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Full disclosure: I'm pretty sure spoilers for V for Vendetta and Watchmen are going to follow.




So, I finally checked out V for Vendetta this weekend. I think my thoughts on it, in order to be fair to the material, have to be divided into two parts. First, the film itself, and second the *ideas* in the film.

In terms of the movie? It was all right. It was *entertaining.* I don't think it was a great movie, and this isn't just about it "not being as good as the comic book." I thought the movie had a great plot, some nice work by Natalie Portman (who, while beauitful, could stand ot eat a cheeseburger or two), and some great visual work. I really loved Gordon, the gay network comic, and Finch, the cop chasing down V. While everyone goes on about Portman, I thought Gordon and Finch were by *far* the best parts of the movie. They really delved into the complexity of being "good men" [sic] in a bad situation - plumming the tension between survival and doing the right thing. It was interesting.

What didn't work so much? Well, V. I mean, when I read the comic, I never though of V as an effeminite dinner theater reject with a pop culture obsession. It just didn't fly with me, personally. Also, Hugo Weaving *way* overdid his physical acting in compensating for wearing the mask. It just looked.... hokey. [I point to Darth Vader as a better example of someone in a mask conveying character.] I didn't *buy* it. Mostly, when V talked and over-alliterated, I wanted to laugh. Or I was confuzed.

Also, the movie is *so* chock-full of plot the action movie parts suffered. Part of what makes the comic so great is that it's an espionage/adventure comic wrapped in the big ideas of social commentary. But overthrowing the government, training Evey, and telling V's life story is a bit much for one movie. So, a lot of V's exploits were severely truncated. In other words, V didn't seem to do much. There's the great opening where he takes over the TV studio... but the rest of the movie just involves him "showing up" and killing people. We see no taking out of guards, no scaling walls, nothing really fun. I understand why the action sequences had to go - they would be fat on an already full plate. But it really does slow down the middle of the movie.

So, that stuff out of the way... What about the theme?

Frankly, I fucking *hated* V. I never realized this before. V is a fucking authoritarian psycho. How do I know this? Riddle me this, Batman: How is what V does to Evey *any differnet* than what the government is doing to the rest of England? V has decided he has to test Evey, to make her strong, to manipulate her surroundings .... Let's be honest: he essentially brainwashes her. Add to that, V'd big statement at the end: blowing up Parliament. What the hell? Blow up a symbol to liberal democracy - which is presumably closer to V's goal than the current government? Why not blow up some of the fucking *enemy's* architecture? That, my friends, is some fucked up shit. Simply put, it speaks more to authoritarianism than anything else.

Like a lot of pop fiction that is supposedly "about politics," there is a simplistic tone to V's philosphy that is just goddamned annoying. First and foremost, just what is the plan for *after* we overthrow the government? More troubling is the manner in which the state is challenged in the first place: one vigilante takes on the power structures and sets the people free. How is anyone free? Haven't they just joined *another* cult of personality? No one is actually liberated, society is not set free. They're just mobilized on an emotional level. There are not reasons at work, not really. Finally, why does it have to be "governments vs. people" [You all know the quotation by know: "People shouldn't be afraid of their governments...blah blah blah...]? Isn't there a possibility for peaceful co-existence? Of a government composed OF the people? Don't democracies now approximate this? Haven't democracies in the past gotten even closer? It's just a little Manichean. It appeals to the 14 year old anarchist idealist ... It's less useful when you think about *actual* politics, which involve comproimse *inherently.*

Really, "freedom" (a more problematic idea than we like to admit, and one V never addresses in any way) happens when people decide to change things together, when networks are built and power is marshalled. Essentially, we're talking about a social movement now, right? There is this funny myth that great people produce change all by themselves. I mean, leaders matter - for sure. But just as important is all the footwork and grass roots organizing, that goes deep and goes on for *years* before and after the publc, "proper" movement. That is what produces real change. But, that whole reality is shunted aside in V for Vendetta.

If fact, one thing that the movie gets better than the comic book is the final scene with all the Londoners wearing the Guy Fawkes masks. The scene speaks to the reality of any social change, including those for liberty and freedom: change requires hierarhcy and organization (sorry anarchists). Freedom is not a guaranteed ontological state; it demands work and vigilance. That means not just citizen-vigiliance over the state, but also things like a military (to defend from outside invaders) and good institutions. To keep our big rights, we have to give up something to society - in other words, like Locke and Hobbes tell us, liberty is *not* license. Of course, I'm not sure what V thinks liberty is, since he never gets ino that....

Another bit that the movie gets better than the comic is V's final speech, where he discusses how a "monster" does not belong in the new world. Similarly, I enjoyed Evey's anger over how he manipulated her. Damn right Evey! In both of these areas (the masses having to give up individuality to achieve their good and the real danger of violence in politics), the movie is *more sophisticated* than Alan Moore's comic.

It's interesting to compare V for Vendetta, an earlier and obviously *reactionary* work, against Moore's later Watchmen. For those not in the know, Watchmen, on the surface, is a murder mystery and super-hero deconstruction. In the finale, a former super-hero commits a mammoth act of terrorism, which promises to create world peace. A number of other heroes tacitly agree to keep the truth of the terrorist act (which appears to be an alien attack) secret. The one hero who says this is not acceptable ... is killed, by the most-powerful and omniscient of all the characters (essentially, a "greater good" sort of thing).

The hero who would tell the truth - the insane Rorschach - is in many ways a parallel of V. Both are quite mad, driven by an intense sense of liberty and individualism, and wear creepy masks. While words like "hero" and "villian" do not quite apply to the sophisticated world of Watchmen, I think Rorschach is clearly not meant to be *idolized.* In fact, Moore would later lament that people latched onto Rorschach so much and Moore has expressed regret for his own role in the "dark hero" era of the 1990s. While there are a lot of themes in Watchmen, the end seems to endorse a reluctant utilitarianism: this terrorist act brought the world back from the brink of nuclear war, and created an environemnt where the peace and prosperity for everyone on the planet was possible. It maybe wasn't good, but it was better than any alternative.

In a lot of ways, Watchmen represents a HUGE flip from V for Vendetta. Ozymandius, the hero who unleashes the terrorist attack, is not exactly a good guy, but is at least partially validated. And how is Ozymandisum, panoptic and brilliant and driven, much different than the government V fights against? Sure, the contexts of the two books are very different .... but there is a chilling similarity.

So, did Moore change his views? Is V NOT supposed to be a hero - are we supposed to be wary of masked men? I dunno.. V sure seems like the hero of the book to me - a national symbol come to life, tapping into ideas of nationalism and liberty. The two books side-by-side are interesting. I think V for Vendetta is a simplistic text in a lot of ways, and that turs me off. It struggles under the weight of its own theme. Watchmen is the correction. The two books together show us the balance we walk for liberty - the tension between utility/community and rights/individuality that a "free" society has walk. "Freedom" isn't a simplly defined thing - it's contextual, political, and debatale. We have to define it, and there's not one simple formula that is both defensible (re: from outside attack) and provides ultimate freedom. It's a compromise.

So, in the end, taken alone - I can barely stomach the theme of V for Vendetta. It's angry and simple ... But I have to respect that it makes me think so damn much.

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