Watch Bird Box in quarantine

The argument

Sometimes when you're feeling down, you can derive a sick sense of satisfaction knowing that other people have it worse than you. During this year, it's particularly easy to get bummed out. Tuning in to the news, we hear upsetting reports on the COVID-19 pandemic, police brutality protests, and political unrest-not to mention murder hornets. While you might be tempted to use Netflix as a form of escapism, by turning on Bird Box, you can choose the schadenfreude route. Though Bird Box may initially seem like a typical apocalypse film, it combines survivalist tropes with horror, making for a uniquely unsettling movie. The bleak world of Birdbox has been taken over by cryptic forces (monsters? Aliens? Ghosts? Hallucinatory drugs? Theories abound, but the nature of the beast is never explicitly revealed.) When you lay eyes on one of the monsters, you die-but not before you go insane and try to make everyone else look at it, too. While a woman and her two young children seek sanctuary in this world, they are met with dangers that far outweigh the troubles that concern us here in 2020. We might have to wear face masks when we leave the house, but hey, at least we can leave the blindfolds at home for now.

Context

A post-apocalyptic horror film that premiered in December 2018, Bird Box attracted attention from Netflix watchers and critics alike.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Why watch such a disturbing movie when the real world is already so troubling? Now is not the time for thrillers, Instead, take a break from the anxiety, and watch something calming. Bob Ross is still on Netflix, right? Besides, though the movie was popular after its release, it quickly faded into obscurity and earned scathingly negative reviews, with critics pointing out its poor pacing, shoddy character development, and the dissatisfying ending. Though it was all the rage for a short while, the movie isn't worth the hype.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Schadenfreude is offered as the mechanism with no reason to think it works — fiction about people who have it worse is at least as likely to raise anxiety as to relieve it, which is the counter's point. The premise also concedes that most viewers would reach for escapism, then recommends the opposite without saying why the minority taste should settle the question. [Rejecting P2] Being unsettling is a description, not a recommendation, and the question asks for the best thing to watch. Nothing is said about the film's quality, and the counter's objection — poor critical reception on pacing, character and ending — goes unanswered, leaving the case resting on a comparison between a fictional catastrophe and a real one.