In a new twist of events, I got to teach V for Vendetta this
spring.
It was a bit of a hard sell to our school’s approval people:
there’s nudity, violence, some drug use, and a lot of really horrific
concentration-camp events. The ideas
expressed are very anti-establishment, and Alan Moore, the reclusive author,
has labelled himself a “ceremonial wizard,” a title that doesn’t inspire a lot
of confidence.
However, it passed.
It passed, I think, largely because it’ll be seniors reading it, not
freshmen, and seniors are much better prepared to handle things like that. They’ve heard the language before, and seen
the movies, and statistically been involved in the nudity, so there’s not a ton
that’s an actual surprise.
The message of the book itself though does seem to be a
surprise, and one I was happy to provide.
My experience with V for Vendetta prior to this semester was
pretty limited. Many years ago, I saw (and was briefly obsessed with) the film,
which I now regard as a piece of garbage.
I read the graphic novel when we sent the book for approval (back in
early 2013... which should tell you something about both its content and the
approval process). That’s about it – I
remembered liking the graphic novel much better than the movie, which should
surprise no one.
Then, as I was teaching it, I read it again along with my
students so I could mimic their experience.
This time around, I was much more impressed.
V for Vendetta is a terrifying glimpse into a future of
totalitarian government and citizens controlled by a chilling combination of
fear and apathy. The people in this future version of England don’t care
anymore – they have been beaten down by war and starvation and plain exhaustion
into a state of complacency. The
government utilizes surveillance through cameras and audio recordings to keep
track of their citizens and an elaborate news broadcast system to send out
their message. People hear, see,
believe, think exactly what the
government wants them to, and nothing more.
Into this future steps V, a (let’s face it) terrorist who
wants to set the people of England free from this insane regime, free to rule
themselves again. He was one of many
‘not normal’ people rounded up into resettlement camps – code for concentration
camps – and experimented on during the war a few years prior to the start of
the book. In doing so, the government
unwittingly created their own enemy, and when he steps up on the Fifth of
November to lead the charge to anarchy, and by extension freedom, they are
woefully unprepared.
In the opening pages, V kidnaps Evey Hammond, a teenager who
is just trying to survive this future.
He spirits her way to his home, The Shadow Gallery, where you slowly
realize that he’s training her to follow in his black-clad footsteps. There, she watches as the rest of the novel
unfolds: V slowly gaining power over the government, the leaders descending
into chaos, and the people starting to take back control.
In a way, readers are like Evey. We are not privilege to V’s plan of action;
instead, we are watching as it unfolds, trying to put the trees together to see
the forest as he sees it. V is walking
us through his world and training us to follow in his footsteps just as surely
as he’s training Evey.
More students came to me and said, “Hey, I actually READ
this book!” than any other in the year, including Frankenstein. That’s saying something, especially when most
of them didn’t seem to realize the graphic novel even existed before I passed it out.
Instead, they know the movie, 2003’s V for Vendetta as
produced by the Wachowski Brothers and then critically ripped apart. (Even Alan Moore washed his hands of it.)
The movie is filled with changes to the atmosphere of the
world, the character of Evey and many others, the style of V’s antics. It adds romance and martial arts where there
was no need for it, and it removes so much power in the process of all these
changes.
Something important was lost in the translation between page
and screen, something much more than my usual assertions of “the book was much
better!”
It could be a really high-minded movie, just as it’s a
complex, thought-provoking book.
Instead, its writers/directors chose to drop it down to the
lowest common denominator of understanding, which undermines its message and
thus its power.
The tone of the movie shifts dramatically away from that of
the book; now, everyone in England is suspicious, a poor change from the
terrifying, oppressed atmosphere of the novel, where any false move could get
you killed. Instead, this suspicious,
decidedly more light-hearted attitude brings the people of England in on the
joke.
That shift continues in the changes to V’s antics: the masks
sent to everyone in the novel suggests the country is much more ready for
revolution than the book leads readers to believe, which makes sense – the
government in the novel runs and functions entirely out of fear, and V turns
that against them to make them powerless (like by taking over the Fate
computer, for example).
But when everyone is on the knife’s edge, when everyone is
ready for a revolution, V’s ideas lose power.
The general public of the movie cares less about V’s message of anarchy;
instead, they are ready for ANY change, regardless of what it is.
That’s never the
point in the book; the point in the book is to let the people have their power
back, have their government back, through anarchy; the movie paints that
anarchy just as the general public sees it, which is as chaos instead of
freedom.
It should come as no surprise that Alan Moore refused to
have anything to do with the movie, including writing it, adapting the screen
play, or indeed even accepting any kind of monetary compensation for it – he
instead gave it all the David Lloyd, the illustrator who brought V to life on
the page.
The movie also adds some really unnecessary elements, most
obviously the romance between Evey and V.
First, let me remind you: Evey is a child
in the book. Literally: She’s 16 when it
starts. V is definitely not age
appropriate for romance, nor does Evey experience any romantic inclinations
toward him. Instead, V’s anonymity raises the question of if he could be Evey’s
father, who was murdered when she was a child.
Her emotions toward V trend toward that parental affection.
Falling in love (since of course he reciprocates her
misguided movie-feelings) also gives V a much more human façade than he has in
the novel. There, he’s single-minded in his intentionality and his work. He allows for no distractions other than
preparing Evey to follow in his path. He has no time, or arguable capacity, for
love.
In addition, his never-revealed face provides him the
necessary anonymity to carry out his task; giving him an emotion, especially
love, is too much connection to the people around him. Adding love, frankly, undermines the themes.
The movie also spins V a little more positively than the
graphic novel, which undermines a really important point: V is a terrorist.
There’s little question about this. He is trying to inspire fear in the
government, change in its people. He is
trying to frighten them out of their complacency. Those are the actions of a terrorist.
In that way, V is an anti-hero. He’s not supposed to be the hero.
The movie, again catering to the lowest common viewing
denominator, recognizes that in post-9/11 America, terrorists can never be
viewed as positive, or even just neutral characters. They must be actively
evil. Thus, the movie spins V into a
savior of the common people, never stopping to analyze the other perceptions of
his actions.
The one thing I take positively from this movie is a line
that Alan Moore would be proud of: “People shouldn’t be afraid of their
governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.” The man didn’t write it, but it encompasses
so much of his message.
Governments should
be afraid of their people. Not the kind
of fear that leaves you cowering in the basement, overwhelmed and just wanting
things to end, no – the kind of fear that keeps you in check, that makes sure
you understand where you are and what those around you are capable of. That’s the kind of fear governments should
have of their people, because people should be the ones controlling their
government. Think about to Lincoln’s
words in the Gettysburg Address: “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish
from the earth.” 150 years ago, Lincoln discusses exactly what this book does:
government is for the people. It
deserves to last when it serves the people, and it should recognize the people
as the source of its power.
That’s
why governments should fear their people.
They should fear that if they don’t do their jobs right, they will be
fired. They should fear that the people
will want change away from them. A
complacent government, a government that sits and twiddles its thumbs and
ignores its own, is under grave threat from its unhappy citizens.
The true power of a book like V for Vendetta is that it
invites us, as readers, to put on the mask and invoke change. It begs us not to accept the status quo, to
instead fight for change and improvement, to hold our power as the people safe
and strong and never give it up.
What will you do with your mask?
[I’d also like to take a moment to point out that these Guy
Fawkes masks have become this symbol of anti-capitalism/anti-establishment
that’s used in protests around the world.
The irony of it – not that it ties back to the events of 1605, but that
people use it constantly now for anonymity without ever understanding its
meaning – cracks my shit up. Anyway.]
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