September 2, 2025 • 58 mins
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You cannot kiss an idea, cannot touch it, or hold it. Ideas do not bleed, they do not feel pain, they do not love...
The (relatively) recent news that Stephen Colbert's show was cancelled put Emily in mind of the fate of Stephen Fry's character Gordon Dietrich in the 2005 film V for Vendetta, which is why she decided to revisit this pop culture mashup that took Alan Moore's graphic novel response to 1980s Thatcherism and updated it with early 2000s American angst over Bush-era government overreach.
The result, written by the Wachowski sisters and directed by their protege, James McTeigue, in his directorial debut, offers hope through beautiful storytelling, empowering feminism (even if the film doesn't exactly pass the Bechdel Test), and a partial breakdown of the psychology of fascism. Moore, who famously hates every adaptation of his work, specifically hates this film because it makes the fascist Norse Fire government look stable, when part of his cultural commentary in the original graphic novel was pointing out the inherent instability of authoritarianism. Rewatching this classic film in the current social environment did reinforce Moore's point to Emily, considering how generally competent everyone in the government appears to be in this movie.
Still, the message of hope and resilience in V for Vendetta is a welcome one, even if the pop culture revolution isn't exactly like the real world.
Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so why not throw on your headphones and listen to the episode?
Content warning: Mentions of torture, attempted sexual assault, and pedophilia
Mentioned in this episode:
Dominic Noble Lost in Adaptation V for Vendetta
This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.
Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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We are Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our family as the Guy Girls.
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We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, and analyzing pop culture for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, and whatever else we find.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Because what is done to her is monstrous and she says
that to him, because he sayswhat was done to me was
monstrous.
And she said and they made youa monster.
And it's this very interestingdichotomy Because what is done
to her is monstrous and it makesher more human.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Have you ever had something you love dismissed
because it's just pop culture,what others might deem stupid
shit?
You know matters, you knowwhat's worth talking and
thinking about, and so do we.
So come overthink with us as wedelve into our deep thoughts
about stupid shit.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
I'm Emily Guy-Burken and you're listening to Deep
Thoughts About Stupid Shit,because pop culture is still
culture, and shouldn't you knowwhat's in your head?
On today's episode, I will besharing my deep thoughts about
the 2005 film V for Vendettawith my sister, tracy Guy-Decker
, and with you, let's dive in.
(01:03):
So, tracy, I don't know ifyou've seen this film.
It came out when we were adults, so it's not part of our
childhood.
Tell me what you know about it.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
I have seen it and actually I read the graphic
novel first.
So in my 20s, after college, Iwent through a very rabid sort
of graphic novel phase and Iread a lot of the classics.
I started with Gaiman's SandmanFuck Neil Gaiman, or don't in
fact actually Right, actuallyavoid it at all costs and I went
(01:36):
on from there and V forVendetta and the Watchmen.
So Alan Moore was one of theauteurs that I followed that I
consumed voraciously in thattime period and I loved it.
I loved V for Vendetta at thetime when I read it as a graphic
novel and so when it came outas a movie I didn't remember
whether it was 05, but in theearly 2000s I was pretty excited
(01:56):
.
It was not that long after right, it was actually probably right
around the same time becauseI'm thinking I was in Chicago
when this was happening.
So it was sometime between 2000and 2007 that I was kind of in
this voracious graphic novelphase.
So anyway, it was likeserendipitous that I was like
super into graphic novels andthen this movie came out.
So I remember loving it andlike, and not a lot else.
(02:20):
Honestly, I remember the storybecause I read the graphic novel
, though I read it so fast thatwhat I do remember is very much
snapshots and vignettes.
You know different finger menand the hand and the sort of
ways that that metaphor ofcontrol and the way that it
(02:49):
extended, and I really enjoyedthat and the both ands, the
emotions that were scary andalso fun, like holding that both
(03:10):
and felt really important.
So that's.
There are other little likesnapshots that are completely
disjointed, so I'm just gonnaleave them and ask you, why are
we talking about v for vendettatoday?
So specifically.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
I'm talking about it because of the recent
cancellation of StephenColbert's late night show, which
we don't know for sure, butit's clear that it happened two
days after he made fun of thebig fat bribe of the CBS merger
(03:47):
and the payments to the Trumpadministration, which all of it
is just ugly corruption.
I like late night comedians.
I don't watch them at night.
I don't stay up that late, sopart of my morning routine is I
drink my coffee, I do my wordgames on my phone and I watch
(04:07):
the late night comedians onYouTube.
And Colbert has never been myfavorite, but I do watch him
regularly and I have alwaysliked his sense of humor, I like
the way that he does things,and so I was shocked that he was
canceled, because he is themost popular of the late night
hosts, even if he is not myfavorite.
So that reminded me of whathappens to Stephen Fry's Gordon
(04:32):
Dietrich character, where hemakes fun of the high chancellor
, Adam Sutler, who thenimmediately has him arrested and
disappeared and killed in themiddle of the night, which
obviously is not nearly what ishappening.
I mean, that is not what'shappening to Stephen Colbert,
but Stephen Colbert.
There were immediateconsequences, and so that's why
(04:56):
I wanted to talk about it now.
When the film came out, I wasnot familiar with the graphic
novel originally, but justseeing the trailers it resonated
in the midst of the Bush erafor me and I was like I got to
go see that movie and I loved itand it felt very of the moment
(05:18):
and important, and in some wayseven more so now, although there
are aspects that I feel like Ican understand why Alan Moore
disavows this film, although hedisavows every single film
interpretation of his work andwhen I tried to read the graphic
novel I couldn't get through itfor reasons I'll get to.
(05:41):
But that was the very specificmotivator for wanting to talk
about it now and then.
Also in this moment, I thinkthat it is important to talk
about this film.
Where we are in America rightnow and in the world where we're
seeing a rise of right-wingpopulism, I think that it's
important to revisit this filmand talk about it, and talk
(06:02):
about the messages of this film,what it gets right and what it
gets wrong about fascism.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Okay.
Well, since my recollection isvery disjointed, why don't you
remind us all of the plot?
Speaker 1 (06:15):
So it is set in 2020.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Uh-huh.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Wow.
So we begin with a voiceoverfrom Natalie Portman's Evie
Hammond.
She's reminding of thegunpowder plot, which was the
5th of November in 1605.
The original plan was for themovie to come out the 5th of
November 2005.
So 400 years later, saying thatyou can't kill an idea, saying
that you can't kill an idea butyou also can't kiss an idea or
(06:46):
love an idea.
And we see Guy Fawkes, who wasthe figurehead he was not the
instigator, but the figureheadof the gunpowder plot being
executed and a woman crying.
And then we see Evie gettingready for a date.
And it's this lovely parallel.
We also see V getting ready,putting on his Guy Fawkes mask
(07:13):
and a wig, and she's putting onhigh heels, he's putting on his
boots and she is out past curfew.
You see loudspeakers sayingcurfew is in effect.
She runs into fingermen whichare like the secret police and
so she says I'm sorry, it was amistake, I'll go home, and it's
clear that they are going tosexually assault her.
That she'll be sorry.
(07:33):
V comes and rescues her anduses, like this kind of amazing
martial arts to possibly killthem.
Definitely, stop them.
Introduces himself as V usingthis amazing language.
He uses the V words like 47times in 30 seconds and says do
you like music?
I would like you to see aconcert I'm putting on.
(07:56):
And he takes her up to the roofof a building this is in London
, by the way and he plays the1812 orchestra and blows up the
Old Bailey, which has LadyJustice on top.
The Old Bailey is, I believe,the old prison in London.
You know London better than Ido.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
I don't know what the Old Bailey is, though.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
So the next morning Evie goes to work, Turns out she
is a low-level employee at theBTN, which is the British
Television Network, and we findout that her assignation had
been with her boss, GordonDietrich, played by Stephen Fry.
He is a Stephen Colbert-typeperson.
He is the host of a verypopular television show and he
(08:42):
says I've never been stood up bya more attractive young woman.
And she explains they werefingermen.
I got, says I've never beenstood up by a more attractive
young woman, and she explainsthey were fingermen.
I got nervous.
I went back home and thenewscasters are saying that oh,
the Old Bailey was scheduled fordemolition and the demolition
was scheduled.
The crew decided to have somecheeky fun with it and so they
did fireworks and music and assomething that happens
(09:05):
throughout the film, you seepeople watching television,
which is clearly part of thecontrol of the Norse fire party.
So people watching televisiongoing, that's bollocks.
You don't believe that.
No one, that's not true.
So there's a sense that peopledon't entirely believe what
they're being told.
So in the course of the dayEvie gets a delivery of boxes
(09:26):
that says that it's supposed togo into a particular studio in
the tv station.
So this delivery goes into aparticular tv station, she sees
someone open it up and there's aguy fox mask in there and evie
is a little freaked out.
She's like, oh, something badis about to happen.
And she grabs her stuff andstarts to leave because she's
(09:47):
like something bad is coming.
Meanwhile, the higher up in theLondon police, who we also know
is one of the top five or sixadvisors to the chancellor Finch
is his name.
Inspector Finch has been tryingto find V and Evie.
They have images of thembecause there's cameras all
(10:09):
around London.
They've got nothing on Vbecause he's wearing a mask, but
Evie they've been able to tryto find her.
They've already been to herapartment and they figured out
where she works.
So they're coming to find her.
So she is trying to leave,coming to find her, so she is
trying to leave.
At the same time, Finch and hissecond-in-command, who's named
(10:29):
Dominic, played by Rupert Grint,who goes on to play Lestrade on
Sherlock Just who I know youhave fond feelings for.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
I love him.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
So Finch is played by Stephen Ray, also a very, very
good actor.
So things are starting tohappen.
Evie comes out, she sees thepolice coming and she, like,
turns and hides, finds a like aroom and is able to evade the
police.
When v comes in, takes over thebroadcast and it's an emergency
broadcast system and lockseveryone out and puts some like
concrete or something in thedoor so they can't get through
(11:08):
the door and tells everyone onthis like emergency broadcast
that cannot be cut into, that heis starting a revolution and
everyone needs to join him on.
Invites everyone to join himone year from today, on the 5th
of November, because there'ssomething wrong with this
country and people should not beafraid of their governments.
(11:28):
Governments should be afraid oftheir people.
And the police eventually areable to break through the door
he has, like sent through thesmoke machines and they the
police start shooting at AVcoming through towards them and
it turns out that he has themasks were to dress everyone up
(11:51):
as him and so they are likeobviously confused.
V is able to get away in thechaos, but Dominic gets, gets to
him and has a gun on him.
While Evie, dominic is, dominicis Rupert Gr, while Evie,
dominic is the cop, dominic isRupert Grint, yeah, dominic is
Lestrade.
Okay, evie comes upon them andwe already know that she has
(12:14):
mace because she threatened thefingerman with it.
And so at this point, likethere's nothing V can do, he's
cornered and Dominic doesn'trealize there's anyone behind
him.
So Evie comes behind him, tapshim on the shoulder and maces
the cop.
He, like, without even reallythinking, like, knocks her out
with his gun, like you know,cold cocks, her Pistol, whips,
(12:39):
her surveillance, with Finch andDominic looking at it.
V is like standing over her,like clearly unclear what to do,
and Finch says he's trying todecide, like he doesn't know
what to do.
And Dominic is saying like he'sa terrorist, why should?
Like he can't think like you orme?
And Finch says well, he's stillhuman.
So Evie wakes up in V's home,which he calls the shadow
(13:03):
gallery, which is underground,and he says I didn't know what
to do.
If I had left you, they wouldhave arrested you, they would
have black bagged you, which iswhat they do.
They put a black bag over yourhead, which sounds really
familiar, and you would havebeen tortured and killed.
I'm sorry, I had to bring youwith me.
It was the only thing I couldthink to do.
You have to stay with me for ayear until I've completed my
(13:26):
plans.
Evie freaks out Like you mean,I have to stay with you for a
year, you should have just leftme alone.
She then apologizes later andthey end up kind of bonding a
little bit.
They watch a movie together andchat a little bit.
V then uses her work ID to getinto the home of Louis Prothero,
(13:49):
who is known as the Voice ofLondon, who is kind of like a
Sean Hannity character.
He just screams at thetelevision every night and is
such a narcissistic jerk he hasno idea who V is, even though he
was instrumental in creatinghim.
V kills him using some sort ofpoison, but it seems like a
(14:10):
violent death, and then leaves arose on him and so they cover
up his death and they say thathe died of a heart attack at the
office because he was aworkaholic office because he was
a workaholic.
And V and Evie are watching TVand Evie says oh, the news
(14:31):
presenter is lying.
And V says how do you knowshe's like well, she blinks a
lot when she lies and the waythat V reacts.
Evie says did you havesomething to do with it?
And he says do you want to lieor do you want the truth?
And so Evie ends upunderstanding that V is killing
people and will kill more peopleand she freaks out.
So she makes a plan to getherself out.
She had told V that she wantedto be an actress.
(14:55):
So she tells him her backstory.
Her brother died in the StMary's tragedy, which was three
terrorists had released abioweapon at St Mary's School
which killed her brother, a freewater treatment plant and the
London Underground, and so theterrorists confessed and were
executed.
(15:15):
Her parents became politicalagitators and they were
blackbagged out of her home whenshe was 12.
Holy shit.
And she saw it happen.
Her mother came into her roomand said Evie, hide.
And she hid under the bed andwere killed, and so she has
never been as strong as herparents were.
(15:37):
But now she wants to help therevolution.
So is there anything she can do?
So a few days later he comes toher and says actually there is
something you can do.
I need your acting skills.
So he has her dress up in thisvery Lolita costume so that she
can pretend to be a child sexworker for a pedophile priest
(16:00):
who it's gross who was alsoinstrumental in creating V.
So when she gets there shetries to tell the priest what's
going on and the priest thinksit's all part of an act and he's
still trying to do what he doesand so she ends up hitting him
and he immediately becomesabusive and violent.
(16:22):
V comes in and attacks him andstarts and injects the poison
and she runs away saying likeI'm sorry, I had to do this.
And she runs to Gordon's housebecause she still has his
address.
Gordon brings her in and sheapologizes profusely I know I'm
putting you in danger.
And he says you're the least ofmy worries and shows her that
(16:44):
he has a secret room where hehas a Koran.
He has a artwork called God Savethe Queen, which is a picture
of Adam Suttler in drag and itwas something that was
supposedly destroyed when hetook office and then also some
homoerotic imagery because he isgay and he had invited her to
his home because that's part ofhis mask.
(17:06):
And he says you wear the maskso long you forget who you are
underneath.
And so he brings her in,protects her he's very kind to
her and because of her story andwhat's going on with V.
He throws out thecensor-approved script and has a
(17:26):
show where he brings in an AdamSuttler stand-in and has him
have pratfalls and the officialstory is that the terrorist is
what they call.
V is dead because they had shotone of the people wearing the
and so they claimed that was himthey shot a bystander who
(17:47):
happened to be wearing a GuyFawkes mask and they claimed
that they got the guy.
So in this non-censor-proof showthey have someone else wearing
a Guy Fawkes mask with the BennyHill theme, like tying Adam
Suttler's shoelaces together andthen giving him a cigar that
blows up and like it's very,it's Benny Hill.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
It's silly.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
And then at the end, when they have them, face each
other, he's like remove thisman's mask.
And he takes off the Guy Fawkesmask and it's Adam Suttler, so
there's two of them there.
And then, like the fingermenshow up and he's like this man
is an imposter.
No, this man is an imposter.
And they shoot both of them andfall over.
And it's silly, it's fun, it'sfunny.
And we see, like again in everyhome across the nation, people
(18:36):
laughing and Gordon iscompletely unbothered.
He's on the phone with hisagent.
He's like this is why you're myagent.
I know what's going to happen.
I'll have to do a charity thing, I'll have to apologize on air.
It's not a big deal.
And Evie's like you're mad,it's going to be fine that night
.
She's asleep in his guest roomand there's like the sound of a
(18:57):
door being forced open.
And then Gordon comes into herroom and it is a complete repeat
of the worst thing thathappened to her when her mother
came in and said Evie, hide.
He comes in, closes the doorsand says Evie, hide.
And she hides under the bedjust like she did when she was a
girl, and they come in.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
So it's the exact parallel.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Once he's taken away, she gets out through the window
and runs away and as she'sgetting out through the gate,
someone puts a bag overhead,says gotcha, and she is taken to
a facility where her head isshaved and she's told this can
stop if you just tell usanything about the whereabouts
or identity of V and she says no, she is thrown into a cell and
(19:37):
over the next weeks she iscompletely isolated.
She's tortured, her head is putin water.
But there is a little strip ofpaper is pushed through the hole
in the wall and you see herreading it and it is a woman
named Valerie Page, who had beenan actress, who was a lesbian,
who had been thrown out.
When she came out to herparents In 2015, she was in a
(20:02):
and remember, 2015 was thefuture.
When this came out, she was inthe most important movie of her
life.
Not because the movie was thatimportant, because she met her
wife, ruth.
It was a movie called the SaltFlats, and so for three years
they had a beautiful lifetogether.
They grew a castle, somethingroses, which is an important
(20:26):
through line as well.
But then Norse Fire Party cameinto power and Ruth was taken
away because they putconcentration camps for
undesirables, includinghomosexuals.
Ruth was taken away while shewas out camps for undesirables,
including homosexuals.
Ruth was taken away while shewas out getting food and she'd
never cried so much in her life.
They came for her and we see it, we see all these moments.
They came for her and she justwas sitting in the couch and
they're coming through and shejust let them.
(20:47):
We have already seen somebackground and we know that she
was in the same facility that vwas in.
So even though we don't reallyknow what's going on with evie,
so over and over again duringinterrogations of evie, they
make it clear we're going tokill you if you don't tell us
(21:08):
anything.
One thing valerie says in inher autobiography, written on
toilet paper, is there's onething they can't take away from
you.
There's this one last inch ofyour humanity, and that is your
integrity.
You have that and they cannever take that away from you.
And so someone comes and saystell us what you know about V,
(21:29):
or we're going to take youbehind the chemical sheds and
shoot you.
Just tell them.
Just tell them that.
And she says thank you, but I'drather die behind the chemical
sheds.
And the interrogator says, wellthen, you're finally free.
And then leaves and leaves thedoor open and she like just sits
there for a while going whatthe heck is going on, and like
(21:50):
wanders out and the guard at theend is just a mannequin and as
she goes out she's in v's home,because it was me the whole time
her.
I remember that now and shestarts having a breakdown and he
says I, I didn't know how elseto do this.
You know, you said you wantedto live without fear.
And she, she's likehyperventilating.
(22:13):
She's like I need air.
I need air.
Now.
One of the things that Valeriesaid was her grandmother had a
farm and her grandmother hadalways said God is in the rain.
And so he's like I'll take youup, I'll take you up outside,
and outside it's raining.
And she stands up in the rainand she says God is in the rain.
And we had seen V when he hadcame out of his experience in
(22:33):
the concentration camp.
He had set a fire thatdestroyed everything.
And he is standing the same wayin the fire.
She's standing that way.
There's a mirror in the rain.
So it's this very beautifulmirroring as well.
So she comes back, she's calm,she says I'm leaving.
She comes back, she's calm, shesays I'm leaving.
(23:13):
And V says one thing I wouldvery much like is to see you at
least one time before Novemberthe 5th.
And she says okay, and she saysI'm leaving.
He says do you know where yougo?
She says no, that would havescared me once.
But no, I don't know where I'llgo and I'll figure it out.
And so we see his plan startingto come together.
We see Finch starting to likedoing the investigation,
starting to realize that thethree terrorists, who religious
extremists, who claimedresponsibility for the deaths,
for the bioweapon he's like,what if they weren't responsible
?
What if our government did it?
(23:34):
Because the doctor who had beendoing the experiments on V and
the others, including Valerie,who had actually been the cell,
had the cell right next to V'sand that was actually the toilet
paper that she'd passed to V,and he's doing this to get
revenge for her.
They created this bioweapon andthey created the antidote, and
(23:58):
so they did this so they couldtake power, and then they made
thousands upon thousands ofmillions of pounds of money by
marketing the pharmaceutical asthe antidote to this bioweapon.
Then V sends out the masks andthe costume basically to
everyone across the country andthere's a little girl we've seen
(24:23):
regularly who has glasses, andso we see her wearing it and
like kind of just playingwearing it and one of the
fingermen shoots her.
The community comes and likeconfronts him and like starts
beating him because he's killeda little girl, and the
(24:43):
chancellor is like trying torule with an iron fist and his
advisors are saying what do wedo if he actually manages to?
Because his plan is to blow upParliament.
The 5th of November arrives.
V has spoken to Creedy, who isthe amoral head of the Fingermen
(25:05):
, who is the one who planned allof this, and has said if you
give me Suttler, you can have me.
And so Evie comes to V, theydance and V gives her the train
because he has opened up all ofthe underground tracks full of
(25:26):
explosives and says it is up toyou whether or not the
explosives will go.
She says you don't have to dothis, like we can go away
somewhere.
And he says no, I can't do this.
She actually kisses his maskand he goes off to meet Creedy,
who has brought him Suttler.
Creedy kills Suttler, like Vdoesn't do it.
And then Creedy says all right,now we're going to kill you.
(25:49):
And he's like well, you can try, because Creedy has nearly a
dozen soldiers with him.
And he's like well, we've gotguns.
He's like no, what you have arebullets and you're going to try
to reload before I have achance to.
So they unload all of theirbullets on him and he keeps
standing and he's like all right, now my turn.
(26:10):
And he's's clearly injured, buthe's not dead.
And so he uses knives and killsall of them with creedy, going
like how are you not dead?
And then he like barely, makesit back to evie and she says I
she's like we have to stop thebleeding, I don't want you to
die.
He says it's done, I'm gone.
(26:30):
He says I fell in love with you, evie.
You changed things.
You made me realize that Icould do things differently.
Up above, the people have shownup wearing the Guy Fawkes masks
and overwhelming the military.
And because the High Chancelloris dead, creedy is dead,
(26:51):
inspector Finch is trying tofind V in the underground.
There is no one to tell themilitary what to do.
So they stand down and areoverwhelmed by the Guy Fawkes
mask wearers.
And Finch comes upon Evie justas she has put V on the train
and is about to press the leverto have it go, and Finch tells
(27:14):
her to stop and she says no.
And after they have aconversation and she sends it
along, she makes him realize youcannot stop this revolution.
They leave and go up above towatch the destruction and he
says who was he?
She says he was my father, hewas my brother, he was my mother
(27:36):
, he was me, he was you, he wasall of us.
And we see as the destructiongoes, which includes fireworks
and there's music playing,everyone taking off their masks,
and you see people we know aredead, including the little girl
with glasses and Gordon.
And we see Dominic Rupert GrintLestrade, who we know is not
(27:57):
there.
We see Valerie, so reiteratingthe idea that V is all of us and
V continues and that is wherethe film ends.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Wow, so where do we start?
Speaker 1 (28:13):
So let me start with why Alan Moore hates this
adaptation, and not just becausehe doesn't like any adaptation
of his work.
So I'm going to include a linkin the show notes to a video by.
There's a YouTuber I like,dominic Noble.
He does Lost in Adaptation,which where he looks at books
and the movies that were madefrom them, the adaptations.
(28:35):
So now I'll explain why Icouldn't read the graphic novel,
like I think 16.
(28:58):
She's very young and she istrying to become a sex worker
and she approaches the fingermenasking them to like if they
want to party, basically, andshe has no idea what she's doing
and I just I couldn't read it.
I couldn't read it from thereBecause it was so different from
the Evie in the film who Iloved and I just like I couldn't
get past that scene and I haveno idea where the story was
(29:22):
going to go from there.
But based on what Dominic Noblesaid, it just it felt like I
was not going to enjoy theportrayal of Evie.
Portrayal of Evie because whathe said in his video was it
sounded like she became likeobsessed with V in a kind of
which makes sense character-wise, based on how young she is, but
I really appreciate Evie as alike frightened but independent
(29:52):
adult woman yeah, andfundamentally a good person.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
I'm not sure alan moore believes there are is
exactly as a fundamentally goodperson.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
So and she's someone who lost everyone and it even
the like she didn't feel smartto me in that first scene that I
was reading she felt like andthat that might be unfair of me,
but just like, oh honey, don'tapproach them right like that is
(30:20):
not how you get started withthat and so like, and I don't,
like, I don't know anythingabout alan moore.
I don't.
I've read the watchman but I'veread much of anything else of
his, but I just didn't feel likehe had much of a high opinion
of teen girls, of women, yeah,yeah, but even the Watchman
(30:41):
isn't part of why I say I'm notsure he believes there's any
such thing as a truly good humanbeing.
So I just wanted to put thatout there to start.
I totally comprehend Evie inthe film, and so I could not get
past that first scene of Eviein the book, and that's why I
never read it.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
And why do you think Alan Moore hates?
Speaker 1 (31:05):
this.
So the way that Dominic Nobleput it and I think that this is
reasonable and smart it and Ithink that this is reasonable
and smart, the way that the filmputs it is that V is working
specifically to dismantle thisfascist state because he
believes that there is somethingbetter, whereas Alan Moore was
(31:28):
trying to show like fascism andanarchy and not drawing any
conclusions about which one isgood, which one is, that either
are good things.
Yeah, that jibes with without,and that's, I think, what I
understand.
Yeah, and the other thing thatreally struck me about what
(31:49):
Dominic Noble said, and that islike I can totally comprehend
Alan Moore having a problem with, is that, by characterizing V
the way they did in the film,the fascism in the film is set
up to look stable, it has acertain stability to it until V
comes along, whereas part ofAlan Moore's point is that
(32:12):
fascism is inherently unstable,unstable, excuse me, inherently
unstable, and which I think is avery important point and is
actually something that we doneed to recognize, because the
thing that I had a harder timewith this time around is the
level of incompetence in ourcurrent reality, and there was a
(32:39):
lot of incompetence during thebrochure, and like there was, I
felt a lot of embarrassment atthe time.
And there is certainlyincompetence in V for Vendetta,
the film version.
Incompetence in V for Vendetta,the film version, but it's much
bigger and broader in the book,based on what Dominic Noble
(33:00):
talks about.
Adam Susan is the name in thebook.
They changed it to Adam Sutlerbecause it sounds like Adolf
Hitler.
But Adam Susan is in love withan AI girlfriend because Alan
Moore is very prescient and theAI girlfriend is hacked and he's
manipulated that way.
Which boy does that sound likesomething that could happen in
(33:22):
our current reality?
It really does.
So there are some aspects ofincompetence within the film
version.
I think I remember the firsttime I saw it in the theater,
you only ever see Suttler on ascreen where he's enormous and
then the first time you see himin person he looks tiny and I
(33:46):
remember thinking that wasreally surprising and an
important moment, because thatis part of what fascism tries to
do is give you this sense ofhugeness and that was what
Gordon Dietrich was doing islike showing the clay feet by
(34:08):
making fun.
Making fun right.
But overall in the film and Ithink alan moore was right to be
upset about this.
It does feel like the norsefire controlled england is
working pretty well and insofaras the trains are yes, insofar
(34:29):
as things are.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
And I can see why that would be upsetting, yeah,
but I also think that this filmwould not be nearly as hopeful
Like.
I don't think there's a way ofmaking this film.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Well, you can't make it hopeful.
That's probably part of whatAlan Moore doesn't like.
He doesn't actually believe inhope.
He's very bleak.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
As I read his work, he doesn't see much cause for
hope.
Britain Now, because Moorewrote the book in response to
Thatcherism in the early 80s.
The film was written by theWachowskis in the early 2000s in
response to Bush.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Right, the Wachowski sisters of the.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Matrix theme and that was another aspect that Dominic
Noble, who is also british,although he lives in america now
he says that the amount of gunsin the film feels very weird to
him in england.
Now it is right opium futureand it's very american.
It is very american and thereare even some imagery that are
(35:47):
reminiscent of abu grabe,because that was very topical at
the time.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
The uh that was the prison in iraq where american
military were torturing and yeah, images surfaced at the time of
american military like gloatingover tortured iraq yes, so.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
so this is a like this film is a weird amalgam.
So this film is a weird amalgambecause it is set in Britain,
it is a British film using GuyFawkes and the 1605 gunpowder
plots, and yet you know, it wasadapted by American writers.
I believe James McTeague is anAmerican director.
(36:30):
So it's a very strange amalgam.
And so, and I think, thehopefulness is also very
American.
Like we're can do attitudes.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Yeah, we definitely, and we like it in our movies?
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Yes, we do, but I also think that it is, I think
it's kind of necessary In that,like when we talked about with
titanic, so that we don't justhave a well, that's a thing that
happens right well, the waythat americans understand our
(37:02):
movie, our storytelling.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
There has to be some sort of insight at the end,
other otherwise, yeah, I meanthat's, but that is a convention
, it's a cultural, culturalconvention.
It's not like yeah, yeah.
So we're running a little shorton time and I want to make sure
you get to the analysis thatyou wanted to get listeners as a
reminder does it have at leasttwo female characters with names
.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Do they talk to each other about something other than
a man or a boy?
Because so we have Evie, wehave Valerie Page, who they
never actually meet each otherin person.
(37:42):
We have Delia Suttridge, Ithink, who is one of the doctors
or the doctor who makes V whathe is.
So those are named femalecharacters, but I don't think
they ever actually interact witheach other.
However, each of them havevoiceovers and tell the story of
(38:02):
this revolution from their ownpoint of view.
So it doesn't exactly passBechtel, it doesn't exactly pass
Bechtel, but the story is fromthe point of view of these women
, which I think is reallyimportant, because Evie starts
(38:23):
the film in a voiceover and endsit basically in a voiceover,
but talking to Finch DeliaSutridge.
Her journals, which we hear ina voiceover, explain how V
became what he is and explainhow this horrible plot came
together.
And Valerie Page explains whathappened to an individual person
(38:46):
and the humanity of the peoplewho were treated as inhuman.
And so Evie as a protagonist is, I feel, like this really
interesting characterization ofa normal person who becomes a
revolutionary.
And she describes V as the mostimportant thing in her life and
(39:09):
I think it's interesting.
Oh, she says thing.
She says thing, you are themost important thing in my life
and I know nothing about you.
And because what is done to heris monstrous, and she says that
to him, because he says whatwas done to me it was monstrous,
and she said and they made youa monster.
And it's this very interestingdichotomy because what is done
(39:36):
to her is monstrous and it makesher more human, she becomes
more compassionate and we seethat in the parallel of her
standing in the rain compared tothe parallel of him standing in
the fire that he started,compared to the parallel of him
standing in the fire that hestarted and her going.
(39:57):
God is in the rain and him going, I'm going to get vengeance,
and so I think it's verysignificant.
She kisses his mask and shesays we could go away together.
I don't want you to die, Idon't want you to die.
But he says I fell in love withyou and she never says those
(40:18):
words.
She cares for him and he isimportant to her, and meeting
him has changed her life and hashelped her to learn not to fear
, but she never at any pointsays she loves him.
But she has been changed by him,and I think that is really
important because what he hasdone to her is monstrous, right,
(40:40):
but it has allowed her toaccess a level of humanity that
I don't know if she would haveknown how to access.
So, before we hit record, youtold me that two of the things
(41:19):
you wanted to talk about wereviolence, the role of violence
in revolution and the role ofcompassion in revolution.
So part because without thislevel of violence, the people
would not have woken up, Rightand in part because of that poor
little girl's death.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
Right.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
So that violence was in some ways necessary, which is
horrifying to me, you know, andhorrifying Like Gordon,
dietrich is a gentle, lovely man, who means no one any harm, who
is simply, you know, wants tolive his life.
That little girl is justplaying, and so the idea that
(41:53):
violence is necessary forrevolution is horrifying to me,
but I cannot see how it would bepossible without it.
In the terms of the story, atleast On the other side of it,
the compassion that Evie shows,not only to V but just in
(42:17):
general throughout, like thecompassion she shows to Gordon,
the compassion she runs into thelittle girl with glasses at one
point who is, like, frightenedof her, and like the compassion
she shows there, just and ingeneral, she is a compassionate
person who because of hercompassion she saves V from
(42:38):
Dominic Right, and so therevolution would have ended
there if she hadn't showncompassion.
I mean, I feel like it's alsothe case that compassion and
empathy for the other people asa result of the violence is
actually what caused revolution,Because the opposite of
compassion is apathy right, yesyes, so there are two sides of
(42:59):
the same, yeah, and the in termsof starting the revolution,
yeah because and it's because ofv has an entire wing of his
like, of his home, dedicated tovalerie page.
Because, when she realizes thatit was all a trick, she thought
that v had written he made herup and he's like no, let me show
you, she really existed, and soit's important that we see that
(43:23):
this is true he also, has healso has compassion for valerie
so you know, thinking about thislike compassion as a as an
essential ingredient, I thinklike the reason that you wanted
to talk about this film rightnow was because of this comedian
, and I feel like compassion andhumor.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
they're not the same, obviously, but they're sort of
on the same side of the ifthere's a spectrum, right,
they're on the same side of themidline between the violence and
the other side.
So let's talk about the humorand Stephen Fry's character.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
Yeah, so I think, like the people who have, who
are the funniest are the oneswho have experienced pain, Like
Elon Musk.
That's an interestinghypothesis.
Yeah, well because Elon Muskbadly wants to be funny and he
is not.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I thinkit's because he's never
experienced any kind of realsetback or pain in his life.
(44:20):
Stephen Colbert when he was achild he lost his father and two
brothers in a plane crash.
He is one of like 10 siblings,something like that.
He's from a very traditionalCatholic family and he has
talked about how he considersthat pain a gift, because that
is.
It gives him compassion.
(44:42):
It allows him to see peopleLike there are stereotypes about
, like marginalized communitiesare humorous in part because,
there's like.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
It's a coping mechanism for trauma.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Yeah, generational trauma leads to humor.
So that is why, like, I thinkcompassion and humor go together
.
That's nice, and why there'sthis like a consistent thing
about how you don't seeright-wing comedians who are
particularly funny, and it'sbecause punching down isn't
funny.
That's not to say people don'tmake jokes at the expense of
(45:29):
marginalized communities.
They do consistently and peoplewill laugh at it.
And I want to be.
I want to name this and be fairabout this.
Stephen Colbert, as much as Ilike him and respect him for
many years, would make jokes atthe expense of trans folks
because he didn't know better.
Now that he knows better, he'sdoing better.
But when he was on the ColbertReport and this was not as part
(45:53):
of his persona he didn't knowbetter.
He's doing better now.
But Stephen Fry's character andthe like, that entire scene
it's ridiculous.
The that that bit in the middlethe Benny Hill one.
It's.
It's ridiculous and I Ihonestly don't really know much
about like British late nighttalk show, like culture, if
(46:16):
that's a, if that's how they dowhat they do.
I know Benny Hill is BritishSlapstick I mean there's plenty
of slapstick in British humorand it is funny.
It's not my kind of funny andit's also gentle.
It's punching up, but it's notpunching up that hard, honestly.
(46:37):
And we see, just from the like,the side, we see the back of
his chair, and we see Suttler isholding a glass of champagne
and he like squeezes it until itshatters.
Watching it, which, you know, itfeels like we could see Trump
doing that, except it wouldn'tbe champagne, it would be, you
know, because he doesn't drinkalcohol.
I don't know, it would bechicken leg from KFC Big Mac are
(47:11):
being joked about because theydon't have compassion and
because they cannot comprehendbeing like that kind of
vulnerable where you can pokefun at yourself.
It just I mean I know it's theinsecurity, it's the like you
(47:34):
know.
Know I have to be a strong man,I have to like there are no
weaknesses, never show powerhoarders don't show
vulnerability, which doesn'tmean that vulnerable people
can't be powerful, but powerhoarders specifically.
Well, and I would argue that,like showing vulnerability is a
kind of power.
I.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
I completely agree.
I completely agree, but thepeople who are powerful in that
way are not power hoarders.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
And that is what the Trumps and the Elon Musks of the
world will never understand andwhy they will constantly be
reaching for something that theycan't get, and why they're
constantly jealous of BarackObama and Jon Stewart.
Because I don't get it.
What do they have?
Why aren't they, why can't Ihave it?
And why are people making funof me and not them?
(48:21):
Right?
And it's because you can't befunny if you don't have
compassion yeah, yeah, that'sreally interesting.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
All right, well, we are running very short on time,
so is there anything that youhaven't talked about that you
wanted to make sure that youshare with our listeners?
Speaker 1 (48:41):
DC or whoever it is who owns this Vertigo, who owns
this film, and it just feelsvery ironic.
Yeah, like I just like, and ithas it's come to be like a
(49:06):
symbol of a specific like theanonymous, like hackers, and I
like this is one of those thingsthat I find really and I like
this is one of those things thatI find really fascinating that
if you live long enough, thingscome to take the opposite
meaning of what they wereintended.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
Yeah, Like the word yes.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
It's not what that.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
Yeah, and well, like it's fascinating to see how this
happens.
But like it's fascinating tosee how this happens and I feel
like if you could live 500 years, you'd get really annoying
people like who are just likewell, actually that originally
meant like promiscuous used tomeant like a bunch of different
(49:52):
things all together.
So like that's a promiscuousgrouping of things because
you've got an orange and a penand like a wrench.
Yeah, it's a promiscuousgrouping of things because
you've got an orange and a penand like a wrench?
Speaker 2 (50:00):
Yeah, it's a promiscuous grouping.
That's not what we mean anymore.
Speaker 1 (50:04):
So yeah, and so I just I find that fascinating,
kind of ironic and like, and yetthe people who are wearing them
are thinking that it's and it'sjust so weird, it's just so
weird.
Speaker 2 (50:17):
Well, they see the anti-fascist yeah message in
this movie.
Speaker 1 (50:19):
Yeah, the anonymous well, but at the same time, a
lot of the anti-fascists thinkthat the liberals are the
fascists.
I was at the state fair theother day and there was a booth
of like t-shirts and they wereall like very right wing.
And then there was one thatsaid, like you know, if the
government is tyrannical, youneed to rise up against it.
(50:41):
And I was just like right onand then I was reading more on
the t-shirt.
I was like, oh, they don'tthink they don't mean what they
think they mean.
I was like they're talkingabout like nancy pelosi, they're
not talking about what that'sfunny.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
Let me see if I can reflect back to you what you
shared with me about v forvendetta so well.
We were talking about it todayspecifically because of stephen
colbert getting canceled afterjust two days after he made fun
of the supreme leader and thefact that happens to stephen
fry's character, gordon Dietrich, who suffers much worse
(51:17):
consequences than just havinghis show canceled.
And I think it's worth naming,right after that, the fact that
one of the things that AlanMoore dislikes Alan Moore, the
original writer of the graphicnovel, dislikes about this
adaptation, is the sense fromthis adaptation, this film, that
the fascist government issomehow stable, and Alan Moore
(51:39):
very much wanted us tounderstand that fascism is
inherently unstable, though healso, moore, refrains from
judging what system ofgovernment is better.
He seems to think none areactually good, they're just Well
when comparing fascism andanarchy specifically.
(52:02):
Right Different forms of poisonone way or another.
One of the things that you notefrom this film that feels hard
is the necessity of violence inrevolution, that, at least in
the container of this story, itseems as though violence was
(52:24):
absolutely essential to therevolution, and this is
important.
So is compassion.
So Evie and V become foils forone another, become yin and yang
for one another in that in manyways, but in the sense of
violence and compassion as well.
And we see it over and overagain, where the people would
(52:45):
not have risen up without V'sviolence but there wouldn't have
been a chance without Evie'scompassion and without the
people's own compassion.
And we see it symbolically,with him standing in the fire
that he set and naming himself Vfor Vendetta, and Evie standing
in the rain and saying God isin the rain.
So we see this over and overagain, this sort of violence and
(53:08):
compassion.
You also spent some time reallythinking about this sort of
cultural mashup here, where thisfilm that was written by a brit
set in britain using fourcentury old british history and
myth as its sort of core mythosand inspired by thatcherism and
(53:30):
inspired by thatcherism, thankyou.
And yet it feels so veryamerican, both resonant with
contemporary america, but alsolike very specific allusions
that the Wachowski sisters andthe director.
Thank you.
Inserted with references,visual references, to Abu Ghraib
and to the Bush administrationand now super resonance with the
(53:53):
second Trump administration, sothat sort of mashup of the
cultures, oh, and the prevalenceof guns as well, which makes it
feel very American.
So that was something that youspent some time on.
You noted that this is afeminist film, that it doesn't
pass Bechdel in the traditionalsense, and yet we have these
three female characters whoactually are our narrators and
(54:14):
give us the point of view ofthis revolution, which feels
very important, and they give itto us at multi-levels, sort of
historical kind of ideologicaland human, like grassroots level
, which does feel very feministto have those female voices
driving.
You started to talk about Evieas protagonist and I'm not sure
(54:36):
you finished that thought.
Speaker 1 (54:38):
She's the one who has a character arc that changes.
She's the one who changes andgrows and becomes a different
version of herself, and aversion of herself she feels
better about.
Speaker 2 (54:53):
Yeah, by the end.
Yeah, and we have said on DeepThought thoughts that we believe
that change in character, thatgrowth, is what defines a
protagonist.
So, and it's.
I think it's worth noting alsothat one of the things that you
pointed out is that you lovethis evie in this film and that
when you went back to read thesource material, the much
younger evie, who was much morenaive and made choices that
(55:16):
weren't so savvy, you couldn'teven read past the first
introductory scene of her.
So I think that's worth noting.
That this Evie, specifically inthis film that the Wachowski
sisters and McLeish, mcleish,mcteague, mcteague Sorry, sorry,
mr McTeague that they gave us,that these filmmakers gave us,
(55:38):
is very strong and independentand afraid, but she grows Her
interaction with V.
This feels important to me aswell.
You were careful to make thediscernment that Evie names V as
the most important thing in herlife, as her having been
changed by having met him.
She even offers to run awaywith him and she kisses the mask
(55:59):
.
She never uses the word love,though he does about her.
So that seems also reallyimportant and interesting when
holding on to her independence.
So I think, oh, and then thelast thing that you pointed out
is the irony of this trademarkedGuy Fawkes mask which is now
(56:20):
making Vertigo money.
They're defending theirintellectual property over Guy
Fawkes image, which feels likeironic and interesting and
fascinating in the way thatthings tend to come to mean the
exact opposite of what theyoriginally meant over time.
Speaker 1 (56:39):
What I forget just my belief that, in order to be
humorous, you need to have feltpain.
Speaker 2 (56:45):
Yes, so compassion is essential to real humor.
That is an Emily Guy-Burkenoriginal analysis, so thank you
for that.
Okay, so my life is very lifeyright now, so you have so
graciously agreed to double up.
Sit in the hot seat again nextweek when you are going to bring
(57:07):
me your deep thoughts about thegolden girls.
Oh, very, very different moodchange.
I cannot wait.
I love those girls so much.
I know I can't wait to talkabout them, see you, then this
show is a labor of love, butthat doesn't make it free to
(57:27):
produce.
If you enjoy it even half asmuch as we do, please consider
helping to keep us overthinking.
You can support us at ourPatreon there's a link in the
show notes or leave a positivereview so others can find us and
, of course, share the show withyour people.
Thanks for listening.
Our theme music is ProfessorUmlaut by Kevin MacLeod from
(57:50):
incompetechcom.
Find full music credits in theshow notes.
Thank you to ResonateRecordings for editing today's
episode.
Until next time, remember popculture is still culture, and
shouldn't you know what's inyour head?
Because what is done to her is monstrous and she says
that to him, because he sayswhat was done to me was
monstrous.
And she said and they made youa monster.
And it's this very interestingdichotomy Because what is done
to her is monstrous and it makesher more human.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Have you ever had something you love dismissed
because it's just pop culture,what others might deem stupid
shit?
You know matters, you knowwhat's worth talking and
thinking about, and so do we.
So come overthink with us as wedelve into our deep thoughts
about stupid shit.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
I'm Emily Guy-Burken and you're listening to Deep
Thoughts About Stupid Shit,because pop culture is still
culture, and shouldn't you knowwhat's in your head?
On today's episode, I will besharing my deep thoughts about
the 2005 film V for Vendettawith my sister, tracy Guy-Decker
, and with you, let's dive in.
(01:03):
So, tracy, I don't know ifyou've seen this film.
It came out when we were adults, so it's not part of our
childhood.
Tell me what you know about it.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
I have seen it and actually I read the graphic
novel first.
So in my 20s, after college, Iwent through a very rabid sort
of graphic novel phase and Iread a lot of the classics.
I started with Gaiman's SandmanFuck Neil Gaiman, or don't in
fact actually Right, actuallyavoid it at all costs and I went
(01:36):
on from there and V forVendetta and the Watchmen.
So Alan Moore was one of theauteurs that I followed that I
consumed voraciously in thattime period and I loved it.
I loved V for Vendetta at thetime when I read it as a graphic
novel and so when it came outas a movie I didn't remember
whether it was 05, but in theearly 2000s I was pretty excited
(01:56):
.
It was not that long after right, it was actually probably right
around the same time becauseI'm thinking I was in Chicago
when this was happening.
So it was sometime between 2000and 2007 that I was kind of in
this voracious graphic novelphase.
So anyway, it was likeserendipitous that I was like
super into graphic novels andthen this movie came out.
So I remember loving it andlike, and not a lot else.
(02:20):
Honestly, I remember the storybecause I read the graphic novel
, though I read it so fast thatwhat I do remember is very much
snapshots and vignettes.
You know different finger menand the hand and the sort of
ways that that metaphor ofcontrol and the way that it
(02:49):
extended, and I really enjoyedthat and the both ands, the
emotions that were scary andalso fun, like holding that both
(03:10):
and felt really important.
So that's.
There are other little likesnapshots that are completely
disjointed, so I'm just gonnaleave them and ask you, why are
we talking about v for vendettatoday?
So specifically.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
I'm talking about it because of the recent
cancellation of StephenColbert's late night show, which
we don't know for sure, butit's clear that it happened two
days after he made fun of thebig fat bribe of the CBS merger
(03:47):
and the payments to the Trumpadministration, which all of it
is just ugly corruption.
I like late night comedians.
I don't watch them at night.
I don't stay up that late, sopart of my morning routine is I
drink my coffee, I do my wordgames on my phone and I watch
(04:07):
the late night comedians onYouTube.
And Colbert has never been myfavorite, but I do watch him
regularly and I have alwaysliked his sense of humor, I like
the way that he does things,and so I was shocked that he was
canceled, because he is themost popular of the late night
hosts, even if he is not myfavorite.
So that reminded me of whathappens to Stephen Fry's Gordon
(04:32):
Dietrich character, where hemakes fun of the high chancellor
, Adam Sutler, who thenimmediately has him arrested and
disappeared and killed in themiddle of the night, which
obviously is not nearly what ishappening.
I mean, that is not what'shappening to Stephen Colbert,
but Stephen Colbert.
There were immediateconsequences, and so that's why
(04:56):
I wanted to talk about it now.
When the film came out, I wasnot familiar with the graphic
novel originally, but justseeing the trailers it resonated
in the midst of the Bush erafor me and I was like I got to
go see that movie and I loved itand it felt very of the moment
(05:18):
and important, and in some wayseven more so now, although there
are aspects that I feel like Ican understand why Alan Moore
disavows this film, although hedisavows every single film
interpretation of his work andwhen I tried to read the graphic
novel I couldn't get through itfor reasons I'll get to.
(05:41):
But that was the very specificmotivator for wanting to talk
about it now and then.
Also in this moment, I thinkthat it is important to talk
about this film.
Where we are in America rightnow and in the world where we're
seeing a rise of right-wingpopulism, I think that it's
important to revisit this filmand talk about it, and talk
(06:02):
about the messages of this film,what it gets right and what it
gets wrong about fascism.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Okay.
Well, since my recollection isvery disjointed, why don't you
remind us all of the plot?
Speaker 1 (06:15):
So it is set in 2020.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Uh-huh.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Wow.
So we begin with a voiceoverfrom Natalie Portman's Evie
Hammond.
She's reminding of thegunpowder plot, which was the
5th of November in 1605.
The original plan was for themovie to come out the 5th of
November 2005.
So 400 years later, saying thatyou can't kill an idea, saying
that you can't kill an idea butyou also can't kiss an idea or
(06:46):
love an idea.
And we see Guy Fawkes, who wasthe figurehead he was not the
instigator, but the figureheadof the gunpowder plot being
executed and a woman crying.
And then we see Evie gettingready for a date.
And it's this lovely parallel.
We also see V getting ready,putting on his Guy Fawkes mask
(07:13):
and a wig, and she's putting onhigh heels, he's putting on his
boots and she is out past curfew.
You see loudspeakers sayingcurfew is in effect.
She runs into fingermen whichare like the secret police and
so she says I'm sorry, it was amistake, I'll go home, and it's
clear that they are going tosexually assault her.
That she'll be sorry.
(07:33):
V comes and rescues her anduses, like this kind of amazing
martial arts to possibly killthem.
Definitely, stop them.
Introduces himself as V usingthis amazing language.
He uses the V words like 47times in 30 seconds and says do
you like music?
I would like you to see aconcert I'm putting on.
(07:56):
And he takes her up to the roofof a building this is in London
, by the way and he plays the1812 orchestra and blows up the
Old Bailey, which has LadyJustice on top.
The Old Bailey is, I believe,the old prison in London.
You know London better than Ido.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
I don't know what the Old Bailey is, though.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
So the next morning Evie goes to work, Turns out she
is a low-level employee at theBTN, which is the British
Television Network, and we findout that her assignation had
been with her boss, GordonDietrich, played by Stephen Fry.
He is a Stephen Colbert-typeperson.
He is the host of a verypopular television show and he
(08:42):
says I've never been stood up bya more attractive young woman.
And she explains they werefingermen.
I got, says I've never beenstood up by a more attractive
young woman, and she explainsthey were fingermen.
I got nervous.
I went back home and thenewscasters are saying that oh,
the Old Bailey was scheduled fordemolition and the demolition
was scheduled.
The crew decided to have somecheeky fun with it and so they
did fireworks and music and assomething that happens
(09:05):
throughout the film, you seepeople watching television,
which is clearly part of thecontrol of the Norse fire party.
So people watching televisiongoing, that's bollocks.
You don't believe that.
No one, that's not true.
So there's a sense that peopledon't entirely believe what
they're being told.
So in the course of the dayEvie gets a delivery of boxes
(09:26):
that says that it's supposed togo into a particular studio in
the tv station.
So this delivery goes into aparticular tv station, she sees
someone open it up and there's aguy fox mask in there and evie
is a little freaked out.
She's like, oh, something badis about to happen.
And she grabs her stuff andstarts to leave because she's
(09:47):
like something bad is coming.
Meanwhile, the higher up in theLondon police, who we also know
is one of the top five or sixadvisors to the chancellor Finch
is his name.
Inspector Finch has been tryingto find V and Evie.
They have images of thembecause there's cameras all
(10:09):
around London.
They've got nothing on Vbecause he's wearing a mask, but
Evie they've been able to tryto find her.
They've already been to herapartment and they figured out
where she works.
So they're coming to find her.
So she is trying to leave,coming to find her, so she is
trying to leave.
At the same time, Finch and hissecond-in-command, who's named
(10:29):
Dominic, played by Rupert Grint,who goes on to play Lestrade on
Sherlock Just who I know youhave fond feelings for.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
I love him.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
So Finch is played by Stephen Ray, also a very, very
good actor.
So things are starting tohappen.
Evie comes out, she sees thepolice coming and she, like,
turns and hides, finds a like aroom and is able to evade the
police.
When v comes in, takes over thebroadcast and it's an emergency
broadcast system and lockseveryone out and puts some like
concrete or something in thedoor so they can't get through
(11:08):
the door and tells everyone onthis like emergency broadcast
that cannot be cut into, that heis starting a revolution and
everyone needs to join him on.
Invites everyone to join himone year from today, on the 5th
of November, because there'ssomething wrong with this
country and people should not beafraid of their governments.
(11:28):
Governments should be afraid oftheir people.
And the police eventually areable to break through the door
he has, like sent through thesmoke machines and they the
police start shooting at AVcoming through towards them and
it turns out that he has themasks were to dress everyone up
(11:51):
as him and so they are likeobviously confused.
V is able to get away in thechaos, but Dominic gets, gets to
him and has a gun on him.
While Evie, dominic is, dominicis Rupert Gr, while Evie,
dominic is the cop, dominic isRupert Grint, yeah, dominic is
Lestrade.
Okay, evie comes upon them andwe already know that she has
(12:14):
mace because she threatened thefingerman with it.
And so at this point, likethere's nothing V can do, he's
cornered and Dominic doesn'trealize there's anyone behind
him.
So Evie comes behind him, tapshim on the shoulder and maces
the cop.
He, like, without even reallythinking, like, knocks her out
with his gun, like you know,cold cocks, her Pistol, whips,
(12:39):
her surveillance, with Finch andDominic looking at it.
V is like standing over her,like clearly unclear what to do,
and Finch says he's trying todecide, like he doesn't know
what to do.
And Dominic is saying like he'sa terrorist, why should?
Like he can't think like you orme?
And Finch says well, he's stillhuman.
So Evie wakes up in V's home,which he calls the shadow
(13:03):
gallery, which is underground,and he says I didn't know what
to do.
If I had left you, they wouldhave arrested you, they would
have black bagged you, which iswhat they do.
They put a black bag over yourhead, which sounds really
familiar, and you would havebeen tortured and killed.
I'm sorry, I had to bring youwith me.
It was the only thing I couldthink to do.
You have to stay with me for ayear until I've completed my
(13:26):
plans.
Evie freaks out Like you mean,I have to stay with you for a
year, you should have just leftme alone.
She then apologizes later andthey end up kind of bonding a
little bit.
They watch a movie together andchat a little bit.
V then uses her work ID to getinto the home of Louis Prothero,
(13:49):
who is known as the Voice ofLondon, who is kind of like a
Sean Hannity character.
He just screams at thetelevision every night and is
such a narcissistic jerk he hasno idea who V is, even though he
was instrumental in creatinghim.
V kills him using some sort ofpoison, but it seems like a
(14:10):
violent death, and then leaves arose on him and so they cover
up his death and they say thathe died of a heart attack at the
office because he was aworkaholic office because he was
a workaholic.
And V and Evie are watching TVand Evie says oh, the news
(14:31):
presenter is lying.
And V says how do you knowshe's like well, she blinks a
lot when she lies and the waythat V reacts.
Evie says did you havesomething to do with it?
And he says do you want to lieor do you want the truth?
And so Evie ends upunderstanding that V is killing
people and will kill more peopleand she freaks out.
So she makes a plan to getherself out.
She had told V that she wantedto be an actress.
(14:55):
So she tells him her backstory.
Her brother died in the StMary's tragedy, which was three
terrorists had released abioweapon at St Mary's School
which killed her brother, a freewater treatment plant and the
London Underground, and so theterrorists confessed and were
executed.
(15:15):
Her parents became politicalagitators and they were
blackbagged out of her home whenshe was 12.
Holy shit.
And she saw it happen.
Her mother came into her roomand said Evie, hide.
And she hid under the bed andwere killed, and so she has
never been as strong as herparents were.
(15:37):
But now she wants to help therevolution.
So is there anything she can do?
So a few days later he comes toher and says actually there is
something you can do.
I need your acting skills.
So he has her dress up in thisvery Lolita costume so that she
can pretend to be a child sexworker for a pedophile priest
(16:00):
who it's gross who was alsoinstrumental in creating V.
So when she gets there shetries to tell the priest what's
going on and the priest thinksit's all part of an act and he's
still trying to do what he doesand so she ends up hitting him
and he immediately becomesabusive and violent.
(16:22):
V comes in and attacks him andstarts and injects the poison
and she runs away saying likeI'm sorry, I had to do this.
And she runs to Gordon's housebecause she still has his
address.
Gordon brings her in and sheapologizes profusely I know I'm
putting you in danger.
And he says you're the least ofmy worries and shows her that
(16:44):
he has a secret room where hehas a Koran.
He has a artwork called God Savethe Queen, which is a picture
of Adam Suttler in drag and itwas something that was
supposedly destroyed when hetook office and then also some
homoerotic imagery because he isgay and he had invited her to
his home because that's part ofhis mask.
(17:06):
And he says you wear the maskso long you forget who you are
underneath.
And so he brings her in,protects her he's very kind to
her and because of her story andwhat's going on with V.
He throws out thecensor-approved script and has a
(17:26):
show where he brings in an AdamSuttler stand-in and has him
have pratfalls and the officialstory is that the terrorist is
what they call.
V is dead because they had shotone of the people wearing the
and so they claimed that was himthey shot a bystander who
(17:47):
happened to be wearing a GuyFawkes mask and they claimed
that they got the guy.
So in this non-censor-proof showthey have someone else wearing
a Guy Fawkes mask with the BennyHill theme, like tying Adam
Suttler's shoelaces together andthen giving him a cigar that
blows up and like it's very,it's Benny Hill.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
It's silly.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
And then at the end, when they have them, face each
other, he's like remove thisman's mask.
And he takes off the Guy Fawkesmask and it's Adam Suttler, so
there's two of them there.
And then, like the fingermenshow up and he's like this man
is an imposter.
No, this man is an imposter.
And they shoot both of them andfall over.
And it's silly, it's fun, it'sfunny.
And we see, like again in everyhome across the nation, people
(18:36):
laughing and Gordon iscompletely unbothered.
He's on the phone with hisagent.
He's like this is why you're myagent.
I know what's going to happen.
I'll have to do a charity thing, I'll have to apologize on air.
It's not a big deal.
And Evie's like you're mad,it's going to be fine that night
.
She's asleep in his guest roomand there's like the sound of a
(18:57):
door being forced open.
And then Gordon comes into herroom and it is a complete repeat
of the worst thing thathappened to her when her mother
came in and said Evie, hide.
He comes in, closes the doorsand says Evie, hide.
And she hides under the bedjust like she did when she was a
girl, and they come in.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
So it's the exact parallel.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Once he's taken away, she gets out through the window
and runs away and as she'sgetting out through the gate,
someone puts a bag overhead,says gotcha, and she is taken to
a facility where her head isshaved and she's told this can
stop if you just tell usanything about the whereabouts
or identity of V and she says no, she is thrown into a cell and
(19:37):
over the next weeks she iscompletely isolated.
She's tortured, her head is putin water.
But there is a little strip ofpaper is pushed through the hole
in the wall and you see herreading it and it is a woman
named Valerie Page, who had beenan actress, who was a lesbian,
who had been thrown out.
When she came out to herparents In 2015, she was in a
(20:02):
and remember, 2015 was thefuture.
When this came out, she was inthe most important movie of her
life.
Not because the movie was thatimportant, because she met her
wife, ruth.
It was a movie called the SaltFlats, and so for three years
they had a beautiful lifetogether.
They grew a castle, somethingroses, which is an important
(20:26):
through line as well.
But then Norse Fire Party cameinto power and Ruth was taken
away because they putconcentration camps for
undesirables, includinghomosexuals.
Ruth was taken away while shewas out camps for undesirables,
including homosexuals.
Ruth was taken away while shewas out getting food and she'd
never cried so much in her life.
They came for her and we see it, we see all these moments.
They came for her and she justwas sitting in the couch and
they're coming through and shejust let them.
(20:47):
We have already seen somebackground and we know that she
was in the same facility that vwas in.
So even though we don't reallyknow what's going on with evie,
so over and over again duringinterrogations of evie, they
make it clear we're going tokill you if you don't tell us
(21:08):
anything.
One thing valerie says in inher autobiography, written on
toilet paper, is there's onething they can't take away from
you.
There's this one last inch ofyour humanity, and that is your
integrity.
You have that and they cannever take that away from you.
And so someone comes and saystell us what you know about V,
(21:29):
or we're going to take youbehind the chemical sheds and
shoot you.
Just tell them.
Just tell them that.
And she says thank you, but I'drather die behind the chemical
sheds.
And the interrogator says, wellthen, you're finally free.
And then leaves and leaves thedoor open and she like just sits
there for a while going whatthe heck is going on, and like
(21:50):
wanders out and the guard at theend is just a mannequin and as
she goes out she's in v's home,because it was me the whole time
her.
I remember that now and shestarts having a breakdown and he
says I, I didn't know how elseto do this.
You know, you said you wantedto live without fear.
And she, she's likehyperventilating.
(22:13):
She's like I need air.
I need air.
Now.
One of the things that Valeriesaid was her grandmother had a
farm and her grandmother hadalways said God is in the rain.
And so he's like I'll take youup, I'll take you up outside,
and outside it's raining.
And she stands up in the rainand she says God is in the rain.
And we had seen V when he hadcame out of his experience in
(22:33):
the concentration camp.
He had set a fire thatdestroyed everything.
And he is standing the same wayin the fire.
She's standing that way.
There's a mirror in the rain.
So it's this very beautifulmirroring as well.
So she comes back, she's calm,she says I'm leaving.
She comes back, she's calm, shesays I'm leaving.
(23:13):
And V says one thing I wouldvery much like is to see you at
least one time before Novemberthe 5th.
And she says okay, and she saysI'm leaving.
He says do you know where yougo?
She says no, that would havescared me once.
But no, I don't know where I'llgo and I'll figure it out.
And so we see his plan startingto come together.
We see Finch starting to likedoing the investigation,
starting to realize that thethree terrorists, who religious
extremists, who claimedresponsibility for the deaths,
for the bioweapon he's like,what if they weren't responsible
?
What if our government did it?
(23:34):
Because the doctor who had beendoing the experiments on V and
the others, including Valerie,who had actually been the cell,
had the cell right next to V'sand that was actually the toilet
paper that she'd passed to V,and he's doing this to get
revenge for her.
They created this bioweapon andthey created the antidote, and
(23:58):
so they did this so they couldtake power, and then they made
thousands upon thousands ofmillions of pounds of money by
marketing the pharmaceutical asthe antidote to this bioweapon.
Then V sends out the masks andthe costume basically to
everyone across the country andthere's a little girl we've seen
(24:23):
regularly who has glasses, andso we see her wearing it and
like kind of just playingwearing it and one of the
fingermen shoots her.
The community comes and likeconfronts him and like starts
beating him because he's killeda little girl, and the
(24:43):
chancellor is like trying torule with an iron fist and his
advisors are saying what do wedo if he actually manages to?
Because his plan is to blow upParliament.
The 5th of November arrives.
V has spoken to Creedy, who isthe amoral head of the Fingermen
(25:05):
, who is the one who planned allof this, and has said if you
give me Suttler, you can have me.
And so Evie comes to V, theydance and V gives her the train
because he has opened up all ofthe underground tracks full of
(25:26):
explosives and says it is up toyou whether or not the
explosives will go.
She says you don't have to dothis, like we can go away
somewhere.
And he says no, I can't do this.
She actually kisses his maskand he goes off to meet Creedy,
who has brought him Suttler.
Creedy kills Suttler, like Vdoesn't do it.
And then Creedy says all right,now we're going to kill you.
(25:49):
And he's like well, you can try, because Creedy has nearly a
dozen soldiers with him.
And he's like well, we've gotguns.
He's like no, what you have arebullets and you're going to try
to reload before I have achance to.
So they unload all of theirbullets on him and he keeps
standing and he's like all right, now my turn.
(26:10):
And he's's clearly injured, buthe's not dead.
And so he uses knives and killsall of them with creedy, going
like how are you not dead?
And then he like barely, makesit back to evie and she says I
she's like we have to stop thebleeding, I don't want you to
die.
He says it's done, I'm gone.
(26:30):
He says I fell in love with you, evie.
You changed things.
You made me realize that Icould do things differently.
Up above, the people have shownup wearing the Guy Fawkes masks
and overwhelming the military.
And because the High Chancelloris dead, creedy is dead,
(26:51):
inspector Finch is trying tofind V in the underground.
There is no one to tell themilitary what to do.
So they stand down and areoverwhelmed by the Guy Fawkes
mask wearers.
And Finch comes upon Evie justas she has put V on the train
and is about to press the leverto have it go, and Finch tells
(27:14):
her to stop and she says no.
And after they have aconversation and she sends it
along, she makes him realize youcannot stop this revolution.
They leave and go up above towatch the destruction and he
says who was he?
She says he was my father, hewas my brother, he was my mother
(27:36):
, he was me, he was you, he wasall of us.
And we see as the destructiongoes, which includes fireworks
and there's music playing,everyone taking off their masks,
and you see people we know aredead, including the little girl
with glasses and Gordon.
And we see Dominic Rupert GrintLestrade, who we know is not
(27:57):
there.
We see Valerie, so reiteratingthe idea that V is all of us and
V continues and that is wherethe film ends.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Wow, so where do we start?
Speaker 1 (28:13):
So let me start with why Alan Moore hates this
adaptation, and not just becausehe doesn't like any adaptation
of his work.
So I'm going to include a linkin the show notes to a video by.
There's a YouTuber I like,dominic Noble.
He does Lost in Adaptation,which where he looks at books
and the movies that were madefrom them, the adaptations.
(28:35):
So now I'll explain why Icouldn't read the graphic novel,
like I think 16.
(28:58):
She's very young and she istrying to become a sex worker
and she approaches the fingermenasking them to like if they
want to party, basically, andshe has no idea what she's doing
and I just I couldn't read it.
I couldn't read it from thereBecause it was so different from
the Evie in the film who Iloved and I just like I couldn't
get past that scene and I haveno idea where the story was
(29:22):
going to go from there.
But based on what Dominic Noblesaid, it just it felt like I
was not going to enjoy theportrayal of Evie.
Portrayal of Evie because whathe said in his video was it
sounded like she became likeobsessed with V in a kind of
which makes sense character-wise, based on how young she is, but
I really appreciate Evie as alike frightened but independent
(29:52):
adult woman yeah, andfundamentally a good person.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
I'm not sure alan moore believes there are is
exactly as a fundamentally goodperson.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
So and she's someone who lost everyone and it even
the like she didn't feel smartto me in that first scene that I
was reading she felt like andthat that might be unfair of me,
but just like, oh honey, don'tapproach them right like that is
(30:20):
not how you get started withthat and so like, and I don't,
like, I don't know anythingabout alan moore.
I don't.
I've read the watchman but I'veread much of anything else of
his, but I just didn't feel likehe had much of a high opinion
of teen girls, of women, yeah,yeah, but even the Watchman
(30:41):
isn't part of why I say I'm notsure he believes there's any
such thing as a truly good humanbeing.
So I just wanted to put thatout there to start.
I totally comprehend Evie inthe film, and so I could not get
past that first scene of Eviein the book, and that's why I
never read it.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
And why do you think Alan Moore hates?
Speaker 1 (31:05):
this.
So the way that Dominic Nobleput it and I think that this is
reasonable and smart it and Ithink that this is reasonable
and smart, the way that the filmputs it is that V is working
specifically to dismantle thisfascist state because he
believes that there is somethingbetter, whereas Alan Moore was
(31:28):
trying to show like fascism andanarchy and not drawing any
conclusions about which one isgood, which one is, that either
are good things.
Yeah, that jibes with without,and that's, I think, what I
understand.
Yeah, and the other thing thatreally struck me about what
(31:49):
Dominic Noble said, and that islike I can totally comprehend
Alan Moore having a problem with, is that, by characterizing V
the way they did in the film,the fascism in the film is set
up to look stable, it has acertain stability to it until V
comes along, whereas part ofAlan Moore's point is that
(32:12):
fascism is inherently unstable,unstable, excuse me, inherently
unstable, and which I think is avery important point and is
actually something that we doneed to recognize, because the
thing that I had a harder timewith this time around is the
level of incompetence in ourcurrent reality, and there was a
(32:39):
lot of incompetence during thebrochure, and like there was, I
felt a lot of embarrassment atthe time.
And there is certainlyincompetence in V for Vendetta,
the film version.
Incompetence in V for Vendetta,the film version, but it's much
bigger and broader in the book,based on what Dominic Noble
(33:00):
talks about.
Adam Susan is the name in thebook.
They changed it to Adam Sutlerbecause it sounds like Adolf
Hitler.
But Adam Susan is in love withan AI girlfriend because Alan
Moore is very prescient and theAI girlfriend is hacked and he's
manipulated that way.
Which boy does that sound likesomething that could happen in
(33:22):
our current reality?
It really does.
So there are some aspects ofincompetence within the film
version.
I think I remember the firsttime I saw it in the theater,
you only ever see Suttler on ascreen where he's enormous and
then the first time you see himin person he looks tiny and I
(33:46):
remember thinking that wasreally surprising and an
important moment, because thatis part of what fascism tries to
do is give you this sense ofhugeness and that was what
Gordon Dietrich was doing islike showing the clay feet by
(34:08):
making fun.
Making fun right.
But overall in the film and Ithink alan moore was right to be
upset about this.
It does feel like the norsefire controlled england is
working pretty well and insofaras the trains are yes, insofar
(34:29):
as things are.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
And I can see why that would be upsetting, yeah,
but I also think that this filmwould not be nearly as hopeful
Like.
I don't think there's a way ofmaking this film.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Well, you can't make it hopeful.
That's probably part of whatAlan Moore doesn't like.
He doesn't actually believe inhope.
He's very bleak.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
As I read his work, he doesn't see much cause for
hope.
Britain Now, because Moorewrote the book in response to
Thatcherism in the early 80s.
The film was written by theWachowskis in the early 2000s in
response to Bush.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Right, the Wachowski sisters of the.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Matrix theme and that was another aspect that Dominic
Noble, who is also british,although he lives in america now
he says that the amount of gunsin the film feels very weird to
him in england.
Now it is right opium futureand it's very american.
It is very american and thereare even some imagery that are
(35:47):
reminiscent of abu grabe,because that was very topical at
the time.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
The uh that was the prison in iraq where american
military were torturing and yeah, images surfaced at the time of
american military like gloatingover tortured iraq yes, so.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
so this is a like this film is a weird amalgam.
So this film is a weird amalgambecause it is set in Britain,
it is a British film using GuyFawkes and the 1605 gunpowder
plots, and yet you know, it wasadapted by American writers.
I believe James McTeague is anAmerican director.
(36:30):
So it's a very strange amalgam.
And so, and I think, thehopefulness is also very
American.
Like we're can do attitudes.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Yeah, we definitely, and we like it in our movies?
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Yes, we do, but I also think that it is, I think
it's kind of necessary In that,like when we talked about with
titanic, so that we don't justhave a well, that's a thing that
happens right well, the waythat americans understand our
(37:02):
movie, our storytelling.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
There has to be some sort of insight at the end,
other otherwise, yeah, I meanthat's, but that is a convention
, it's a cultural, culturalconvention.
It's not like yeah, yeah.
So we're running a little shorton time and I want to make sure
you get to the analysis thatyou wanted to get listeners as a
reminder does it have at leasttwo female characters with names
.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Do they talk to each other about something other than
a man or a boy?
Because so we have Evie, wehave Valerie Page, who they
never actually meet each otherin person.
(37:42):
We have Delia Suttridge, Ithink, who is one of the doctors
or the doctor who makes V whathe is.
So those are named femalecharacters, but I don't think
they ever actually interact witheach other.
However, each of them havevoiceovers and tell the story of
(38:02):
this revolution from their ownpoint of view.
So it doesn't exactly passBechtel, it doesn't exactly pass
Bechtel, but the story is fromthe point of view of these women
, which I think is reallyimportant, because Evie starts
(38:23):
the film in a voiceover and endsit basically in a voiceover,
but talking to Finch DeliaSutridge.
Her journals, which we hear ina voiceover, explain how V
became what he is and explainhow this horrible plot came
together.
And Valerie Page explains whathappened to an individual person
(38:46):
and the humanity of the peoplewho were treated as inhuman.
And so Evie as a protagonist is, I feel, like this really
interesting characterization ofa normal person who becomes a
revolutionary.
And she describes V as the mostimportant thing in her life and
(39:09):
I think it's interesting.
Oh, she says thing.
She says thing, you are themost important thing in my life
and I know nothing about you.
And because what is done to heris monstrous, and she says that
to him, because he says whatwas done to me it was monstrous,
and she said and they made youa monster.
And it's this very interestingdichotomy because what is done
(39:36):
to her is monstrous and it makesher more human, she becomes
more compassionate and we seethat in the parallel of her
standing in the rain compared tothe parallel of him standing in
the fire that he started,compared to the parallel of him
standing in the fire that hestarted and her going.
(39:57):
God is in the rain and him going, I'm going to get vengeance,
and so I think it's verysignificant.
She kisses his mask and shesays we could go away together.
I don't want you to die, Idon't want you to die.
But he says I fell in love withyou and she never says those
(40:18):
words.
She cares for him and he isimportant to her, and meeting
him has changed her life and hashelped her to learn not to fear
, but she never at any pointsays she loves him.
But she has been changed by him,and I think that is really
important because what he hasdone to her is monstrous, right,
(40:40):
but it has allowed her toaccess a level of humanity that
I don't know if she would haveknown how to access.
So, before we hit record, youtold me that two of the things
(41:19):
you wanted to talk about wereviolence, the role of violence
in revolution and the role ofcompassion in revolution.
So part because without thislevel of violence, the people
would not have woken up, Rightand in part because of that poor
little girl's death.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
Right.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
So that violence was in some ways necessary, which is
horrifying to me, you know, andhorrifying Like Gordon,
dietrich is a gentle, lovely man, who means no one any harm, who
is simply, you know, wants tolive his life.
That little girl is justplaying, and so the idea that
(41:53):
violence is necessary forrevolution is horrifying to me,
but I cannot see how it would bepossible without it.
In the terms of the story, atleast On the other side of it,
the compassion that Evie shows,not only to V but just in
(42:17):
general throughout, like thecompassion she shows to Gordon,
the compassion she runs into thelittle girl with glasses at one
point who is, like, frightenedof her, and like the compassion
she shows there, just and ingeneral, she is a compassionate
person who because of hercompassion she saves V from
(42:38):
Dominic Right, and so therevolution would have ended
there if she hadn't showncompassion.
I mean, I feel like it's alsothe case that compassion and
empathy for the other people asa result of the violence is
actually what caused revolution,Because the opposite of
compassion is apathy right, yesyes, so there are two sides of
(42:59):
the same, yeah, and the in termsof starting the revolution,
yeah because and it's because ofv has an entire wing of his
like, of his home, dedicated tovalerie page.
Because, when she realizes thatit was all a trick, she thought
that v had written he made herup and he's like no, let me show
you, she really existed, and soit's important that we see that
(43:23):
this is true he also, has healso has compassion for valerie
so you know, thinking about thislike compassion as a as an
essential ingredient, I thinklike the reason that you wanted
to talk about this film rightnow was because of this comedian
, and I feel like compassion andhumor.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
they're not the same, obviously, but they're sort of
on the same side of the ifthere's a spectrum, right,
they're on the same side of themidline between the violence and
the other side.
So let's talk about the humorand Stephen Fry's character.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
Yeah, so I think, like the people who have, who
are the funniest are the oneswho have experienced pain, Like
Elon Musk.
That's an interestinghypothesis.
Yeah, well because Elon Muskbadly wants to be funny and he
is not.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I thinkit's because he's never
experienced any kind of realsetback or pain in his life.
(44:20):
Stephen Colbert when he was achild he lost his father and two
brothers in a plane crash.
He is one of like 10 siblings,something like that.
He's from a very traditionalCatholic family and he has
talked about how he considersthat pain a gift, because that
is.
It gives him compassion.
(44:42):
It allows him to see peopleLike there are stereotypes about
, like marginalized communitiesare humorous in part because,
there's like.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
It's a coping mechanism for trauma.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Yeah, generational trauma leads to humor.
So that is why, like, I thinkcompassion and humor go together
.
That's nice, and why there'sthis like a consistent thing
about how you don't seeright-wing comedians who are
particularly funny, and it'sbecause punching down isn't
funny.
That's not to say people don'tmake jokes at the expense of
(45:29):
marginalized communities.
They do consistently and peoplewill laugh at it.
And I want to be.
I want to name this and be fairabout this.
Stephen Colbert, as much as Ilike him and respect him for
many years, would make jokes atthe expense of trans folks
because he didn't know better.
Now that he knows better, he'sdoing better.
But when he was on the ColbertReport and this was not as part
(45:53):
of his persona he didn't knowbetter.
He's doing better now.
But Stephen Fry's character andthe like, that entire scene
it's ridiculous.
The that that bit in the middlethe Benny Hill one.
It's.
It's ridiculous and I Ihonestly don't really know much
about like British late nighttalk show, like culture, if
(46:16):
that's a, if that's how they dowhat they do.
I know Benny Hill is BritishSlapstick I mean there's plenty
of slapstick in British humorand it is funny.
It's not my kind of funny andit's also gentle.
It's punching up, but it's notpunching up that hard, honestly.
(46:37):
And we see, just from the like,the side, we see the back of
his chair, and we see Suttler isholding a glass of champagne
and he like squeezes it until itshatters.
Watching it, which, you know, itfeels like we could see Trump
doing that, except it wouldn'tbe champagne, it would be, you
know, because he doesn't drinkalcohol.
I don't know, it would bechicken leg from KFC Big Mac are
(47:11):
being joked about because theydon't have compassion and
because they cannot comprehendbeing like that kind of
vulnerable where you can pokefun at yourself.
It just I mean I know it's theinsecurity, it's the like you
(47:34):
know.
Know I have to be a strong man,I have to like there are no
weaknesses, never show powerhoarders don't show
vulnerability, which doesn'tmean that vulnerable people
can't be powerful, but powerhoarders specifically.
Well, and I would argue that,like showing vulnerability is a
kind of power.
I.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
I completely agree.
I completely agree, but thepeople who are powerful in that
way are not power hoarders.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
And that is what the Trumps and the Elon Musks of the
world will never understand andwhy they will constantly be
reaching for something that theycan't get, and why they're
constantly jealous of BarackObama and Jon Stewart.
Because I don't get it.
What do they have?
Why aren't they, why can't Ihave it?
And why are people making funof me and not them?
(48:21):
Right?
And it's because you can't befunny if you don't have
compassion yeah, yeah, that'sreally interesting.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
All right, well, we are running very short on time,
so is there anything that youhaven't talked about that you
wanted to make sure that youshare with our listeners?
Speaker 1 (48:41):
DC or whoever it is who owns this Vertigo, who owns
this film, and it just feelsvery ironic.
Yeah, like I just like, and ithas it's come to be like a
(49:06):
symbol of a specific like theanonymous, like hackers, and I
like this is one of those thingsthat I find really and I like
this is one of those things thatI find really fascinating that
if you live long enough, thingscome to take the opposite
meaning of what they wereintended.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
Yeah, Like the word yes.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
It's not what that.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
Yeah, and well, like it's fascinating to see how this
happens.
But like it's fascinating tosee how this happens and I feel
like if you could live 500 years, you'd get really annoying
people like who are just likewell, actually that originally
meant like promiscuous used tomeant like a bunch of different
(49:52):
things all together.
So like that's a promiscuousgrouping of things because
you've got an orange and a penand like a wrench.
Yeah, it's a promiscuousgrouping of things because
you've got an orange and a penand like a wrench?
Speaker 2 (50:00):
Yeah, it's a promiscuous grouping.
That's not what we mean anymore.
Speaker 1 (50:04):
So yeah, and so I just I find that fascinating,
kind of ironic and like, and yetthe people who are wearing them
are thinking that it's and it'sjust so weird, it's just so
weird.
Speaker 2 (50:17):
Well, they see the anti-fascist yeah message in
this movie.
Speaker 1 (50:19):
Yeah, the anonymous well, but at the same time, a
lot of the anti-fascists thinkthat the liberals are the
fascists.
I was at the state fair theother day and there was a booth
of like t-shirts and they wereall like very right wing.
And then there was one thatsaid, like you know, if the
government is tyrannical, youneed to rise up against it.
(50:41):
And I was just like right onand then I was reading more on
the t-shirt.
I was like, oh, they don'tthink they don't mean what they
think they mean.
I was like they're talkingabout like nancy pelosi, they're
not talking about what that'sfunny.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
Let me see if I can reflect back to you what you
shared with me about v forvendetta so well.
We were talking about it todayspecifically because of stephen
colbert getting canceled afterjust two days after he made fun
of the supreme leader and thefact that happens to stephen
fry's character, gordon Dietrich, who suffers much worse
(51:17):
consequences than just havinghis show canceled.
And I think it's worth naming,right after that, the fact that
one of the things that AlanMoore dislikes Alan Moore, the
original writer of the graphicnovel, dislikes about this
adaptation, is the sense fromthis adaptation, this film, that
the fascist government issomehow stable, and Alan Moore
(51:39):
very much wanted us tounderstand that fascism is
inherently unstable, though healso, moore, refrains from
judging what system ofgovernment is better.
He seems to think none areactually good, they're just Well
when comparing fascism andanarchy specifically.
(52:02):
Right Different forms of poisonone way or another.
One of the things that you notefrom this film that feels hard
is the necessity of violence inrevolution, that, at least in
the container of this story, itseems as though violence was
(52:24):
absolutely essential to therevolution, and this is
important.
So is compassion.
So Evie and V become foils forone another, become yin and yang
for one another in that in manyways, but in the sense of
violence and compassion as well.
And we see it over and overagain, where the people would
(52:45):
not have risen up without V'sviolence but there wouldn't have
been a chance without Evie'scompassion and without the
people's own compassion.
And we see it symbolically,with him standing in the fire
that he set and naming himself Vfor Vendetta, and Evie standing
in the rain and saying God isin the rain.
So we see this over and overagain, this sort of violence and
(53:08):
compassion.
You also spent some time reallythinking about this sort of
cultural mashup here, where thisfilm that was written by a brit
set in britain using fourcentury old british history and
myth as its sort of core mythosand inspired by thatcherism and
(53:30):
inspired by thatcherism, thankyou.
And yet it feels so veryamerican, both resonant with
contemporary america, but alsolike very specific allusions
that the Wachowski sisters andthe director.
Thank you.
Inserted with references,visual references, to Abu Ghraib
and to the Bush administrationand now super resonance with the
(53:53):
second Trump administration, sothat sort of mashup of the
cultures, oh, and the prevalenceof guns as well, which makes it
feel very American.
So that was something that youspent some time on.
You noted that this is afeminist film, that it doesn't
pass Bechdel in the traditionalsense, and yet we have these
three female characters whoactually are our narrators and
(54:14):
give us the point of view ofthis revolution, which feels
very important, and they give itto us at multi-levels, sort of
historical kind of ideologicaland human, like grassroots level
, which does feel very feministto have those female voices
driving.
You started to talk about Evieas protagonist and I'm not sure
(54:36):
you finished that thought.
Speaker 1 (54:38):
She's the one who has a character arc that changes.
She's the one who changes andgrows and becomes a different
version of herself, and aversion of herself she feels
better about.
Speaker 2 (54:53):
Yeah, by the end.
Yeah, and we have said on DeepThought thoughts that we believe
that change in character, thatgrowth, is what defines a
protagonist.
So, and it's.
I think it's worth noting alsothat one of the things that you
pointed out is that you lovethis evie in this film and that
when you went back to read thesource material, the much
younger evie, who was much morenaive and made choices that
(55:16):
weren't so savvy, you couldn'teven read past the first
introductory scene of her.
So I think that's worth noting.
That this Evie, specifically inthis film that the Wachowski
sisters and McLeish, mcleish,mcteague, mcteague Sorry, sorry,
mr McTeague that they gave us,that these filmmakers gave us,
(55:38):
is very strong and independentand afraid, but she grows Her
interaction with V.
This feels important to me aswell.
You were careful to make thediscernment that Evie names V as
the most important thing in herlife, as her having been
changed by having met him.
She even offers to run awaywith him and she kisses the mask
(55:59):
.
She never uses the word love,though he does about her.
So that seems also reallyimportant and interesting when
holding on to her independence.
So I think, oh, and then thelast thing that you pointed out
is the irony of this trademarkedGuy Fawkes mask which is now
(56:20):
making Vertigo money.
They're defending theirintellectual property over Guy
Fawkes image, which feels likeironic and interesting and
fascinating in the way thatthings tend to come to mean the
exact opposite of what theyoriginally meant over time.
Speaker 1 (56:39):
What I forget just my belief that, in order to be
humorous, you need to have feltpain.
Speaker 2 (56:45):
Yes, so compassion is essential to real humor.
That is an Emily Guy-Burkenoriginal analysis, so thank you
for that.
Okay, so my life is very lifeyright now, so you have so
graciously agreed to double up.
Sit in the hot seat again nextweek when you are going to bring
(57:07):
me your deep thoughts about thegolden girls.
Oh, very, very different moodchange.
I cannot wait.
I love those girls so much.
I know I can't wait to talkabout them, see you, then this
show is a labor of love, butthat doesn't make it free to
(57:27):
produce.
If you enjoy it even half asmuch as we do, please consider
helping to keep us overthinking.
You can support us at ourPatreon there's a link in the
show notes or leave a positivereview so others can find us and
, of course, share the show withyour people.
Thanks for listening.
Our theme music is ProfessorUmlaut by Kevin MacLeod from
(57:50):
incompetechcom.
Find full music credits in theshow notes.
Thank you to ResonateRecordings for editing today's
episode.
Until next time, remember popculture is still culture, and
shouldn't you know what's inyour head?
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