V for Vendetta

Speaking of things I get irrationally angry about, V for Vendetta.

The movie. My analysis of the novel would require a significantly more drunk version of myself than you're ever likely to get. So I'll settle for telling you you should read the book but with one eye covered, for undisclosed reasons.

The movie, on the other hand, is a solid recommendation from me. It's visually stunning, with a solid story, good script, and some absolutely stellar performances. The genre isn't really covered by the "comic book" moniker so often ascribed to it, instead falling most comfortably into the "political/philosophical thriller-action" subgenres. From that perspective V for Vendetta is honestly quite a bit more intelligent than the majority of its competition.

Assuming you know nothing of poetry.

I could spend the breadth of this review discussing how this movie felt like an interesting caution when it was new, along the lines of Orwell's 1984, but how it now feels like an overly optimistic reading of the events of the last few years. I could spend time delving into the visual symbolism present in both the use of color and the use of shapes throughout the film. I could probably ramble at length over the political relationship between officials that govern and the populace they... govern. But no, instead we're going to have a quick chat about Guy Fawkes.

Now I get this was a movie made primarily by American producers for American audiences, and as such basically nobody in the target audience was probably super familiar with Guy Fawkes. I sure wasn't back in high school. But it wasn't too many years later that I finally read up on the context surrounding the 5th of November.

Remember, Remember the fifth of November,
the gunpowder treason and plot.
I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason
should ever be forgot.

This stanza of what is essentially a nursery rhyme with no author is quoted multiple times throughout the film and the novel on which it is based. On the face of it this is perfectly reasonable. Guy Fawkes famously tried to blow up the houses of Parliament in London on the 5th of November in 1605 while Parliament was in session and the king was present. In the novel it's pretty clear that V, the titular revolutionary, was using the poem and the effigy of Guy Fawkes because his titular Vendetta was against specific government figures. V in the book is a bit crazy and not nearly so... political as he is in the movie. At least, not intentionally.

Because the movie, rather than just settling on the idea that V is referencing the gunpowder plot because he's going to blow up parliament on the 5th of November, introduces the idea that V continuously references Guy Fawkes because he seems to idolize the dude as some sort of high-minded revolutionary in favor of justice. Which is ridiculous. Because Guy Fawkes wasn't a revolutionary; he was a mercenary.

The premise of the gunpowder treason was that the Catholic church wanted to regain control of England. See, a little while before this King Henry the "Where-Are-All-These-X-Chromosones-Coming-From" started a new church, the Church of England, because there were a few things he didn't like about Catholicism. He placed himself as the head of the church, declared it the state church, and blew a giant raspberry at the Pope across the channel (probably).

Grossly oversimplifying (my middle name!) the Catholic church didn't like this. They tried a few methods to discredit the new church, and eventually settled on just hiring some devout Catholic mercenaries to go assassinate the king. Guy Fawkes was among them (led them?), they planned to blow up Parliament, the rozzers found out, Guy Fawkes was arrested and hanged, and there's now a national holiday in the UK where they burn the dude in effigy. He wasn't trying to overthrow a corrupt government for the good of the people at all, he was trying to overthrow a corrupt government to serve his own self-interests and the interests of the corrupt governing body that hired him.

Which, in the book, is pretty clearly what V is doing. But the movie blurs that line right down to "he's a symbol for us all" in a way that paints a very convoluted picture of this Guy Fawkes dude they keep referencing. Don't get me wrong. V for Vendetta is an excellent film, and I happily watch it regularly. Easy recommend if you don't mind the R rating or can find an edited copy. But just keep in mind that the Guy Fawkes discussed in the film is just as fictional as, say, Lewis Prothero.

Probably more fictional now actually, considering Lewis Prothero turned out to be a word-for-word forecast of Tucker Carlsen.