Black Mirror is a worldwide known series on the streaming platform Netflix. It is known among its viewers for portraying the dark side of technology and the possible consequences of our growing dependency on technological innovation – significantly relevant in our current time of tech advancement. In a usual episode of the series, one would be introduced to a different kind of reality with a kind of technological implication. All episodes are mostly independent of each other and have the tendency to cause doubts and uncertainty among the audience which is -usually- only resolved and fully explained at the end of the episode causing reflection up to a certain extent. The name “Black Mirror” refers to the screen of the device you are probably watching it on.
San Junipero is the 4th episode in the 3rd season of the series. Like all Black Mirror episodes, it invites the public to evaluate the implications of advanced technology, but this time with a particular point-of-view not typical of the series. In San Junipero, we are introduced to a stance of ethical-emotional retrospection of the use of technology associated with the science-fiction of virtual reality away from the chaotic theme usually found in the series. This Black Mirror’s episode goes beyond an anarchic story setting, even beyond technology. San Junipero depicts a moral dilemma in which real emotional variables and limitations play a major role, while still managing to cause reflection behind the ethics of a certain -ostensibly harmless- innovation. This is mostly why San Junipero is one of the most acclaimed episodes of the series; it has a different type of denouement and, although it still talks about technology, presents other types of ideas around it.
At the beginning of the episode, we see for the very first time a non-current and non-futuristic environment, actually, the setting of the episode appears to start in the ’80s in the small beach town of San Junipero. Here, we are introduced to our protagonists, Yorkie and Kelly. San Junipero seems like a fun place to be, in the first scenes we see lots of young people hanging at clubs, drinking, and dancing. Belinda Carlisle – “Heaven is a place on earth” playing in the background. Yorkie, a young woman wearing glasses and a nerdy outfit, enters a club; she seems to be overwhelmed by the number of people, by the music. Unlike everyone else there she seems to be uncomfortable with her surroundings, maybe even herself. This is when she meets Kelly, an outgoing young woman looking to enjoy the moment,
San Junipero is not a real place; it is virtual reality. The purpose of San Junipero is a place for the elderly to upload their conscience before dying, virtual heaven. For the most part of the episode, the audience is not aware of the situation; small hints are given but the characters refuse to speak of it as a simulation in a possible attempt to forget that what they are experiencing doesn’t belong to the real world. In avoidance of real-world terms they refer to those in the free weekly trial as “tourists” and those who have moved-in permanently as “locals”, both Kelly and Yorkie are visitors, only allowed to log-in once a week.
Yorkie had lived most of her life in a hospital bed. She became quadriplegic after a car accident that occurred consequently of telling her parents about her sexual orientation – which they did not agree with. Yorkie carried the limitations to her identity throughout her entire life and, at the age of 21, when she finally felt ready to come out as her true self and fully experience the world, her body stopped working, trapping her mind for the rest of her life. Many years later, San Junipero represented her opportunity to experience life, without the limitations of her unfunctional body.
However, in the simulations, she still carries her emotional restrictions, like her apprehension to express what she feels – instead, she hides in her emotional comfort zone. An example of this is how she is wearing glasses in San Junipero although she does not really need them, since in the hyperreality her vision is unmarked. Yorkie: “The lenses don’t do anything; they are a comfort thing”. Yorkie’s glasses represent her authenticity as well. Kelly: “People try so hard to look how they think they should look; they probably saw it in a movie [referring to everyone else in San Junipero], but you [Yorkie], you are yourself”. Yorkie is not trying to relive her life or configure her identity, she is trying to explore what she was never able to experience, pick it up where she left it and continue discovering herself. Everyone else in San Junipero is pretty much trying to keep appearances of who they are, attempting to relive their youth and believe in the simulation.
In week 2, when Yorkie is getting ready to possibly meet Kelly again, she is trying different outfits, playing different songs in the background, and matching different clothes with different styles of makeup. In each makeover the camera focuses on her reflection in the mirror accompanied by her unnatural poses and her expressions of discomfort, this works to reveal the insincere nature of her makeovers. The event that for all those makeovers she attempted not to wear her glasses, could either mean she is trying to leave her constraints behind, or she is trying to be someone she is not. Which raises the interrogative of whether she is herself without her constraints. Also, when she moves permanently to San Junipero, the camera focuses her glasses on the sand, as she walks away from them and moves freely on the beach as she plays with the water. Although she does not need them, without her glasses -symbol of her identity- is she still Yorkie? And so, are her experiences genuine?
In that aspect, it could be argued that her experiences in the simulation are fully emerging and expressive, meaning that San Junipero is as real as reality has been for Yorkie. Hence, her experiences are genuine since she has never lived those stages of her life and had nothing to compare it to; and so her character development in which she moves away from her emotional limitations represents how she becomes closer to her true self rather than acting as someone else.
On the other hand, although Kelly acts like a free spirit whose only purpose in San Junipero is having fun with no engagement, she too has constraints. Years ago, her husband, the love of her life, passed away and refused to be uploaded to San Junipero since their daughter died in an accident and she had no opportunity for an ensured afterlife. “How can I? When she missed out, how can I?”. Kelly is weighted by the haunting burden of her deceased husband and daughter who didn’t get a chance to live in that kind of virtual heaven; from her perspective, it would be hypocritical to stay in San Junipero given that her loved ones are lost forever. Therefore, she avoids any type of emotional compromise that might bind her to stick around.
When Yorkie confronts Kelly in the bathroom of San Junipero in the simulated year of 2002, after Kelly has been avoiding her subsequently of their first emotional/sexual encounter the last week they met. Kelly looks at herself in the mirror, she is trying to keep appearances, she is trying to look the way she thinks she is supposed to and feel what she thinks is correct. After Yorkie expresses how she feels about what Kelly did, she storms out of the bathroom, Kelly is left alone. Again, Kelly looks at herself in the mirror and punches it, shattering the glass, her hand is unscratched, she looks back at the mirror and it is whole again. When Kelly punches the mirror, she ideologically breaks the simulation within herself, accepting her feelings for Yorkie. Then, the mirror repairs itself as a reminder that she is still inside a fictional reality. Kelly’s dilemma goes beyond any technical aspect of the simulation itself. In-between all the senseless fun she was offered in her weekly visits to San Junipero while awaiting death, she encounters emotions she was trying to avoid; tearing down the image she was attempting to keep and the promises she made to herself.
“They are both people who have denied themselves, or have been denied, a whole aspect of their humanity in what you might call Life #1, and now they have a second shot at it.” Says Charlie Brooker, producer of the series, in an interview for Los Angeles Times.
Kelly is trapped under the guilt of the death of her family, she is clearly tempted to stay in San Junipero but it is her own burden the one that limits her away from the idea of starting again next to Yorkie. While stating her reasons, Kelly also portrays the possible ethical dysfunction of the simulation. “I don’t want to end up like all those lost f*cks in the Quagmire trying anything to feel something”. The Quagmire is a place, outside of town, where some locals -bored of eternal life- go to seek arousal. It is pictured as a nasty and self-destructive place. Kelly, who has already lived a full life with entire experiences, demonstrates her fear of living forever and ending up like them. Displaying a possible downside to the simulated heaven, which she was using as an argument to convince herself of not staying. Although her real fear was that by taking a second chance in life, she would be failing her deceased family and betraying her own morals by taking the opportunity her husband rejected.
Nevertheless, just as Kelly dropped her influence on Yorkie and pushed her beyond her limitations; Yorkie convinced Kelly that although she was able to live her full life in the real world there is more to live for, more experiences to explore, and the opportunity to love once again.
Kelly: [looking at the horizon in the real world] “All things considered, I guess I’m ready.”
Caregiver: “For what?”
Kelly: “The rest of it.”
San Junipero invites the viewers to wonder about the authenticity behind experiences in hyperreality by appealing to their emotional coherence; also raising the interrogative of personal truthfulness beyond one’s own constraints such as fear and anxiety. For the first time in the series, technology did not represent an antagonist figure but an opportunity. For the protagonists, the predicament itself was facing their emotions and distinguishing a real connection in a simulated world. For the episode, it does not seem to matter, simulation or not, what matters is the experience and that you are happy living it. Yorkie and Kelly were able to encounter genuine feelings in a simulated world, and this denotes that the experiences they lived and the character development that occurred had little to do with San Junipero being a virtual world but with the growth they caused within themselves. Unlike other episodes of Black Mirror, San Junipero has a joyful ending. The episode closes with shots of their data (minds) being stored while Kelly and Yorkie are driving into the sunset, all of it under a warm filter that denotes the upbeat moment. Belinda Carlisle – “Heaven is a place on earth” playing in the background.