Black Rabbit (Netflix series)

The phrase “Black Rabbit” first entered popular culture through Richard Adams’ 1972 fantasy novel Watership Down. In it, a small group of rabbits is portrayed anthropomorphically, complete with their own culture, language, and mythology. The Black Rabbit of Inlé serves as a grim reaper figure, arriving when a rabbit’s time has come to guide them from life to peace. He is a servant of Lord Frith, a sun-god who, according to rabbit mythology, created the world. Since then, “Black Rabbit” has come to symbolize the confrontation with darkness, the shadow self, and transformation. The Netflix show Black Rabbit seems to embody this concept as a reflection of contemporary America’s shadow self.

There’s something peculiar about time in the show, hinted at by the identical watches given to brothers Jake and Vince by their father. In the first episode, a robber wrestles Jake for his watch, and Vince’s watch is stolen early on. The narrative is riddled with anachronisms: cheques and cash instead of crypto; underground casinos rather than online gambling; heroin instead of fentanyl. Nostalgia permeates the story—cassette tapes, photographs, and memories of the past. The timeline is ambiguous, but what’s clear is that the brothers are trapped in the same nightmare as their parents’ generation: poverty, violence, infidelity, intoxication, and addiction repeat across generations. The shadow self is symbolically killed—by a falling bowling ball and a plunge from a building—leading to Jake’s supposed rebirth. Yet, there’s something eerie and artificial about it. In the final scene, we realize this “new life” is counterfeit, dressed up as noble but merely echoing his father’s footsteps as a bar owner.

They say the truth will set you free—a phrase that traces back to Jesus. The truth here is that contemporary America is ensnared in a generational curse. Each generation attempts to escape it, only to find itself back in the same pit. It’s like trying to get clean by rubbing mud all over oneself. Black Rabbit evokes The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky, another tale of brothers killing their father. But Dostoyevsky included a third brother—a priest—who represented goodness and purity. In Black Rabbit, there is no such figure. America, it seems, denounced God long ago. Jake and Vince cry out to God and Jesus Christ—not in prayer, but in despair and profanity, with their backs to Him. Society is too proud to turn to God, yet too broken not to cry out.

The absurdity is evident early on when jewelry is transacted at the Black Rabbit. Jewelry—metal and stones with no practical use—commands absurd prices. Other illusions follow: artwork, gourmet hotdog, interior décor, media, dance, sports—the list goes on. Vince may call himself a former addict, but the culture around him is addicted to distraction, numbing discomfort with spectacle. The final montage, supposedly showing fresh starts, reveals characters repeating the same patterns. Jake’s new role as a bartender in a fancy bar is laughable—it’s no different in substance from a street-corner dealer. The setting may be polished, but the function remains the same. It’s reminiscent of Tony twirling in the kitchen while the restaurant is about to be sold to the mafia or its owner killed.

I’ve come to believe that cultural artifacts like this show, regardless of the creators’ intentions, reflect the spiritual state of society. I’m unsure whether the show intentionally ends with no real change. After The Brothers Karamazov, Russia experienced a revolution led by the Bolsheviks, whose anti-religious campaigns led to widespread violence against Christians—almost as if the novel’s patricide foreshadowed reality. I don’t foresee such upheaval in America; the “Father” was killed long ago, as Black Rabbit suggests.

Emanuel Swedenborg, an 18th-century scientist and mystic, wrote about his visions of heaven and hell. He argued that we cannot truly know good and evil unless we define good as what is good in God’s sight, and evil as sin because God is the source and definition of goodness. Turning away from evil is inherently good but only if we recognize evil as sin. Otherwise, we merely hide it from public view. This idea resonated with me while watching Black Rabbit, which presents a world where no one knows what is good or bad. Laws exist but are routinely broken by shadowy organizations. Social expectations and cultural norms are stacked like a house of cards. We see this confusion when Jake and Roxie argue over Jake’s treatment of Anna—he acted as an employer, Roxie expected friendship. We see hypocrisy when Gen mocks Vince for his drug addiction while she routinely indulges in alcohol and weed. We see warped justice when Anna receives financial compensation while Jules, the rapist, remains free.

Much of today’s world suffers from this same lack of clarity in good and evil—whether due to cultural relativism or political ideology. This is the spiritual damnation, the generational curse we face. We go in circles, each generation slightly different but fundamentally the same—like the latest model of a smartphone. 

I See Satan Fall Like Lightning (book)

Humanity tends to scapegoat individuals or groups to water the thirst for collective violence or to resolve tensions and angst. The scapegoating mechanism is at the heart of the Western canon: both Socrates and Jesus were put to death to appease the inflamed crowd. According to French American thinker René Girard, these are extreme, archetypal versions of a phenomena that plays out in lesser forms throughout human life.

Girard sits at the crossroads of various traditions but is uniquely brilliant when discussing the role collective violence has in human communities. At the heart of Girard’s work is the notion of mimetic decision-making. By this he means that humans by nature imitate what they see, hear, and read, including in what they desire. The imitators inevitably begin to go after the same things in a world of scarce resources, which increases tensions in the community. Eventually, the tension becomes too great, and the individual or group is selected for scapegoating, whereby the masses direct their rage and frustrations onto the scapegoat, who is labelled, attacked verbally and at times murdered.

The division between need and want is important here. For Girard, our needs are instinctual, and our wants are mimetic. In essence, once our survival instincts are met, our desirous minds begin to want things other people have or desire. The obvious result of this is unchecked and potentially destructive patterns of competition and desire. Economic and political decision-making is driven by the desire to be recognised, accepted, and praised by others, and is a highly intersubjective phenomena that cannot be narrowed down to the decisions of independent agents.

Of late, Girard’s thought has been making inroads into economic theory, partly driven by Peter Thiel’s enthusiasm for his Stanford professor’s ideas. When reflecting on how Girard’s theory helped him in business and life, Thiel notes that the mimetic nature of human decision-making leaves room for highly successful contrarian investors as the market cannot be rational when consumers and investors are swept up in mimetic contagion. However, perhaps more importantly, Thiel argues that if we can understand the scapegoating mechanism and the tendency to fight over what we mutually desire, then we can more effectively cut off the scapegoating process in our workplaces and political communities.

It was however through his theological text I See Satan Fall Like Lightning that I encountered and became deeply interested in Girard’s work. In this book he approaches the Bible through his mimetic worldview. He works to “demythologise” the concept of Satan by turning the Prince of this World into a personification of scapegoating rather than a living entity. He does this because, for him, the process is impersonal as the vast majority of those caught up in the scapegoating are not aware they are captured by behavioural contagion.

He argues that Pontius Pilate, like many political leaders, gives into mimetic contagion as a way of ensuring the future stability of the community and his position in it. After seeing the crowd reaction to his offering up of Barabbas, Pilate understands that the crowd can only be placated through the murder of Jesus via the scapegoating process. Moreover, even Peter, one of Christ’s loyal followers, gives into the mimetic contagion, fulfilling Jesus’ prophesy that he would be betrayed three times before the rooster crowed. The spirit of collective action and acceptance is thereby revealed as seductive to all humans regardless of station.

One curious aspect of this view of human conduct is that mimetic contagion can look a lot like conspiracy. That is, the uniformity of senseless action across a wide range of people, including leaders, can appear so coordinated that one is automatically left searching for an external hidden hand. However, we also know that the mimetic nature of human beings is continuously taken advantage of by advertisers, influencers, celebrity culture, spin doctors and nudge units. Perhaps the two notions are complimentary rather than opposed; or put another way, nefarious social actors use our mimetic tendencies against us to achieve ends unknown to those immersed in the frenzy. The saving grace in the whole affair is that for Girard our mimetic character enables us to enter relationships involving positive reciprocity. For this, we need cultural figures, politicians, and artists that can provide compelling, positive behaviors for the collective to imitate, with forgiveness the most potent personal safeguard against spiraling mimetic rivalries. It is not enough to merely expose those among us pushing society towards corruption, violence and the scapegoating of individuals and groups. Finally, we need a cultural environment built on the inherent dignity and rights of all people regardless of their group identity, because without this, we too easily revert to the tyranny of the masses and the scapegoating of individuals and groups to sedate the crowd.