Comparative Analysis Of Black Mirror Show And The Storytelling Animal Book By Jonathan Gottschall

The netflix show of Black Mirror s a suspenseful show that explores modern society with regard to consequences of different technology. This contemporary television show is a mixture of science fiction, horror, and thriller all at once. In this show every episode has a different story, which is similar to the show of “The Twilight Zone”, that has a different settings and realities.

This Netflix series caught the eye of millions of people that are not only intrigued by it but also questioning reality. This show, Black Mirror, fits into Gottschall's book because of how humans are the main source of stories. I will be comparing Black Mirror to The Storytelling Animal written by Jonathan Gottschall. In the Netflix series Black Mirror every episode is focused on a new piece of technology and how it affects humans and reality. Gotschall states that the storyteller should “seize our attention” and this fits into the show because the creator of the show, Charlie Brooker, made sure that each episode was unique enough to draw the audience in, and give them thoughts about how this could be reality ( Gottschall 4). Gotschall writes about how stories and a “variety of storylike activities, dominates human life. ” meaning that creating different stories is superior and more entertaining to the audience rather than just talking about human life. In this book of​ Storytelling Animals​ the author talks about how stories are made within humans and whenever we experience a story, “our minds are churning, working hard” (Gottschall 5).

This connects to the show because the director made stories that could have related to his experiences causing him to create a series of multiple different episodes that relate to advances in technology that could eventually affect society. His experiences lead to the idea of creating a series where there are an ample amount of different settings and realities that made him work hard for the episodes created. The author does a good job of making sure the morals of the text stick to the audience by giving multiple different examples. For example, in the text Gottschall’s talks about how the storytelling mind was “isolated- if not discovered” and helps support this claim by giving the example of a neurosurgeon who did a dangerous experimental procedure. The surgeon named Joseph Bogen had drilled small holes through the top of a patient's skill and how he used it to open the flap in the cranium. He states this because it is important to understand the brain. Also, that the storytelling mind is not created when “the scalpel cuts into the corpus callosum”, but that “splitting the brain just pins it down for study” (Gottschall 99). This means that there will always be a need to study different elements that an individual can learn from them.

This goes back to how the creator of Black Mirror came up with his ideas through his experiences. In the show there is a series of unique episodes that are created causing the audience to question society as a whole. The director does a very good job to warn the audience about the new technology that is portrayed in the show. For example, in one episode called Arkangel there is a mother who gets a chip implanted into her child's brain allowing her to be able to track her at all costs. She is able to see the world through the eyes of her daughter on her tablet. This can make the audience question whether or not this might be the case in the future. In this way, the author does a good job of making his point across and warning the audience that this could happen and that this could be reality in a few years. Gottschall states that most of the time, “the writer guides the way we imagine but [that] does not determine it,” this means that the writer can have an alternative perspective that's differing from the author (Gottschall 5)

Overall, the Netflix series of Black Mirror fits the concepts of Gottschall's claims by allowing us to “enjoy stories so we would get the benefit to practice” (Gottschall 59). The netflix series makes the reader question existence and this is done from the director who is giving us his perspective and allowing us to “determine it” (Gottschall 5). In both the book and the show the underlying theme is that humans are the main source of stories and without them there would not be any stories that people hear about. Different practices allow humans to create their own stories such as this show. Charlie Brooker most likely got the idea of creating this series through his past experiences. Jonathan Gottschall and Charlie Brooker both gained their thoughts through their different encounters that relate to the fact that “memory is not an outright fiction; it is merely a fictionalization” meaning that their experiences are not always made up or the truth, and that they can be made up (Gottschall 169).