Beyond the Black Mirror: The Mythology of the Future in Modern British Fantasy Series

Abstract

This article is devoted to the analysis of the mythology of the future and its modalities in the series "Black Mirror" as a tool of cultural orientation in the modern temporal situation. Based on the works of J. Urry, B. Bevernage, H. Lübbe, the article reveals the specifics of the modern temporal situation and current strategies for forming the image of the future. Based on the methodology of critical discourse analysis, the author analyzes three selected episodes, showing the specifics of the mythology of the future and its modalities (the upcoming future, the future of the present and the future materialized), as strategies of cultural orientation in the modern temporal situation. It was shown that the «Black Mirror» series refers to the mythology of the future, which simultaneously problematizes the future, making it the subject of satire and irony (postmodernist discourse), but at the same time normalizes images of an unstable and contigent future (metamodernist discourse). The main method of representing the future is the extrapolation of the present. The analysis of discursive strands shows that the series reproduces the idea of the future as a fragmentary, asynchronous progress of individual technologies that change interpersonal relations and the social order to varying degrees. Doing this, the series reinforces the already comprehensive sense of the contingency of what is happening, pointing not to the person’s need to choose his future actively, but to the possibility of consuming various modalities of the future, depending on the current social agenda and personal preferences.