Crocodile Tears: The Violence of White Womanhood in Netflix’s ‘Black Mirror’ Episode “Crocodile”

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kly follows him as he hides the body in the icy lake nearby. She doesn’t protect the body, call the police, or try to drag Andrew away. She does not take any steps whatsoever to try to come forward after hiding the body, or even follow up on the crime.

Flash forward to a decade later, Mia is transformed from a mousy brunette to a sophisticated blond practicing her speech for a conference she is speaking at, complete with the regulated progressive pixie cut and speech about social change.Later that evening Andrew comes to speak to her about wanting to make amends for his past wrongs now being 10 months sober. Andrew tells Mia about his plan of writing a letter to give the wife of the man they murdered some closure. He shows Mia a clipping of a publication showing that the wife still hopes for the murdered man’s return and that no one ever found him.

While Mia says she thinks that is horrible, she then provides every reason of why he should not come forward. She is clearly confused by his change of character and desire to try to atone for his actions, especially after being made to hold on to this secret for over a decade. At this point I think most people, including myself empathize with Mia. As she rages briefly about shame and grief in carrying this secret, her demeanour reveals for a second, the empathy and remorse we the audience are so desperately seeking to make sense of this character.Listen, we want Mia to be a good person because she possesses and performs all the traits our racist, colonial, and neoliberal society tells us that a “good” person should. She has used her class mobility to secure wealth, she has an elite job where she is considered a visionary architect “not just of buildings, but of communities”, while being a mother of a beautiful son. In fact her doting husband seems happy to take on the role of stay at home parent. She epitomizes the white feminist ideal. In fact I think its brilliant how adeptly these tropes are established early on as they feed into the audience’s confusion as to how to understand Mia. We are made to look at our own justifications for Mia throughout this episode.As her desperation and panic rises with Andrew’s plan, it is clear that now Mia is most concerned with the security of her own life and welfare. As she pleads with Andrew about how he would ruin her life if the anonymous letter was traced back to her, I can almost taste how much she thinks she deserves the accolades, money, success a

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nd security she has. I can hear how progressive she believes she is, she even “devotes her life to social change” and believes she is building a better future. How many white rich liberals can you imagine justify their untold violences by repeating to themselves how they are part of a solution that centres them.Mia’s knowledge of the wrongness of her crimes, nor her horror and physical sickness in the face of them do not stop her at any point. There are so many moments where she pauses, and is given by the story a chance to just come forward and face her crime. Or at least try and stop her murderous rampage. She does not. She cries, sobs, vomits; but doesn’t stop.

Why doesn’t she? So many white women in my personal life after seeing this episode seem utterly confused and disturbed — how could she do this? They find every answer except the obvious. Mia thinks she deserved to be innocent and continue her rich, white, powerful life unspoiled by consequences. I genuinely feel that she is emboldened further to murder an entire family of black and brown people not simply because Shazia discovered her wrong doings, but because she understood that this is a murder that she could get away with. Mia knows and believes deeply that in society she is worth more than Shazia and her family. Their collective humanity means far less than Mia avoiding prison and the potential loss of her own family. As Mia brutally murders Shazia she asks her to close her eyes. Even as Mia is bludgeoning a woman of colour to death, she requires that woman to ease the process. Mia clearly believes that her actions are due to circumstances out of her control, that she isn’t a bad person, and it’s all so unfortunate. Perhaps even as she finishes the call with her husband after murdering Shazia and begins driving to murder Shazia’s husband, and then baby.

Mia’s crimes are punctuated by phone calls to her unsuspecting husband as she makes plans to see her son’s play. In fact I think her performing white motherhood throughout this episode as a justification for her evils is powerful, to walk into her son’s play to see his shiny, white, monied face singing about Bugsy Malone while she herself is covered in the blood of a mixed race black and brown baby speaks volumes to me.

Who deserves consequences? Whose life matters? Whose children deserve to live? Which families? Throughout this episode Mia’s tearful expression begs the audience for forgiveness, and I do not think she deserves it.</article></body>

Crocodile Tears: The Violence of White Womanhood in Netflix’s ‘Black Mirror’ Episode “Crocodile” — Part One (SPOILERS AHEAD FOLKS SO STRAP IN)

CW: Discussion of White Supremacy, Murder, Spoilers

Last night I, like many of my Netflix obsessed peers, have been carefully binging my way through the fourth season of ‘Black Mirror’ just released on Canadian Netflix.

Crocodile is a powerful episode that raises necessary and often entirely erased questions about race, class, and gender with the focus being — white bourgeois womanhood.

In this first part of a series of articles on this episode, I am going to give a brief overview of Mia Dolan, and why she is such a horrific villain that does not deserve our sympathies. She is the epitome of entitled white womanhood and the violence that position in society supports and enacts. My focus will be on Mia’s agency and how this show cleverly manipulates the incredible amount of empathy we are all inclined to give her throughout her murderous rampage.

In part two of the series I will discuss the strength of Shazia’s character and why I think her character is important not only in relation to Mia’s icy, entitled, villainy; but also on her own. Shazia is written with complexity to reveal a realistic possible future of the realities of a working class, progressive, woman of colour. The fact that she is a mother as well speaks powerfully to her role as a mother of colour to a black baby in opposition to Mia’s role as a white mother.

Finally, in part three I will respond to articles that have been written in response to this episode. Specifically, I will criticize these authors justifications for Mia’s violence, empathize with her actions, and act as supporting players to the violent entitlement of white womanhood symbolized by Mia’s character. I will also try to speak to the erasure of the role of white supremacy in their pieces.

This episode is horrific in nature and will pump ice water into your veins as you follow the murderer, a newly wealthy white woman murdering anyone who may reveal her dark past as the accomplice to a hit and run murder. The cold, mountainous backdrop and snow parallel her icy demeanour throughout. In the first murder, her boyfriend Andrew hits a bicyclist after a night of booze, drugs, and partying. This was where Mia first aided in the cover up of him hitting a bicyclist. She protests in the beginning, but quickly follows him as he hides the body in the icy lake nearby. She doesn’t protect the body, call the police, or try to drag Andrew away. She does not take any steps whatsoever to try to come forward after hiding the body, or even follow up on the crime. Flash forward to a decade later, Mia is transformed from a mousy brunette to a sophisticated blond practicing her speech for a conference she is speaking at, complete with the regulated progressive pixie cut and speech about social change.

Later that evening Andrew comes to speak to her about wanting to make amends for his past wrongs now being 10 months sober. Andrew tells Mia about his plan of writing a letter to give the wife of the man they murdered some closure. He shows Mia a clipping of a publication showing that the wife still hopes for the murdered man’s return and that no one ever found him. While Mia says she thinks that is horrible, she then provides every reason of why he should not come forward. She is clearly confused by his change of character and desire to try to atone for his actions, especially after being made to hold on to this secret for over a decade. At this point I think most people, including myself empathize with Mia. As she rages briefly about shame and grief in carrying this secret, her demeanour reveals for a second, the empathy and remorse we the audience are so desperately seeking to make sense of this character.

Listen, we want Mia to be a good person because she possesses and performs all the traits our racist, colonial, and neoliberal society tells us that a “good” person should. She has used her class mobility to secure wealth, she has an elite job where she is considered a visionary architect “not just of buildings, but of communities”, while being a mother of a beautiful son. In fact her doting husband seems happy to take on the role of stay at home parent. She epitomizes the white feminist ideal. In fact I think its brilliant how adeptly these tropes are established early on as they feed into the audience’s confusion as to how to understand Mia. We are made to look at our own justifications for Mia throughout this episode.

As her desperation and panic rises with Andrew’s plan, it is clear that now Mia is most concerned with the security of her own life and welfare. As she pleads with Andrew about how he would ruin her life if the anonymous letter was traced back to her, I can almost taste how much she thinks she deserves the accolades, money, success and security she has. I can hear how progressive she believes she is, she even “devotes her life to social change” and believes she is building a better future. How many white rich liberals can you imagine justify their untold violences by repeating to themselves how they are part of a solution that centres them.

Mia’s knowledge of the wrongness of her crimes, nor her horror and physical sickness in the face of them do not stop her at any point. There are so many moments where she pauses, and is given by the story a chance to just come forward and face her crime. Or at least try and stop her murderous rampage. She does not. She cries, sobs, vomits; but doesn’t stop. Why doesn’t she? So many white women in my personal life after seeing this episode seem utterly confused and disturbed — how could she do this? They find every answer except the obvious. Mia thinks she deserved to be innocent and continue her rich, white, powerful life unspoiled by consequences. I genuinely feel that she is emboldened further to murder an entire family of black and brown people not simply because Shazia discovered her wrong doings, but because she understood that this is a murder that she could get away with. Mia knows and believes deeply that in society she is worth more than Shazia and her family. Their collective humanity means far less than Mia avoiding prison and the potential loss of her own family. As Mia brutally murders Shazia she asks her to close her eyes. Even as Mia is bludgeoning a woman of colour to death, she requires that woman to ease the process. Mia clearly believes that her actions are due to circumstances out of her control, that she isn’t a bad person, and it’s all so unfortunate. Perhaps even as she finishes the call with her husband after murdering Shazia and begins driving to murder Shazia’s husband, and then baby. Mia’s crimes are punctuated by phone calls to her unsuspecting husband as she makes plans to see her son’s play. In fact I think her performing white motherhood throughout this episode as a justification for her evils is powerful, to walk into her son’s play to see his shiny, white, monied face singing about Bugsy Malone while she herself is covered in the blood of a mixed race black and brown baby speaks volumes to me. Who deserves consequences? Whose life matters? Whose children deserve to live? Which families? Throughout this episode Mia’s tearful expression begs the audience for forgiveness, and I do not think she deserves it.