Netflix’s
new Black Mirror program Bandersnatch, isn’t so much a movie as much as it is an
interactive media presentation that contains movie elements, such as cinematography,
a score, soundtrack, and fictional characters.
Much
like the traditional video game, Bandersnatch opens the door to parallel
realities wherein each individual who interfaces with it Through the Looking Glass has a different
experience. A person playing NBA Live on their PlayStation alone in Tokyo,
Japan does not have the same experience as one playing by themselves in
Nebraska even if they are playing with the same NBA teams.
The
simulation is different because the video game’s vast pool of possibility is so
wide open that no two players can have the same experience of it based on the
variety of choices they can make within its minimalist plot. The plot has to be
minimal in order to accommodate the many variables that the video game player introduces.
The player makes choices interactively that lead to a purely individual
experience, as opposed to the collective experience we have with conventional
films.
For
hundreds of thousands of years wise village elders would tell stories to their
clan about the hero’s journey beneath a dark blanket of pulsating stars. The
fundamental structure of the action story has not changed from then until now. There
is an introduction of characters, then an ensuing conflict, followed by
conflict resolution.
This
inverted pyramid structure of story-telling was enhanced in the theaters of
ancient Kemet and arguably perfected in modern action films coming out of
Hollywood over the last century. This deterministic, fixed story structure has for the most
part fostered a collective experience of the story before the night-time bonfires
of primordial man, and within the movie theater of our modern world.
Considering
the interactive potential of the internet, Netflix introduced a program that
turns Hollywood’s traditional movie on its head to offer something more
revolutionary than people may realize. Hollywood is in trouble, and I’ll
explain why shortly. In the meantime, if we are judging Bandersnatch as a well-written,
entertaining movie we would say that it is bad. Not bad meaning good, but bad
meaning bad.
Before
this month is over, millions of people across the United States will subject
themselves to the torture of watching a poorly-written, unentertaining media
presentation for no other reason than the fact they can play Demiurge and
choose the course of action of its characters. Bandersnatch is interesting and
engaging experience without being entertaining. What a paradox!
The
Bandersnatch media presentation promotes the Greco-Roman take on Gnosticism by having
us identify with its sadistic Demiurge that controls the fates of men like
pieces on a two-dimensional game board. The zoomorphic symbol for the Demiurge
in European Gnosticism is the lion, an animal that appears within the Netflix
program if you were paying attention.
As
I point out in my book, The Treasures of Darkness: Living Jewels for Spiritual Resuurection, European Gnosticism demonizes the
physical world primarily because its adherents were deprived of their mother’s
love and mercy. Their long-term cave trauma opened the door to them seeing the
natural world and it’s ecology as an inherently evil place.
Here
the absent mother is merely a metaphor for an environmental surrounding that
does not foster LIFE and ABUNDANCE for its inhabitants. The lush and curvaceous woman (not to be confused with a fat woman) is demonized in poor cultures because she
represents a formidable mouth to feed in a land of abject scarcity. In such cultures women with boyish bodies are more preferred because they require less maintenance than a voluptuous woman.
Stefan
Butler, Bandersnatch’s main character, saw the world around him as a cold, and
evil place, but he was literally without the love and warmth of his mother. This
detail in the plot is not some coincidence that I’m reading too deeply into. It’s simply a reflection of the distinctly Gnostic
overtones that you usually find in Black Mirror programs.
The
more familiar version of European Gnosticism that arose after Roman emperor
Justinian shut down the spiritual universities of the Mediterranean and North
Africa is essentially the Ice Man’s ideological inheritance. There is no
ancient Black culture on the globe that characterized Earth as a prison planet. Their
primary source literature and oral traditions will back up my assertion without
fail.
The
notion that they did see Earth as a prison is an ideological projection that European
scholars saddled with cave trauma are making in THEIR books about ancient Black cultures which are secondary
and tertiary sources. Seeing the earth as a plane to transcend is not the same
as seeing it as a fundamental prison to escape from.
A young adult looks forward to one day moving out of their parents’ home, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they look at the experience of living with their parents with resentment and contempt. They simply want a new experience of freedom that may include having bad bitches walking nakedly through the house at strange hours of the night. For more accurate commentaries on true Gnosticism I recommend that you read Not In His Image by John Lamb Lash and Rethinking Gnosticism by Michael Allen Williams. Those are just starters.
A young adult looks forward to one day moving out of their parents’ home, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they look at the experience of living with their parents with resentment and contempt. They simply want a new experience of freedom that may include having bad bitches walking nakedly through the house at strange hours of the night. For more accurate commentaries on true Gnosticism I recommend that you read Not In His Image by John Lamb Lash and Rethinking Gnosticism by Michael Allen Williams. Those are just starters.
All
in all, I believe that Bandersnatch will be a reference point for some cultural
media phenomenon that has yet to come in the way that Dark City was a reference
point for the Matrix trilogy. The entertainment industry is preparing for a future
world in which men and women can no longer write based on text messaging
culture where words and thoughts are minimized and abbreviated for speed and
convenience.
Since
folks can’t write, they cannot tell stories through films that require a script
with detail and depth. This is why I say that Hollywood is in trouble unless it
looks for writing talent with unconventional voices. The traditional movie
house that you have to leave your home to visit will not be able to keep up
with the media potential of the internet. The Netflix film Bird Box could be about the old guard of Hollywood blinding itself to this inconvenient truth.
The
Olympians of the entertainment universe plan to usurp the Hollywood Titans by
introducing media that arrests the viewer’s attention and holds it captive. This
attention grab is not based on the intricacies of its plot and depth of
characters, but based on the viewer’s freedom to play Demiurge and shape and
mold an imaginary world on the internet. An artificial human’s God complex may
be stronger than their desire to be emotionally stimulated and mentally
inspired. Until next time.
I am on CashApp via $MindGlowBooks.
I am on CashApp via $MindGlowBooks.
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