V and Overcoming Fear 11/3/10 - Wed Gathering in Rockville
Nov 1
posted by Michael Smith in
Sandbox
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This Wednesday Sandbox gathering we watch the movie "V for Vendetta" and discuss how it relates to overcoming our fears, whether they are self induced or promoted by companies, government or the media. With November 5th coming up and the Rally for Fear/Sanity on the Mall this weekend I figured it was time to revised this classic movie and become more aware of how fear is used for manipulation and to gain power in the modern world.
Most chillingly, the film invokes the dread once feared in 1984, Animal Farm, Brave new world, or Fahrenheit 451 but with a renewed vigor that drives home the horrors Orwell foresaw, and still loom large in our comfy modern world. It also makes us realize that the word 'terrorist' is thrown around excessively,
if someone earns this title by simply standing up for what they believe in, and let's just say anyone hearing that word labeled to someone is not only a stereotype, but it makes a default hate for anyone who hears it about this person. What creates the chaos and hate of this world.
How a government can quickly go from the minimal required to ensure that free trustworthy citizens can go about their life, to an overprotective, lying, ends justifies the means tyrant system. It reaches down into the very root of the modern political warmaking machine and totally debunks the War on Terror with all its sloganeering and xenophobia. Why is it that the state's terrorism as being of greater evil and rationalized by its political machinery, while V's acts are seen as "terroristic" because they are done by a single individual.
"Remember, remember the fifth of November," for on this day, in 2020, the minds of the masses shall be set free. So says code-name V (Hugo Weaving), a man on a mission to shake society out of its blank complacent stares in the film V for
Vendetta. His tactics, however, are a bit revolutionary, to say the least. The world in which V lives is very similar to Orwell's totalitarian dystopia in 1984: after years of various wars, England is now under "big brother" Chancellor Adam Sutler (played by John Hurt, who played Winston Smith in the movie 1984), whose party uses force and fear to run the nation. After they gained power, minorities and political dissenters were rounded up and removed; artistic and unacceptable religious works were confiscated. Cameras and microphones are
littered throughout the land, and the people are perpetually sedated through the governmentally controlled media. Taking inspiration from Guy Fawkes, the 17th century co-conspirator of a failed attempt to blow up Parliament on November 5,
1605, V dons a Fawkes mask and costume and sets off to wake the masses by destroying the symbols of their oppressors, literally and figuratively. At the beginning of his vendetta, V rescues Evey (Natalie Portman) from a group of
police officers and has her live with him in his underworld lair. It is through their relationship where we learn how V became V, the extremities of the party's corruption, the problems of an oppressive government, V's revenge plot, and his
philosophy on how to induce change.
Based on the popular graphic novel by Alan Moore, V for Vendetta's screenplay was written by the Wachowski Brothers (of The Matrix fame) and directed by their protégé, James McTeigue. Controversy and criticism followed the film since its
inception, from the hyper-stylized use of anarchistic terrorism to overthrow a corrupt government and the blatant jabs at the current U.S. political arena, to graphic novel fans complaining about the reconstruction of Alan Moore's original vision. Many are valid critiques and opinions, but there's no hiding the message the film is trying to express: Radical and drastic events often need to occur in order to shake people out of
their state of indifference in order to bring about real change.
From http://www.amazon.com/Vendetta-Two-Disc-Special-Hugo-Weaving/dp/B000FS9FCQ
The movie and discussion begins after dinner at 8pm and for this night only we continue after 10pm due to length of movie (2h 10m). I invite you to join us, though as always what ever choice you make you will be honored in.
