Groupthink Essay Assignment: Google Slides
Groupthink Definition and Causes: Google Slides
Groupthink in "The Lottery": Google Slides
Bonus Groupthink Essay Prompt ("The Lottery" and "Mugshot"): Google Slides
ChatGPT Essay:
Mugshot, Florida, and the Rituals of Scapegoating: A Retelling of Shirley Jackson’s "The Lottery"
At first glance, HBO Max’s This Is Florida, Man episode titled Mugshot seems like a comic meditation on the chaos of life in the Sunshine State. But beneath its surface of absurdity lies an eerie retelling of Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery. Both works explore the mechanisms of scapegoating, the violence of tradition, and the dehumanization of individuals in service of community cohesion. While Jackson couches her critique in the guise of a bucolic New England town, Mugshot relocates this narrative to the humid, lawless carnival of Florida, substituting the anonymity of the stoning victim with the hyper-visible spectacle of a viral mugshot.
The Ritual and Its Victim
In The Lottery, a seemingly ordinary town gathers for its annual ritual, a lottery in which one person is selected to be stoned to death. The barbarity of the act is masked by tradition, which makes the violence feel inevitable and unchallengeable. Mugshot offers a contemporary parallel in the way Florida’s residents revel in the ritual of public humiliation. The episode centers on Billy Tucker, a hapless Florida resident arrested for a minor offense, whose unflattering mugshot goes viral. Like Tessie Hutchinson in The Lottery, Billy becomes the chosen scapegoat—not through the drawing of a slip of paper but through the modern algorithmic lottery of internet virality. His mugshot, grotesque and exaggerated, becomes a focal point for public derision.
In both stories, the victim is ordinary. Tessie and Billy are not remarkable figures but could be anyone. This universality underscores the randomness of their selection. Jackson’s story critiques the arbitrary violence embedded in tradition, while Mugshot indicts the internet's capricious hunger for spectacle. Both works ask: What does it mean to live in a society that requires a sacrificial lamb to maintain its equilibrium?
Tradition vs. the Digital Mob
The townspeople in The Lottery justify their actions by invoking tradition. “There’s always been a lottery,” they insist, as though the continuity of the ritual is reason enough to perpetuate it. Similarly, the public shaming in Mugshot is justified as entertainment. Internet users and Florida locals alike dismiss Billy’s suffering with the refrain, “It’s just a joke,” treating his public disgrace as a necessary part of the state’s anarchic culture. In both cases, the perpetrators obscure their cruelty by cloaking it in the language of inevitability.
While Jackson critiques the dangers of unquestioned tradition, Mugshot critiques the crowd dynamics of digital culture. The internet mob serves as the modern equivalent of Jackson’s villagers, hurling stones in the form of memes, comments, and reposts. The anonymity of the digital realm exacerbates the violence, creating a spectacle that is both impersonal and deeply destructive. Yet, as in The Lottery, this collective action is presented as normal, even necessary.
The Role of the Community
Both The Lottery and Mugshot hinge on the idea that communities require scapegoats to maintain order. The villagers in The Lottery view the annual stoning as a form of sacrifice that ensures their agricultural prosperity. In Mugshot, Billy’s humiliation serves a similar purpose, reinforcing the identity of Florida as a place of wild, unhinged antics. The viral mugshot is not just an individual’s humiliation; it is a communal bonding experience, a way for the public to define itself through shared ridicule.
This is where Mugshot amplifies Jackson’s critique. While the villagers in The Lottery participate in the stoning reluctantly, the internet mob in Mugshot derives pleasure from Billy’s suffering. His mugshot becomes a meme, his humiliation a commodity. The episode suggests that digital culture has made cruelty profitable, transforming scapegoating from a grim necessity into a gleeful spectacle.
The Resistance That Never Comes
One of the most chilling aspects of The Lottery is the absence of resistance. Even Tessie, as she protests her selection, does not challenge the lottery itself—only her bad luck. Similarly, in Mugshot, Billy does not resist his role as the scapegoat. He briefly protests the unfairness of his situation but quickly becomes resigned to his fate, even participating in his own humiliation by making self-deprecating jokes in interviews. Both works depict a society in which individuals are so entrenched in the system that they cannot imagine alternatives.
This resignation speaks to a broader critique of human complicity. Jackson warns against blind adherence to tradition, while Mugshot warns against the desensitization bred by internet culture. Both works suggest that the real horror lies not in the violence itself but in the way ordinary people normalize and perpetuate it.
Conclusion
By reimagining the ritualistic violence of The Lottery in the context of viral mugshots, Mugshot offers a biting critique of contemporary culture. Both stories lay bare the mechanisms of scapegoating, exposing how communities rely on arbitrary victims to sustain their cohesion. In The Lottery, the stones are literal; in Mugshot, they are digital. But the result is the same: an individual is dehumanized, sacrificed, and forgotten, while the community moves on, unscathed and unchanged. Through its dark humor and sharp social commentary, Mugshot proves that the spirit of Jackson’s story is alive and well—though it now wears the garish, sunburned mask of Florida.
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