It’s clear Brooker has sex and gender on his mind, but by relentlessly folding both back into straight culture whenever the characters deviate from the episode’s norms defangs any statements it might make. In one scene, Karl comments that occupying a female avatar within the world of the titular VR-enhanced video game feels more profound to him than his entire life’s experience as a man, but it never comes up again. “Striking Vipers” flirts with that kind of personal discovery, but ultimately shies away from it, preferring instead to dangle the possibility of subversive statements before withdrawing into the unspoken norms of heterosexual American culture.
These experiences, as any trans or gay person who grew up online could tell you, can be life-changing. Living and interacting from behind a digital proxy affords us the opportunity to imagine other versions of ourselves, to expand our concept of the forms we could inhabit and the ways our lives could look.
Both men are frightened and compelled the episode doesn’t dig too far into why. When Daniel and Karl enter the world, their relationship quickly takes a turn for the physical.
The game has evolved since it’s button-smashing incarnations: now it’s played in a simulated virtual reality where players inhabit and feel the bodies of the characters. Without much to say about either dynamic, “Striking Vipers” relies on a sketchy script and the provocative nature of its gender-and-sexuality-blurring, sci-fi conceit to stretch maybe 11 minutes of thematic content like boardwalk taffy.Īfter drifting apart over the years, best friends Daniel and Karl reunite and bond through the Mortal Kombat-esque fighting game Striking Vipers X. On the other, it brushes lightly against the friction between the American dream - two kids, two cars, a house, a monogamous straight marriage - and queer desire. On the one hand, the installment, written by series creator Charlie Brooker, explores the blurry line between the digital self and the physical, the lives we live online, and the very real emotion they can bring into our daily existence. “Striking Vipers,” an entry in Black Mirror’s fifth season lineup, has an idea.
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