The War Room

V FOR VENDETTA

A very valuable film review website is Libertas. It is subtitled 'a forum for conservative thought on film' and is run by Jason Apuzzo. On this website you will find many valuble essays on contemporary and historical films written with a very critical eye towards ideology and content. Apuzzo has a PHD and reviews and discusses the film industry with respect to what types of films are made, what their ideological component is and why they were made. The essays on the site are always articulate, learned and very knowledgable with regards to cinema history.

Today he presents a review of 'V for Vendetta', the follow-up film by the Waschowski Brothers who made The Matrix Trilogy. It is a dystopian view of a heroic terrorist who takes on a fascist government. A taste...

"Needless to say, this is one misguided, naive film that is everything it accuses the government within the film of being: fear mongering, deceitful, hateful, and propagandistic. This irony, unfortunately, seems to be lost on director James McTeigue and writers Andy and Larry Wachowski (who adapted Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s graphic novel).

From the very opening of this film, it becomes clear that the futuristic England under the reign of evil Conservatives (no brain-dead writer cliche there, right?) is meant to be a stand-in for the filmmakers’ paranoid vision of America - or where they believe America is headed. England, having been drawn into “America’s War,” is now a police state ruled by the Religious Right. This allows the filmmakers to indulge in a laundry list of the Left’s greatest hits of manufactured or downright paranoid “issues,” rants, hysterics, and propaganda (the very thing the film accuses the Right of doing)"

This film was supposed to be released as a big summer blockbuster in 2005, then postponed to the fall. Now it is coming out in the fall which is traditionally the dumping grounds in the industry for films that are troubled in some way.

I recommend reading this review in its entirety. I have read much about this film and I suspect it will get raves. Among many of the things apparently in the film...wait for it...a pedophilic priest; the allegation that AIDS is a disease created by Christians to kill homosexuals; the notion that there is no threat of terrorism except for that by the government; and Islam is spoke of as a poetic religion while Christianity is seen as hysterical and based in hate and fear.

It amazes me that people will see this film about fearmongering and not realize that they are in fact being fearmongered to.

V for Vendetta is the type of film made exactly for the same type of people who responded to those Liberal ads about 'soldiers with guns.'

As I have always said, try to find out as much as you can about the media you consume before you consume it. Too many people I find fall back to the old 'its only entertainment' argument when nothing could be further from the truth. You vote with your dollar in the entertainment industry.

Know the message you are being sold.

Also, and this is important; if you know people that see this film and want to discuss it...do not give this 'art', the benefit of being taken seriously. Laugh at it. That is your best weapon. By laughing at it as the extremist propaganda it is you take away its power to influence.

posted by Nicol DuMoulin @ 9:06 AM