Two sides of Parental Love: Protection or Restriction

This is the personal review of "Arkangel," the second episode of the fourth series of anthology series 'Black Mirror'. 

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To describe the episode briefly, "Arkangel" is a technology that enables a parent to monitor their children. Parents can implant this technology into their children easily and control their children with a tablet. There are several functions in a tablet such as navigating location and pixelating images that would harm children psychologically. Single mother Marie implanted Arkangel into her daughter Sara. At first, it seemed effective, but Arkangel became an obstacle in Sara's life. Thus, Marie stopped using Arkangel and let Sara grow without the use of Arkangel. However, as Sara enters into adolescence, Marie becomes tempted to use Arkangel again.

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At first, I thought that the main theme of this episode is surveillance society. Even though Arkangel is an imaginary technology in the episode, modern technology will soon reach to the fictional technology appeared in SF movies and dramas. Arkangel seemed like a dangerous technology since it could be implanted to Sara without any pain or resistance. Thus, I predicted that the message what this episode is trying to convey will be the danger of surveillance technology, as other Black Mirror episodes usually address the science technologies. However, the central theme of the episode was the harmfulness of overprotection.

While watching the episode, I wondered whether my parents would implant Arkangel to me.

Even though they took a lot of care on me, I think they would not implant since they respect my autonomy.

Living as an only child, I have once compared my vitality to those of other people. While there was no significant difference, I could find myself clumsy at some activities which other people are not; I could not cook any food(except instant food), darn clothes, and recycle trash. I do not think that I was overprotected by my parent, but I definitely got much more care than other children who have siblings. Protection from parents does not necessarily affect children in a negative way. However, it is certain that as parents care their children more, children lack life experiences.

There is no perfect parenting. Every parent learns from their mistakes, and their children also develop from failures. However, after losing Sara once, Marie became obsessed to be a good mother; she thought that a good mother should always keep her eyes on her child. Her definition of protection was a restriction. However, Marie's parenting could not block Sara from negative influence; her overprotection rather weakened the discernment of Sara. I think Sara was carried away by impulse and got crooked since she has not yet met with a violent situation.

The parenting appeared in the episode can be defined as 'Helicopter Parenting'. The term, invented by Dr. Haim Ginott in his book 'Between Parent & Teenager', stands for the way of parenting in which parents oversee their children's lives all days. Helicopter parents control everything for their children and get deeply involved in children's lives. While children under helicopter parenting can have less rough experiences, they would only see the positive side of society. Thus, they lack comprehension toward society and are rather more vulnerable to bad temptation.

I think the cause of 'Helicopter Parenting' is not an individual parent's stupidity, but the society. My parents' generation has grown in the different environment with that of the present; they played in nature for all day without any parental supervision. These days, children go to kids cafe with parents. I think the difference was originated from the advent of individualism and social distrust. There are many unseen dangers lurking in the current society: the number of abduction is increasing. Since parents are anxious about society, they are being shields for their children. While children have to stand on their feet someday, parents, who think the society is still too dangerous for their children to manage, cannot let children escape from their supervision.

This episode of Black Mirror was interesting to watch and the open closure made me think of many subjects related to the story. The imaginary technique Arkangel was a fresh element that made the story more intriguing. I could think over the way how today's parents should raise their children. Due to the technological advance, there will be more tools for parents to protect and supervise children, but I think that parents should consider the potential harm of overprotection.

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Personal rating of the episode: ★★☆☆☆

Interesting topic, settings, and choreography.

However, stimulant effect used in the episode was uncomfortable, and also lacked logic.