The Relationship Between Subjectivity and Ambivalence in the Black Mirror Series

Abstract

One of the prominent elements of modernity is the desire to eliminate ambivalences. The desire for certainty is also very decisive in rational subject definitions. However, in today’s societies, the idea that the basis of individuals’ existence as subjects in social life is gradually eroded, that subjectivity is intertwined with ambiguities has begun to come to the fore. It can be said that the ambivalence has destructive effects in the process of the individual’s being able to create himself as a subject, as well as the possibilities that allow to think about new types of subjectivity. This double-sided relationship between ambivalence and subjectivity is frequently mentioned in popular culture products, especially in dystopian narratives. In this study, the subjectivity-ambivalence relationship is discussed in the Black Mirror series. A qualitative analysis of all parts of the series selected by the purposive sampling technique was made. The series examined within the framework of the characters’ status of being a subject-passive, their struggle to exist as a subject/active, if any. These struggles, which emerged as the ambiguity of dualist structures such as subject-object, perpetrator-victim, good-evil in the series, have been questioned in the context of what kind of negativities ambiguities are associated with in the construction of a free and independent individual, or whether they make it possible to think about the possibilities of liberation.