Welcome to Screen Gems, our weekend dive into queer and queer-adjacent titles of the past that deserve a watch or a re-watch.
The Episode: Black Mirror, “Striking Vipers”
We here at Screen Gems are about to do something we’ve never done before: we’re recommending a single episode of a series rather than a feature film. Normally, a single episode would never deserve its own entry. This one does.
By now, the sci-fi anthology series Black Mirror has earned a deserved place in the Greatest Sci-Fi Shows of All Time pantheon right next to The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits. To experience the series at its best, look no further than “Striking Vipers,” the premiere episode of the show’s fifth season.
Anthony Mackie stars as Danny, a 20-something man trying to spice up his sex life with his girlfriend, Theo (Nicole Beharie). As a bit of reprieve, he begins to play the virtual reality game Striking Vipers and befriends Karl (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II). Flash forward five years, and Karl and Danny begin playing a new version of Striking Vipers, one that allows the players to feel real pain, and real pleasure. After a particularly grueling game one night, the two connect on a visceral level, having sex as their characters in the game. At first, this terrifies Danny. Then he and Karl become enamored of one another, having virtual sex on a regular basis. Then the pair decide to try the real thing…
In an era of MMORPGs, virtual chat, avatars, and in which our phones are practically a cybernetic appendage, “Striking Vipers” raises real philosophical questions about the nature of sexual attraction and, for that matter, the relevance of our physical bodies. Is it enough to connect with someone on a profound emotional and psychological level? Do sexuality or gender identity even mean anything if we can change our looks and bodies with a mere keystroke?
We don’t have answers to these questions, and “Striking Vipers” doesn’t quite either–how could any TV show? Still, the provocative nature of this story probes deep enough to get us thinking. Couple that with love scenes between Mackie and Abdul-Mateen, two of the best looking men in Hollywood today, and “Striking Vipers” manages to arouse on a number of levels.
Which is fine by us. Science fiction should always arouse a sense of fantasy and imagination in the viewer. “Striking Vipers” gives us all kinds of fantasies to enjoy.
Streams on Netflix.
jarmain84
I have yet to watch Black Mirror. It never interested me, but now, I need to watch this episode.
Gadfeal
The premise of this seem a rehash of previous. “Surrogates” with Bruce Willis described a future where people hooked up to Virtual Reality interfaces controlled and felt physically what synthetic androids felt; so, the shock of a “sexy” hook up actually being controlled by an person so obese he’s chair-bound, of a completely different demographic to the “surrogate’s”. Caprica, the Matrix, even the holodeck of Star Trek are all variations on the theme of a synthetic but perceptibly “first person” world.
It was Sense8 and the Trill phenomenon in Star Trek DS9 where the “soul” of the individual was in a separate “plane of existence” to his/her corporeal form – regardless of gender. I’m always amused that so-called “idealized future human advanced civilisation” has mostly overcome racial, species and inter-planetary prejudice – BUT, until Star Trek Discovery, no integration of homosexual relationships into everyday life. So, we’ve gone from a Jewish Canadian captain, to a British-sounding French captain, to a White female captain, to a Black American captain – before we get to a time-traveling dissonantly named (“Michael” for a female), dissonantly cultured (a human ward of Vulcans), Black captain with ONE gay couple in the crew.
Even the obvious multiple episodes of previous series only “touched” the topic. In Star Trek Next Gen and Enterprise, there were episode of encountering a species with a “third gender” who was essential to procretiation (although appearing female only). In DS9, Jadzia Dax met another female who had been with Curzon Dax, and there was (Gasp!) one mouth kiss that, despite Dax’s multiple lifetimesm caused his/her/its repulsion or resistance to renewing his past. In ST Voyager, a drone would have easily been able to be open to intimacy with the same gender, and the Doctor was so stereotypically high-campt that I was floored when the plot led to him seeking female companion
THAT Steve
Rodenberry according to what I read years ago didn’t want to touch homosexual themes and it stuck. I believe it was more about profit than homophobia but the results were the same. Rick Berman continued that and almost certainly for the same reasons.
Kangol2
Great episode. Those robotic dogs Black Mirror explored in one of its most frightening episodes have been deployed by the NYPD in housing projects and are now being used on the US border.
Sister Bertha Bedderthanyu
If you have a minute go over to the washingtonpost.com and check out the suicide of Hyattsville, Md’s openly black gay mayor.
Kangol2
Hi Bertha, I did see that. It’s such a sad story. He leaves a husband and two kids. This site didn’t cover the story at all, I don’t think.