V for vendetta movie analysis full#

As but one example, we should remember that it was the liberal press that largely legitimized the violent early excesses of the Bush administration-chiefly, the Iraq War-which serve as essential backdrop for this film. This itself is perhaps not a novel take, but the extent to which itвЂ™s silly because it is about a political situation that dominated fifteen years ago-one that was instrumental in paving the road to where we are today, yet is also now quite removed from the present-is worth considering.ДЄnd perhaps one element of that conclusion we ought to linger on is the simple fact that fascism has always been inseparable from liberalism if the politics of the present (not to mention the 1930s) tell us anything, it is that liberalism is the symbiotic handmaiden of fascism, not its antithesis. IвЂ™m ultimately left feeling not that the film is bad, but that itвЂ™s mostly just silly. bad protestorsвЂќ narrative weвЂ™ve seen circulating over the past weeks: peaceful occupation is okay, but better hand those looters over to the police. This is ultimately a reactionary and dismissive-though common, one might even say liberal-vision of anarchy, and is, in my mind, vaguely suggestive of the вЂњgood vs. Absent any connection to the political ideals of anarchism, the moment seems to present itself as merely chaotic catalyst for government overreaction, a sort of necessary and temporary evil to crystallize the proper kind of uprising against the government.

In this sequence, we see a Fawkes-masked man rob a convenience store and shout вЂњanarchy for the UK!вЂќ while shooting into the air.

V for vendetta movie analysis full#

Possibly the one overt use of the word вЂњanarchyвЂќ occurs after V sends Guy Fawkes masks to everyone in London and the city, full of V lookalikes, spirals out of control. Indeed, the only real invocation of anarchy as concept in the movie is as embodiment of chaos in opposition to the governmentвЂ™s imposed order. Moore is an anarchist (look no further than his wonderful interview with Chapo Trap House for more details on his personal politics) but the light in the film is not about anarchy it is about liberalism. This reduction of fascism in V for Vendetta to вЂњtotalitarian police stateвЂќ thus makes any potential urgency in the film a little impotent, and outdated вЂ“ more fantastical, I think, than relevant. Indeed, much of the horror of Johnson (and Trump, and Bolsonaro, et al) is found precisely in the juxtaposition of their vulgar and simplistic absurdity with the fanatically violent, nihilistic, and enormously complex webs of finance, social media, militarism, globalized labor exploitation, and so on in which they are embedded. chaos message вЂ“ all seem somehow antiquated in comparison with the buffoonish fascism of the present: the ruling fascist of the film, Chancellor Adam Sutler (what does that name sound like?) is far more reminiscent of a certain German fuhrer than Boris Johnson. Here in 2020 (coincidentally, the year in which the film is set), MooreвЂ™s analysis is difficult to reject, and V for VendettaвЂ™s vision of dystopian totalitarianism is indeed ultimately a reductionist one.ДЄnd yet, the overt symbolism of Norsefire (the governing fascist party in the film and comic), the style of its strongmen, the governmentвЂ™s ability to thrive on an order vs.

It was about fascism, it was about anarchy, it was about England.вЂќ V for Vendetta is inextricable from its creation in 2005 - the film was fundamentally about that moment.ДЄlan Moore recognized this in 2006, noting that the film had been вЂњturned into a Bush-era parable by people too timid to set a political satire in their own countryвЂ¦ a thwarted and frustrated and largely impotent American liberal fantasy of someone with American liberal values standing up against a state run by neoconservatives вЂ“ which is not what the comic V for Vendetta was about. My chief takeaway is that V for Vendetta is inextricable from its creation in 2005 the film was fundamentally about that moment, its vision of dystopia one transfigured from the original graphic novel вЂ“ a speculative commentary on British fascism вЂ“ to a projection of America in the mid-aughts, centered specifically on the Bush administration.