<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>Adham Bakr </span>

<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>Date and time: 9/16/18, evening , 6pm to 9PM</span>

<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>What I did:  </span><span style=”font-weight: 400;”>watch  </span><span style=”font-weight: 400;”>Black Mirror Season 1 Episode 2: Fifteen Million Merits (Netflix) and respond by analyzing the role that visual elements play in the episode, e.g. in the protagonist’s daily life, in the culture outside of the setting of the episode, connect to Contrapoints | What’s Wrong with Capitalism Pts. 1 & 2</span>

<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>How long I worked: 3 hours </span>

<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>Type of work/ reflecting –  </span><span style=”font-weight: 400;”>in the episode “Fifteen Million Merits” episode in tv series  “Black Mirror” I notice lots visual aspects. For example they wear the same color outfits, reflecting that all the workers are treated not only the  same way, but as machines. To continue the episode starts off with these people riding bicycles everyday with televisions and screens in front of them, the longer you ride the more merits you earn. So with understanding this, riding bikes is their everyday job. The episode continues to show how screens surround the characters in this episode by showing how they’re everywhere including vending machines, homes, bathrooms,  “work,” and pretty much everywhere else. The only people that don’t live this lifestyle are the rich and famous so the </span><span style=”font-weight: 400;”> only way out of cycling for a living is to become  successful on the show “ hot shots.” The visual element of this  depicts the struggle for fame to finally be successful in life. </span><span style=”font-weight: 400;”>To continue, everything is priced. Bing constantly spends money on things like skipping ads, watching porn, and irrelevant things that shouldn’t be priced at all. The episode then  continues to show how Bing spends money on abi to perform on “ hot shot,” because he likes her and wants her to become successful but there’s a turn at the end. Abi has what seems like the best performance that’s ever happened on the show. Everyone including the judges were shocked at her singing. However the twist in the episode is that instead of abi becoming famous and achieving her goal for bing she ends up getting declined as a singer but is offered a job as a pornstar and takes it. </span><span style=”font-weight: 400;”>This visual element shows ow we tend to degrade women and make them think the the only way out is by sexual behavior.</span>