Black Mirror’s USS Callister is a Star Trek homage with a twist — it’s a scathing takedown of the toxic fanboy. Support ScreenPrism on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=7792695
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Transcript provided by Youtube:
00:02
Black Mirror Season 4’s premiere episode is an in-your-face Star Trek homage, but with a twist —
00:09
unlike most of today’s endless reboots and remakes and references,
00:12
USS Callister isn’t here to appeal to our nostalgia.
00:16
Instead it’s a scathing takedown of the toxic fanboy.
00:20
It creates a nightmare version of the toxic fandom in the character Robert Daly.
00:25
The CTO of the Callister company,
00:27
he’s underappreciated and unable to assert himself in his real life.
00:32
So he leads a secret virtual life inside a game version he’s made of his favorite TV
00:37
show, Space Fleet.
00:38
This private virtual world reveals his real self —
00:41
a cruel, petty person who bitterly wants other people’s respect
00:45
and is determined to punish those who haven’t treated him like the god he thinks he truly
00:50
is.
00:51
“You’re not just disgraceful.
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You’re disgusting.
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All of you.”
00:55
Before we go on, be sure to hit subscribe and click the bell to get notifications on
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all of our new videos.
01:01
We open with a Space Fleet sequence in the bright, camp spirit of the original Star Trek
01:06
series.
01:07
Daly is doing a riff on Shatner’s very dramatic acting style.
01:11
“Mr. Scott — ready to beam up.”
01:17
Everyone applauds the Captain for being decisive,
01:20
and Daly kisses the women onboard in a clever shout-out
01:23
to one of the first interracial kisses on TV —
01:26
as well as Kirk’s iconic kiss with a green-skinned alien.
01:29
This opening plays on the original Star Trek’s spirit of optimism,
01:33
of looking forward boldly toward a progressive future.
01:36
But of course, this is a black mirror,
01:39
and it’s not really interested in revisiting whatever Star Trek was or wasn’t all about.
01:44
It’s interested in what’s driving Robert Daly’s all-consuming obsession with the
01:48
show
01:49
and harmful this obsession really is.
01:51
It turns out Daly’s fandom is all about possessiveness.
01:55
As we know, fans can be incredibly possessive about the shows, movies and franchises they
02:00
love.
02:01
It’s not uncommon for a Star Wars fan to argue with George Lucas himself,
02:05
because these stories have taken on a life of their own;
02:08
they don’t belong to the original author anymore;
02:11
these days, it seems, they belong to the most passionate fans,
02:15
some of whom model themselves as gatekeepers.
02:17
But Daly’s not just possessive about Space Fleet —
02:20
he uses his Space Fleet fantasy world as a way to possess
02:24
and hurt the people he can’t in real life,
02:27
by stealing their DNA to make sentient digital copies that he can torture.
02:32
USS Callister is such and effective episode because it’s a really interesting reversal
02:37
of the story we’re expecting to see when we start watching.
02:41
As viewers, we begin by identifying with Robert because we’re following him,
02:45
and as we said in our previous Black Mirror video,
02:47
point of view is strikingly effective at making us immediately side with someone,
02:52
although in Black Mirror we should be ready not to trust our main character.
02:56
But we also identify with Robert because, without realizing it,
03:00
we’re waiting for that fanboy revenge-of-the-nerds narrative
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we’ve gotten so familiar with in recent years.
03:06
“The nerd saw me naked!”
03:08
We get the whole set-up: nice, repressed guy meets cute, younger girl who finally sees
03:12
the real him.
03:14
So next we’re expecting to to see the nerd coming into his own,
03:17
fighting back against the sleazy-bro-y CEO James Walton who’s taken credit for his
03:22
work,
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and getting the new girl Nanette as the prize.
03:25
“Are all Nerds as good as you?”
03:27
As The Telegraph wrote, “It’s not just Daly who’s creating an sexist fantasy: half
03:31
of Hollywood is.”
03:33
But pretty soon after setting it up, the story abandons this narrative.
03:37
The bad guy Walton turns into an over-punished victim.
03:40
“But you threw my son out of an airlock, so…”
03:44
Nanette becomes the protagonist,
03:45
“We’re going to get that [bleep] lollipop.”
03:49
and Robert is the villain.
03:51
In our second visit to his Space Fleet game, we see that he can be a bit of a bully.
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His team seems afraid of him.
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Something’s a little off.
04:00
“Vanilla latte.
04:02
Skimmed milk.”
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“At once.”
04:05
“Sure, sure.
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What do you want?”
04:10
“Vanilla latte.
04:12
Skimmed milk.”
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But when the copy of Nanette is brought into the virtual world, we learn his real agenda:
04:18
to torture anybody he feels has disrespected him.
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Most of the “wrongs” Daly’s avenging are laughably petty —
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“I called him out for staring.”
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“I reset admin permissions on a test build for 14 minutes.”
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“Insufficient smiling.”
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“I brought him the wrong sandwich.”
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Nanette’s sin is saying that her admiration for Daly is, gasp, not sexual, but professional.
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“Do you have a thing for him?”
04:43
“Daly?
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No, no.
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It’s not like that.
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It’s purely professional.”
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This detail is so significant because Daly is clearly driven by the lack of respect he
04:53
gets —
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but Nanette didn’t disrespect him.
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She’s shown him huge respect and admiration.
04:59
It’s just for his work rather than expressing wanting to sleep with him.
05:04
There’s a weird cultural assumption we tend to make,
05:09
that if a woman thinks highly of a man she must want to sleep with him —
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that if she doesn’t, it is somehow an insult to him.
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And that’s exactly what we see going on in this episode.
05:19
Meanwhile, we can’t help but notice the sexlessness of Robert’s Space Fleet.
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As another layer of messed-up, he’s left sex out of his virtual world completely,
05:29
which indicates that Daly doesn’t know how to approach sexual relationships
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in an appropriate, mature way.
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And as a result of his immaturity, this seeming “nice guy” has developed
05:39
some very harmful resentments and false assumptions about women.
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So it becomes clear that the point of this story isn’t going to be Robert learning
05:48
to mature,
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assert himself and get the respect that he deserves.
05:52
The point is that if this guy is really so toxic and small-minded
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that given the freedom to imagine any possible virtual reality,
06:00
he comes up with this sick torture chamber, then we need to turn our backs on him.
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Just as Daly is left to die,
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and his avatar presumably remains trapped forever alone in that disconnected virtual
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reality.
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The show’s writing is declaring that we should no longer stand for
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the subtle, automatic sexism of the “nice guy” fantasies that have been regurgitated
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to us.
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To this end, it critiques Space Fleet’s underlying sexism
06:27
“Mini-skirted damsels — huh.
06:28
A little cold for that in space.”
06:32
and racism.
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“Weird blue alien skin, I know, it’s [bleep] up.
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Almost sort of racist.”
06:38
In the end, Nanette and the crew pass through the wormhole/update
06:42
and end up in a ship that looks a lot like J. J Abrams’ rebooted Star Trek.
06:46
They’re in a modern story where the women don’t have to wear miniskirts and Nanette
06:51
is the captain.
06:52
But on the down side they’re on the internet, interacting with gamers —
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as encapsulated by Aaron Paul’s voice cameo:
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“So we’re gonna blow each other or we’re gonna trade?”
07:01
The Internet is a wide frontier full of possibilities,
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but somehow it doesn’t inspire the bright-eyed high hopes of Gene Roddenberry’s future
07:09
space travel.
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It’s littered with people expressing the worst parts of themselves,
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saying things that would never actually dare to in real life —
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like Daly, using an anonymous space to lash out
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and avenge both real and imagined slights without repercussion —
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and that’s if they’re not looking for porn.
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But if the digital world really is that new great frontier,
07:28
then this Black Mirror episode raises an important point —
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we need to put some more thought into how we act online.
07:35
We should create a more respectful, hopeful digital world,
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especially if some versions of ourselves could go on to live long, potentially endless lives
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there.
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“King of space, right here.
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[Sigh].
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King of space.”
07:52
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07:53
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07:58
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08:02
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This post was previously published on Youtube.
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