Posted on 03/08/2006 7:18:00 AM PST by goldstategop
[Note: You may perceive some of this column as a "spoiler".]
If you liked the politics of last weekend's Oscar nominees, you'll love "V for Vendetta."
It's an exciting, quality Bin Laden film.
But if you're like the rest of mainstream America--you support our troops, believe in firmly responding to terrorists on our own shores, and/or respect Christianity--then, don't waste your time at this piece of garbage masquerading as a superhero movie. It is anything but.
If most other Hollywood films subtly whisper of an agenda, "V" clocks you over the head with it with a still sizzling, iron frying pan of extreme leftism. It doesn't arrive in theaters until March 17, but already the mainstream (ie. liberal) movie critics and entertainment media are raving about this egregious attack on our war on terror.
"V for Vendetta"
Natalie Portman, Guy Fawkes Mask-wearing "V" Are Terrorist Heroes Based on the graphic novel series of the same name, "V" comes complete with all the bogeymen the far left loves to hate: NSA spying and wiretaps; government renditions and torture complete with Abu Ghraib hood fashions; lecherous, elderly Christian clerics in collars raping young girls; Islam, gay rights, and free speech under attack; and even a Bill O'Reilly-esque evil cable talk show host/wicked pharmaceutical billionaire/heinous military officer combo rolled into one character.
Oh, and by the way, the hero of the movie: He's a terrorist in a Guy Fawkes mask, who blows up important government buildings. Sound familiar? His mask might as well be a kefiyeh wrapped around his head in a Nick Berg video.
The movie takes place in futuristic England, and there is only one American star (Natalie Portman). But it's quite clear to whom the "commentary" is directed: Joe and Jane American. When this movie takes place, "the United States of America" doesn't exist anymore. America is in the midst of a civil war.
And America and the war on Iraq are the enemies--along with Christians and the right--in this movie. We are treated to newscasts about how "America's War [on terror] spread to England." One character--a gay, British Jay Leno type who hosts a latenight show--keeps a secret vault of prohibited items, including a giant poster of "the Coalition of the Willing," depicting the American and British flags surrounding a swastika. Think about our troops fighting and dying in Iraq, before you decide to give your dollars to this film. Do you really think they are Nazis?
Also in the secret vault of sacred prohibited items: a Koran. Portman, whose Evie is the "heroine" of "V," asks, why the Koran? "Are you a Muslim?" she asks the late-night host. "No, but its [the Koran's] images are beautiful." Then he comments about how he can be executed for possessing the Koran. (Not a peep in this film about the thousands who've been executed in the name of the Koran and "its beautiful images.")
Puh-leeze. If anything, both Britain and the U.S. have bent over backwards not only for the Koran, but for its extremist Muslim followers. Where Christian displays are absolutely forbidden in any schools, despite so-called "freedom of speech"; where Ten Commandments are removed from the Alabama Supreme Court, despite their being the basis for our legal system; children are required to learn about Islam, read from the Koran, and behave as Muslims in elementary schools, in the name of "tolerance" and "education."
In "V", while Islam and the Koran are treasured but prohibited, Christianity is pure evil. Nice juxtaposition, when in real life, the 19 hijackers, the '93 WTC, U.S. Embassy, U.S.S. Cole, and British subway bombers were hardly Christians. Hmmm . . . what religion were they? We don't recall Mohammed Taheri-Azar, saying on Friday in his post attempted-murder 911 call, that he tried to use his jeep to kill Americans in the name of Jesus. No, he mentioned someone else's name, another religion . . . which are both nowhere blasphemed in "V."
We've already mentioned the high-ranking Christian priest, who regularly rapes young girls procured for him through an "agency." Before the priesthood, he was an evil military officer at a hospital where politically dissident youth had experiments conducted on them for the government (complete with Abu Ghraib-style hoods).
Then, there's the government. It's run by a religious Christian zealot. But not just any Christian zealot.
No. Chancellor Sutler is the supreme evil Christian. In order to get elected, he and the Bill O'Reilly-esque character (remember, before he became a cable host, he was a pharmaceutical CEO and made billions) arranged for hundreds of Brits to die from chemically poisoned water. The government said that terrorists did it, a story which became accepted fact and the conventional wisdom in media coverage. The fear that ensued garnered Sutler the chance to rule England, along with the Marshal law powers the English parliament gave him.
It's no coincidence that the symbol used for his government is some sort of Cross-come-Swastika combo. Not offended yet?
Under religious Christian zealot Sutler, gays are rounded up, imprisoned, tortured, and executed. Ditto for any dissidents, any left-wing activists, anyone who dares speak out against or flout the Chancellor's actions. Tell that to the ACLU, which seems to be running legal policy in our country, these days, and its partner in crime, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the wealthiest "public interest" group in the U.S., to the tune of hundreds of millions. We don't see any prospect of them being rounded up by the government anytime soon, unfortunately.
Under the religious Christian Chancellor, "unjust" Gitmo-style military tribunals and absurd NSA-style wiretapping is going on at every corner. Throughout the movie, we are shown vans of law enforcement personnel listening in to every home. As if that's what NSA wiretapping was about. It isn't, but "V" drills it into you the way the ACLU wants you to see it: every conversation in every kitchen, etc., secretly being listened in on and laughed at by guys in sweaty, rumpled shirts and ties.
The evil government law enforcement chief, Creedy, runs a meticulously ubiquitous surveillance program nationwide. If only our FBI's Robert Mueller were so competent, we'd be safe. Instead, he's cavorting with extremist Muslims and testified in depositions to ignorance of the most basic newspaper facts about Al-Qaeda.
Overall, the most outrageous thing about "V" is the ending. Instead of vanquishing terror, all of Britain sides with the terrorist hero of this movie. They celebrate his murder of all the top officials in government, his blowing up of the Houses of Parliament and other government buildings.
Terrorists and terrorism are the heroes, the government fighting them and trying to keep us safe are the enemy.
This is the glorious revolution? Osama Bin Laden must be very proud.
I've seen this book before. I can't get past the ridiculous concept. Too funny.
I don't know for certain as I haven't seen the movie yet, and taking into account total hatred much of hollywierd has for this country, I don't suppose the movie could be viewed in the context of the excerpted thoughts below?
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."
Just a thought, having not yet seen the movie, nor read the graphic novels.
Top sends
Maybe because she is a self-loathing moron?
Bingo!
Okay, then I decide that V is not (necessarily) garbage based on its premise. I choose to go see it. Maybe it will be entertaining. Maybe it will just raise my blood pressure. I see nothing naive about that.
$9.50 X 1,000,000 = $9,500,000
$9.50 X 10,000,000 = $95,000,000
Now we're talking REAL money...
Impossible! Everything is politics.
Nice encomium to RR on your FReeper page, BTW.
(Shrug) I can't control other peoples' decisions whether or not to see a movie. So, this movie will be a hit or a flop regardless of whether I go see it or not.
ping
Why would Natalie Portman appear in a proterrorist movie? Whatever else, she is pro-Israel and wrote politically correct editorials when she was in college.
Goodness, this is one of the worse movies ever made. I defy any Conservative on this board to sit through all 3.5 to 4 hours of this monstrosity and then tell me the Iraqis at Abu Grahib suffered more than you just did having just watched the entire movie.
I'll wager most of us can't make it through the movie.
It's just code for how Hollywood and their ilk would like to treat faithful Christians...not counting those that politicize against the War on Terror from their "puplits," of course.
I automatically assumed that anything that resembled this Administration would be considered fascist in this movie. I guess I was right.
I'm a bit confused about why conservatives think this has a liberal agenda, outside of it being produced in Hollywood.
The premise of the movie is that Hitler and the Germans won WWII and spread Nazism/Facism to Britain (and, presumably continental Europe). An unfortunate fact about Hitler's regime is that Catholicism or Lutheranism were pretty much the only permitted religions in Germany. Hitler himself was a baptized Catholic (with an unmarried mistress, which doesn't say much about his practice of the religion). The regime in the movie has permitted a famine that has killed scores of Britons (North Korea, anyone?). It runs concentration camps where "undesirables" such as German concentration camps and Soviet gulags housed them (and I would imagine that they are places where black, brown, and Jewish "foriegners" and dissedents are housed and/or killed), and have run horrific scientific experiments (ala Jozef Mengele).
Can someone please explain why this plot has an anti-American agenda? This is what the U.S. completely stands against and has fought against. Maybe we should hold our stones to see the evidence before we throw them?
This review has saved me some $$$.
Some of these folks seem to believe that one should willingly submit to totalinarianism and not resist.
Nice first post. Good luck in life, dopey.
Well of course. It prevents them from having to think for themselves as well.
What;s your problem, man?
He raises some very valid points. I thought conservatives would be willing to fight totalitarianism, not embrace it.
The way many of you are carrying on here, claiming that this is a "Bush-Bash" movie, I'm surprised that some of you aren't knocked unconscious from your knees jerking so hard that they hit you in the head.
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