Black Mirror Analysis (Black Museum Episode)
Black Museum is a three-part mini anthology and it is the final episode of the sixth season of the controversial series known as “Black Mirror”. The story of the episode starts off with a traveler, Nish, visiting a distant roadside attraction called “Black Museum”. While waiting for her car to charge, she walks in with wary curiosity and meets the proprietor of the museum, Rolo Haynes and explains she is out this way as her father lives nearby and her mother suggested she stop by to surprise him. Haynes then offers to show her around the “authentic criminology artefacts”, providing histories of some through flashbacks in the episode.
In the past, Haynes was once a recruiter for neuroscience experiments for St. Juniper's is a scientific hospital which offers its patients free healthcare in return for them being allowed to test experimental treatments on them. In the episode there are three arcs (different moments) to which he tells the stories to Nish and his stories involve prototypes that copy or share sensation.
The first of Hayne’s stories revolves around what looks like an electric hairnet worked with an implant that allows someone to feel the physical sensations that the person wearing the hairnet is feeling. In the story, Haynes persuaded a frustrated doctor, Dr Peter Dawson, to try it out so that he could feel the pain of others in order to aid in medical diagnosis. However, Dawson became addicted to using his patients’ pain for sexual arousal and was removed from the hospital, and addicted to pain, he began mutilating himself. Realising that he could not inflict fear, thus further pleasure on himself, Dawson tasered, tortured and killed a homeless man with a drill. By the time the police found him, the extreme sensation of pleasure had caused Dawson to fall into a coma with a look of pure bliss on his face.
In the present, Nish offers Haynes water since the museum’s air conditioning is broken and they are both sweating profusely however, Haynes continues on telling the second story about a flush toy monkey. The technology Haynes peddled here is one that can take the consciousness of comatose people and put it into another person’s head, letting them see and feel whatever their host body does. The example we see of this situation is in a flashback where Haynes had convinced a man named Jack to transfer the consciousness of his comatose wife Carrie into his own brain, letting her share his sensations. However, this became a toll: Jack had no privacy and Carrie had no agency, particularly with their child Parker. Jack began dating Emily who convinced Jack to transfer Carrie into the stuffed monkey, limited to speaking only two phrases. Parker received the monkey, but soon grew tired of it, and Haynes claims Carrie's consciousness is still within the toy.
Haynes and Nish move on to the main attraction of the museum, a holographic projection of Clayton Leigh, a convicted murderer. While Clayton was on death row, Haynes convinced him to sign the rights to his consciousness over as to provide for his family, despite the objections of his wife who feared for his safety. Haynes demonstrates the ability for visitors to holographically recreate Clayton's execution and create animated copies of his suffering packaged in little souvenirs. Each electrocution is set to last 10 seconds, as 15 seconds or more would disrupt the hologram and erase it.
In a typical Black Mirror twist, Haynes comments on the temperature in the museum as he begins to asphyxiate. Nish reveals herself as Clayton's daughter; she had sabotaged the museum's air conditioning and given Haynes poisoned water. Nish tells Haynes Clayton was innocent but the state never overturned the conviction, and the exhibit has attracted sadists and racists preying on Clayton's plight. As a result, her mother overdosed on pills and alcohol.
Haynes passes out. Nish transfers his consciousness into Clayton's hologram, then activates the simulated execution to its maximum level, putting her father to rest. She leaves the museum with the stuffed monkey while removing a device from the air conditioner, which shorts out and starts to burn. As the museum is engulfed in flames, Nish drives away and converses with her mother, who shares her consciousness, both happy to have avenged her dad, Clayton.
With many arcs on the show, the two main characters are Nish and Haynes. You can see Nish is a strong-built character from the beginning itself as she was not phased by Haynes with his dark and intrigued stories. Haynes' character already showed at the beginning by his actions that he doesn’t care for the public well-being but only results and profit. He manipulates people into the idea/situation and he has no respect for the dead which is showcased by him telling Clayton’s story and the execution of the experiment.
The style of Black museum which was conveyed on the show, does not only provide the high concept of technological nightmare, but reflects on the legacy and the function of the show as a whole. When Haynes was showing Nish around the museum, you can spot a number of prominent props from the previous episodes including the DNA analyzer from USS Callister, the parental control pad from Arkangel, the bloody bathtub from Crocodile and even the strange symbol-marked ski-masks from White Bear. These shows that they’re visual clues to us audience that Black Museum is a metatextual reflection of the show itself.
The three main technologies used in the three arcs is an interface for human consciousness which is a more direct means of what television and social media do today. These fictional items represent the different ways our current technology both connects and disconnects us as a society. Dawson’s subplot comments on media ability to let us emphasise with characters and experience thrills without any physical ramifications. Jack and Carrie’s story reflects media ability that turns us into voyeurs. Clayton’s story reflects on the guilt-free gratification we get from consuming violence in the media.
Thus, I believe that the main idea of this episode, Black Museum is the whole show of Black Mirror distilled down to this one single episode as it’s preserving the same content, the same format, and most importantly, the same purpose: which is to see ourselves reflected in the black mirror that is our television screen or smartphone, engaging empathetically with the characters we’re connected to by that screen and by doing so, expanding our moral imagination and motivating us towards justice
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