Black Mirror season seven is now upon us.

Charlie Brooker, ‘Black Mirror’ creator, reveals why the techno-dystopian show has gripped audiences: “the focus has tended to be in the show technology or modern society. There’s a sort of strand of satire running through it, media satire.”

So to call the series ‘dystopian’ is perhaps not quite accurate, because, as he says, ‘If you want dystopia, look out your window!’. This is, after all, a fundamentally thought-provoking TV.

However, some are not happy about it. Louis Anslow writes in the technology pages of the Guardian:

Black Mirror is more than science fiction – its stories about modernity have become akin to science folklore, shaping our collective view of technology and the future.

Each new innovation gets an allegory: smartphones as tools for a new age caste system, robot dogs as overzealous human hunters, drones as a murderous swarm, artificial intelligence as new age necromancy, virtual reality and brain chips as seizure-inducing nightmares, to name a few. Episodes most often channel our collective anxieties about the future – or foment new ones through masterly writing, directing, casting and acting. It is a must-watch, but must we take it so seriously?

Black Mirror fails to consistently explore the duality of technology and our reactions to it. It is a critical deficit. The show mimics the folly of Icarus and Daedalus – the original tech bros – and the hubris of Jurassic Park’s Dr Hammond. Missing are the lessons of the Prometheus myth, which shows fire as a boon for humanity, not doom, though its democratization angered benevolent gods. Absent is the plot twist of Pandora’s box that made it philosophically useful: the box also contained hope and opportunity that new knowledge brings. While Black Mirror explores how humans react to technology, it too often does so in service of a dystopian narrative, ignoring Isaac Asimov’s observation: that humans are prone to irrationally fear or resist technology.

Black Mirror is more pessimism porn than Plato’s parable, imparting to its audience a tacit lesson: fear the future more than the past. Fear too much technological change, not too little. It is an inherently populist narrative, one that appeals to nostalgia: intellectually, we understand the present is better than the past in large part due to scientific and technological change, yet emotionally and instinctually we can’t help but feel this time in history is different, that the future can only get worse…

We must move away from binary tales of catastrophe, not towards naive utopianism that ignores problems and risks that comes with change, but hopeful solutionism that reminds us we can solve and mitigate them – stories that don’t make us forget that brain chips can liberate paraplegics, robot dogs can protect us from landmines, AI can prevent super bugs and VR can connect us rather than cut us off from reality – even if their vibes are “a bit Black Mirror”.

All this sounds a little Solar Punk.

To quote from pieces already mentioned in previous Sidmouth Solar Punk pieces:

It’s far from surprising to see a trend of dystopian media such as Black Mirror or Squid Game finding quick success. Parts of this can be attributed to the fact that they often critique how far society is going with technology… The question I believe to be asked here is if Squid Game and Black Mirror highlight the horrible future we don’t want, can solarpunk help in making media that portrays a future we do want? Aesthetic matters- The Rise of the Solar-Punk movement

“Right now a sizable chunk of us are addicted to the end of the world in every medium, from video games to what we’re streaming on our smart TV. Black Mirror; The Walking Dead; Love, Death and Robots; and Squid Game reign supreme. We’re collectively investing in dystopian futures with every stream, click, and view. We’ve monetized our peril.” Solarpunk Magazine

The thing that makes many dystopian TV shows so scary is that it’s easy to imagine them becoming reality — many of the technologies depicted in Black Mirror are already in some stage of development. However, that’s the same thing that makes the solarpunk movement so enticing — it’s not hard to imagine how members’ optimistic vision of the future could become reality based on what’s actually happening in the world. Right now, renewable energy is on the rise. cities are supporting urban farms, and brands are embracing sustainable fashion. What does a solarpunk future look like?

And, finally, even in Italian: ‘Solarpunk’: así es la ciencia ficción optimista que contrasta con ‘Black Mirror’

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