V for Vendetta University Dissertation Comments

Don't remember the film well enough to comment, and it's a while since I last read the graphic novel but:

From memory it's not really got much to do with anarchism, at least not as I understand it, even taking into account the individualist strand of anarchism.

It's about an/the individual against an authoritarian society, against one narrowly defined form of oppression. It's got nothing to say about class, and nothing really about social divisions such as race, gender, sexual orientation etc other than a general 'it's bad to stick them in camps' theme (ok, to be fair there is some stuff abut gender in the way characters are portrayed).

It's not even clear if V is against capitalism.

There's a particularly annoying bit when V hijacks the state broadcasting station, and castigates the population for being passive and (I think?) being more or less responsible for what's happened.

The agent of change is one person carrying out spectacular acts, bombings etc. Most anarchists twigged that these kind of things would never smash capitalism or usher in communism a hundred years ago. It's through mass action that a new society will be created.

I think the film did portray this side a little more by changing the ending, but I'd say that was simply showing a popular struggle than a class struggle - it was people acting against totalitarian rule rather than as a class to destroy class relations.

Have a look at the Anarchist FAQs and the libcom library to get a background on what anarchism is and isn't.

I should add that I really like V for Vendetta, just as a story though, not as a guide or introduction to anarchism.

I'd rather do a dissertation on 300

Not as bad as the bit where V takes Evey Hammond outside after the torture scene and it does that bit where she's reborn in water, he's reborn in fire - like, cos men and women are like fire and water right? And he's violence and revenge while she's forgiveness and love... get me a fucking sickbag.

Natch.

~J.

not only are VFV's politics shite, but they're not even logically consistent; what does 17th c. Catholic terrorism have to do with anarchism (in the broadest possible sense of the word)?

Don't think so, and if he says he is it's of the lifestylist bent. He claims to be a magician and is into Alistair Crowly.

Come on, I know someone who wrote their dissertation on a couple of YouTube videos. This is mild by comparison.

~J.

I enjoyed the comic book and to a lesser extent the film. There is more anarchist stuff in the book, as the film toned it down a lot (though it did pretty much add in Emma Goldman's 'if I can't dance it's not my revolution' line). As far as serious anarchism goes I don't think it can really relate to the whole superhero comic/film thing. Maybe they individualist wing of anarchism or the propaganda by the deed stuff?

If you do a search on this forum you should find some discussion on it from when the film came out. If I remember rightly mostly people slagged it off.

i havent seen the movie, and i admit it's been some time since i read the comic...

i enjoyed the comic, but, similar to about everyone else here, i found V's politics to be dubious at best. that said, i sometimes wonder if that may have been intentional - Moore may have known perfectly well that V's actions wouldnt create something like a libertarian communist society (or anything Anarchist in any form), but that the book wasnt necessarily supposed to be some sort of Anarchist fantasy wank.

Moore makes no illusions in depicting V as insane, and frankly psychopathic. Who V was before he was screwed with by the government is never answered, and likely intentionally so - you get the vague impression that he was an activist of some sort, perhaps an Anarchist, but that the treatment, torture, and experimentation he sustains drives him insane. what might a left-liberal activist, or an Anarchist, turn into after going through such hells? possibly V.

yes, V is a bloody psycho... and something of an elitist... seems to have no clear idea of what kind of society he wants (most of his rambling is simply a romanticization of "revolution," not far from what you'll typically get from a lot of musicians, even a lot of those who know better)... and his methods of achieving "revolution" is to kill the people he believes has wronged him and, after all the authorities are dead, to stand up and tell everyone that they're free (to do what? he likely doesnt know). does this mean that Moore thinks he's the ideal Anarchist? it seems to suggest to me the precise opposite - V for Vendetta is not a story about an Anarchist making a revolution, it's about a severely insane man (who may once have been some sort of activist) enacting his revenge and his psychotic fantasies.

if Moore genuinely believed this was a lesson in Anarchism, and teaching how to achieve an Anarchist society, then Moore failed. but if Moore was simply making a story about an insane individual who may once have had more honest revolutionary thoughts, then he achieves something fairly impressive. considering that Moore doesnt hide the gruesome character of V, i'm leaning towards the latter. but i ought to read the book again and see for sure, as it's been quite a long time and my memories are pretty hazy at best.

of course, given what i've heard about Moore, i kind of doubt he has a good conception of Anarchism anyway, so it's hard to say. but the man is hardly uninsightful in his writings, so he may at least *vaguely* have an idea, in spite of his spiritual oddities.

... that more-or-less covers the questions Robyn asked (that i could answer) except the last one - certainly, mass rebellion isnt the same as Anarchism. mass rebellion *could* be part of an Anarchist revolution, but there are tons of mass rebellions throughout history which have been for all sorts of varying ideals, only rarely Anarchism. in the book, at least, what V (and Evey) does would almost certainly not lead to anything like Anarchism.

ps: to people asking about whether Moore considers himself an Anarchist - in the foreword to V, he mentions something about how he was in the "Anarchist Party," whatever that is.

Here is one old thread on it, not sure if that's the one people are talking about:
http://libcom.org/node/6591

I don't see a problem with writing a thesis on VfV; it's certainly no more trivial than some of the shit I see on a daily basis (e.g. marxist analyses of Victorian urbanism), which even though it sounds important, will not be read by anyone ever outside a small circle of eggheads.
At least writing about VfV might get you a bigger audience, which is the point to writing after all.

I didn't go to university so I am not really sure what people write about, but to be quite honest I am absolutely amazed by this. To me it seems like the sort of thing that you would expect to see in the right wing press, 'Tax payers money spent by students on anarchist movies' shocker.

Devrim

I'm so glad I'm out of academia...I miss the women, don't get me wrong, but most of it has fuck all to do with real life.

Remember that these professor types are herding hundreds of 20 year olds most of whom are sex-crazed drug-addicts. Cut them some slack for taking whatever they can get! Seriously.

My reaction is this:

You do realize that you'll have to get a job at some point and your potential employer will probably look at your college transcript right in front of you...maybe questioning you about your course choices. They may even inquire into your dissertation...