Mendez

Pablo Mendez
Professor Collins
ENGL 113A
29 October 2015
Alternative Perspective
Today it doesnt take much to insult a person for the littlest thing. Yes we all have
feelings and what not but society has changed in the past couple of years due to the media and
how they portray things such as, being realistic, saying the truth about subject or individual, and
how in this day of age every one gets offended off the littlest things. Such in this episode The
Entire History of You would be considered to offensive because of the supposed rape/abuse
scenario that occurred. In Black Mirror episode three The Entire History of You is a very
interesting. Much happens in this episode, suspicious activity happens during dinnertime. Jonas
speaks very openly of his personal life and how he masturbates to previous relations he has
with women by replaying them by using the Grain a device that allows you to replay past events
youve heard and saw on a projector. Ffion laughs at the stories Jonas is telling. Liam finds this
suspicious and asks Ffion what was the matter with her. She admits to have a previous
relationship with Jonas many years ago. This infuriates Liam as he drives to Jonas house
threating to delete all the memories he has had with her. While doing this Liam sees a memory
from not that long ago of his wife and Jonas having sexual relations without a condom. This is
where it becomes heated, this leads to Liam trying to forcibly make her replay and to say if the
child they conceived in actually it is his.
How Ffion was portrayed in this scene was as if she was being abused, emotionally
abused, and her personal autonomy taken from her. This scene of the episode mostly focuses
on Ffion being the victim from Liam being an abusive man. Not only was Ffion going through
emotional abuse so was Liam. Liam not having closure when he figured out his wife cheated on
him on top of that Liams child might not even be his child. This caused Liams abusive

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behavior. But cant we say so was Liam being abusive mentally up until the whole scene in the
bedroom with his cheating wife. Cheating on a significant other is never right. Neither is abusing
your partner for anything in any circumstance.
How would this whole scenario be if the story was flipped around? To the man cheating
on his wife and the wife discovering how his husband has cheated on her, how would that be
played out? It would be a typical story of how the wife would yell at the husband for doing such
an unmoral deed. Yet this isnt a normal thing to experience social media has made it seem like
it is ok for a woman to treat a man bad if something he has done wasnt right. Our society and
especially our biggest source of informational lies the news make us think and shape our
mindsets to how a particular thing are when in actuality they are not. Males are seen as barbaric
abusers who have a short temper and talk down to women. Females are seen as precious
gentle things that cannot be toyed with. This is not the case for either sides. Based on what we
see today we always see males as the more powerful intelligent being compared to our counter
part females. Also that we tend to become more violent and more hostile when we are frustrated
and mad. As for the females we see them as damsels in distress seeking help where they cant
help them selves. Also they are known to be the more passive supportive type.
We are all people no matter what our genitalia may be. We have emotions, feelings, and
believes on what is right and wrong to us. There is a moral balance to the sense that there is
now a limit to what we can say to each other. I say there is a limit to what we can say because
of how easily offended one can get for simply stating the truth or express their opinions on what
the other believes is right and wrong. People are easily insulted there will never be an equal
balance for anyone. One thing we can all achieve is moral rights. In commercials to movies
especially in comical sense it is right for females to hit women. Also when simply when the man
does something wrong in the womans eye it is ok to hit him. We have developed these ideas
and views based on what we see daily. What makes it ok for a women to hit or abuse a man
but not okay for a man to be abusing or hitting a women? Many would say because the man is

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more powerful than women it is accepted for a woman to hit a man but that is not true. Our
mental moral rights tell us that its not right to hit anyone. In todays culture it is alright for a
woman to hit a man because males are the supposed stronger being.
An experience I had is when I went to go watch Wolf of Wall Street. Theres a scene
where the main protagonist is having an affair with another women. He is then eventually caught
and the wife started to beat, yell, and demanding answers being verbally abusive. Groups of
girls in the theater were cheering on as this woman was doing these things to the cheating
husband. I thought to myself what if it was the man doing the same exact things to the women
would the group of females cheer or just criticize that man for being abusive? Men are always
seen as targets in movies as if we are some expendable thing that you can just beat up and in
todays culture its always the female protagonist killing or beating up the men as if it was
nothing. Though it isnt saying verbally that it is alright to hit each a man if they are doing
something bad. It is a subliminal message as the viewers see it and see it as if it was ok to hit a
man if they are doing a wrong act.

In Black Mirror we see how Ffiam is curled up crying on how Liam is treating her. Yelling,
demanding, being physical but not in the sense of hitting her. Though he did physically beat
Jonas to gather the information and forcibly but not physically to his wife to find out the truth to
see if she had have cheated on him, he was no longer in control of his emotions at this point.
Many would say that Liam was being abusive but in my eyes I just see how important it was to
him to find out the truth about his wife and to know if the child was his or not. He had so much
emotion built up from what she has done to him and kept as a secret from him. There was no
way for him to mentally coop with what he was feeling rather than a burst of emotions being
targeted towards Ffiam. How he handled the situation was wrong but calling him an abuser or
being domestically violent no.

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We all have our tendency to lose our temper beyond our control it has happened to all of
us. But it should never lead to violence. What Liam did to his wife was not violent but rather just
demanding answers for the secrets his wife has kept from him. But the build up of emotions and
what is happening at the moment is a great amount of stress with confused emotions. There will
never be no right answer to this scene or problem there will never be a balance between the
sexes. All we can do now is respect each other and take some time to think before our actions
do that for us.