Your PEAR Paragraph Should:
Based on “San Junipero”, a multiple Emmy award-winning episode from season 3 of the science fiction series, Black Mirror.
Director: Owen Harris is drawing the audience’s attention to the way we consciously or unconsciously perform our identities.
Watch: “San Junipero” (Black Mirror, Season 3, Episode 4, 2016)
Rewatch: the scene when Kelly and Yorkie meet (from about the 4 to 9 minute mark), in light of the revelations at the end of the episode
1. Be about 195-250 words (a few more or less is fine, but that’s a general guideline for this style of essay).
2. Begin with a specific point about how director Owen Harris draws the audience’s attention to the way we consciously or unconsciously perform our identities in “San Junipero”. Use signal phrases, as you practiced last week!
3. Provide evidence in the form of a scene that illustrates this point,
4. Analyze that scene to demonstrate how it illustrates your point. Analysis should always be the longest part of your PEAR paragraph.
5. Conclude with a reminder.
“Help
If you’re struggling to get started, he’s a brief recap regarding authenticity and performativity in the episode:
As Kelly said, others look like something they’ve seen on tv or in movies, but Yorkie is authentically herself—and ironically stands out for it in an 80s bar. The others are elderly people (or even deceased people) living out their memories of their youth in a virtual world made to simulate that time period, and over the years those memories have largely come to be replaced by stereotypical media depictions of the era, but Yorkie has been in a coma since the 80s, so she hasn’t experienced any of that, and is just continuing on her life 40 years later, with the virtual world feeling more real than her real life. She looks and acts more like ordinary people did in the 80s. This even extends to her fears of homophobia, which are much more firmly entrenched in the 80 than this near-future world.
Regarding the scene in which Yorkie is playing with a tape deck while trying on different outfits:
One thing younger viewers don’t realize unless they’re big 80s fans is that in that scene every image she tries is actually mimicking a popular album cover or movie scene from the 80s (for instance, when her hair is pulled back tightly she’s Boy George in Culture Club)—in other words she’s kind of trying to perform a media-created memory of the 80s like the others in the bar are. “
Topics to Consider:
1. In what ways might people in Tucker’s just be performing a false memory of an era?
2. Why does Kelly call Yorkie “authentically you?” (I’m looking for an actual plot-based explanation here, so please don’t respond to this question by only describing what about her is authentic. Think about how her unique situation impacts her relationship to that era differently than it might for most of the visitors or residents.)
3. What’s the significance of the store Yorkie always passes on her way into Tucker’s, and how does it set the stage for each era?
4. Why does Yorkie remove her glasses at the end, and how might that connect to her finally embracing her sexuality?
5. What do you think The Quagmire represents?
6. The episode begins and ends with the same Belinda Carlisle 80s tune. Why is this song significant?
7. What’s going on with nostalgia in this story??
8. What does Kelly mean when she says people are dressed like something they saw in a movie? How does our interpretation of that line change after viewing the rest of the episode and coming to understand that San Junipero is a (SPOILER ALERT!) virtual world?