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The central question of "Shut up and Dance" - please clarify
posted by sati_84STAFFMOD on April 20, 2018 at 3:31 AM
I looked around for reviews and comments on this episode, but I haven't found any definitive answer to the central question: was Kenny looking at children or not?
The supporting evidence that is being cited by the pedo proponents is circumstancial.
The guy who Kenny has to fight says something like "do you like children too?" - but that's only an assumption from the guy's side: he is in this situation because he is a pedo, and automatically thinks that Kenny is there for the same reason. It's an assumption from a character - not evidence.
Kenny's mother says something like: "But children, Kenny?" - but when the trolls released the footage, they could have manipulated it in any way. After all, the camera recording only shows Kenny, but not what he is looking at. That footage can be altered to anything from an episode of Teletubbies to a beheading video. And the trolls want to cause as much damage as they can, so it's logical from their side to frame the event to be even more damaging to Kenny than a simple session of masturbation - not evidence.
Is there anything else supporting the pedo theory? I honestly can't say it's a fact, and I'm confused that everyone (in articles, comments) is treating it as such. After all, this is ironic: if all the evidence is above, then you are falling into the trap of the trolls: **that's what they want you to believe **about Kenny, but there is no evidence, only what they provide about him. His mother believed it, and by proxy, pedo theorists are believing it without any hard evidence.
Or did I miss that piece of hard evidence? If it extists, please direct me to it :-)
Reply by Philippe LeMarchand
on April 20, 2018 at 3:49 AM
Definitive proof? I don't think there was any (been a while...).
However Kenny never denies the accusations and there is that early scene where he interacts with a child that suggests that sort of attraction. Plus we know that Hector was guilty as charged, and Kenny's fight opponent confessed to his crime so it would have been a change of modus operandi for Trollface, who seemed to be tormenting and then punishing people for crimes that they had actually committed in all the other instances shown.
Reply by sati_84
on April 20, 2018 at 5:02 AM
Well, Kenny is in shock at these points in the story. Kenny's not denying can be interpreted as shock over the outlandishness of the accusation itself. If he is not a pedo, he is shocked that 1. the footage the trolls have of him can be interpreted that way and 2. he is in the same situation as an actual pedo, which is understandably schocking for him.
That's exactly the kind of red herring Black Mirror's creators are often including in their episodes to lure the viewer into this trap. The main message of the episode is that however small thing is what trolls can use against you, they will. The Black Mirror gut punch of this episode that the person the trolls have the mildest "dirt" on, gets the most severe punishment. This message doesn't work if Kenny is a pedo.
Nah, I don't think Trollface Group has a strict modus operandi, they are just toying around with whomever downloads that anti-malware thing and whatever "dirt" they can collect of them. It's for fun and money, not for punishing criminals. Also, as far as I can remember, Hector was cheating on his wife, which is unethical, but not a crime... It's not about the sins themselves - it's about trolling, blackmailing and exerting control over people.
Reply by Philippe LeMarchand
on April 20, 2018 at 5:48 AM
He could have easily said that it wasn't CP.
The interaction only takes on a more sinister turn when we learn of Kenny's tastes. Plus it makes sense that Kenny is guilty of more than a date with Mother Fist and her five daughters. Would you do all that stuff just to avoid that coming (no pun intended) out?
I think the "message" was that we don't know what people are really like. Until the revelation, we felt sorry for Kenny. The story seemed quite similar to "White Bear" from S2 in that regard, where we initially sympathised with Victoria until we learned the truth. (Though in WB I felt that we were then led to question whether her punishment fitted the crime).
Occams Razor: We know that 3 Trollface victims are guilty as charged, so why would Kenny be different? The star of the episode doesn't seem to think he's innocent: https://www.gq.com/story/black-mirror-alex-lawther-shut-up-and-dance
Reply by sati_84
on April 20, 2018 at 10:09 AM
He could have, but the fact he did not say anything is not proof it was.
That's one interpretation, but it doesn't eliminate the other one. Yes, maybe he was just trying to avoid the embarrassment of the footage being released. In his age that's an apocalyptic scenario.
1.When it comes to trolls, I doubt you can use logic like that. 2. Hector only cheated on his wife, right? That's not a crime as I mentioned before.
Interesting, and I was not aware of this. However, there is still no in-universe hard evidence of him being a pedo, and out of universe explanations are not always valid - there is a principle that an artwork has to speak for itself. For example there is the "dream or real" debate that is going on with Total Recall for almost 2 decades now, even though Verhoeven has flat out said that it's a dream. Still the movie can be interpreted both ways - I feel this is the case here, no matter even if Charlie Brooker came out and said that Kenny was in fact looking at CP (and maybe you can find a link where he did).
Reply by Philippe LeMarchand
on April 20, 2018 at 4:48 PM
I suppose that part of the beauty of art is that different people can see different things in it, and have different interpretations. I do think that people often over-analyse things and events and sometimes see non-existent patterns.
Reply by Ask Me Anything
on August 28, 2018 at 6:43 PM
This. I'm inclined to believe he was guilty since everyone else caught up in the trap was guilty. I mean think about it, if he was just looking at regular porn there's always the chance that he might not care if the video is released. He was a teen boy, that wouldn't be that shocking. But caught looking at child porn? Yeah, I can see him going through with all the crazy stuff to stop that coming out.
Him being guilty makes the most sense.
Reply by Midi-chlorian_Count
on June 6, 2019 at 6:20 PM
Yes of course he was.
I think what it is was that the producers of Black Mirror were not going to make an episode featuring actual footage of child pornographery in order to not make an episode featuring actual child pornographery (!!) rather than an attempt to introduce any ambiguity into the piece.