V For Vendetta

Ok, first and foremost: wow. I loved the movie, simply loved it. I had a tremendously favourable appetite towards it. As I watched it earlier tonight (by the way, where was everyone huh? I got there about 7:05, watched the movie alone, and didn't even find anyone from class afterwards!) I couldn't help but appreciate how nearly every single line had Hobbesean undertones. Unfortunately I cannot remember a lot of them right now, so I'll have to stick to the ideas rather than catchy one-liners. Of course "People should not be afraid of their governments; Goverments should be afraid of their people" and "strength in unity" really made impressions, but there was so much good stuff when 'V' or Chancellor Sutler made speeches, it blew my mind.

Imagine a society in which everyone has given up their basic freedoms out of fear of terrorism, disease, invasion, etc. It's frightening just how easy this is to imagine. An unknowingly staged incident such as a virus outbreak by the government and people are more than willing to hand over their personal freedom for "protection" provided by the governemnt. I couldn't help but think about all the controversy surrounding 911 and the claims that it was entirely staged by the Bush administration. It's the constant "threat" of terrorism that keeps Bush in power, that ensured a re-election that never should have happened. Hobbes was so right: the Leviathan uses fear to control the people. In "V for Vendetta" when Sutler is going to make a public announcement he says something to the effect that the people need to be reminded to be afraid.

On a side-note, it was interesting when Chief Inspector Finch went through a possible chain of events in which someone makes a mistake (policeman shoots a little girl) and 'the shit hits the fan'. He was worried that V's plan wouldn't work out very pretty in the end. All it would have taken was for one single military officer to fire his gun during the final scene of the movie, and civil war would have broken out. This easily could have happened since there was a mass of thousands of people marching towards them presumably in an attempt to overthrow the government; not everyone would wait for that order to shoot. But anyway, it's a movie, so it didn't end in a blood-bath, killing thousands of unarmed civilians. And that would have been tragic, since once the Leviathan figure, Sutler, was killed the revolution was basically over. Just a side-note.

Anyway, there's so much more to be said about the ideas engaged with in this movie, but I'll leave it at that for now. Oh and there's a lot on the official site about who Guy Fawkes really was and his attempt to overthrow James I in 1604. However, I'm not sure how relevant the history is because he appears to have been more religiously motivated, rather than for freedom from oppression.