Posted on 03/20/2006 2:27:38 AM PST by goldstategop
"V for Vendetta," which opened on Friday, combines all of the celluloid left’s paranoid fantasies – Christian conservatives in charge of a brutal regime, the war-on-terrorism as an excuse for the suppression of civil liberties, homosexuals harassed and killed by conservative Christians, a pedophile priest (who works miter-in-had with the regime) and an attack blamed on terrorists that’s really a right-wing conspiracy.
All that’s missing is a Halliburton connection. For that, we’ll have to wait for "V – The Return."
"V" opens in Britain circa 2020. America has succumbed to plague, civil war, and chaos. (Bush’s fault, no doubt.) The UK is ruled by a fascist regime with strong Christian overtones – the party’s slogan is "Strength through Unity; Unity through Faith." Its symbol is a stylized cross, and its enforcers are a quasi-religious police.
As the film opens, Britain’s most popular commentator is explaining how America’s fall was ordained by its embrace of "degeneracy," as flecks of saliva fly from his mouth.
The Brit Reich is headed by Chancellor Sutler – played by a cadaverous John Hurt (who looks like a cross between Hitler and Kate Moss). Hurt is incapable of delivering his lines unless he’s: A) Screaming B) Sneering or C) on the verge of a cerebral hemorrhage.
In the England of "V," free speech has been crushed. Conformity is ruthlessly enforced. Dissidents and non-conformists are hunted down and eliminated. Torture is a routine. Medical experiments are performed on undesirables. And "1984" indoctrination is ubiquitous.
Enter the mysterious "V" – a knife-throwing martial-arts master in a Guy Fawkes mask.
The movie projects the 17th century Englishman as a prototypical freedom fighter. In reality, Fawkes was a Catholic conspirator who tried to murder James I and most of Britain’s nobility by attempting to blow up Parliament in the famous Gunpowder Plot of 1605. His objective wasn’t constitutional democracy but a return to Catholic rule. But, then, Hollywood never did have much of a sense of history.
That’s only the beginning of "V’’s confusion. One of the characters is a closet homosexual talk-show host (portrayed by British actor Stephen Fry), who shelters Natalie Portman on the run from the authorities.
In his Crypt of the Banned, Fry shows Portman a Koran. "Are you a Muslim?" Portman innocently asks. No, Fry replies, but I appreciate the beautiful illustrations and poetry therein. Does he also appreciate the perspective of the religion-of-peace on the love-that-dare-not speak-its-name? Were there German Jews in the ‘30, who really dug those snappy SS uniforms?
The only reference to Islam has to do with beauty and poetry. "V" has other targets on its radar screen. In terms of bashing the Right and demonizing Christians – with "V," Hollywood is completely in character.
Need a clichéd bad guy? Call central casting for a stock lecherous priest, hypocritical evangelical, repressive preacher or sadistic nun. Whether now or in the past, committed Christians are regularly portrayed as characters who should be committed – fanatical, hypocritical, cowardly, avaricious and lustful. Think "Kingdom of Heaven," "King Arthur," "Saved," "The Magdalene Sisters," "Priest," The Order," "Dogma," "Stigmata," and the movie version of "The DaVinci Code," coming out in May.
As much a staple as the evil Christian is the unprincipled, power-mad conservative politician, general, or businessman.
Starting with "Dr. Strangelove" and "Seven Days In May," proceeding to "The Manchurian Candidate" (both the ‘60s original and the recent remake), "Dreamscape," "The American President," "The Contender" (with Gary Oldman doing his Bob Dole impression), "Bulworth," "The Day After Tomorrow" (where the destruction of America in a global climate catastrophe is blamed on a conservative vice president opposed to the Kyoto Treaty) – well, you get the picture.
"V for Vendetta" is distinguished by envelope-pushing, combined with an unapologetic glorification of terrorism.
The title character (who begins the movie by blowing up the Old Bailey and ends with the demolition of Parliament) is a noble soul – a courageous, long-suffering, philosophical bloke, who appreciates jazz, Renaissance paintings, weepy old movies, and high-cholesterol cooking.
This is Hollywood’s romanticized take on terrorists – far removed from the reality of Koran-happy sadists who plant nail-packed bombs in restaurants frequented by families with young children.
The slogan of "V for Vendetta" is: "People shouldn’t fear their government. Governments should fear their people."
In the real world, beyond the pages of comic books (where "V" originated), there’s no shortage of governments that prey on their people, and people who live in gut-wrenching fear of their rulers – places like Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Syria, and the Peoples’ Detention Center of China.
Here are governments with gulags, medical experiments performed on dissidents, tanks rolling over demonstrators, torture cells and thought-control.
Beijing sells the organs of executed prisoners. Kim Jong Il deliberately starves his subjects while pursuing nuclear weapons. Iran puts out contracts on novelists. When he was in power, Saddam Hussein’s idea of a night on the town was watching a live man being fed into a plastic shredding machine.
When was the last time Hollywood made a big-budget film about the agony of existence in one of these nightmare states? I know; it’s a real brain-teaser.
The few include "Red Corner" (where China’s "justice system" is not portrayed sympathetically) and "Die Another Day" (even here, the bad guys aren’t the rulers of North Korea, but rogue elements therein – scary thought).
While they carry on about Bush being behind the 9/11 attacks and using the war on terrorism to advance his totalitarian plans, much of Hollywood has the warm and fuzzies for the most corrupt and brutal tyrannies on earth.
Sean Penn flew to Baghdad prior to the U.S. liberation and posed next to a picture of Saddam. Steven Spielberg (whose "Munich" posits moral equivalence between Palestinian assassins and Israeli agents out to get them) once remarked, "The best seven hours I ever spent was actually with Fidel Castro." (Given the quality his recent films, he might be right.)
And, lest we forget, Jane Fonda (star of "Monster-In-Law," now playing on cable), who traveled to Hanoi during the Vietnam War to make propaganda broadcasts, told an audience at the University of Michigan (1970): "I would think that if you understood what communism was, you would hope, you would pray on your knees, that we would someday become communists."
After the war, Fonda called Joan Baez a liar for charging the Khmer Rouge with genocide. (In reality, the Killing Fields were a reclamation project.) The U.S. POWs who said they were tortured at the Hanoi Hilton – also liars, according to Fonda.
Her ex-husband, Ted Turner – who’s gone duck hunting with Castro – has remarked that "communism is part of life on this planet. And that’s okay with me."
In the 1980s, Ed Asner bought "medical supplies" for the FMLN, the Marxist guerrillas who wanted to turn El Salvador into another Cuba.
The aptly named Vanessa Redgrave is a member of the British Workers Revolutionary Party. In her younger days, the mummified Marxist may have shared a bed with the red gravedigger of Cuba. And, in 1978, she teamed up with Fonda to make "Julia," glorifying yet another Red lover: Lillian Hellman. Warren Beatty got off playing John Reed (who thought Lenin was the messiah) in "Reds."
Need I continue? Hollywood has a lot of credibility when it comes to lecturing us on tyranny – about as much as Ted Kennedy does on drunk driving, Bill Clinton on marital fidelity, and Robert Downey Jr. on a drug-free America.
That may have been their intent. However the movie undermines the establishment as a whole, not just Republicans or Democrats.
All of the paranoid ranting about exaggerating the threat of terrorism in order to gain power is enough to keep me away
Does that mean you stay away from history books as well? It is a common occurrence in history for an insurgent group to overcome occupation or gain public sentiment by actions that some would consider 'terrorist'. I am not advocating terrorism however when viewed from the side of the occupying force, a lot of actions could be considered terrorism.
The intent is clearly to undermine faith in the administration and the war and reflects the adolescent paranoia that holds Hollywood in its grip.
And again I would suggest watching the movie once it reaches cable or the rental stores. If that was their intent, they didn't achieve it.
I saw V for Vendetta in Imax in NYC and was a little bored, in fact depressed. This is a heavy heavy movie, not an exciting action flick. For the record the Upper West Side NYers clapped at the end of this movie, but I dont see it playing very well across America. Imax usually makes any movie 20% better in my book. in this case, it made the movie tolerable.
The over the top totalitarian society depicted is somewhere between that of George Orwell's 1984 and your typical LW moonbats current vision of America. I found zero resemblance to our current America, and in fact the London depicted in 2020 seemed much more like Soviet Russia circa 1980 or more accurately, Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the 80's and 90's, or Castro's Cuba.
The ending was pathetic and unbelievable, I wont get into it and spoil the anticlimatic ending, but it was just plain ridiculous. All of a sudden everything is better?! Yeah right. This was not the Matrix trilogy, the Matrix was entertaining.
The references to blowing up buildings as a legitimate method to affect change for an idea very unnerving. I dont think it played very well, and sensed the NY audience was uneasy with the blatant 9/11 references. I also think there was an intentional hit on memorials as propaganda devices. In fact one scene were the grand conspiracy is revealed is within a memorial to 100,000 dead, featuring a circle of dancing children. Subtle huh?
Any sex you ask? There was one gratutitous lipstick lesbian kissing scene to balance out the films closeted unattractive gay tv host, who has a secret art vault of banned items including a Koran and Maplethorpe graphic photographs. BTW, in this universe you get killed not for insulting the president in a comedy satire on television, but for owning a Koran.
The 9/11 conspiracy theorists will love this movie. THAT alone says a lot about V for Vendetta.
BTW
the best part of seeing thr movie was seeing the previews for Poseidon and Superman Returns in Imax.
Superman will be great and be a traditional good vs. evil family movie.
They were focus testing the movie Saturday night in NYC handing out surveys to fill out. Now, they cannot be that confident about the movie if they have to focus test AFTER the movie is out.
I refused the form that 95% of the lemmings took. I asked "what are you going to give me if I fill this out?"
My guess is they will mess with the advertising. The movie is billed as action/explosion filled when it's really quote slow and chatty.
1 usually can smell a rat w/o seeing it.
I agree.
Those are the opening weekend numbers, with a very hefty hype effort behind it. It's box office will fall off precipitously this week (I predict anyway!).
You are wrong, Steve. The "precious bodily fluids" was a slam at John Birchers, who were the paranoid conservatives of the times. They were in fact obsessed with fluoridation of the water. It was a different time with different dynamics. Feder is pretty much right in his assessment.
It is a foul, stinking heap of Satanic dung.
The movie is a celebration of slamming a plane into the Pentagon. Mohammed Atta could not be prouder. Oh, it wasn't a plane into the Pentagon, it was a subway car full of dynamite into Parliament. My bad. Wonderful, and quite apropos considering how real flesh and blood people were blown up on the London Underground within the past year or so.
The movie was so tasteless that the flagship review of the Village Voice said the movie was in terrible taste. Oy! What world do I live in where Freepers say the movie was "powerful" and the Voice says it was tasteless!
The movie was so unapologetically and incandescently evil it makes Faces of Death look like March of the Penguins. It makes Rosemary's Baby look like the The Love Bug. I hope the former Larry Wachowski's live in dominatrix beats him real good for making this steaming pile of celluloid crap.
I stand with Jefferson yet with the caveat that evil behavior will be punished. thus the reason for the Scripture quotation. with liberty comes great responsibility. abusing the privilege with vice brings tyranny.
You nailed it.
That post is a meter to your common sense. It's stuck on empty.
Another knee-jerk reaction from a government-worshipping sheep.
We see how hollywood runs against the truth. We know how they will run the country if they can.
Personally, I must stop renting movies that are contenders for the Oscar....(silly me, figured I wasn't supporting it as much if, instead of going to the movie and paying full price, I rented it for a dollar or such!)...
...The highly touted Sideways..has full frontal nudity...(who knew by the previews???)...
...Crash..has tons of profanity, and Don Cheadle in his birthday suit...(I really respected him in Hotel Rwanda..but of course, he kept his suit on then...
...but I think what has really stopped me ....was renting Closer...and getting only a bit into the beginning of the movie and the extreme disappointment of Natalie Portman in such a tawdry, disgusting role.
So I'm not surprised to read she's in this claptrap of a movie now.
My dear conservative grandmother used to warn against movies....and we thought she was being a bit legalistic.
But I believe she knew more than we gave her credit....
..there are few! movies worth seeing nowadays...
..Movies are either leftist to the nth degree, morally corrupt or both!
..There is a difference between you and me and perhaps lots of other folks here...
....I don't enjoy movies that bash our President, especially when a war is being fought!
The phrase "A government should fear its people" keeps being held up as the 1 thing this movie presents as an allegedly conservative ideal.
But it's not just the words, it's the context. If people can see clear connections to conservatives causing all the fascist stuff, then the point is that it's conservatives who cause all the problems and is the "government" to be feared.
I find liberals parroting such platitudes really rich. These are the people who always insist on telling others what to do - by the myriad rules they make on enviro BS, safety nonsense (you must wear your helmet/belt or you'll pay big time!), worker's "rights", etc.
It is the LEFT who are the fascists, and I really don't like hearing from THEM that a gov should fear its people! What hypocrisy!
A bit late, but today Medved made a few comments:
http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/medved032206.asp
Thanks for the review.
Give me The Flash anytime.
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