Black Mirror's Prime Minister/Pig Story Came True (Sort Of)

Charlie Brooker, the creator of Netflix's Black Mirror, reveals his reaction to elements of "The National Anthem" episode sort of coming true.

Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker reveals his reaction to a real-life story involving the British Prime Minister and a pig that mirrors events in the show. First airing on Netflix in 2011, Black Mirror is a science-fiction horror anthology show that explores humanity's worst instincts and their intersection with technological innovation. The show's very first episode, "The National Anthem," follows British Prime Minister Michael Callow (Rory Kinnear) as he is blackmailed into having sexual relations with a pig on live television.

Ahead of the release of Black Mirror season 6, Brooker recalls in a recent interview with Empire (print edition) his reaction to a real-life scandal in 2015 involving former British Prime Minister David Cameron. Cameron, it was rumored, had relations with a pig's head as part of a college initiation ritual. Check out Brooker's comment on the coincidence below:

"Things like the David Cameron thing felt like that. That actually sent me a bit bonkers for a short period, because I thought, ‘That can't be real! Surely that can't have happened? It's too eerily close.’ It makes you feel like you're living in a simulation."

While the real-life parallels to "The National Anthem" are certainly odd, other aspects of Black Mirror have also felt like exceedingly accurate predictions for the future. Much of this is because the show taps into real-life anxieties or trends that already exist, expanding and twisting them to tell a dark story. The dangers of social media, for example, are a prominent theme.

"Hated In The Nation" is an episode of Black Mirror that feels eerily close to real life and has only become more relevant since it first aired in 2016. The episode explores the idea of "cancel culture," with social media users using the "#Deathto" hashtag to select which "deserving" citizen should have an army of killer mechanical bees sent after them. This is not dissimilar to the way real-life figures can have their entire livelihoods destroyed when the court of public opinion turns against them.

Related: Black Mirror: The True Story Behind "Hated In The Nation" Explained

In the episode "Nosedive," similarly, the dark side of social media is explored through a story in which getting likes online has become an actual form of currency. While things aren't as extreme as they are presented in the episode, getting likes, follows, and interactions online is a status symbol that can have very real effects on a person's livelihood. The veracity of the Cameron story is certainly in question, but Black Mirror explores so many modern technology issues that it's likely more real-life coincidences are on the horizon.

Source: Empire