15 million merits

Fifteen Million Merits

The episode “15 Million Merits”, is about a man named Bing who lives in a society where all anyone does is cycle on exercise bikes to keep the power going and gain money. He meets a girl and pushes her to try out for a singing competition, and when that does not go as planned he tries to get everyone to “listen” so they can change the society. In the show they used many non-narrative symbols like color to have them focus on certain things like the t.v screen and their work. In the society the workers only wore grey except the ones who made it to the slots and the ones they call “lemons” which I believe are the minority. The lemons are mainly overweight people who can not make their money because they are out of shape. Where they were cycling they had a television in front of them as if they were forced to only look forward, which many of them did.

The society in “15 Million Merits” is a dystopian society being that every day it is the same thing and Bing got tired of it. When they went to audition they were given a drink called compliance and I am going to say it was to keep them in line. The music in the beginning of “15 Million Merits” while Bing is walking to his cycle is talking about having a dream and being free, which to me is his thoughts of wanting out of that society. I took this episode as how we as a society today are doing what we have to do just to get by. Bing has to cycle and can not skip certain things because he’ll lose money and if we take off from work we will also lose money. We are constantly doing the same thing every week whether it is work or school just like in the show. How although we are allowed to not do anything we will not be able to survive that way.