Revised Film Review: San Junipero

M. Marshall 1.16 edited on 1.24

For my film review project, I decided to watch season 3, episode 4, of the show Black Mirror. I chose it because I had heard good things about it before, and I hoped it would be an interesting watch, it was. I googled “Best Black Mirror episode” and found this article by William Earl, Meredith Woerner, and Jennifer Maas. It said this episode (San Junipero) was one of two Black Mirror episodes to have a happy ending, which was good enough for me.

As a queer person, I was pleasantly surprised to see LGBTQ+ representation between the two main characters of the episode, Kelly (left) and Yorkie (right). Looking back, it is less surprising that the couple created for the episode was a queer couple, it is a quick indicator that the time is not as it seems, it is more progressive, more futuristic.

It was fun to be taken through the 80’s, 90’s, and early 2000’s. Of course, it takes you a bit to understand what’s going on. They reference that there are only a few hours until midnight, Kelly asks Yorkie if her pain (something) is set to low. Evidently, it is revealed that they’re in a simulation, called San Junipero for elderly people and people who have passed and uploaded their consciousness into this simulation.

According to Dr. Oblivion, a frequent theme in classic cyberpunk stories is romance in the digital age. In order to captivate a viewer and convince them to take interest, there has to be a layer of mystery and intrigue. A good example is of a mysterious love interest with a complex past that the main character must become close enough for them to share this past. With cyberpunk stories, a viewer must ask, where are they? Why are they there? Is the place they are real, or is it a simulation? What are they referencing? It forces a viewer to focus on what it is they are watching.

Kelly and Yorkie meet at a nightclub, the episode follows the two of them falling in love with each other. Yorkie is only a few months from dying, and wants to stay in San Junipero; however, that requires the sign off of a family member or a spouse. For religious reasons, Yorkie’s family did not approve of her being gay, nor her desire to stay in San Junipero. Eventually, in real life, Kelly marries Yorkie so that she can stay, Yorkie dies and her consciousness is uploaded into the cloud. Kelly struggles with whether or not to join Yorkie or her husband in the afterlife, but ultimately decides to join Yorkie in the cloud. The technology in the episode connects two individuals who would otherwise not know each other, and the promise to be able to stay together convinces Kelly to upload her consciousness, like, forever.

It was very freaky to think about existing for forever, and whatever that even means. As a child, I was raised going to church, one particular hymn contained the lyrics, “When we’ve been here ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we first begun.” (John Newton, 1779) I no longer attend church, but when I thought of this prospect then (and now) I was horrified. It was uncomfortable for me to think 10 years into the future, let alone 10,000 just being the beginning. Add on uploading my consciousness to a cloud, forever existing in some kind of limbo state? I think I would have to pass.

I would be very interested to learn about advances made involving uploading one’s data into an online sphere. I’ve heard of advancements in medical technology causing longer life expectancies, or the man with no plan to die. It makes me nervous to blur the lines between real life and virtual reality… Is it really you, or is it data and artificial intelligence pretending to be you? Can you romanticize a romantic eternity when there is not a way to know if something is real or not? I think having the option to do something as permanent as a submission of one’s knowledge, feelings, and being anywhere becomes pretty dystopian.

Recently, I watched a video from user @awalmartparkinglot on TikTok on deciding not to donate her eggs. She says that when she was 20, she told her parents that she had decided to donate her eggs for money in college, but that, “my mom literally freaked the f*ck out and started screaming at me… (saying) I wasn’t allowed to do that, she was gonna cut me off, stop paying my tuition… and (I) asked, ‘why are you so against this?’ and she was like ‘you’re a genius, you’re a genius, you’re very, very smart, you can’t donate your eggs… What if a racist buys your eggs? They would take your genius eggs and make it terrible… imagine your brain, but evil.'” I feel like you could make a very similar argument about the government or a corporation having access to all of your memories, opinions, everything about you, would provide information that could be used inappropriately. Power can corrupt anyone, I have to imagine that kind of data can’t be truly protected. Even if this hypothetical company were morally sound, who gets to access this kind of technology? It says in the episode that the trial is free, but is it not only accessible to people in developed countries?

I’ve started to hear the saying that if something is free, you are the product. For example, the social media platform, Instagram is free. But they profit off of you because advertisers pay large amounts of money to have their products shown to users whose interests align with those products, and Instagram can see what you like, what you send to your friends and they send back, what you scroll past, they know exactly who you are and exactly what you like, and that data is valuable.

Being alive is unique because of our sentience, right? We know a rock can exist, but (to our knowledge) it doesn’t feel joy, it doesn’t feel sadness, it doesn’t feel hunger, or exhaustion. These feelings and sensations we have as living beings are what makes things like hurting someone else wrong. It’s the golden rule, treat others as you want to be treated. What happens when technology has that too? Is it moral to develop sentience in a non-sentient object? Is it sentient if it’s artificial? I guess not.

Originally, I wrote, “Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by my enjoyment of this episode. I could see myself enjoying another episode of Black Mirror if there were more happy endings.” I agree with this statement, but looking back with more skepticism and maybe even cynicism has made me change my perspective on it. I think that what seems to be a happy ending should actually make the viewer (including myself) ask themselves who has the right to hold onto that kind of data.