YMMV / Black Mirror: The National Anthem

Black Mirror YMMVSeries OneThe National Anthem — Fifteen Million Merits — The Entire History of You

• Alternate Aesop Interpretation:
  • The episode has a subtle anti-monarchist message. The plot of the episode could basically not have happened without a statutorily privileged family; where a purely private matter – the abduction of a family member – becomes a state matter. Even if a family member of the Prime Minister were abducted, the public would likely not be as emotionally attached as with the princess, nor would a member of the royal family be expected to debase themselves on television as Callow is expected to.
  • Similarly, the people are as disgusted and offended at the demand as anybody would be.. at first. It's not until Callow's office tries to pull a fast one on the kidnapper, and by extension, the entire country. After thousands of years of the concept of "high office" being built on the idea of one man's station being higher than another, for Callow's office to hire a porn star to fuck a pig and pass it off as the prime minister is making the clear statement that the office of the Prime Minister is not above these demands, they'll just pay someone lower to do their dirty work and lie about it. Of course the common man loses sympathy for him, the only thing Callow is expected to maintain is the dignity of his office.
• Audience-Alienating Premise: A man is ordered to have sex with a pig, on camera, in order to save someone else and goes through with it. It is often recommended that first-time viewers not start with this episode due to the extreme and disturbing subject matter, which speaks volumes for a show as full of creepy moments as Black Mirror.
• Heartwarming Moments: As bleak and upsetting as the rest of the episode is, the fact that the populace goes from braying schadenfreude to genuine horror and sympathy for Callow once they watch him actually having sex with the pig suggests that there may be some humanity left in us yet. Just about the only positive for Callow by the end of the episode is that his approval rating has skyrocketed.
  • It's a very charitable reading, but the whole episode can be taken as a testament to just how far someone will go to save a human life.
  • Also under small victories: the pig seems to be just fine throughout the whole affair. Having been drugged beforehand so it doesn't freak out during the act, it spends the proceedings happily munching away at food, oblivious to Callow's degradation. No mention is made of what happens to the pig afterwards though...
  • Tom Blice tries to give Callow some comfort, saying the public won't hold it against him if he can't go through, and Susannah's death won't be on his hands, prompting Callow to give him a grateful pat on the arm. Too bad he's later proven wrong.
  • A couple and a police officer find Susannah when she was released early, meaning not everybody in Britain was watching the indecent broadcast.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Hilarity ensued when, in 2015, a book alleged that then-Prime Minister David Cameron had "put his private parts in a dead pig's mouth" as part of his initiation into a drinking society at Oxford University. Charlie Brooker took to Twitter to comment:
  Brooker: Shit. Turns out Black Mirror is a documentary series.
• It Was His Sled: Callow ultimately complies with the demand. Made worse by the above 2015 incident.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Jane Callow receives far more disdain The Kidnapper. Due to how cold and unsympathetic she is to her husband's blight throughout the episode.
• Nausea Fuel:
  • Callow isn't actually shown performing the act, but there is a brief shot of him kneeling behind the pig, and later another of his agonized face as he goes about it. Both are enough to make the viewer's stomach distinctly uneasy
    • The set-up isn't any less nauseating just because of all the ways the office tries to "improve" the situation. They give Callow a male enhancement drug so that he'll be able to perform at all and put up porn images to help distract him from the bestiality, but since it's set up for live broadcast, it's two identical, static, R-rated images at eye-level. Then we have the aforementioned face shot as he struggles, for an hour, to complete the challenge.
    • It's possible to read the requirements of the performance as specified by the kidnapper despite the blurred text in addition to the shennanigans-proof camerawork demands, regarding the type of intercourse (anal or vaginal or both, he's not picky) and how much of the broadcast is to be close-ups of the important action (at least 25%).
  • Also, Callow vomiting painfully into a toilet immediately afterwards. Though the act itself is a Vomit Discretion Shot, the bile and drool continues to dribble down his chin afterwards as he weeps. It isn't pretty.
• Squick: The Prime Minister is forced to have sex with a pig in exchange for the princess' life.
• Tear Jerker: Callow ends up undergoing what is effectively rape to save the princess. His wife is completely unsympathetic to his trauma afterwards and now refuses to speak to him in private.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Jane Callow. She becomes a coldhearted bitch because she's more terrified of her reputation being destroyed than of her husband's wellbeing, blames him for everything even though the situation was out of his control and is completely cold to him despite his trauma from undergoing what is pretty much rape.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: All the preparation that went into the "porking" and they didn't even bother to give him a condom. Jane might not be a ball of sunshine about the whole miserable affair and it may be unreasonable for her to demand her husband prioritize their relationship over national security, but her primary objection comes after reading a comment about "bacon juice" on her husband's penis and being the next pig he has sex with. When it comes down to do the deed, he calls attention to her and doesn't use protection. After all the attempts to cheat it, after the pills and the porn, he had one gesture he could have made to show he wouldn't sacrifice their marriage for the drooling masses, and instead, he uses it to gain audience sympathy for this unforgivably disgusting thing he knows will kill their sex life, if not their entire marriage.
• The Woobie: Michael Callow is this crossed with a Butt-Monkey. Poor guy.

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