Reply #35: Kicked for renewed discussion (contains spoilers)

[alarcojon]

Welcome to Du BobCatJH

I found the movie very interesting on various levels. One of which was the understanding that it was agitprop. The premise of a lone hero saving a people from a corrupt government appeals to a wide demographic - of course there are DUer's like us, but self-professed rebels of all sorts, including most young people must have also identified with V for at least some of the time.

Since we are to understand that the buildings were unpopulated when they were destroyed, their destruction is a call for the death of a symbol, not intended to cause loss of life.

Still, we all know the film will ultimately be dismissed by the right wing as a film asking its viewers to identify with terrorists. It is important that the plural "terrorists" is used rather than the singular "terrorist," this encourages multiple images in our minds, predominantly Saddam Hussein and Usama Bin Laden - rather than a lone actor, Hugo Weaving as V.

It is amusing watching Bush's propaganda people screw up their response to this movie. It is set in and is about England at the time the graphic novel was written. But they can't help seeing it as a direct attack on Bush. It betrays a certain insecurity, does it not? In a night at the local multiplex, one isn't often confronted with the portrayals of secretive administrations which use fear to control their people, which have significant control of the media, and whose methods involve an intentional framed calamity for which the government then provided the cure. If Bush has been such a great president, why worry if some left-wing loonies are going to - gulp - see connections between the Bush administration and the far more reactionary government of this film? Remember that in the film the leaders of the government are demonstrated to be incredibly corrupt and to have committed heinous crimes against humanity; again, if Bush has been such a great president, why assume anyone is pointing any fingers at Bush, Cheney, Rummy, Condi, Wolfie, O'Splotchy, etc. etc.?

When you are saying stuff like "this movie is a blatant political attack on the Bush administration," you are yielding to your political opponent's frames - our government rules by fear, the media is bought and paid for, loyalty to country is flagrantly conflated with support for terrorists, and our sons and daughters should never have been sent to fight Bush's ill-advised (even, of course, at the time) war in Iraq. And that is all to the good.

I urge all Duer's to continue to see the film and make up your own mind. And take someone with you, maybe someone you think is ripe for a shot of revolutionary zeal.