Oh right, a Nazi building=must blow up. What about the innocent people working there? What about innocent people on the street who get crushed by flying debris? It’s more understandable with the parliament building I guess, because he did warn people in advance.
But that’s not entirely true: at one point in the novel, he said that the time for destruction was over and talked about having a responsibility to rebuild things.
So you’re effectively appointing yourself judge, jury, and executioner.
I’m sort of with lissener on this stuff. There’s a disconnect between terrorism and reality- it’s not Osama’s goals that make him a terrorist, it’s how he sets out to achieve them. Take away the violence and he’s just a nutcase. Have someone with the most noble goals in the world start carelessly killing innocents, and you have a terrorist.
I guess I’m also leaning more towards smiling bandit’s side with regards to V. I’d be more sympathetic to him if he really was trying to do something good for society, and doing it successfully.
Also, I think V’s imprisonment of Evey is a rather fascist thing to do. Perhaps he is sort of spiritually linked to the corrupt government, being just as much of a monster in his own way. That’s why his death was necessary, so society really could improve.
Can someone who is knowingly working for a government that’s committed genocide really be called innocent? And isn’t the overthrow of such a government an important enough moral imperative that it justifies some accidental deaths? The government, unchecked, has murdered and will continue to murder hundreds of thousands more people than V could ever possibly kill.
Of course I am! The government in this movie is murdering its own citizens at will. It has already, before the film starts, massacred every non-white face within its own borders. Based on current demographics, that’s almost five million people. And that’s just the ethnic cleansing: it doesn’t count the homosexuals, white non-Christians, and political dissidents, nor the tens of thousands killed in the staged biological attack perpetrated by the government to cement their power. In the final tally, Sutler might outpace Hitler. When the government and the law is this throughly debased, the entire concept of law ceases to have any meaning.
So, again, what about the French Resistance? They didn’t go out of their way to target civilians, but civilians were certainly harmed thanks to their various efforts at sabotage, or caught in the crossfire of the Nazi’s attempts to root them out. If you’re only going to look at their actions, and not their goals or ideals, how is the French Resistance morally different from Al Qaeda?
I think that destroying Sutler’s government was an absolute good. Whatever replaces it can’t possibly be as bad. It would be better if V had had some sort of concrete idea for filling the power vacuum, but at least he was able to do something to address the wrongs of his society, even if he was only capable of doing half the job.
Although it occurs to me that, with most of the major players in the government dead, leadership might devolve onto the cabinet, which includes the chief of police played by Stephen Rea. V specifically sought out the chief and fed him clues about the government’s involvement in the St. Mary’s viral attack. Maybe part of his overall plan included Rea’s character stepping in to restore order after Sutler’s death.
This was pretty much explicitly stated in the movie. It’s why V lets Evie decide if Parliament should be destroyed: after what he did to her, V no longer trusts his moral instincts. We keep talking about V blowing up Parliament, but he’s not the one who actually did it. He set everything up, but it was Evie who pulled the trigger.
And what about all those contractors on the Death Star?
War is hell, as they say. Sometimes you bomb a legitimate military target and you kill a half dozen janitors in the process. War is littered with ‘collateral damage’, and sometimes it really is justified. Even in a civil war.
Ah, I see. To be fair, as a writer myself I wouldn’t think twice. If it’s going to be useful in telling the kind of story that I’m aiming at telling, then I’m going to use it.
Well, since I honestly believe that only someone who was already unhinged would take anything I write seriously enough to murder people, I divorce myself of any and all responsibility. At a certain point, a story is just a story. If I want a dashing villain without any pesky moral contradictions, then that’s what the story is going to have. Anybody who acts on that fantasy has their own issues that I don’t take responsibility for.
Fair enough, but then the idea of responsibility vs irresponsibility becomes somewhat less important… if we’re not talking about incitement to commit crimes, then the ultimate social impact of a work of art (or entertainment) is really up to the individual tastes of the author/creator.
Or, to put a finer point on it: while it may be responsible to attempt to have a positive social effect, it is not irresponsible to simply tell a good story.
Personally, I’d say it’s neither. It’s a bit of dystopian fiction with a superhero (or super-anti-hero?) as the lead. Much like Fight Club was a dark comedy, and really not all that much more.
I don’t think so. Distopian fiction has a rather long lineage, and I don’t think that V was, really, any more of a statement than, oh, Aeon Flux.
Well… pr’aps. But then again, sometimes, you’ve gotta fight to get a little bit of peace. Capitulation to the Nazis, or the Galactic Empire (or the Mongols, or whoever) accomplishes nothing. And while Gandhi may be an inspiring political leader, he’d make a piss poor action hero.
Well, to be fair, in the V universe, Gandhi probably would’ve been black bagged long before he had a chance to influence anybody else. (He also would’ve cut way down on the pyrotechnics budget)
But that’s the joy of a simple narrative bit of entertainment. Luke has to destroy the Deathstar. The knight has to slay the dragon and rescue the princess. V has to destroy the evil fascist government.
Don’t get me wrong, I really really enjoyed the movie, but it’s not high art by any means. It was a step up from action-porn, and if I’m getting Ultra Violet spliced with something that has plot, it’s some good entertainment, but not much else.
Well, with all due respect, I think you’re getting a bit too deep into this flick. The boundary between the liminal and the sub-liminal may be seductive, but at a certain point the responsibility for what you take away is yours and yours alone.
I’m also highly wary of any story which seeks to portray itself as some sort of visionary piece of what-have-you. V for vendetta is no more the gospel truth on politics than Lord of the flies is the gospel truth on sociology.
I didn’t really see it as either… I saw it as a cool flick with some great back-story and a guy who moved super-fast, was really strong, and did neat stuff with knives.
While I do make my own predictions about the future, politics, human nature, etc… they’re not based on movies.
Depends… the Boston Tea Party was essentially an act of terrorism. As was much of the Revolutionary War. In certain circumstances, certain actions are allowed. And while targeting civilians is pretty much always wrong, V doesn’t do that. At least, if we can agree that those who make up/aid a fascist government are themselves legitimate targets if one is fighting that government.
All this shows us is that we have to be wary of linguistic fictions, and take instances on a case-by-case basis. Simply slapping the words “violent resistance” on an action doesn’t make it fungible with any other action that’s had those words slapped on it.
Hey, Karrde was totally neutral during that unpleasantness. He was also instrumental in effecting peace between the New Republic and the Imperial Remnant. No hypocrite, he.
One of the things that disappointed me about the movie was that the passing of the torch to Evie was not nearly as explicit. She is not seen taking on the V persona in the end–though the door to that is certainly open, with her inheriting the Shadow Gallery, etc. Then again, the movie did pass the torch, quite explicitly, to the people, what with the masks, and more importantly the unmasking, and the whole V-is-all-of-us speech by Evie.
I’m with Podkayne on this one. Codename V specifically excludes himself from helping or suggesting what’s next for England. His role is complete with the demolition of the current regime. He believes the next step is the responsibility of the people of England and whether they choose another fascism or democracy or monarchy or anarchy or whatever his role is complete: he provided them the opportunity to choose.
It’s much clearer in the graphic novel when he makes the video broadcast and defines the terrible leaders who oppress and then asks the question “But who elected them?”
let me be more specific here. Blowing away Sutler and his evil servants was not a bad thing to do. Yes, it would have been better to somehow get Sutler to repent and be a nice guy, but you can never force someone to be good; they have to choose it. If they won’t, and refuse to get out of the way (so as not to do continue to do damage), they must be removed somehow. It’s not nice, but make no mistake: being good is not the same as being nice.
I guess I’m dissapointed in the character of V. He’s close to being a true hero. He’s got the smarts, the guts, and the skills to pull it off. He could become something a lot more than a thug in a mask. But he doesn’t. While I don’t think it will happen, Eve also could become a true hero. She, at least, has a vision of what she believes ought to be, and is willing to live for it.
V was willing to die for his beliefs, but not to live for them. Now, if he had really made an effort to get Eve to start something good, fine. If he, for whatever reason, doesn’t feel capable, alright. But that was the problem. Just tearing something down, in the end, is a fool’s errand. At best you wind up with rubble (literally, in this case).
I don’t actually like the word terrorist in this case, although it is accurate. I’m going to use the word, “thug.” Fear is a powerful weapon, and people should use. As V himself would said, “governments should be afraid of the people.” Evil should be afraid of good. Good isn’t neccessarily just that meek guy down the street. The Archangel Saint Michael carried a flaming sword.
That may be. Violence is a very potent tool, and it’s one that causes suffering whenever it is used. But good men must wield it because evil men will not forego its use, although it all-too-often rebounds upon them (look at what happened to so many dictators and tyrants). Making that decision is hard. I do think V glorifies violence, but no more than most other movies these days.
The problem is that both aspects are factual. Hitler was human. And there were some sympathetic things about him and his past. I do not doubt that he did not start in evil, and I suspect he may have had mental problems. Yet he also caused much evil, and had to be stopped. It is not a matter of justice, retaliation, or even vengeance. It was simply neccesary to defend the good.
But we cannot worry about war being justified or unjustified after it has begun, anymore than a breeze ought to debate the the morality of the tornado. It may well have been ill for the tornado to be there, but there’s no choice but to ride it out.
Personally, I think the one or two nods to current American proto-facism come off as petty and weakening, particularly the “Nazi” Coalition of the Willing poster, which made me cringe in its over-the-top- leftist silliness.
But the rest of the movie I thought was great. V is an anti-hero, someone who is as much part of the old regime he is destroying as those he kills. He was created by them as a monster, and he destroys himself in destroying them.
Note also that V does and sets up the dirty work, the monsterous stuff, all for himself. He is the one who gets bloody, kills off the current regime as an act of personal vengence. But the revolution he leaves up to the people: he gives them the choice (sending them the masks), and he cuts off the head of the government that might cut them down if they revolt. This allows the people to realize revolution without becoming monsters themselves. They do, after all, come to the confrontation with the military unarmed, almost Martin-Luther Kinglike.
I thought one of the best things about the movie was how UN-dystopian this future was. While the government is truly evil and facist, the average joe lives a pretty normal life. About the only thing weird was that there appeared to be only one TV station, and the “interlink” didn’t seem to have changed the world much (snicker, teh intraweb)! But otherwise, everything was pretty normal: as long as you stayed within the rules. So it required the idea of normal people actually realizing that enough was enough, that what was going on was wrong.
Hiroshima was terrorism then. Oh wait, it was for a GOOD PURPOSE. Then, well!
Osama Bin Laden may well have believed that if 9/11 cowed the US into getting out of ME affairs, ending the quiet war between America and his jihad, it wold have saved lives. If America had actually done so, would that make him a hero?
To some people, most certainly, depending upon the outcome. If you equate aparthied in South Africa with the treatment of Palestinaians in Israel, and that the US supplies the Israelis with the means to keep that system in place, then if forcing the US out of the Middle East ended the oppression of the Palestinians, OBL would be a hero.
To others, who think an attack on huge numbers of civilians in a purposive dramatic fashion is wrong no matter the outcome, then no, he is still a criminal.
Cliffy correctly points out that some societies deserve violent insurrection. It depends upon whether you think this should extend to civilians. (The comic book version of VfV has attacks only on non-civilian targets, IIRC. )
The fact that the movie has promoted this sort of healthy debate is in my view a good thing.
As an aside, I know Moore thought the script sucked and got into a fight with Joel Silver over the faux endorsement of the script by Moore, but its a shame he is unlikely to ever see the movie and pass judgment.
Okay, so was the US’ deliberate targeting of civilian populations on scales far far exceeding 9/11 not heroic and justified then? See the wrinkles this gets us into?
I’d say that the only really hard to justify thing V did was kill the police officers in the Tv station: for all he or anyone else could know, they were just average joe security guards, and he brutually executes them all (going beyond what mere self-defense would require). Later flunkies were pretty clearly brutal agents of the regime who participated in black bagging, and his two explosions both seemed to be of empty buildings.
For the rest… as V says, there is no such thing as a “court” for the powerful, the rulers. The powerful are above all justice other than violence and power. Even trials like Saddam and Milo turn out to be farcical. They are exercises in playacting, not any sort of sensible legal justice.
Not really, since the US didn’t DELIBERATELY target civilians. They have been killed, but they weren’t the target. Civilians were the primary target of the WTC attacks. I think it could be argued that V attacked mainly government targets, not civilians, in the movie.
Granted I haven’t seen the movie and I just started reading the book adapted from the graphic novel but…the book seems to be set in a post WWIII England with America peripherial to the main story (they talk about the US as a war ravaged and economic basket case who has lost its superpower status…but then again this is coming from a heavy handed English governments propaganda machine so who knows that the real story is…they haven’t gotten into that yet).
So, I’m not sure what this has to do with Bush at all to be honest…nor do I see how you can work it around to a call for arms to overthrow the Bush government. It SEEMS to be (if anything) the story of a call to arms to overthrow an obviously facist BRITISH government. America doesn’t really seem to be more than a plot point.
Maybe I’m missing something here (again, I haven’t seen the movie and am only about a third of the way through the book).
Er, what? Dropping two nuclear bombs on two cities is targeting civilians pretty directly. Firebombing civilian cities is targeting civilians. No way around that.
:smack: Sorry, I misread your post. You were saying that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were on a scale beyond 9-11 and I misread it was saying that the response to 9-11 was on a scale beyond it. Mea culpa.
I know this isn’t GD, and I shouldn’t be talking to this here but…
Justified? Perhaps, perhaps not. Understandable? Certainly, considering it was a different time and that every major power was doing exactly the same thing…starting long before the US was dragged kicking and screaming into the conflict. Times have changed since then and the US has not deliberately targetted civilians for some time now. The terrorists who launched 9/11 however either didn’t get the memo or decided to wave the niceties and directly attack civilians with the intent to kill as many as they could. Luckily by and large they failed in their intent.
There is a world of difference between the US’s actions during a World War and the terrorist attacks on 9/11.
I waffle over whether this is a hijack, but then again, the thread is about the political implications of the film, and there are other threads that discuss it just as a movie.
Anyway, I think you’re using excuses to escape the dilemna that just don’t fly. Either it’s justified to use violence against civilians because they supposedly support an evil regime or because killing them will send a message that will save more lives later, or it isn’t. You say that times have changed, but as far as I can tell it’s just that circumstances haven’t come up again. There’s been no renounciation of the targeting of civilians. In fact, it’s still widely celebrated: it was an act by the Greatest Generation done to Save Lives. And right now we are still having debates in this country about whether it’s okay to torture potentially innocent people if circumstances require it. So times clearly haven’t changed that much.
V kills, quite viciously, police officers. He sets up a situation in which police shoot what they think is a dangerous terrorist with a bomb, but who turns out to be an innocent civilian. The movie V seems to think that the ends justify the means. ( Which is bizarre in part because this is exactly the same thing he condemns Blithe for (when he’s posing as Rookwood). Of course, in a certain sense, he sets up his own death in part because he feels that he is a monster who exists to take down his fellow monsters and then leave the playing field for good, normal people.
The problem this sets up is that tactics cannot be condemned. It’s just whether or not we happen to like or agree with the ends. Sure, the 9/11 plotters attacked civilians. But from their point of view, this was no more or less rational or acceptable than we demonstrated that we felt Hiroshima was (in fact, Osama several times cited Hiroshima in his reasoning for why his attacks were justified). By demonstrating the price of continuing to fight to supporters of an evil regime, they hoped to end a conflict that they thought would cost greater lives and objectives. Is the only line separating the justification of their tactics the fact that they didn’t acheive their ends?
What if V was wrong, like Osama was wrong? What if his revolution merely causes more chaos and an even worse government? What would he have to answer for for the families of the police officers he killed in the lobby? What if dropping the A bomb on Hiroshima convinced the Japanese that they could expect no mercy from us, and so they unleashed a plauge on the US and the war widened instead of closing?
That’s the tricky part. Hiroshima, V, Osama: it’s all terrorism for a percieved good. Is the only thing separating heroic terrorists from evil ones the happenstance of whose values get to look back in hindsight?
The book and film are set in Britain, but the movie, at least, is an American production written, directed, and produced by Americans, for a first-run in America. It’s not a British film, it’s an American film, and it’s not hard to recognize that a good deal of the message is intended to comment on the current American political situation. Although obviously, in a fantastic and hyperbolic manner.
Also, the film changes the backstory rather significantly. Although the US doesn’t play a direct role in the film, there are a lot more references to what’s going on in North America: apparently, in response increasingly heavy-handed US intervention in the Middle East, terrorist carried out a series of biological attacks against the US, which led to widespread plagues that crippled the nation and triggered a second civil war. The film also plays up anti-Muslim sentiment much more heavily than the book. All non-whites and non-Christians have been executed by the state, and simply owning a Koran carries a death sentence.
