Abstract
Gleeful audiences are fascinated and captivated by damage endured by two women and are frenzied for more experiences of schadenfreude (sad-joy). An episode of the series “Black Mirror”pulls viewers into a morass of calculated deception, intrusive surveillance and intersectional abuses by gender, class, and ethnic/national origin. Fictional viewers are glued to a globally streamed show “Joan is Awful” as AI algorithms adjust and direct fresher and increasingly more denigrating catastrophes for the real Joan and Salma Hayek (playing herself). Multilayered episodes beckon viewers to participate in the spectacle by attention to the show and as paid hate-commentators. This fuels further iterations of hurtful deep-fakes of Joan and of the Mexican-American actress. As part of multidimensional ironies, this show, within a show, provokes discomforting entertainment by Netflix viewers in real life. We viewers are invited to gawk, shift in our seats and try to avoid naming the badness of our human base desires. We “distance” ourselves from the abuses by claiming, it is not I who engages with the show, it is other Netflix subscribers (“third person effect”) who are “bystanders” to the suffering of others. In reality, scholars, professionals and students, must examine who claims in-group superiority (corporations and citizenry) using AI and other media tools, while women, ethnic groups, certain national origin peoples, religions, are torn down and shoved to a lower place in society? Black Mirror calls all consumers to critically question our media participation, our usage, and to recover human morality.
Presenters
Diana RiosFaculty Communication and EL Instituto: Latino-Latin American Caribbean Studies, University of Connecticut, Connecticut, United States Mary Helen Millham
Contributing Faculty, School of Communication, University of Hartford, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Theme
2024 Special Focus—People, Education, and Technology for a Sustainable Future
KEYWORDS
NETFLIX, SCHADENFREUDE+VIEWING,MEXICAN-AMERICAN, SALMA HAYEK, WOMEN, GENDER, MORALITY, CRITIQUE, AUDIENCES
