister’ poses
such eerily relevant questions. Scripted by William Bridges & Brooker, and
directed by Toby Haynes, the USS Callister serves us a tributary piece to the
original Star Trek series as well as a commentary on the show’s certain
circumscribed views (sexism, racist stereotypes, white male entitlement, etc) plus its extremely devoted fandom. USS Callister is also one of the most
darkly comical episodes of the series with a comparatively hopeful denouement.
What’s primarily interesting about this episode of Black
Mirror is the way the roles are reversed. There are sentient lives existing
within digital realm which are more ‘human’ than the humans of real world. Then
there’s our frustrated and ridiculed genius programmer Robert Daly (Jesse Plemons), the guy for whom we initially feel nothing but sadness. Alas, his
virtual identity turns out be that of a despicable tyrant. Instead of taking
the usual path of ‘smart AI enslaving humanity’, USS Callister scrutinizes much
relevant and relatable threat plaguing our digitized world: human beings
exploiting modern technological tools to satisfy their dangerous impulses by
turning possibly sentient digital beings into guinea pigs. It’s a scenario that
alternately looks absurd and horrific, yet much refreshing than the usual dose
of AI planning hostile takeover of humanity.
Robert Daly is viewed as the epitome of ‘toxic masculinity’.
That would be unnecessarily pigeonholing a character that’s much more profound
than what the aforementioned label suggests. Of course, the fourth season’s
array of female protagonists are written in a way to challenge the traditional
narrative plastered upon femininity and these women stand up to technology-aided tyranny to reclaim their power. But all the episodes in the
season, including USS Callister, don’t apply the faux-feminist narrative that
pits men vs women. Robert Daly is a grown man with a teenager’s wide-eyed awe
for his favorite cosmos exploring TV show. He is also a gifted game
designer/genius programmer behind a virtual-reality video game known as
‘Infinity’. Infinity is a hyper-realistic virtual reality platform and Daly has
made a very detailed prototype of Infinity, inspired by his adoration for
the sci-fi TV show. In fact, the episode opens with an old TV set's
4:3 aspect
ratio with Daly playing Captain of the space fleet USS Callister, providing
orders to his frightened multi-ethnic crew members. After saving the crew from the
impending danger, he receives round of cheers and kisses from female crew
members.
The scene abruptly cuts and we see Daly walking through a dim-lit corporate
office. This ‘real’ Daly has hunched shoulders, receding hairline and looks a
bit overweight. He is uncomfortable in the office atmosphere and avoids any
sort of conflict. Although he is the co-founder and chief technical officer of the
company, he is underappreciated by his coworkers and belittled by CEO Walton (Jimmi Simpson), the very common corporate bloodsucker. Interestingly, the crew
members in the gaming realm of USS Callister, happens to bear resemblance to
Daly’s coworkers with Walton taking on the role of inept, fawning subordinate
of Captain Daly. It becomes clear that Daly tries to purge his personal trauma
by being nasty to his creations inside the virtual world. However, the crew
members of Daly’s personalized world aren’t just disposable codes which stop to
exist once after the player terminates the game. The digital avatars of Daly’s
coworkers are not only identical to the real ones, but also are sentient
beings, gifted (or cursed) with consciousness and all physical sensation of
real human beings. Robert Daly has made these replicas by collecting and
preserving swabs of their DNA. This makes the imprisoned life inside USS
Callister as real as the life in the outside world.
The real world Daly is enamored by the new employee Nanette Cole
(Cristin Milotti), a young coder. She is genuinely interested in
meeting Daly, sees him as an inspiration. However, when Daly sees Nanette
talking to Walton and overhears a rude comment from another co-worker about him directed towards Nanette, he decides to digitally clone (and punish) his new
co-worker too. Unbeknownst to Daly, he actually seals his fate by this act,
since the digital Nanette is not interesting in being trapped for eternity in
the game, wearing mini-skirts and kissing the 'successful' Captain Daly. By the
time, digital Nanette originates inside USS Callister, the episode entirely
shifts away from the perspective of Daly and extinguishes the little sympathy
we initially had for him. Soon, we learn that Daly is the God of this infinite
digital universe and keeps the conscious digital simulacrums, compliant enough
to play their silly roles in the game. He often shows his absolute power over
them by either transforming them into grotesque creatures or by inflicting
unimaginable torture methods. Furthermore, Daly is obsessed with puritanical
vision of the TV show by making these sentient clones without sexual organs and butt-holes (as digital Walton says, ‘he has taken away the basic
pleasure of sitting on the toilet to push out the shit’). There’s nothing for
these conscious simulacrums to alleviate boredom or the endless cycle of
suffocation.
USS Callister predominantly examines the
darker side of fan culture, where those forums toxic behavior is ironically opposite
to the virtuous values taught by the adored piece of pop culture. Daly, despite
designing his virtual world based on a series that focused on the
betterment of the galaxy, upholds aggression and brutality. This
is expressed in a comical manner in the scene digital Nanette murmurs, “Mini-skirted
damsels. A little cold for that in space”, to which Daly replies with a mix of
anger and awkwardness, “That is just what a Bargradian sand warrior would say”.
At this moment, Daly just behaves like a petty fan who can’t stand little bit
of critique. On a broader note, he is just like all those psychopathic dictators
who fancy themselves as the hero of the carefully calibrated narrative. In
fact, in the end when he cackles maniacally and uses the word ‘Biblical’,
Captain Daly pretty much comes off as a powerful villain. A truly unhinged fan
can of course transform into villains of their own favorite TV show.
Black Mirror has repeatedly yet very imaginatively showcased how
humanity will never stop from using the culture of technology to serve its
darkest impulses. USS Callister is an apprehensible enlargement of the near-future
fandom culture, whose self-absorbed dark fantasies can generate invisible pain
and visible bleak consequences. Nevertheless, the episode serves as
deconstruction of fan culture and not a call to entirely obliterate it. Its
optimistic ending (uncharacteristic for Black Mirror episodes) asks the fandom take a
broader view, instead of clinging to entitlement, prevalent within all of nerd
culture. By the end, the new commander of USS Callister happens to be Nanette
Cole, which isn’t adverting that women are the answer to toxic male-led fandom.
It shows how one, regardless of gender, through understanding and empathy –
values purported by any piece of pop culture – seek countless exciting
adventures and escape purgatories (real or realistic-virtual ones). The absence
of those values replaced with belief in rage and tyranny can only lead to
entrapment like that of real & virtual Robert Daly. The true nightmare is
not feeling powerless and isolated in the real world; it actually lies in remaining forever trapped in self-created nothingness, unable to exit
from the silly virtual game.
No comments:
Post a Comment