Question: Is "V for Vendetta" now inspiring the tea partiers?...

[cascadiance]

I hadn't watched this flick in a while and was pretty in to it back during the Bush days when it came out dressing up as V for Halloween, etc.

It was playing on BBC this last night, and I was watching/listening to it in the background while I was doing other things.

One line suddenly had my head turn in the middle of it...

"I think it's high time we paid them back for a little "Tea Party" they threw for us a few hundred years ago!~"

Verified this quote here...

http://www.finestquotes.com/movie_quotes/movie/V%20for%20Vendetta/page/0.htm

This movie of course was made way before the Tea Party movement started... Then I was asking myself with the violent undertones of what is going on now with this sort of rebellion, if those who may have watched the V for Vendetta show, now have divorced themselves from thinking that the original intent of the movie by the Wachowski brothers was meant as a commentary about the Bush regime and have, like they have with so many other things projected that the movie was talking about an Obama administration instead. And perhaps that "tea party" reference got them started. The libertarians are certainly latching on to it, and are trying to "distance" it from Bush and apply it more to Obama now.

Interesting that there is an ad with V for Vendetta references to it (Remember in November) as noted here:

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2010/04/25/time-gops-remember-november-ad-embraces-17th-century-british-terrorist

Rand Paul, son of Ron Paul notes that he's inspired by this film here:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/05/14/rand_paul_tea_party_obama

How Rand Paul became the Tea Party's Obama
...
His inspiration was the movie "V for Vendetta," which had gained a cult following among libertarians. The film depicts a dystopian vision of a modern British government co-opted by corporations and transformed into a totalitarian state, which is violently attacked by a masked insurgent who styles himself after Guy Fawkes, the terrorist who was caught on Nov. 5, 1605, attempting to bomb Parliament while its members and the king were inside.
..

Even some freepers are jumping on to this Vendetta "bandwagon", despite a few that have written it off as "leftist crap"...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2499478/posts

To: South40

I’m going to disagree with your rant about V for Vendetta, so bear with me.

Yes, the original graphic novel, and Alan Moore, wrote the book as anti-Thatcher. The movie, however, came out differently and it became much more of a libertarian movie than I think Hollywood wanted. That’s why I use the V mask as my avatar in many places.

Let’s take a look at the plot:

1) Government uses a trumped-up crisis in health care and a mocked up virus in order to take control of health care.

2) Government uses further crisis to take away more and more of the people’s freedoms.

3) Government takes control of the economy.

4) Government arrests those vocal opponents and tries to make them ‘disappear’. V, the antagonist in the movie, is one of them. He is experimented upon, but like Number 6 in the Prisoner, he resists.

5) V strikes back at the government, not because he wants to, but because the sheep have no guts to do so. Eventually, like the original tea party in Boston, people wake up.

6) V eventually destroys the Parliament building (thus the Guy Fawkes mask), as he dies, passing along his job of taking down the government to Evey. However, as he is doing so, the people take to the streets...PEACEFULLY, though wearing the masks. Look at the movie - they don’t act. They are showing they are a formerly silent majority that are fed up. Sound familiar?

V was created long before anyone knew who Osama Bin Laden was. Don’t fall for the bs that there is a correlation between the two. V does act as a terrorist, but isn’t that what the tea parties are already being labeled as, even though we are that peaceful, formerly silent majority.

To: Lightfinger
I agree with you. V for Vendetta had problems: the premise (Christian Totalitarian state) and the solution (Leftwing anarchism as a political system) were both off. However, as you point out, the overall message was a very good one: Individuals matter, government is inherently oppressive, if the people rise up they can change society.

I see the Tea Parties when I see V for Vendetta.

"V"'s are pretty visible and noted in this tea party youtube for Ron Paul...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37psOdAAC5o

Some pics to note with Vendetta references:






Now perhaps I'm overreacting. But I'm wondering if studying this for a bit might help us understand some of the crazyness that's going on with the tea partiers these days...

[glowing]

1. I don't know how many Paulites would actually be comfortable with the analagy of being called a

teabagger...

[SpiralHawk]

6. TeaBaggers are ashamed of being TeaBaggers

sounds about right

[geckosfeet]

2. It's. A. Movie.

[dipsydoodle]

3. I thought they got their inspiration from Doris ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0zc7x434Aw&feature=related

[Dr Morbius]

4. Wow. I love the movie.

But I see the movie as a comic book fantasy. I can see how the tea-partiers can think of themselves as heroes ala V. But I can't stretch my imagination far enough to see our government as anywhere near as oppressive as that in the flick. In the movie, a political party started a plague in order to strike fear into the population and take power, and meanwhile make a ton of money on the cure. Curfew every night, and all TVs on one channel. It's a huge stretch to think there's any comparison between America and the dark Britain depicted in V for Vendetta. But perhaps some of these people make that stretch.

Revolution is in the air, maybe.

[marmar]

5. V was anti-racism.....He wouldn't be a teabagger.

[AllentownJake]

7. Don't know

but there were plenty of Guy Fawkes avatars during Bush on DU.

[liberal N proud]

8. That is giving them credit for thinking

Teabaggers don't do that

[moondust]

9. I also watched the film again last night.

It's about revolution but it's ludicrous to try to draw a parallel to "a trumped-up crisis in health care" blah, blah, blah as in the FR post. Nor is the message that "government is inherently oppressive" as in the other post. They're just bastardizing the themes of a good modern revolution film to support their own goofy behavior.

"V" is clearly about the rise of right wing totalitarianism through the use of FEAR. Watching the film again I couldn't help thinking of all the surveillance cameras in Britain now as well as the obvious parallels to the many abuses of terra! terra! terra! during the Bush/Cheney administration.

[Dark]

10. The Guy Fawkes mask has more to do with anonymous than republicans.

As far as the movie goes, the whole society is a fascist one, derived from the extremist conservatives.

I don't think they understand that.

[Orsino]

11. "Born in the USA" inspires right-wing nationalists, too...

...those who only want to chant along with the chorus, and don't bother listening to the rest of the lyrics.

[Flipper999]

12. I liked the movie, but...

folks should read the original graphic novel. It's less a story of good vs evil, and more of a story of anarchy vs fascism.

<Spoiler alert!>

The movie's ending is way more uplifting than the original's. The Bad government's buildings blown up, all of England wearing Guy Fawkes masks, hooray! In the original, V does blow up the government's infrastructure, which leads to it's collapse. However, England is in a state of total chaos at the end. Roving bands of vagrants with no clear way forward. Riots. Violence.

The libertarians would do well to take heed of this when they try to get inspiration from fiction. They talk about how great it would be to dismantle the government, but don't seem to have a coherent plan for what would happen afterwards. Who would enforce our laws, who would pave our roads, who would set basic safety standards for food and medicine, etc. The only answer I've ever heard is that loose coalitions of people and governments would work within their own regions to fill these voids. Oh, and companies would somehow be regulated by market forces. Like the market forces that protected misuse of the Gulf. Ouch.

There are some folks that I consider fairly intelligent in the libertarian movement (Dave Barry and Penn Teller are a couple of examples), but their intellectual skepticism seems to go flying out the window when applied to politics. Libertarianism is a naive and overly emotional political mindset.