pov: ur queer with extra steps
A Striking Vipers review by Trinh Pham.
“I fucked a polar bear and I still couldn’t get you out of my mind.”
Yeah, that’s pretty intense. It isn’t necessarily the typical ‘I care about you’ or ‘I still love you’ message we commonly hear, but it is a powerful statement.
This was a line said by the character Karl from Black Mirror’s ‘Striking Vipers.’ Black Mirror is a show that tackles the implications of advanced technology and the people who interact with it. In this particular episode, Black Mirror takes a shot at challenging the broad spectrum of queer identities. The public response to ‘Striking Vipers’ was very mixed. Some were upset with the stereotypes and stigmatization that ‘Striking Vipers’ represented on screen, the ‘queerbaiting’, or even the failure to fully represent queer, black bodies. Others argue that the usage of stereotypes does not have to be harmful, that Black Mirror’s ‘Striking Vipers’ utilizes stereotypes to provide an exploration of the correlation between black masculinity and sexuality. This representation opens conversations to these stereotypes surrounding queer (specifically black) men.
‘Striking Vipers’ takes on the story of two estranged, college best friends, Anthony Mackie’s ‘Daniel’ and Yahya Abdul-Mateen’s ‘Karl’, who share a heavy bond over a Mortal Kombat-esque game called Striking Vipers. They reunite at Daniel’s birthday party, where Karl gifts Daniel Striking Vipers X. The game had evolved from a controller, button smashing street fighter into a stimulated, hyper-realistic, virtual reality where the players inhabit their avatars. The players inhabit all sensations of their avatar and can behave freely within game realms. After selecting their avatars, the two enter the world and act on desires that will ultimately change the dynamic of their relationship. Initially, they played the game as it was intended to be played, virtually fighting each other as their chosen avatars. However, their virtual interactions quickly escalated into an erotic entanglement.
Reminiscent of old times and old habits, the two always select the same avatars as before. Daniel selects a karate master named Lance as his fighter while Karl takes on Roxette, a ninja. Their first fight places them in the typical, back and forth, horizontal view of street fighters. However, it only takes them a few rounds to realize the true potential of their existence in the game. In their final round of the match, they begin to wrestle and roll around, trying to pin one another down. The interaction ends with Roxette (Karl) on top of Lance (Daniel). Roxette leans down to kiss Lance. Lance freaks out, pushes Roxette off of him and the match ends with them shouting “Exit game!”
Let’s go back to the point where they realize they can move freely. A street-fighter-type-game may not be the what most people think of when they think of queer representation in a game. But, “video games offer opportunities for resistance,” (Ruberg & Phillips, 2018) and the ability to be whoever and do whatever, even if it goes against the intended purpose of the game, might be the biggest resistant punch in the face. Rather than fighting, they take this virtual opportunity to explore their sexual identity and desires.
“Black queer youth are often criminalized when they attempt to express themselves,” (Hutchinson, 2017) making it difficult for them to fully experiment and explore their identity. “In African American community, studies have shown that specifically gay men struggle for acceptance,” (Doiron & Marsigliano, 2020) only furthering their reluctance to explore and express themselves. Daniel and Karl are both black men who have different experiences in adulthood. Daniel is a suburban father with a wife, son, and a beautiful yard for his kid to play in. Karl lives in the city with his label and is known to be quite the bachelor. While their first virtual kiss interaction may have ended in confusion and a sense of discomfort, it was only the beginning. Before you know it, they consistently get on the game to have virtual sexual intercourse with one another. One night, Karl hits Daniel with an ‘I love you’ as they are having sex, taking Daniel with absolute shock and frustration. He doesn’t know how to handle the intimacy and it shocks him back into his reality where he cannot be intimate with another man.
At the end of the day, their similarities are as stated: black men who engage in virtual sex while having women in their non-virtual, ‘real’ lives. Except, being in a virtual reality game is the only place that feels ‘real’ to them. A place where they get to keep their sensations, their feelings, where they get to live and act out all their desires without the consequences of a label or definition of their sexual identity, expression, or fluidity is what they need to feel ‘real.’
Fluidity was a special mention and a strong argument for Karl, who as a black man, chooses to play and have sex as Roxette, an Asian woman. He has been using her since the game was on controller and console, but how far do loyalties go with your main avatar when it comes to having sex as them? He could easily choose to play as a man, but he instead sticks to a woman. He even goes as far as describing how it feels to be a woman during sex:
“It’s crazy. I mean, it’s different. Like… the physical feeling of it? It’s more sort of… satisfying. I can’t really explain it. Like one’s a guitar solo, the other’s a whole fucking orchestra.” (32:50).
Playing as a woman allowed Karl to experience the sensations that he was unaware of as a man. It allowed him to explore the fluidity of his sex and gender, something he wasn’t able to do comfortably in his real life. But the consistency of their sexual engagements did more than allowed them to experiment and explore. It heavily represented the linkage between black men and hypersexuality. Sexual socialization is ubiquitous to the human experience, but due to historical oppression and marginalization, “black men continue to be perceived as animalistic, predatory, hypersexual beasts,” (Lipscomb, p. 22). Black men internalize these historical contexts and manifest it into their everyday behavior, minimalizing themselves to sexual beasts. Daniel and Karl both have women in their lives and yet their virtual sex is so captivating, it distracts them from their real lives and partners. They are both quick to dismiss their loyalties in exchange for ‘a fucking orchestra.’
But inevitably, these two men had to confront their actions. After one of their sexual exchanges, Karl says, “Guess that’s us gay now,” to which Danny looks over at him in discomfort and awkwardness. This is the direct result of black men being deprived of the ability to safely explore their sexuality, burying all desires that go against heterosexual norms. To lighten the mood, Karl then says that it’s a joke. Daniel responds with, “it don’t feel like a gay thing.”
Daniel and Karl reproach the ‘gay’ aspect of their relationship another time. This time, Daniel tells Karl to meet him at an old nightclub they used to frequent. There, the two kiss to figure out whether they are gay or even just attracted to one another. After they kiss, they look at each other with sorrow and agree that they don’t feel anything. Even then, Karl argues that there is something there, that their experience is different in the game. This causes Daniel to get angry. The ‘man box’ that defines many black men are forced upon limitations that “... require them to act hard, emotionless and aggressive in order to avoid being singled out as different.” (Hutchinson, 2017). Not wanting to fall into the same cycle of being caught up in sex while also confused by his sexuality, Daniel breaks out into a violent fit.
I made my initial argument about Black Mirror’s ‘Striking Vipers’ ability to open up conversations through the usage of stereotypes as being a good thing. I made this argument as a bisexual Asian woman, excited to see on screen representation of queer people of color. I made this argument as an enjoyer, as someone who wanted to be happy about a gay story in one of the most popular Netflix originals. But I also have to make an acknowledgement to the issues of this representation.
'Striking Vipers' ends with Daniel telling his wife about what he and Karl had been doing. She accepts it and allows him to continue doing this, but only on his birthday. In a way, this feeds into the negativity of emotionless black men who participate in casual sex without the intimacy and strings attached. I also want to make note of the fact that their one kiss in the rain is the only intimate the two characters, as black men, had in this episode. All other forms of sexual intimacy were carried out by their avatars who were in a hetero presenting relationship. The reluctance to show sexual intimacy between two black men suggests queer acceptance remains limited, that even if you get representation, it will never be enough.
Despite all its flaws in representation, Black Mirror’s Striking Viper is still an incredible story of two black men using what they’ve got to figure themselves out. Stereotypes will always be harmful, it is only a matter of how you use them.
References
Brooker, C. (2019, June 5). Striking Vipers. Black Mirror. episode.
Doiron, A., & Marsigliano, J. (2020, July 24). Black and gay in america: How A 'subset' of men struggle for acceptance. Williamsburg Yorktown Daily. Retrieved November 3, 2022, from https://wydaily.com/news/local/2020/06/26/black-and-gay-in-america-how-a-subset-of-men-struggle-for-acceptance/
Hutchinson, S. (2017, March 6). Moonlight, black boy and teachable moments. Moonlight, Black Boy and Teachable Moments – The Feminist Wire. Retrieved November 3, 2022, from https://www.thefeministwire.com/2017/03/moonlight-black-boy-teachable-moments/
Lipscomb, A. (2019). Sexual healing: How racialized black males use sex to cope with stress ... Retrieved November 4, 2022, from https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4134&context=jssw
Ruberg, B., & Phillips, A. (2018, December). Game studies. Game Studies - Special Issue -- Queerness and Video GamesNot Gay as in Happy: Queer Resistance and Video Games (Introduction). Retrieved November 3, 2022, from http://gamestudies.org/1803/articles/phillips_ruberg