Media and Music: Longing for Connection in Black Mirror’s “San Junipero”
“San Junipero,” an episode from the Netflix show “Black Mirror” is a love letter to both youth and the desire to love and be loved. Its 1980s soundtrack interacts gracefully with the plot and complexities of the characters, revealing a more nuanced interpretation of such desire and longing.
In Media and Music, our writers take a deep dive into how movies use scores and songs to engage viewers, give new meaning and tone to some of our favorite scenes, and establish themes. It almost goes without saying, but there are spoilers abound.
Written by Natalie Weinberg
Photos by Netflix
Released in October of 2016, “San Junipero” is the fourth episode of the third season of the anthology show “Black Mirror.” If you’re not already familiar, the show explores different themes through a dystopian lens by hyperbolically showing how technology could impact our lives in the near future, or how it is currently impacting our lives in different contexts, from political commentary to mother-daughter relationships. Written by Charlie Brooker and directed by Owen Harris, “San Junipero” discusses love, more specifically the desire and longing to love and be loved.
Set in the beach town of San Junipero, this episode tells the story of the shy and introverted Yorkie, who goes into a nightclub and meets the charming and outgoing Kelly. Captivated by Kelly, Yorkie falls in love with her and, in time, so too does Kelly with Yorkie.
An uneasiness lies within the characters and the town itself. The reason for it is hinted at, but not fully explained, until over halfway through the episode: San Junipero is a simulated reality. Elderly people that are going to die can visit San Junipero — which is what both Yorkie and Kelly both do — so that they can decide whether they want to be “uploaded” to the cloud and live in San Junipero’s simulation forever. A tool that is used in this episode to explore San Junipero’s simulated world and the people experiencing it is the music. The music in this episode was carefully and cleverly chosen so that one can understand that San Junipero symbolizes the need for human connection and love.
The nightclub Tucker’s, where Kelly and Yorkie first meet, plays a significant role in the episode as it explains which decade the characters find themselves in to the viewer, and it also manages to give us a hint regarding the residents’ feelings and the message of the episode. Much of the story takes place in the 1980s — in San Junipero you can jump through different decades, in order to experience the different eras — and American and British ’80s pop music blasts in the background while people are dancing on the dancefloor. The first time Yorkie enters Tucker’s, Robbie Nevil’s “C’est La Vie” is playing. As everyone dances to it, she shyly walks around the nightclub observing the people and the place. “C’est La Vie” conveys the dullness and loneliness of life on Earth, as the narrator presents us with a dull scenario of “Working night and day / Punching in, punching out” and wondering “Is this really what life’s all about?” San Junipero’s goal, on the other hand, is for people to have fun and forget about the tiresome, monotonous, and lonely life that reality provides. All in all, Nevil’s one hit wonder is a poignant symbol of San Junipero’s existence, perfectly encapsulating its residents’ feelings.
“C’est La Vie” further explores the sadness that comes with being alone as Nevil asks “Are you sad because you’re on your own?” Right before Yorkie enters Tucker’s, Kelly and a man named Wes enter the nightclub. Wes seems to have fallen in love with Kelly after having sex with her the week before that, but she does not want to be with him. One would think that San Junipero, a virtual world designed to be a party town by the beach, would be the perfect place to not feel alone. But even in this digital fairytale, Wes is alone, making the viewer question whether it is possible to escape loneliness.
As the story progresses, Yorkie and Kelly ultimately find each other, and even end up living together happily ever after in San Junipero. However, how real can their love be, when it was found in a simulated reality? The first time they dance together on the dancefloor is to Alexander O’Neil’s “Fake.” The song’s title hints at the idea that these characters are not actual people, but imitations living in “the cloud.” There is a contrast between the funkiness and the lyrics of the song, as, although Yorkie and Kelly dance close to one another, O’Neal sings that “ You’re a fake, baby / You can’t conceal it... I’ve blown your cover.” The lyrics also reflect Kelly and Yorkie, who seem to be enjoying living and getting to know each other in a simulated reality. Although Kelly and Yorkie are not lying to each other, they are living in a simulated reality and only as the episode progresses to they get to know the real person behind the San Junipero resident. There is a heavily syncopated beat, with a strong emphasis on the drums and a synthesizer that, when combined, create an infectious funk to the song. This sensation deceives the viewer because one is watching them blissfully dance, and not necessarily focusing on the lyrics. The contrast of the groove of the song and the lyrics highlighting that they are “a fake” suggests that their connection therefore is not real, despite the characters themselves thinking otherwise.
The music used in this episode emphasizes the penetrating theme of the episode — the need and longing to find love. When Yorkie gets dressed to go to Tucker’s after having already met Kelly, she listens to different songs while getting ready, one of them being The Smiths’ “Girlfriend in a Coma.” The song is very relaxing, with its smooth and nonchalant vocals telling the story of a narrator whose girlfriend is in a coma and is about to die: “Let me whisper my last goodbyes / I know, it’s serious.” The use of the song is very apt here, as, unbeknownst to the viewer yet, Yorkie has been in a coma for forty years, and she is going to die of euthanasia by the end of the episode. In fact, that’s the whole reason she is in the virtual world of San Junipero — she wants to feel alive and reinvent herself. Earlier in the episode, Yorkie tells Kelly that the glasses she is wearing don’t actually do anything, but are comforting to her. While listening to The Smiths, Yorkie takes her glasses off and changes to another song, hinting at her desire to become someone else in San Junipero. As Kelly states when they are looking at the people dancing on the dancefloor at the nightclub: “People try so hard to look how they think they should look.”
Although physically in San Junipero they are young, in their minds, the residents are still elderly people. They yearn to be young again, because that is when they can reinvent themselves. Another one of the songs that plays alongside Yorkie, Simple Minds’ “Don’t You (Forget About Me),” echoes this theme. Its opening verse asks “won’t you come see about me?”, and the narrator invites the listener to come dance with them as they will “be alone”. As she is getting ready, she is keeping in mind that she wants Kelly to notice her at Tucker’s, reinventing herself in order to do so.
Simple Minds’ iconic ’80s single is soon followed by T’Pau’s captivating “Heart and Soul,” creating an implication of questioning whether one can have truly a heart and soul in a simulated reality. This song strongly represents the longing for love, with a sensuality that permeates the track. From the opening of the song, where drums powerfully take over the rest of the instruments, and the vocalists almost whisper “[Something in the moonlight catches my eye / The shadow of a lover goes dancing by.” The listener can feel the craving for attention and the thirst for love in the journey T’Pau takes us through this moving tune as they pronounce that “Now I want your love, heart and soul.”
Although Yorkie tries to find clothes that would help her fit in with the other San Juniperians, she ends up deciding to wear her typical outfit (she even puts her glasses back on). As she looks at herself in the mirror, confident with her choice of clothes, Sananda Maitreya's timeless “Wishing Well” plays in the background. Unlike with previous songs, there is an easiness to this track that reflects Yorkie’s reaffirmed confidence in her body, as she wears own clothes. Everyone in San Junipero is trying to be someone they are not while Yorkie is being her true self, which Kelly finds refreshing. Her longing for the authentic Yorkie is reflected in the lyrics of “Wishing Well:” “Slowly but surely / Your appetite is more than I knew / Sweetly, softly / I’m falling in love with you.”
Although throughout the episode we are unsure of what will happen between Kelly and Yorkie, the songs in “San Junipero” are specifically curated to let the viewer know that Kelly and Yorkie will end up together. The songs of the different eras place the viewer in the specific environment the characters find themselves in, and it is through those songs that they bond: from O’Neil’s “Fake,” which is the first song they dance to, to The Smiths’ “Girlfriend in a Coma” which quite literally foreshadows their relationship (Yorkie being the girlfriend in a coma) to the questioning of whether one can truly love in a simulated reality through T’Pau’s “Heart and Soul." The music reflects that their love, real or not, ultimately triumphs.