The Fine Line Between Right to Live One’s Life and Protection
Violation of Privacy in Arkangel, Black Mirror
By Öykü Dilekçi and İzem Atalayman
Black Mirror, first released on December 4, 2011, is a mini-series that deals with a different science fiction story about dark dystopias in each episode. It shows where humanity could evolve with technology reflecting how these developments may lead to a dark picture for the future and how people can violate each other’s fundamental rights. For instance, in the episode of Arkangel, how privacy, one of the basic human rights, can be violated in a technologically advanced dystopian future is emphasized in a way that affects the audience deeply.
Initially, the episode is about Marie’s relationship with her daughter Sara, who has paranoid fears that her child may be harmed at any point for any reason. Marie takes full responsibility in raising her daughter and tries to protect her from everything. For instance, when she sees a dog barking towards them, she changes her way so that Sara will not see it. Additionally, after Sara’s disappearance in the park, Marie becomes even more worried and controlling, and takes Sara to an organization called Arkangel where she has her daughter fitted with a chip. Through this chip, she can watch everything Sara sees in her daily life with the tablet in her hand. She receives Sara’s changing hormonal balances as a notification, and she can even blur the event and prevent Sara’s vision when she witnesses something that makes her worried. Moreover, Marie, who keeps Sara away from the evils in life and prevents her from them with her excessive control, causes her daughter to have a problematic life because Sara has difficulties adapting to her peers and life.
Violating someone’s privacy may highly lead to problematic outcomes since an individual is stripped of control of their own life so realizing that, Marie stops using the tablet for Sara’s healthy development. However, when Sara reaches adolescence she tells white lies to her mother like every teenager, Marie cannot stand it and continues to monitor her daughter’s life through the tablet; she continues to violate her daughter’s privacy in an overcontrolling way. Realizing that her private life and privacy have been consistently violated, Sara goes through a mental breakdown which shows if any of a person’s fundamental rights are taken away, the balance in the individual’s life will be disrupted, causing the individual to take on a rebellious and angry attitude.
The message that the episode brings to the audience is that the violation of private life, can cause problems for the individual whose right has been violated. For instance, Sara’s life is watched and interfered by her mother without her consent which causes nervous breakdowns and difficulties in adapting to life. In addition, the show reinforces the idea that how tablets, and other kinds of screens can be harmful by using the name of the series “Black” Mirror as a metaphor since although the screens in people’s hands are a part and reflection of their lives, they are a black, bottomless pit that easily violates one of the basic rights of the individual which is privacy.
