Shut up and dance

Shut up and dance focuses on the themes of privacy and security just like the other black mirror episode Arkangel except this time these themes are seen through the story of Kenny as he is blackmailed into doing more and more dangerous tasks after being blackmailed with a video of him wanking.

The story takes place this day in age with the technology we have now and with cameras being in almost all laptops and phones items we use every day some of us are paranoid enough to cover up our cameras and some believe that it is nonsense and that no one can watch them through a camera on their phone or laptop and this is how Kenny's dilemma begins neither Kenny or us the audience find out how the hackers get into Kenny's laptop whether it’s form a site his sister visits or some dodgy security program he downloads and that adds to the fear of the  episode you don’t know how it happens and I know with myself after watching this episode it felt weird looking at the little pinhole lens on my phones camera not knowing if someone else could be starting back on the other side. 

As the story goes on and the tasks Kenny has to do get more and more dangerous we begin I sympathise less with Kenny as I’m sure no one would want a video of themselves leaked for all to see but when it comes to robbing a bank at gunpoint we begin to wonder why Kenny doesn’t just let the video get posted. 

We soon begin to question it when another person who is being blackmailed to do tasks with Kenny asks him why he doesn’t just let the video get posted but Kenny says he can’t. 

After Kenny is forced to kill a paedophile in a fight to the death and it is filmed by the hackers on a drone we find out by a phone call from his mum that he was actually masturbating to children and is a paedophile. When I first watched this episode and saw this scene I was filled with shock as you really sympathise with Kenny and the awful tasks he has to do only to find out he was a paedophile leaving you wondering on whether it was justice that was done to Kenny and the people that were forced to do the tasks or whether it was unjust and they didn’t deserve what happened to them even with the horrible things each one had done.