Post 1, Group A--Homework, Fear of the government and the "other" in V for Vendetta, by Riley Stephens

I watched V for Vendetta and watched closely to see how this movie relates to fear. It is one of my favorite movies ever, but I had not seen it in quite some time. To my delight, it was on Netflix! At first, I started with the two topics of people fearing their government and fear of the other. The first topic—fear of the government—changed as I watched the movie. By the end I realized it was the government that became afraid of their people and that is why tyranny was ruling with such force (causing the people to fear their government in the beginning). Fear of the other came about when tyranny ruled and the film focused on Valarie—a homosexual woman that got “black bagged” and experimented on (homosexuals, activists, etc. are all “black bagged” (taken by the government)). Í also picked up on the importance of coincidences, ideas, and love.

In examining the dynamic of fear between the people and the government, I picked up on some things in the first few scenes of the movie. As Evey is out past curfew, there are a few “fingermen” (law enforcement officers… I wonder the significance of the term “fingermen”) that she is terrified of.  V, the vigilante, comes to her rescue. V is a man in a Guy Fawkes mask and carries many knives (I feel that the use of knives against guns was significant. I took it as him wanting to regain the freedom of older days by overcoming the fingermen without guns); however, she is less scared of this man (who, I should mention, is raving like a lunatic) than of her law enforcement officers. She trusts him enough to follow him through the city and listen to what he has to say. The letter “V” is extremely significant in this movie. V, a name he gives himself because he was in room V. (5) when he was being experimented on. The importance of this letter comes from all of the words that start with it. V mentions many of them as he raves, some of them including “victory”, “vigilance”, “vaccine”, “vengeance”, and “victims”—just to name a few. These words are all pivotal to the dynamic of the movie because the alliteration of the hard syllable catches peoples’ attention, as well as—of course—the words’ meanings.

I caught characters saying “there are no coincidences” 3 times throughout the movie. While watching, there were some scenes that depicted this: as V infiltrates where Evey works (he did not know she worked there), there is a moment of split screen where Evey hits the elevator button just as V hits the fire alarm. By the end of the scene, she “coincidentally” is the one who saves him. Another “coincidence” I picked up from close watching was the fire that broke out at the experiment site where V was being held. Valarie, the woman I mentioned earlier, had written him a letter saying “I hope you escape this place.” It was also a “coincidence” that Evey’s family was killed by the government for being activists.

I’m going to focus on Valarie for a second, as well as the importance of words/ideas/truth and love. The opening scene is strikingly beautiful: “…an idea does not feel pain, but you cannot kiss an idea, an idea cannot feel love…” This sets the tone for the rest of the movie. Another symbol for love I found was that V leaves red roses with his victims after he kills them. V says multiples times that “words will always retain their power”, where the government monitors the people’s free speech. He also says, at the end, “fear is the optimal tool of this government.” The government was afraid of their people, so they made the people afraid of their government. Valarie’s scenes depict her life and struggles of being a lesbian—a significant scene was when she comes out to her family, with her girlfriend holding her hand, and she says “I had only told them the truth.” Her parents then kick her out; I feel this is an example of people not wanting to or unable to face the truth. As V puts Evey what he went through, scenes match up with Valarie’s scenes while she is at the experiment site. This is important because it shows the parallel of their feelings and experiences.

One last thing I noticed was that the governments “catchphrase” was “unity through faith”, and the government’s symbol were double crosses. Evey had mentioned that “God is in the rain” and when she steps outside for the first time since going through what V did, it is storming and she outstretches her arms just like V did when he escaped through the fire. The water/fire duo is important because they cancel each other out and represent duality. I wonder if this duality has something to do with the double crosses as the government’s symbol.